Category Archives: Obtaining a Loan

Community Advantage Loan Helps Arborists Scale to Meet Demand

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Eric’s Tree Care is deeply rooted in a love for all things nature. The Albuquerque-based landscaping and arborist service has been in business since 1997. And as its reputation has grown over the years, so has the range of services and scale of jobs its team of tight-knit arborists can tackle.

When Eric’s Tree Care needed a larger loan to support the next chapter in the business’ development, they turned to DreamSpring for capital through the Community Advantage program. A loan from DreamSpring ensured Eric’s Tree Care had the tools they needed to succeed and the capacity to keep scaling to meet customer demand.

Today, the Eric’s Tree Care team provides complete care from root to tree-top. They specialize in tree management advice; careful pruning and root work; removal and stump grinding; and planting services. They’re also skilled in adding structural supports to trees — a technical feat where cabling or customized bracing is used to increase safety and extend the lifespan of a tree for years to come. Estimates are always free.

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Loan Gives New Life to Las Cruces Cafe

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Melissa & Jaime Salazar

Melissa Salazar was a manager at a Las Cruces McDonald’s when she and her father, Jaime Salazar, an executive chef at the Holiday Inn, took over La Nueva Casita Café, a Mexican restaurant in the Historic Mesquite District in 2005.

“My brother was driving through the neighborhood and saw the building was for rent. My dad grew up two blocks from here,” said Melissa, describing downtown Las Cruces and the original township. “We applied to be occupants and the owner said there were several people who inquired about it but he thought that my dad would be the right one to carry on what his mother started.”

La Nueva Casita was created in 1957 along the Camino Real, the same route that brought conquistadors from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Historians note that the path was also likely used by Indigenous people for travel years prior. Many who remain in the neighborhood are descendants of the original settlers who created Las Cruces, with some of the homes dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s.

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Gallup Community Central to Music-Store Owner

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Rhonda and Ryan Quintana connected over music. Born and raised in Gallup, both were active in the local music scene — Rhonda as a singer and Ryan playing guitar while pursuing a music degree.

It was no surprise, then, when Rhonda and Ryan opened Quintana’s Music Center in 2017 on Gallup’s Coal Avenue in the heart of the city’s revitalized downtown. The store sells musical instruments and band equipment, and the Quintanas work with schools to help students get the instruments they need.

Rhonda said dedication to community is central to what they do. Before the pandemic, Rhonda served on various boards, led fundraising efforts for local charities, and provided management and logistics for community-energizing local events through the business.

“We try really hard to be ingrained in our community,” Rhonda said.

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Nonprofit Offers More Than Small Business Loans

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Almost a decade after building their facility with help from The Loan Fund, Pet Planet continues to provide top-quality service to Las Cruces pet owners.

By the time a client gets a loan from The Loan Fund, she’s in a committed partnership with the nonprofit lender. That’s because The Loan Fund offers business development consulting to all potential clients — not just those who receive loans.

The Loan Fund loan officers provide “pre-loan consulting” the moment they receive an inbound call or greet an office visitor.  And consulting continues after the client walks out the door — either to get more prepared or to start putting the loan money to work building a business, creating jobs and improving communities. The Loan Fund is fully invested with the people whose business startup and expansion plans it helps finance —even with those who aren’t ready for a loan.

To fulfill its mission “to provide loans and assistance to improve the economic and social conditions of New Mexicans,” The Loan Fund offers the kind of advice and support that help businesses grow and reach sustainability.

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SBA 504 Loans Offer Low Interest Rates

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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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DreamSpring Has Record Year

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Small businesses that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic were the greatest beneficiaries of services provided by the nonprofit lender DreamSpring in 2020.

When the pandemic hit early in 2020, DreamSpring quickly adapted to a fully remote work model and pivoted from business-as-usual to providing economic triage alongside an array of partners, which included community-based organizations, banks, federal and local government agencies, philanthropies, individual donors, and existing clients. DreamSpring’s ability to serve as economic first responders to the smallest, most vulnerable businesses in the crisis by providing access to Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds and other resources was crucial to keeping thousands of businesses afloat.

The results are impressive.

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Lender’s Loyalty Sustains Business Growth for Disabled Vet

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Ron Edwards knew he would start his own business one day, but the path to launching Santa Fe’s Focus Advertising Specialties was paved with a variety of jobs and small-business ventures.

The most influential of his early occupations was his overseas service in the Marines, Edwards said. Thirteen weeks in basic training and four years in the military “challenged me in different ways,” he said. “I learned that I can go further than I think I can.” 

Working within fixed budgets also taught Edwards how to keep operations tight.

Those lessons in endurance and efficiency prepared him for the challenges of civilian life. Edwards started a wood-finishing business and restaurant in Crested Butte, Colorado, and then moved to New Mexico. After suffering a debilitating back injury at a construction site in 2002, his days of working physically demanding jobs was over.

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WESST and Client Navigate Pandemic Problems Together

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Amanda Davison, CEO of The Family Connection

When the novel coronavirus pandemic reached the U.S. early this year, many patients stopped seeking in-person treatment at The Family Connection, a mental-health provider with offices in Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Los Lunas and Santa Fe. Even though the business was considered essential and thus permitted to operate during statewide shutdowns, cancellations escalated.

“Initially we were unsure of what it was going to look like,” said Amanda Davison, a licensed marriage and family therapist and company CEO. She and her 32 employees developed a hybrid approach, treating some patients in traditional settings and counseling others using online telemedicine platforms.

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DreamSpring Helps Salsa Manufacturer Meet Increased Demand During Pandemic

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When the first wave of coronavirus hit the United States in early 2020, Arian Gonzales and her husband, Richard, didn’t know how the pandemic would affect their 20-year-old Albuquerque company and the employees who produce its award-winning salsas.

Fearful that Cervantes Food Products Inc. would be forced to halt production for two months and that they would lose their five employees, the couple contacted DreamSpring—a multi-state community development financial institution (CDFI) based in New Mexico—to apply for a Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loan.

The emergency loan allowed the Gonzaleses to keep paying their employees while the company spent available cash stocking up on jars, lids and other packaging that was expected to become scarce. And it’s a good thing they did because the company was deemed “essential manufacturing” under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency order, and demand for its products quickly skyrocketed.

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Resources Target Veterans in Business

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The Loan Fund enabled Santa Fe Exclusive Auto Repair to move into a more spacious location to help grow the business.

Jose Ocampo moved to the United States from Nicaragua as a child in 1980 after his family was granted political asylum.

After a tour of duty in the U.S. Marine Corps and a few years at the University of New Mexico, he set his sights on being an auto mechanic and eventually opening his own shop. He graduated from the Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix and moved to Santa Fe to work in a friend’s auto repair shop until he was ready to go solo.

Having his own business “was just something I wanted to do,” Ocampo said. After reaching that milestone at the age of 24, his next goal was to buy his own building, which would increase the value of his business and give him a tangible asset he could sell in the future.

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