Adaptation and Skills Sustain Farmington Machine Shop

Founded in 1980 by Ivan Clay and Ellis Groomer, Clay Groomer Machine Shop (CGMS) has fulfilled the San Juan Basin’s machining needs by producing quality work in a safe and timely manner. Their success has been a result of always going above and beyond customers’ expectations.

Clay Groomer historically provided on-site and mobile machining, mechanical and welding to oil, gas and industrial sites, including the Four Corners Generating Station and Navajo Mine.  CGMS has since expanded the company vision to include things such as, but not limited to, selling pumps manufactured by Weir Minerals and industrial mixers made by Ekato. In addition, CGMS takes great pride in being the only authorized New Mexico distributor of air starters made by TDI. CGMS has ensured employees have been trained and certified by each manufacturer – with some workers traveling as far as Germany for training. Clay Groomer Machine Shop is able to offer manufacturers’ warranties on service work, including complete product rebuilds.

How they got here

In 2012, Clay’s son, also named Ivan, and Groomer’s grandson, Joe Warren, took over the business. It was a time when industry and the economy in the Four Corners area were rapidly changing.

Continue reading

A Loan Denial Can Be Beneficial

Getting turned down by a bank for a business loan may feel like failure and a personal rejection, but it is often the best thing that can happen to a business owner. Banks operate under strict regulations that don’t fit all situations. When the fit isn’t right, a good banker will refer the borrower to a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that offers support services to increase the business’s odds of success. CDFIs are nonprofit organizations with advisors and consultants who work with borrowers to manage their businesses.

Joshua Smith, New Mexico Senior Vice President of Washington Federal Bank (WaFd Bank), regularly refers small businesses to CDFIs when they aren’t fully established or operational.

“Sometimes these folks don’t have entity documents, they don’t have articles of incorporation, they don’t have an EIN,” he said. That’s when Smith tells the customer, “Let’s get you partnered with a local small business support organization to get you to a point where you can come back to me.” Often, these support organizations are CDFI’s.

Continue reading

Small Steps and Passion Inspire ‘Pura Vida’

Buen Provecho Albuquerque is the only restaurant in New Mexico and one of only a handful in the United States that is 100% dedicated to “the taste of Pura Vida” — the flavors of Costa Rica. The restaurant, operating out of a charming space at El Vado open-air food hall in Albuquerque, is a labor of love for chef and owner Kattia Rojas. “Buen Provecho is my dream,” she says. “It’s my baby.”

Today, Kattia enlists 15 part-time staff to help her serve up to 400 plates a day from her restaurant, run a catering operation, and hand-roll tamales available for mail order across the country from a commissary kitchen. But in the beginning, it was just Kattia and her devoted husband and business partner, William, dishing out Costa Rican specialties at area farmers markets.

With a creative streak a mile wide and a zest for delighting her customers, she expanded her market menu week by week. “We started with tamales but then I said, ‘Oh! I think I can bring pastries.’ And then, ‘Oh! I think I can bring jams,’ and then ‘Oh! I think people will love my dessert.’ So by the end, I had like 30 different products in my little, tiny car,’” she laughs. “And every week was a task to load everything and go to market and come back with no space.”

Continue reading

Doctors Need Capital Too

Martha Manquero-Butler witnessed firsthand the difficulties elderly patients face when trying to access health care. As a doctor at Texas Tech El Paso’s residency program, she helped by visiting patients where they were located instead of asking them to go to a clinic.

A few years later, with the support of family and savings, Manquero-Butler launched New Light Primary Care to bring the art and science of medical house calls to El Paso. It did not take long for the three-person practice to grow to 30+ employees who served more than 800 patients by 2017.

That’s when the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce referred Manquero-Butler to LiftFund, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), for a commercial real estate loan that would help her acquire a building to serve as a base for staff and patients.

Continue reading

Growth Unlimited for Production Sewing Company

Veronica Fuller has been sewing for more than 40 years. It’s what she loves to do.

The owner of Sandia Pet Products migrated from Juarez, Mexico, 32 years ago and began working in sewing production facilities around Albuquerque, lending her expertise to manufacturing companies like Southwest Creations Collaborative, Marpac, and Sierra Peaks Corporation. In her off hours, she did custom sewing jobs from her garage. She made pillows, clothing, and more.

In 2022, Fuller’s employer at Sandia Pet Products was ready to retire from the 30-year-old business and turned to Fuller and another worker with an offer to buy the company.

Fuller’s colleague was not interested but Fuller jumped at the chance to take over the wholesale business that specialized in dog collars and leashes.

“I started asking questions and looking for loans,” said Fuller. “I asked [my former employer] Susan from Southwest Creations, ‘do you know of people I can borrow some money from?  I’m a woman and I’m a Mexican.’” Fuller was directed to WESST, a business development organization that offers capital and technical assistance. “I called WESST and WESST gave me the loan.”

Continue reading

Loan Officer Lauds Business Owners, Says ‘Entrepreneurs are Resourceful’  

 Angelina Romo believes small businesses in the central region of New Mexico are standing on their own again after the devastating effects of the pandemic. She should know. Romo is a loan officer with The Loan Fund, a nonprofit lender that offers loans and technical assistance to businesses and nonprofit organizations throughout the state. Romo serves the Community Development Financial Institution’s (CDFI’s) central region encompassing Albuquerque and surrounding areas.

