Customer Service and MEP Support Growth of Farmington Engraving Business

Bonnie Cummings sees similarities in the health care she provides as a registered nurse and the customer care she offers as the owner of Third Axis Custom Engraving. The Farmington business owner imparts knowledge and creativity to help customers — and patients — achieve their goals.

Cummings spent 13 years working full time at a local hospital before transitioning to part-time and starting the engraving business in late 2011 from a kiosk at the Animas Valley Mall. Four months later she rented a building nearby and added a second laser engraving machine, expanding her engraving and cutting capabilities to wood, aluminum, leather, cork, and granite. Another move took the business downtown, where Cummings had space for additional machines and three employees to help operate them.

With expansion, Cummings was able to do what she likes most:  provide creative ideas for awards and recognition for schools, businesses, events, memorials, and special occasions.

Cummings sought help navigating the rapid growth of her business from the Business Enterprise Center at San Juan College. An advisor there introduced her to New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a nonprofit organization that helps businesses transform their operations to increase productivity and profit through lean manufacturing concepts.

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Expansion Has Pet Accessory Company Ready for Holiday Sales

For nearly 15 years, Amanda and Dan Jackson-Miller created custom-made designer dog collars, leashes, and other pet accessories from a 5,000-square-foot building in downtown Albuquerque. With demand outpacing their building’s storage capacity, the couple moved in early 2022 into a 9,000-square-foot building near the Albuquerque Sunport.

They did so with the help of experts from New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (New Mexico MEP), a nonprofit that helps manufacturers streamline workflow and improve competitiveness.

The Jackson-Millers met New Mexico MEP adviser Scott Bryant several years ago, when Bryant stopped by Mimi Green, which was named for a pug Amanda adopted in 2007 just as the business was launching. Bryant introduced himself and asked if the couple could use MEP’s assistance.

The entrepreneurs did some training with Bryant about five years ago, and that relationship continued through the move.

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MEP Helps Doctor Meet Demand for Healing Products

To deal with the pain of postpartum mastitis, Janine Mahon drew on her knowledge of Chinese medicine to create a soothing topical salve for herself from herbs and oils. In the 20 years since she successfully treated her own breast pain, Mahon, a licensed and certified Doctor of Oriental Medicine, refined the product and shared it with clients at her Albuquerque clinic.

When one satisfied patient asked for a dozen bottles of the healing oil to share with friends, Mahon wondered if there might be a larger market beyond her regular clients. Mahon launched Dr. Janine Mahon’s Rejuvenating Breast Oil exclusively through Violet Grey, a high-end retailer with extensive online reach and sales through its Melrose Place store in Los Angeles.

“I went from no product to a dream store launching it,” she said. “Being in Violet Grey led to other places wanting to carry it.”

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SBA 504 Loans Offer Low Interest Rates

Popular pies from L’il Willie’s Shenanigans, the Red River ice cream and sweets shop owned by Kelley and Steve Cherry.

Kelley and Steve Cherry were so pleased with the experience of securing a loan to buy one commercial building in Red River that they want to buy another building the same way.

The couple worked with Century Bank to obtain a U.S. Small Business Administration 504 loan to purchase the building they previously leased for their 3-year-old ice cream and sweets shop, L’il Willie’s Shenanigans. They hope to use the same strategy to buy the building from which they’ve operated Shotgun Willie’s Café for the past decade.

The appeal of 504 loans is that interest rates are fixed at a significantly lower rate than traditional banks offer for commercial real estate loans, and borrowers get lots of help from lenders and the certified development companies that evaluate 504 loan packages for the SBA. The nonprofit Enchantment Land Certified Development Company played that role for the Cherrys.

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Food Trucks: New Path to Entrepreneurship

Kayla Vallejos has been cooking since she was 13 so it was only a matter of time before she would own a food operation.

Vallejos, the proud owner of Albuquerque-based Taste of Love food truck that launched in the spring of 2021, got her start working at Burger King and then moved on to waitressing and bartending. Along the way, her dream was to work in a kitchen, but she lacked the formal experience necessary to be hired by a restaurant. That was until the owners of a restaurant in her home state of New Jersey allowed her to cook for their patrons.

