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Business View Magazine
for utilities and for oil and gas and pipeline compa-
nies,” she begins. “What this software does is take all
of the different software platforms these companies
have to use for locating things underground, managing
resources, etc. - those dozens of different platforms
that they have to utilize, and it puts them into a single
interface that allows them to use an IPhone or an IPad.
Everything is consolidated into that single platform.
“Our second company is Colorado Clear,” Pollard con-
tinues. “This company has patented a plastic replace-
ment that is one hundred percent bio-degradable and
recyclable. The bio-degradable portion is really excit-
ing because this product will bio-degrade in a landfill
environment in just a little over a year’s time. The first
application is a soft-sided water container. It’s some-
thing that you can throw in your backpack and it’s to-
tally green. We believe this product is cutting-edge.
You’re not going to have millions of plastic bottles sit-
ting on the sides of the road for thousands of years.
We also have a company that has developed a technol-
ogy for the extraction of oil shale,” she adds. “Oil shale
extraction has met with environmental concerns and
this company has developed the technology that has
taken ‘green’ to the nth degree. It does not use water,
at all, in the process – it actually generates water. It’s
something that will replace fracking. So, we’ve got a
variety of these different companies that are as inno-
vative as those I described.”
Another criterion for a company to be qualified for Ru-
ral Jumpstart, is that it works in some form or fash-
ion with an institution of higher education. “The ratio-
nale for that is a lot of times in rural communities like
ours, we see our students graduating from our univer-
sity and going to more urban areas for jobs,” Pollard
opines. “This program pairs these students at universi-
ties like Colorado Mesa University (CMU), here in our
backyard, with businesses, so that they can get some
‘boots-on-the-ground’ experience with an internship or
