Eldon James' decision to relocate its headquarters to the Denver area this year has left Northern Colorado economic-development officials wondering just what more they could have done to keep the company here.

"It's a little frustrating," Fort Collins Economic Health Director Josh Birks said of the impending move.

Although it's not a huge company – the maker of plastic tubing and fittings for the healthy care and food industries employs just 35 – it is an operation that people in both the private and public sectors like to point to in trumpeting the region's attributes to companies thinking of relocating or expanding here.

The move is even harder to swallow given that Eldon James CEO Marcia Coulson is in the midst of serving her first term on the board of the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp., the primary jobs-creation organization in the region.

That term ends next year, though by then, Eldon James will be long gone.

In her first interview on the topic late last week, Coulson said she didn't want to leave but, in the end, had no choice.

It was a matter, she said, of finding the right building at the right time and, although she declined to reveal the