After getting fed up with the business environment in Colorado, a manufacturer of rifle parts is considering a move to Powell.

If a tentative plan comes to fruition, Checkmate Tactical Manufacturing says it could potentially bring a few dozen jobs to the area within a few years.

Speaking at the Aug. 17 Powell City Council meeting, owner Chris Cerasani said he’s been working with the Wyoming Business Council on a potential grant that could be used to build a new warehouse for Checkmate Tactical at the Powell Municipal Airport.

There’s no formal proposal on the table at this point, but Mayor John Wetzel said he’d asked Cerasani to just present the general concept to the council.

“I think it’s a little nicer to have this than the big proposal [immediately followed by], ‘What do you think? We need to vote,’” Wetzel explained.

A large scale supplier

Cerasani said his company supplies firearms components to several manufacturers across the country, specifically for the AR-15 M4 rifle platform.

“There’s probably one of our components in at least one rifle that somebody [here] owns somewhere,” Cerasani said.

Councilman Troy Bray, for one, indicated he was familiar with the brand.

“I’m extremely pleased with the products that I own of yours,” Bray told the owner.

Checkmate Tactical was founded about 14 years ago and is looking to grow, as it’s currently unable to keep up with the demand from customers, Cerasani said. However, “right now, where we’re at, we can’t expand, because Colorado’s crushing us,” he said.

Pleased with Powell

Over the past several months, the company has been looking for a “more friendly” state, and “Wyoming seems to fit that bill very nicely,” Cerasani said. He’s specifically honed in on northern Park County, with Powell “being kind of our favored child right now.”

One of the key factors, he said, is the presence of Northwest College and its potential to provide a pipeline of workers. Additionally, the Powell airport property is appealing because of the amount of available land and reasonable lease rates.

Though there are limits on power and water at the Polecat Bench site, “I don’t see that as being a giant thing to overcome,” he said. “Based on what we’ve been dealing with in Colorado, those are nothing to deal with.”

Both the airport board and the Powell Economic Partnership have been pushing to turn the land near the airport into a business hub, and Cerasani said he’s willing to be the first to commit to signing a long-term lease.

“I understand the airport’s kind of a chicken and the egg thing,” he said, “so I’m willing to be the chicken — or the egg, however you want to put it.”

Taking ‘a big step’

Checkmate Tactical has run strictly on a cash basis since its founding, Cerasani said, which enabled it to survive COVID and the other economic crises of the past couple decades.

“This is a big step that we’re going to be tying ourselves to multi-million-dollar loans and grants and things like that,” he said. “So we have to do it large. We have to do the import-export. We have to expand what we’re doing. We have to, to make it work.”

Cerasani said the company would likely need a 30,000 square foot warehouse. If a Business Council grant is involved, the new building would likely be owned by the city and then leased to the company; the clear span structure would reportedly be generic enough that the city could theoretically use it for other purposes.

An ‘exciting endeavor’

Cerasani’s hope would be to break ground next spring and have the warehouse up by the end of next summer. 

He projected the company would employ five to eight people in its first year in Powell, with 10 to 12 workers halfway through the second year and “probably upwards of 30 to 35” employees over three years.

The positions would run the gamut from general labor in the warehouse and running machine, plus engineers, programmers, salespeople, marketers and import-export people, he said.

“A lot’s going to depend on what the college can provide us for people,” Cerasani said.

The council didn’t take any action, as the idea isn’t that far along. However, Wetzel said he supports the concept and Councilman Steve Lensegrav expressed enthusiasm.

“It’s a pretty exciting endeavor, really,” Lensegrav said, “all the way around.”

For more about the company, visit checkmate-tactical.com.