LAKEWOOD – Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine outlined running mate Hillary Clinton’s five-point plan to help small businesses Tuesday during a visit to an aerospace parts manufacturing facility in Lakewood.

Kaine, a senator from Virginia, kicked off a roundtable session with a handful of Colorado small business owners by outlining what he and Clinton would do to help small businesses grow and develop.

Democrats U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter joined the group.

With a backdrop of machined parts, a fork lift and towers of shelving, Kaine pledged to make growing small businesses a priority.

Randy Brodsky, the CEO and president of Primus Aerospace, the company that lent the campaign its warehouse for the event, said he was encouraged by Kaine’s words.

Specifically Brodsky said the plan would offer tax credits for investment in capital, like the automation equipment he said he needs to offset high U.S. labor costs.

Susan Brown, a co-founder of the Denver-based landscape architecture firm Valerian Architecture, requested Kaine pay special attention to informing youths about jobs.

“If I wanted to hire today I wouldn’t be able to,” she said, adding that veterans should be targeted for jobs like landscape architecture where there is a high demand and a college degree is required. “I would like to hire veterans. I would like to hire minorities.”

Kaine agreed, saying the military needs to do a better job of preparing troops for life after the military.

Kaine toured Primus before sitting down for the roughly 50-minute conversation.

Clinton’s overall economic plan focuses on investing billions of dollars in public infrastructure projects as a way to boost the economy.

Brown said specifically that during the Great Recession her company thrived on the federal government’s stimulus program.

“When our private side went down in 2007, we picked up some public jobs for the first time,” she said.

In contrast GOP candidate Donald Trump has focused his economic development plan on cutting taxes for corporations across the board to 15 percent.

Kaine laid out five specific things he and Clinton would do:

– Make it easier to start businesses by streamlining regulations at the federal level and offering financial incentives for states to streamline regulations.

– Make it easier to access financing by working with small credit unions and financial institutions and providing tax credit incentives.

– Make it easier and cheaper to file taxes. Kaine said they will create a standard tax deduction for small business owners that don’t want to itemize their taxes.

– Make it easier for small businesses to provide health care.

– Make it easier to work with the federal government.

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Contact Megan Schrader: 286-0644

Twitter @CapitolSchrader

Tim Kaine. File photo.