As Colorado Springs’ defense community faces potential headwinds with the loss of Space Command, the Colorado Springs Chamber & Economic Development Corp. has launched an initiative to help ensure local businesses are ready to compete for new opportunities, such as contracts on the proposed multi-billion-dollar missile defense system called Golden Dome.

The chamber launched the Colorado Aerospace & Defense Economic Council (CAD-EC) in September to bring together industry leaders, government and academia to advocate particularly for smaller and mid-size businesses at the highest levels.

Former U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s previous chief of staff, Dale Anderson, will lead the effort.

As the chamber’s senior vice president of economic and defense development and government affairs, Anderson is taking the helm of the CAD-EC in the wake of the chamber and the Military Affairs Council parting ways in May and President Donald Trump’s announcement in September that Space Command will move from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Ala.

Despite some challenges, Anderson is optimistic. With the group’s first major event scheduled for Wednesday and a healthy, growing membership, he sees lots of new opportunities for the defense community to garner new business.

“This is the time for our community to pivot,” Anderson said in an exclusive interview with The Gazette on Tuesday.

Colorado is unique because of its ability to adapt and quickly solve “major” economic challenges for aerospace and defense industries while “driving a federal advocacy model to decision-makers in Washington D.C.,” he said.

“It’s important that the state of Colorado and our region here in Colorado Springs — which has a plethora of defense and aerospace companies that do highly critical missions for our national security, particularly with Space Force and upcoming Golden Dome missions — we need to be known on The Hill,” he said. “We need to be known to decision-makers at The Pentagon and in Congress.”

Anderson’s background in congressional service, from which he retired this summer, makes him uniquely qualified to lead the effort.

He spent 18 years as a staffer in Lamborn’s office, serving in key roles including chief of staff from 2018 to 2024, district director and senior military and veterans affairs liaison. Most recently, Anderson served as a special advisor to Lamborn’s successor, U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank, elected to represent Colorado’s 5^th Congressional District last November.

“It is hard for small- and medium-sized businesses to advocate to Congress” because they don’t have the same resources as larger companies like Boeing or Lockheed Martin, Anderson said.

“Small- and medium-sized businesses, which is what we really have here in our region of Colorado, don’t have that direct kind of access. They have to work really hard for that. One thing I really wanted to do was bring my expertise from that level to our low- and middle-market companies and help them advocate and reach decision-makers directly on the economic challenges and defense problems that are pertinent to their businesses,” he said.

On Wednesday morning, the CAD-EC hosted its sold-out Defense Innovation and Business Growth Summit at the Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation in downtown Colorado Springs. The event brought leaders from Colorado’s aerospace, defense, cybersecurity and investment communities to discuss the state of their industries, opportunities for growth and strategies to strengthen Colorado’s position as a leader in aerospace and defense innovation, according to a news release.

Following the announcement that Space Command headquarters will relocate to Alabama, Colorado and the Pikes Peak region have “phenomenal” opportunities in Golden Dome, which is still in the planning stages, Anderson said Tuesday.

Aerospace and defense industry experts and economic development officials across Colorado have said Golden Dome could bring a windfall of investment to the state’s space economy.

Gen. Michael Guetlein, charged with overseeing the Golden Dome project, hopes to largely rely on existing technology but has not landed on an infrastructure for it. But U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs are leading efforts to design Golden Dome’s early architecture, Anderson said.

“We’re going to find that our community’s going to have a lot of work with the command and control systems with Golden Dome,” he said.

When Trump first announced Space Command’s relocation — a move Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced last week he is seeking a court order to block — some Colorado Springs leaders and industry experts worried the same politics that lost the city Space Command headquarters could affect future decisions about Golden Dome.

The president said in his September announcement that Colorado’s mail-in ballot system that leads to “crooked elections” played a “big factor” in his decision. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and others pushed back, calling the state’s election system a gold standard.

Anderson said Tuesday he “can’t foresee … right now” that politics would affect Colorado’s ability to secure future contracts for Golden Dome and other projects.

“I think it’s too early to tell,” he said. “… What we do know, though, is that all of our Space Force operations that are here will remain here, and we have a multitude of missile defense units and commands in our area that will play a part. It will be exciting to see how they are rolled up into that architecture, and then how industry grows from that.”

The CAD-EC currently has about 40 members and that number is growing, Anderson said.

Membership is open to Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC members affiliated with the aerospace, defense or cybersecurity industries. Businesses do not need to be located in Colorado Springs to join the CAD-EC, and several Denver-area companies have expressed interest in membership, he added.

A steering committee is meeting through Christmas to establish the CAD-EC’s strategic focus for 2026, including events, advocacy trips to Washington, D.C., and a list of possible economic challenges the program will help solve.

One challenge in the Pikes Peak region is a lack of sufficient secure spaces, known as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, that are required for certain classified projects like Golden Dome.

“All of these contracts are going to require a classified environment, and probably multi-levels of classification,” Anderson said.

Nooks, which offers classified workspaces and networks for businesses and government contractors and partners, opened a massive 60,000-square-foot SCIF near the University of Colorado Colorado Springs in June. Defense company Auria is also building out a 7,000-square-foot SCIF.

“But we’re going to need more,” Anderson said. “I would hate to see the day where a local contractor had to go to a different part of our state or a different part of the U.S. in order to find sufficient SCIF space.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to deliver a speech on Friday to introduce plans to change the defense acquisition system, Breaking Defense reported last week. Several reforms are expected to be announced that could speed up acquisition, Anderson said.

“When you speed up acquisition and industry says, ‘we’re ready for that,’ well, we also have to have enough SCIF space that is required in our community to handle that,” he said.

The CAD-EC will also partner and collaborate with the Military Affairs Council, which serves military installations throughout the region, from time to time.

“I’m feeling good about the future,” Anderson said. “I think there’s phenomenal opportunities with the development and architecture of Golden Dome. I think our community and our industry should feel good about that.”

He noted it is important for industry and lawmakers in Colorado and Alabama to work collaboratively.

“We’ll probably always be competitive, and that’s natural. We’re not enemies, though,” Anderson said. “We do want to build relationships with them. It’s mutually beneficial to have a good relationship. … Colorado Springs and Huntsville are there for the prosperity of our national security.”