This week, Secretary Penny Pritzker traveled to Colorado to participate in several events highlighting the efforts and successes of the United States Department of Commerce. While there, she was a guest speaker at an Innovation Roundtable hosted by Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), attended the second the Second Anniversary of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Rocky Mountain Office and participated in the Aspen Ideas Festival.

The Innovation Roundtable in Denver featured 34 local business leaders, government officials, and academics with interest in increasing the competitiveness of Denver’s businesses. Secretary Pritzker’s remarks highlighted the challenges facing U.S. businesses, led by the inability to hire a skilled workforce, and emphasized the Department’s commitment to making a business-led, job-driven, and locally determined solution to closing the skills gap a top priority.

She asked those in attendance to share the obstacles they face, and the creative methods they are employing to be successful so the Department of Commerce can take all of this critical information and synthesize it into policy that benefits American workers and the American economy.

While in Denver, Secretary Pritzker attended the Second Anniversary of the USPTO Rocky Mountain Office. The anniversary celebration underscored the office’s efforts to promote innovation, economic growth, and human progress and the Department of Commerce’s efforts to make its services even more accessible to communities, industries, and innovators across America by opening satellite offices across the country.

The Rocky Mountain Regional Office exemplifies this commitment of the Commerce Department by creating new high-skilled jobs and working closely with the region’s diverse array of innovative industries to expedite the patent examination process, advancing cutting-edge ideas to the marketplace, empowering entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, and identifying their unique needs as they navigate the world’s strongest intellectual property system.

Following her trip to Denver, Secretary Pritzker traveled to Aspen, Colorado to partake in the Aspen Ideas Festival. The festival is a week-long series of discussions and speakers from all over the world that drives to create stimulating links between the world’s foremost thinkers and leaders in various tracks of life.

Secretary Pritzker participated in the Reimagining Capitalism track during her discussion with President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, Walter Isaacson. During their armchair call, “What It Takes to Be Competitive in the 21^st Century Economy," Secretary Pritzker and Isaacson touched on various topics pertinent to the work of the Department of Commerce including growth of the digital economy and cybersecurity.