Sky-Hi News called me the other day for a raw, unedited interview to give voters an authentic and direct look into my views and my intentions as County Commissioner. I will be posting one question a day for easier reading.
You can read about the format and production of Sky-Hi’s 2026 Election Q&A here.
Question 6:
Tourism is central to the county’s economy, but many residents want more year-round employment opportunities, better wages and greater economic stability. What specific industries or businesses should Grand County work to attract or expand, and what can county government realistically do to support them?
I’m going to push back briefly on the question itself. This is not an either-or. Tourism and local year-round manufacturing or industry can coexist very well, so it’s kind of dangerous when people pit the two against each other because so much of our local economy is based in outdoor tourism, and that category in and of itself is very broad. It’s everything from the ski resorts to the dude and guest ranches to outdoor recreation, as well as any of our museums and other facilities that are most appealing to tourists. But looking at year-round industry, the term that I’ve come across is called light manufacturing. It’s local production; we’re not looking at big factories, but it’s what can we do to encourage creativity? What can we do to encourage more natural resource-based manufacturing? So I’m looking at the space to create in Grand Lake. That is a really great example of, yes, it’s the advertising, and a lot of the interest in it is based in the arts. But there’s nothing to say that can’t grow, and someone could create a business out of leatherworking, or metalworking, or glassworking at a local level.
There’s also a lot of opportunity for growth in technology-based industries. During COVID especially, a lot of my friends that I’ve made over the last six years came to Grand County and became full-time residents during or immediately after COVID because they could afford to live up here. They ensured that they had regular internet and they had regular electric services, and they’d go down to Denver one or two days a week just to check in at the office. And so I think that really has opened the door that communities nationwide are still slowly getting into, which is what types of technology can we invest in that keep people here year-round, but they don’t have, and they’re working for corporations or businesses that might exist elsewhere in the country or even in the world, but still live here and make a living wage, or more than a living wage, raise a family here, and really invest in their communities.
Diane Butler, who’s our economic development director at the county, said this really well at a recent meeting: if we invest in these small businesses that have a big impact for the dozen or two dozen employees and families that they have, on the unfortunate off chance those businesses leave, on one hand, that’s not going to drain the town out of a population, but the fact that those businesses are here means that the town and the county really benefit from that economic flow. Looking at that, and the county, I do believe, can invest, and it’s both financial investment as well as intellectual investment, where if we make it obvious to outside investors, to outside businesses, that Grand County is a place that they can come and they can invest and they can set up shop. If we have a co-working space or we have an empty building, which we have a lot of empty buildings owned by the towns, owned by the county, owned by private individuals, these businesses can set up shop there, support their own workers living in such a beautiful place. So what the county can do realistically: if we don’t have the financial benefit or the financial bonus of investing, we can certainly present ourselves as a community that wants them to come here, and we can really understand those benefits.
You can read the full interview here: https://www.skyhinews.com/news/qa-say-hello-to-jeremy-krones-running-for-county-commissioner-district-3/
