Colorado Electric & Power Systems

Welcome to the Denver Business Journal's Tech Watch, our roundup of the weekend's tech news from around the nation, featuring reports on Facebook, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Qwest, Microsoft, Micron Tech, NASA, Cisco Systems, ChemoCentryx, Yelp, Marriott, Zillow and more. Facebook revs up political funding ahead of IPO Winklevoss twins to gain $300M from Facebook IPO? Apple rumors: New iPad in March, iPhone in June CEO Meg Whitman got $16.5M HP pay package Micron Tech CEO killed in airplane accident in Idaho SEC agrees to settlement deal with last ex-Qwest civil defendants Microsoft teams with NASA chief to talk about science education ChemoCentryx IPO expected this week Cisco earnings eyed for more improvement Yelp shows wider 2011 loss on new IPO filing 30-month sentence for Marriott computer hacker Nearly 100 million in the U...

The Denver Post on Friday reported average weekday print circulation of 258,876 for the six months ending Sept. 30, 2011, down 6.8 percent from the same period of 2010. The Denver daily newspaper's Saturday print circulation for the six-month period averaged 323,637, down 10.5 percent from a year earlier, and Sunday sales averaged 432,804, down 5.4 percent, according to a publisher's statement submitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). The ABC verifies newspaper and magazine circulation claims for advertisers...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has reached plea agreements with an ex-Qwest CFO and another former company official -- the two last defendants sued by the agency over the Denver-based telecom's financial irregularities prior to 2001. The Associated Press reports that the SEC filed notice of a plea deal with the federal court under which Robert Woodruff, former CFO of Denver-based Qwest Communications International, would admit no wrongdoing and agree to pay $2.7 million to the government...

James O'Reilly, a marketing executive with Einstein Noah Restaurant Group Inc., is leaving for drive-in food chain Sonic Corp., the two restaurant companies announced Friday. At Lakewood-based Einstein (Nasdaq: BAGL), O'Reilly has been head of corporate marketing and branding for three years. Previously he was with Yum Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM), parent of the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains. At Oklahoma City-based Sonic (Nasdaq: SONC), he'll be senior vice president and chief marketing officer, the company said Friday...

Transmark Co. of Greenwood Village has bought the Broadridge Plaza shopping center in Littleton. The center, on south Broadway and West Ridge Road, sits on 10 acres and includes six buildings with 79,545 square feet of retail space. It was 91 percent occupied at the time of the sale. Transmark, doing business as Broadridge Plaza LLC, bought the property for $4.7 million from sellers Broadridge Jero LLC, the majority owner, and Broadridge Brad LLC. The new owners plan improvements to the common areas and building exteriors...

The Dow -- bolstered by an upbeat jobs report -- climbed to its highest close since 2008 Friday, while the Nasdaq attained an 11-year high. In Colorado, Clovis Oncology and M.D.C. Holdings led actively traded gainers, while several gold stocks lost ground. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the trading day at 12,862.23, up 156.82 points (1.23 percent). The S&P 500 closed at 1,344.9, up 19.36 points (1.46 percent). The Nasdaq Composite finished at 2,905.66, up 45.98 points (1.61 percent)...

The Colorado State Land Board decided Friday to postpone a vote on awarding ConocoPhillips a contract to access oil and gas mineral rights under the Lowry range east of Denver because the company is embroiled in a $70.7 million lawsuit with another branch of state government. On Jan. 25, the Division of Oil and Public Safety, a division of Colorado's Department of Labor, sued Houston-based Conoco (NYSE: COP) in Denver district court. The suit accuses the company of benefitting from the state spending nearly $70...

Every week in “Top of the List,” denverbusinessjournal.com highlights one of our exclusive lists that appear in the print edition of the Denver Business Journal. The weekly lists rank Colorado businesses and other entities in a host of categories, from law firms to lenders. Online, we give you basic information on the top five from each weekly list. The full list, including additional data on the top five, is available to DBJ subscribers only. And the lists are compiled each year in our annual Book of Lists, which is sent to subscribers and is available for purchase as a desk reference or in digital format...

Karl Wimer's cartoon commentaries on business appear weekly in the Denver Business Journal. Click on the image at right to enlarge the cartoon. Click here for a gallery of Wimer's recent DBJ cartoons. And click here for Wimer's website.

A proposal that could have led to the repeal of the Colorado Health Benefits Exchange law died in a state Senate committee on a party-line vote late Thursday. Senate Bill 53, sponsored by Sen. Tim Neville, R-Littleton, would have voided the law creating the exchange, which is under construction, if the U.S. Supreme Court found all or any part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional. The high court is expected to hear arguments on the federal health care reform law in March...

