Chris Koehn, Second-61, Jovita Carranza, Former SBA director, Brad Rowland, Emergent Campus
Second-61 is an IT advocate for businesses, helping their customers use technology to improve the way their businesses function. It was birthed and incubated in the Fremont Economic Development Corp’s TechSTART building in Cañon City but has expanded to the Emergent Campus in Florence, The former Florence High School and Middle School, providing more than 25 jobs that support several outside entities – and it’s growing.
Chris Koehn, Emergent Campus Partner, Dan Nordberg, Director, Office of Rural Affairs, U.S. SBA, Brad Rowland, Emergent Campus Partner
“While we are accepting this award for Emergent Campus, we want to recognize that this is for our entire community and highlights the amazing work that has been brought together in this project since 2017,” said Brad Rowland, Emergent Campus partner and general manager.
Second-61's America Flag Mural
"Over the last seven years, Rowland and the team at Emergent Campus have been developing a systematic plan to stabilize rural economies. The plan includes upskilling workers, transforming lower education, and creating a framework to help reshore millions of American jobs. The long-term goal is to reunite the United States by reintroducing stability to communities we, as a nation have left behind for years."
Hannah Crosby and Amber Conover Consulting with a Client
"Through her leadership role at Second-61, Amber and her team provide back office services including bookkeeping, tax preparation, payroll, and consulting, to over 35 local businesses, including construction companies, restaurants, e-commerce, merchandisers, franchises, services, vendors, manufacturing, churches, ministries, government, non-profits, real estate, and many others. Amber recently relocated her team to Emergent Campus, at the Historic Florence High School."
Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash
"Chris Koehn, Founder and CEO of Second-61 in Cañon City, Colorado has been working for years on what he calls “rural reshoring.” The purpose of Koehn’s work is to help people find their purpose in meaningful work that allows them to become self-sufficient and empowered market actors who are actively participating in building the future instead of having it pushed on them and being told their problems will be resolved by an imaginary basic income concept. Accelerating this movement towards a decentralized workforce is something Koehn feels is mission critical to . . ."
