Category Archives: Articles

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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Food Trucks: New Path to Entrepreneurship

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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

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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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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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Conference Aims to Inspire Female Entrepreneurs

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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

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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

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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

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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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