Kentwood Real Estate of Greenwood Village has been granted affiliate status by New York-based Christie's International Real Estate. Kentwood's experience in Denver's luxury market, defined as homes with a listing price of more than $1 million, earned the designation. "While we serve all segments of the real estate market in a wide range of prices, we are also firmly established as the leader in the luxury home market in metro Denver and select mountain communities," CEO Peter Niederman said in a statement...

Southwest Airlines will begin daily roundtrip service from Denver International Airport to Cancun, Mexico in mid-April through its subsidiary AirTran Airways, the first new international route launched from DIA since Southwest bought AirTran in May. AirTran will offer daily flights from DIA to Cancun International Airport from April 16 through July 7. It will scale back to service on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday between July 8 and Aug. 12. And then it will offer only weekend connections between the two cities from Aug...

Colorado State University beat the goal of its inaugural public fundraising campaign, raising more than $500 million six months before the June 30 deadline, President Tony Frank announced Friday. The Fort Collins school has raised $508.3 million so far, and a festive atmosphere reinforced by the CSU marching band and cheerleaders helped celebrate that on Friday. "I could dress this up, but I need to get back to the office and reply to emails about why we didn't close the school today," Frank said, joking about the snowstorm that led some other Colorado campuses to suspend class for the day...

A new Denver public relations firm, CSG Tourism & Hospitality Practice, was formed by the merger of three marketing and communications firms, the company said Thursday. Kruzic Communications Inc. and McCullough Marketing merged with Communications Strategy Group (CSG|PR) to create the new firm, which company officials are calling an “influencer relations firm.” “Today, public relations has evolved into influencer relations, where the right strategic communications plan contemplates all of those individuals and organizations that can have a meaningful impact on business, online and off,” said Steven Shapiro, CSG founder and principal, in a news release...

Adding two new lanes to 12 miles of the southwest Denver area’s C-470 freeway between Interstate 25 and Wadsworth Boulevard, one in each direction, will cost about $200 million, the C-470 Corridor Coalition learned Thursday. The coalition is working on ways to fix the clogged, 27-mile traffic corridor. The coalition includes elected officials and representatives from Arapahoe, Douglas and Jefferson counties as well as Highlands Ranch, Centennial, Lone Tree and business groups. It held its regular monthly meeting Thursday at the offices of the Southeast Business Partnership...

A major winter storm is heading toward Denver, expected to bring as much as a foot and a half of snow to some areas of the Front Range, CBS4 News reported Thursday afternoon. The system will likely arrive in the Denver area late Thursday afternoon, with heavy snow possible after 5 p.m., CBS4 forecaster Lauren Whitney said. Winter storm warnings and blizzard warnings are slated to take effect late Thursday and continue to Friday night or Saturday morning, CBS4 says, adding that visibility will be very low, and travel at times could be impossible...

Metropolitan State University of Denver. That’s the new name that Metropolitan State College of Denver trustees voted in favor of Thursday. With a 6-3 vote, the board agreed to forward the name to the Colorado Legislature for approval. A bill authorizing the new name will be introduced later this month by state Sen. Lucia Guzman, D-Denver, and Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, college officials said. If lawmakers agree, the name change will take affect in the 2012-13 academic year. “What was most important to me [in choosing a new name] was to increase the value of degrees for students today and all alumni and students into the future,” Metro State President Stephen Jordan said in a statement Thursday...

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Pinnacol Assurance executives said Thursday that they will not try to pass a bill to privatize the workers’ compensation insurer during the 2012 legislative session, believing the controversial proposal will have a better chance to succeed if they slow discussions down. Pinnacol board vice chairman John Plotkin sent Hickenlooper a letter Thursday morning saying that many of the company’s stakeholders posed significant questions about the proposal that officials from the state-chartered workers’ compensation insurer need more time to answer...

After going all of 2011 without making a sale and with construction loans coming due, the owners of the residences above the Four Seasons Hotel Denver downtown decided to cut the condos’ prices by at least half to stimulate sales. “We kept prices where they were for 14 months,” said Chris Norton, project director and president/CEO of marketing firm Fingerprint Strategies. But in 2011, new owners took over the only other luxury condominiums above a five-star hotel in Denver, the Residences XXV above The Ritz-Carlton, Denver, 1891 Curtis St...

The Student Planner LLC of Denver has been acquired by a rival company from Indiana. School Datebooks Inc. of Lafayette, Ind., paid an undisclosed sum for Student Planner. Both companies make student planning calendars. Founded in 1997, Student Planner employs 27 people. School Datebooks said those jobs will remain in Denver. “This acquisition makes School Datebooks a bigger player in the student planning calendar market,” Tim Powers, president of School Datebooks, said in a news release. “It dramatically increases our market share and secures an opportunity for us to continue to grow in the time-management innovation industry...