When Sierra Nevada Corp., Collins Aerospace, PteroDynamics and many other aerospace and defense manufacturers and suppliers chose Colorado Springs as their home base, it wasn’t just for the mountains or the weather. It was for its military ecosystem: five bases, longstanding Space Force stewardship, the Air Force Academy and decades of infrastructure built for exactly the kind of work they do.
Colorado Springs isn’t the only military hub in America, but it’s one that has attracted and built a strong aerospace manufacturing ecosystem, consisting of space systems, defense technologies and high-tech components of all different sizes.
The Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC has learned why aerospace manufacturers, from small to large-scale producers, and space technology companies choose to plant themselves next to bases, and what actually makes the difference once they get here. The strategic reasons are more concrete than most people expect, and they compound on each other in ways that can change a company’s trajectory.
The Workforce Doesn’t Need a Ramp-Up Period
The single biggest advantage of manufacturing near a military base isn’t proximity to generals. It’s access to people who already know how to do the work.
Around the country, approximately 200,000 service members transition out of the military each year. These aren’t people who need to be trained from scratch. They have spent years operating and maintaining the same platforms, systems and technologies that aerospace and defense manufacturers design and build. They understand technical specifications, quality assurance protocols and the compliance frameworks that govern defense production. Along the way, many of them built lives around their bases, with spouses working locally, kids in school and other roots that took years to grow. For aerospace and defense manufacturers, that combination of relevant skills and a reason to stay is hard to find anywhere else.
More critically, a significant number of these veterans hold active security clearances. Anyone who has hired from within the defense industrial base knows what that’s worth: the clearance process alone takes three to four months, and up to a year for higher levels. Every month a new hire waits for clearance approval is a month they can’t touch the actual program. Near a base, the cleared workforce is already there, and it replenishes itself. In Colorado Springs, roughly 350 service members separate from the military every month, creating a continuous pipeline of experienced, security-cleared professionals.
In Colorado Springs specifically, the talent pipeline goes even deeper. The Air Force Academy, which is ranked among the top undergraduate engineering programs in the country, produces officers who spend their careers in the Air Force and Space Force. They accumulate hands-on experience and high-level clearances, then transition into the private sector in the region. CU Boulder and UCCS do similar work at the civilian level. Colorado now leads the nation in the concentration of private aerospace and defense industry jobs and ranks second in trained engineers.
This pipeline was built over decades by regional institutions, the DoD’s Manufacturing Education and Workforce Development Program and local governments working in concert.
For all sizes of aerospace and defense manufacturers, it means onboarding costs drop substantially from day one.
Infrastructure That Was Built for the Mission
For companies considering a move, the infrastructure conversation is where the real calculus happens. It’s not enough to be near a base. The question is whether the surrounding area was actually designed to support high-tech aerospace, space and defense manufacturing. Without this infrastructure, companies will need to spend their first two years retrofitting an obsolete industrial building or repurposing a commercial office park.
Military bases choose their sites with logistics in mind, which means the surrounding region tends to have serious transportation infrastructure already in place. Colorado Springs, for example, sits along I-25 with its own airport and is located an hour from the Denver International Airport. That kind of transportation infrastructure means production timelines for large equipment and sensitive components are not held hostage by geography. In addition, the specialized logistics firms in these communities are often DoD-certified for classified transport, a niche capability that is genuinely hard to source outside military regions.
But transportation is table stakes. What separates military-adjacent regions is purpose-built industrial space. These aren’t generic commercial lots. They’re engineered for the classified, high-power work that aerospace and defense manufacturers and technology companies actually do.
The City of Colorado Springs developed Peak Innovation Park, a 1600-acre hub with the energy capacity to power artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and high-load manufacturing. Its tenants include Northrop Grumman, The Aerospace Corporation and Amazon, among others. In Texarkana, Texas, a similar industrial park houses 33 businesses near its base. The pattern repeats across the country: where there’s a base, purpose-built space follows.
