A bigger percentage of Fort Collins-Loveland’s firms experienced impressive growth in sales and employment from ’02 through ’06 compared with Colorado’s other counties and metropolitan statistical areas. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s recently released “High-Impact Firms: Gazelles Revisited” study looked at how many employers within counties and MSA’s experienced significant revenue growth – doubling sales over 4 years – and added 2 or more employees.

Fort Collins-Loveland, with 2.63% of its firms considered high-impact, ranked 40^th among 180 small metropolitan statistical areas nationwide – the highest of any Colorado metro area – and Larimer County ranked 120^th out of 732 small counties. Weld County was right in the middle of small counties, coming in at 424^th. The SBA linked Weld with Denver-Boulder in the large-metropolitan statistical area category, ranking the grouping 29^th out of 52.