“Many small businesses did a tremendous job learning to pivot with COVID limitations,” she said, citing clients who switched to selling sterilization items and protective gear or utilizing delivery services when they were unable to work directly with their customers.

Three years on, Romo sees businesses expanding their networks to achieve growth.

“Some of my independent trucking clients have even taken subcontracts with large corporations to ensure they continue to prosper,” she said. “Covid separated everyone for so long, but businesses have now banded together to continue growth and to survive.”

Continue reading

ABC Canvas Finds Growth Through Expert Advice

When Cody Waldroup purchased ABC Canvas in 2016 from the company’s founders Jim and Renee Childress, the serial entrepreneur thought the business would fit nicely into his portfolio of revenue-producing investments. After all, the 35-year-old business was well known in Farmington for quality custom canvas, including marine products, commercial and industrial covers, and shade products. What Waldroup did not know is that the founders had other immediate plans and would only be available to ease the ownership transition for one month.

Waldroup, who had no background in manufacturing or textiles, had to quickly learn the company’s products, fabrics, vendors, employees, and operations. “I pretty much had a month of learning,” he said. “I’m still learning today.”

Thanks to his entrepreneurial background, Waldroup knew that he needed to become an unpaid working owner and obtain knowledge and assistance to fill in the gaps of his own experience. That revelation became more acute when some long-time employees retired soon after the ownership transition and employee retention became challenging.

Six years later and still a working owner, Waldroup has expanded the company to serve customers as far away as Texas, streamlined operations, and moved the company into a larger space he recently purchased. ABC Canvas, which had 3 employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, now employs 6, and Waldroup now takes a paycheck.

Continue reading

RCAC Boosts Food Truck “Over the Moon”

Melinda Arquero’s dream of owning a food truck business came true in 2019. Spurred by childhood memories of selling frybread from a roadside tent alongside her mother, the Cochiti Pueblo native purchased a truck to maintain the Pueblo frybread tradition and honor the dream she shared with the mother she lost to cancer 10 years earlier. Her plan was to serve frybread to Cochiti Pueblo residents and visitors at tribal events.

And then the pandemic hit. Pueblo communities were placed on lockdown prohibiting visitors from entering tribal lands where they could pass the virus to Native Americans – a population that suffered virus deaths at one of the highest rates of any race or ethnicity. Arquero’s new Over The Moon food truck was forced to sit idle.

A Chance Meeting

Arquero, known by family and friends as Moon, learned about the nonprofit lender Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) by chance soon after pandemic health regulations loosened. She was invited to bring Over The Moon to a regional housing meeting at the Cochiti Housing Department. Hosted by RCAC, the meeting focused on RCAC housing and development programs, but conversations revealed RCAC’s work with rural small businesses. Subsequent conversations resulted in a loan and a relationship that has put the business on solid footing and given it more opportunities than Arquero originally envisioned.

Continue reading

Gallup Bakery Thriving

A book changed Jacqueline Ahasteen’s life. As a teenager, she stumbled across a culinary arts encyclopedia that had belonged to her father, and she was captivated by words and images so vivid that she could almost taste the wonders they described. Smitten with what was tucked in the pages of that tome, Jacqueline began experimenting with baking tarts, cupcakes and doughnuts, all from scratch. She was in the kitchen, and she was in heaven.

When she grew up, however, she put that passion aside in favor of a steady paycheck and a job in IT. That lasted until 2016, when Jacqueline posed to her husband the idea of opening a bakery. They secured a location, signed a lease, and began renovations with his enthusiastic support. The couple opened the doors of I Knead Sugar, their sweet treat bakery in Gallup, New Mexico, in May 2017.

Although fed by a dream, business ownership is about reality, and I Knead Sugar nearly closed before it even opened. After spending hard-earned personal resources on renovations and build-out, Jacqueline realized they didn’t have enough money for the ingredients that would make the bakery thrive.

Continue reading

Spanish is Natural for this Small Business Advisor

Spanish has historically been the language of choice for many multi-generational New Mexico families. And with Latin American immigration contributing to the number of small-business startups in New Mexico, it’s no surprise that many entrepreneurs can benefit from resources and assistance delivered in their first and natural language.

Enter Juan Albert, a Technical Assistance Advisor for the nonprofit lender The Loan Fund. Born in Cuba to a family from Spain, Albert uses his Spanish language skills to help deliver loans and lines of credit to small businesses and nonprofit organizations in the southern part of New Mexico. And then he offers technical support – in Spanish or English – to ensure those businesses thrive.

Albert’s 40-year career has taken him to 35 countries throughout Latin America, Europe, and Asia. After a stint at the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington DC, Albert was transferred to Panama to manage projects and personnel throughout Latin America. He later joined the firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a manager serving in Honduras with responsibilities overseeing projects and staff in five Central American countries. During his 10 years in Latin America, Albert worked primarily on programs related to economic and development assistance. 

Continue reading