“A lot of places wouldn’t hire me because I was a woman and I didn’t have a formal background in cooking,” Vallejos said. The restaurant is “where I learned mostly everything, especially making homemade stuff.”

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Velarde Winery Cuts Costs with Help from New Mexico MEP

When the coronavirus pandemic temporarily halted tourist traffic and shuttered restaurants and bars throughout New Mexico, Black Mesa Winery in Velarde had an inventory of wine and hard cider worth $100,000 and fewer avenues to deliver its products to customers. Winery owners Jerry and Lynda Burd were able to keep products moving out the door through online wine tasting events, shipments to wine club members, and creative drive-by tours that kept customers engaged.

The slowdown also gave the Burds time to examine all aspects of their operation and to consider changes that could streamline processes, open new markets, and increase market share when the pandemic ended.

The Burds sought help from New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (New Mexico MEP), a nonprofit organization that helps businesses transform their operations to improve production, competitiveness, and profitability. New Mexico MEP Innovation Director Scott Bryant worked with the couple and their 12 employees to help them evaluate the entire production line.

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Conference Aims to Inspire Female Entrepreneurs

Tactical training, strategic networking and inspirational speeches from three entrepreneurial trailblazers highlight a two-day WE Mean Business virtual conference July 7 and July 8.

“WE” stands for women entrepreneurs—the target audience for this event, which will link aspiring business owners to training, financing and mentoring opportunities.

Conference organizers are the New Mexico State University (NMSU) Arrowhead Center and WESST, a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that supports minority business owners and entrepreneurs and hosts U.S. Small Business Administration Women’s Business Centers (WBCs) at its six New Mexico locations. Other sponsoring partners include LiftFund, a CDFI whose diverse clientele is dominated by minority and female business owners; the Minority Business Development Agency Business Center; and Peacock Law PC, which specializes in intellectual property and tech commercialization.

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Relationships Energize New Mexico MEP Resources

When tech innovator Dave Keicher requested marketing and sales growth services from New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (New Mexico MEP), the nonprofit organization saw it as an opportunity to experiment. New Mexico MEP helps manufacturers increase their competitiveness and profitability by improving processes.

Keicher is vice president of Integrated Deposition Solutions (IDS), whose founder Marcelino Essien patented an aerosol printing technology that IDS calls NanoJet. Keicher helped develop the technology at Sandia National Laboratories and was an early investor in IDS.

The request from Keicher revealed a gap in the services that New Mexico MEP typically provides. Rather than relying strictly on its own Innovation Directors, New Mexico MEP contracted with “resource partners” to supplement its services.

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WESST a ‘Touchstone’ for Therapy Clinic Partners

Two months after COVID-related emergency orders shuttered the clinic that employed them, Melissa Esquibel and three colleagues launched Sandia Sunrise Therapy LLC to provide vital physical and occupational therapy services.

“Starting the business in the middle of a pandemic was definitely challenging,” clinic administrator Melissa Esquibel said. “We all worked very closely together (at the clinic that closed in March 2020). Keeping that connection was very important to us as we started the new business.”

Esquibel’s co-founders Teresa Ziomek and Oksana Tretiak practice occupational therapy, and Dr. Heather Armijo provides physical therapy. While all four women contributed to the business’s formation, Esquibel credits Ziomek with organizing the team and Tretiak with contacting business-development nonprofit WESST to help with the team’s strategic plan and other critical startup groundwork.

Before meeting with WESST, the four had written a business plan. “We drafted our goals, did our analysis on the market and the services we were going to provide,” Esquibel said. This laid the groundwork for their work with WESST, which has been offering its services at no cost during the pandemic.

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Soil-to-Stone Technology Proves Breakthrough With Help from NMSBA Program

A Santa Fe company is looking to nature for solutions to crumbling roads and uranium mines that were abandoned without proper capping.

Bob Sherwin, CEO of Lithified Technologies, developed accelerated lithification technology, or LithTec™, to mimic the process by which soil turns into stone over thousands of years. LithTec™ can be used to build roads that last longer and cost much less to build and maintain than roads built with traditional methods, Sherwin said.

Road base treated with LithTec™ turns into a rock-hard, water-resistant foundation in just 24 hours. The same technology, he said, can solve serious problems associated with poorly sealed uranium mines.

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