Business Insider’s most recent appraisal of how individual states are doing economically found one state “higher” than the rest.

Colorado.

Yep. The state that has the many of the country thinking it’s a vast mountain range of pot-smoking, tree-hugging, leisure lovers, ranked #1 among all 50 states according to eight economic measures. Among them: the unemployment rate, the number of non-farm payroll jobs, gross domestic product, average wages, the working age (18-64) population, value of international exports, house prices, and auto sales.

Colorado has the fastest growing economy in the country and our profession is experiencing unprecedented change. The business growth in this region and the evolution of the profession is the perfect combination for the marketing and communications professionals to challenge the status quo and set new standards of excellence.

This is why Westmeath initiated the 2015 Rocky Mountain Performance Barometer.

As part of our ongoing commitment to position the Rocky Mountain region as a center of excellence in marketing and communications, we wanted to get a gauge on how local talent believed they were impacting business performance.

We’re big on collaboration around here, so we invited The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) – Colorado Chapter, the Business Marketing Association-Colorado Chapter (BMA), and the Public Relations Society of America-Colorado Chapter (PRSA) to partner with us on this effort.

Stay tuned.  The results will be released on Monday, February 16, 2015.