Existing facilities are another draw. Buildings and campuses near bases are typically designed to handle sensitive materials, meet federal security requirements and support classified storage. The local contractor ecosystem understands Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) construction and DoD compliance and approvals. Sourcing that level of specialized expertise is significantly more difficult, and often less efficient, in regions without a strong military presence.
Additionally, the DoD’s Enhanced Use Lease program gives private companies the option of leasing federal land on a military installation’s footprint, often through long-term agreements that can span several decades.
As AI-driven workloads enter the defense supply chain, infrastructure needs are evolving. In military hubs, emerging data center development is increasingly shaped by expectations around sustainability and cost accountability. This includes considerations such as closed-loop cooling systems that minimize water use, developer-funded utility upgrades that protect residential ratepayers and the adaptive use of existing industrial sites. For high-tech aerospace and defense manufacturers planning for the next decade of energy and computing demands, this kind of forward-thinking now matters.
Proximity to a Base is Proximity to an Innovation Ecosystem
Where there are military bases, business ecosystems including startups, research labs and federal institutions also emerge. For high-tech aerospace, space and defense manufacturers, these become resources they can tap into as well.
In Colorado Springs, companies like Blustaq and Slingshot Aerospace started as local startups and grew inside the defense innovation ecosystem. They have since won contracts under SHIELD (Scalable Homeland Innovation Enterprise Layered Defense) to support work on Golden Dome, one of the most consequential national defense initiatives in a generation.
That progression happened in part because these companies were embedded in a community where the DoD, Space Force and major primes like Lockheed Martin and Boeing are all within driving distance. The Department of the Interior’s Cooperative Research and Development Agreement program formalizes these relationships, giving private companies pathways to collaborate directly with federally funded research labs.
Colorado alone attracts $22.8 billion in federal aerospace funding annually, along with $3.4 billion for federal research labs. NASA-related activity supports more than 21,000 jobs across the state and engages hundreds of aerospace companies, including more than 200 involved in major programs like Artemis. That money pulls in talent, technology and partnerships that spill directly into the private aerospace and defense manufacturing sector.
For aerospace and defense manufacturing companies, this type of innovation ecosystem also means proximity to the conferences and events where decisions happen. Space Symposium, one of the largest aerospace and defense gatherings in the world, brings 12,000 attendees, senior military leaders and every major defense contractor to Colorado Springs each April. For individuals and organizations based across the country, attending means a week away from the plant. For locals, it’s just another day at the office.
Financial Incentives Often Sweeten (and Close) the Deal
Local governments near military bases know that manufacturers bring high-paying jobs, long-term leases and supply chain activity that lift the surrounding economy. They compete for that business accordingly. Most military-adjacent regions offer some combination of job creation credits, property tax relief and infrastructure subsidies. These packages tend to be more aggressive than what would be found in a general commercial market, because the municipalities understand exactly what aerospace and defense manufacturers need.
States have created packages consisting of low corporate income tax rates, tax credits that incentivize job growth, income tax credits that reward job creation, a reduction in the cost of capital investment in things like machinery, equipment and electronics, as well as willingness to supplement a percentage of the costs that go into the adaptive reuse of existing industrial facilities.
For a manufacturer creating as few as 20 jobs, the combined value can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first year alone.
Together, The Advantages Compound
The Department of Defense is projected to spend $133.7 billion on contracts across the United States in 2026.
Any one of the factors described could justify a relocation on its own. But the real advantage is how they reinforce one another. A workforce with security clearance reduces onboarding timelines. Purpose-built infrastructure cuts facility costs. An innovation ecosystem keeps companies’ technology current. And being embedded in the community where decisions are made and contracts are awarded changes the competitive position in ways that are hard to quantify but impossible to ignore.
Colorado has more aerospace employment per capita than any other state, including more than 2,000 aerospace and defense businesses, 55,000 direct employees and 184,000 indirect employees. These numbers represent 26 percent growth in five years. That concentration happened because the advantages compounded, year after year, until the ecosystem became self-sustaining.
For high-tech aerospace, space and defense manufacturers weighing their next move, the question isn’t whether to locate near a military base. It’s which location has the ecosystem that will make it better at what it does. T&ID
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