It was 1987, and Chris Gibbons had a big problem. He was the business affairs director for the city of Littleton, and the biggest employer in town, Martin Marietta, had just announced that it was closing its Littleton operation and cutting 7,500 jobs.

To fill that huge hole in the local economy, Gibbons could have tried the traditional economic development strategy, focusing on luring another giant out-of-state company by offering it tax incentives, utility rebates and workforce training subsidies.

But Gibbons knew there was no guarantee of success. And he knew that even if he succeeded, the next corporate behemoth could perform the same disappearing act as Martin Marietta.

Gibbons tried a different approach. He targeted smaller local companies already operating in Littleton, with a focus on second-stage companies poised for growth and hired highly trained specialists to provide the companies with sophisticated management consulting and market research. Rather than risk everything on one high-priced free agent, Gibbons was going to build his city’s employer base through home-grown player development.

The first “economic gardening” program was born.

Over the next 20 years, Littleton doubled its jobs pool and tripled its sales tax revenue. And as word of Littleton’s success spread, other local and state governments implemented their own “economic gardening” programs.

More than 40 states and communities have implemented economic gardening with similar success. From 2010 to 2012, the 28 companies enrolled in Kansas’s economic gardening program had an average annual growth rate of 13.4 percent. Gov. Rick Snyder, a Michigan Republican, has made economic gardening the centerpiece of his state’s desperately needed economic revitalization program. The economic gardening initiative in Florida, another state with a Republican governor, has created an estimated 3,745 net jobs and boosted state and local tax revenues by nearly $20 million, a return on investment of $7.58 for every $1 of funding.

By voting for my HB13-1003, the Colorado legislature authorized an economic gardening pilot program that went into effect in 2014, ending in 2016. It is operated by the regional Small Business Development Centers under the Office of Economic Development and International Trade.To participate in the pilot program, companies must be based in Colorado, have 6-99 employees, have revenues of $500,000 to $50 million and have a product or service that is marketable outside the state or region.

The goal was to enlist 20 Colorado companies. So far, there are 14 participants from all areas of Colorado: Arvada, Boulder, Broomfield, Colorado Springs, Denver, Durango, Fort Collins, Fort Morgan, Greeley, Longmont, Montrose, Pagosa Springs and Silverton. Seven companies are in manufacturing (geodesic domes, robotics, snowboards, skateboards and signs), three are in advanced industries, (aerospace, solar and IT) and four are in professional services (insurance, medicine and consulting).

One year in, participating companies are enthusiastic about the Colorado pilot program. “We are a small company readying to scale, so the timing of this input was perfect,” said Puja Parsons of Growing Spaces, a manufacturer of geodesic-dome greenhouses in Pagosa Springs. “The program is providing great input for our current growth decisions.”

My bill this year, HB15-1002, would continue Colorado’s economic gardening program through the 2016-17 fiscal year. It passed the House on Tuesday and heads to the Senate.

As economic development policy, giving advice to local Colorado companies makes far more sense than giving tax breaks to corporations based in some other state or some other country. I hope my bill extending Colorado’s economic gardening program passes the legislature and is signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

State Rep. Pete Lee, a Democrat, represents House District 18 in Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs.