Ryan Dearth / Colorado Daily

Tom Perkins, a JILA fellow, makes adjustments on an Atomic Force Microscope in the basement of the JILA building on campus. Perkins is employed with JILA, meaning he works both with the MCDB department at CU, as well as with NIST

We all see reminders around town – a NIST atomic clock display at Twenty Ninth Street, or retailers selling NOAA Weather Radios – but do locals truly understand the significance of having the NIST/NOAA federal labs in Boulder?

If it’s up to an organization known as CO-LABS, the word will hit the street and people might not need Ph.D.s to grasp the basic concepts.

CO-LABS is a nonprofit consortium of federal research laboratories, along with the universities and businesses that benefit from the work of the labs. Boulder resident DeAnne Butterfield is its Executive Director, and she said on Wednesday that CO-LABS’ mission includes education and building bridges.

“We’re educating the public, businesses, universities and schools, and government officials about our federal labs, what they do and how valuable they are in our community,” said Butterfield. “And we’re helping to support the connections between the labs and all of those sectors.”

Certain connections, notably the links between CU-Boulder and the local labs, are already strong. For example, economists from the Business Research Division (BRD) of the CU-Boulder Leeds School of Business recently completed a lengthy Economic Impact Study for CO-LABS, and the numbers tell a story.

The study found that the state’s federal labs and affiliates created $1.11 billion for Colorado in net economic benefit in fiscal year (FY) 2007. The impact is expected to grow to $1.25 billion in FY 2008 and to $1.55 billion in FY 2009.

Boulder County alone had $376.7 million in 2007 net economic benefit, while the labs and affiliates accounted for 6,210.5 direct jobs in Colorado and an additional 6,644 indirect jobs.

But money and jobs aren’t everything. Butterfield said CU and the labs have had a collaborative relationship since the 1950s, after local citizens raised money to buy land in south Boulder for the home of a National Bureau of Standards (NBS) facility.

NBS eventually became the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now has research facilities at the south Boulder campus complex.

“At this point, there are university professors and students working in all of the labs, and there are lab personnel teaching at CU, Colorado School of Mines, and CSU,” said Butterfield. “The labs provide places for graduate students to do their work, and to join in research teams with people at the labs.”

Also, the labs partner with CU on joint institutes, including the CU/NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and JILA, a joint CU/NIST physical science research institute. The CO-LABS report said CIRES generated $40.9 million in net economic benefit for Boulder County in FY 2007, while JILA generated $13.3 million.

Research efforts at the labs or joint institutes also lead to new physical developments – from discoveries that might be incomprehensibly complex for most people, to products that people might use or benefit from in their everyday lives.

For example, in February 2008 JILA demonstrated the world’s most accurate atomic clock based on neutral atoms. The JILA experimental clock was considered accurate to one second every 200 million years, compared to the existing NIST clock which is “merely” accurate to one second every 80 million years.

But Butterfield said part of her job with CO-LABS will be to help find ways for the non-atomic-physicists out there to understand, or appreciate, the numerous projects going on at the labs.

“It’s really varied,” said Butterfield. “It’s everything from the worldwide seed bank to preserve genetic resources, to climate change, to NIST being the lead agency on converting everybody to high-definition TV (HDTV), to NREL’s (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) role in the race on solar and wind energy.”

One strategy, according to Butterfield, will be to have scientists from the labs give live presentations about their work to the community.

“Citizens, as well as businesses that work in that given area, will be able to attend and learn about some of the really cool science that’s going on in the varied labs,” said Butterfield.

Locals who attended the recent Boulder Economic Summit event at CU-Boulder had a chance to hear several such presentations.

Don Mock, Executive Director of the NOAA-Boulder Director’s Council, spoke about NOAA’s role in measuring concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – a major component in studying climate change. He also spoke of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, which monitors the possibility of geomagnetic storms that can interfere with the electric grid or communications systems.

Robert Noun, Executive Director of the External Affairs Office at NREL, talked about NREL’s work that has helped lead to major cost reductions in wind energy generation. He also touched on NREL’s work that could hasten the viability of cellulosic ethanol – the stuff that doesn’t come from corn kernels – as an American renewable fuel source.

Dr. Tom O’Brian, Director of the NIST-Boulder Laboratories, spoke about how atomic clock technology influences not only being able to know exactly – really exactly – what time it is. He said it also plays a role in the electric grid, cellular phone communications, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), space exploration and even the time stamps on NASDAQ stock transactions.

So, Butterfield has no shortage of raw material to work with. But for now, she and her CO-LABS partners will focus on building a Web site full of information about the labs and links, and on setting up presentations about the Leeds economic study for local government entities and business organizations.

She said the raw economic benefit numbers were among the most important parts of the study, but she also said CO-LABS asked Leeds to include information about “intangible” benefits. The study found that lab employees provide financial donations and volunteerism to the community, and Butterfield said Boulder County’s high rate of advanced academic degrees directly relates to the presence of the labs.

“That makes Boulder County a place where people want to come and start their businesses, or grow their businesses, because we have such a great workforce,” said Butterfield.

Contact Richard Valenty about this story at (303) 443-6272 ext. 126, or at valenty@coloradodaily.com.