By Kathleen Gardenswartz, marketing and curriculum director, ABQid

Trish Lopez is restless, and she has every reason to be. She has spent the last three months in the ABQid accelerator program, testing assumptions, talking to hundreds of users and customers, building a website and logo — all while tenaciously driving her startup, Teeniors, forward.

Lopez’s natural charisma makes the program’s required networking effortless, but it’s Teeniors’ mission — to match tech-savvy teens with seniors who need help using technology to connect with loved ones — that is motivating this intergenerational solution. Continue reading →

By Finance New Mexico (reviewed by Terry Brunner, state director of USDA Rural Development)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has lots of resources for New Mexicans who keep bees for profit — and those who have lost hives to colony collapse.

The federal programs aren’t designed for hobbyists who want to help a critical species, but even small-scale beekeeping operations can qualify for assistance building and protecting their businesses. Terry Brunner, state director of USDA Rural Development, urged beekeepers to research the following programs: Continue reading →

By Carole Rutten, Acting Director of LANL’s Community Programs Office

When Eric and Celina Quintana started their residential and commercial cleaning service in 1994, their goal was to dominate the janitorial services market in Northern New Mexico. Two decades later, Performance Maintenance Inc. provides janitorial equipment and supplies to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and sells environmentally certified cleaning products nationwide. Continue reading →

By Angela Heisel, New Mexico Economic Development Department

Governor Susana Martinez and Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela established the Office of Business Advocacy (OBA) in January 2011, and have been extremely pleased with its success. Since then, the OBA has saved or created more than 2,000 jobs by helping businesses navigate the sometimes complicated processes of permitting and licensing that can slow job creation and business growth. Now the OBA is expanding its mission.

“The Office of Business Advocacy has done remarkably well helping small businesses that may not have the time or resources to sift through the regulatory, licensing and permitting process or address policy issues affecting their operations,” Secretary Barela said. “As a result of regulatory reforms, leading to less bureaucratic red tape than when the governor first took office four and half years ago, we’re expanding the OBA’s role to include proactively helping entrepreneurs start businesses and grow.” Continue reading →

By Harold W. Lavender, Jr., Of Counsel, Montgomery & Andrews, P.A.

Industrial revenue bonds are a form of public-private partnership — a tool that governments can use to stimulate economic development, allowing them to offer tax subsidies for new or expanding businesses that create jobs and improve communities. Subsidies may include a property tax exemption; a gross receipts tax deduction and compensating tax exemption if certain equipment is purchased with bond proceeds; an exemption for bond interest from New Mexico income tax; and in some cases, an exemption of bond interest from federal income tax.

These types of bond issues have been popular as a way to help New Mexico cities and towns compete — without assuming financial liability — for capital-intensive projects by extending tax subsidies to reduce the risks and costs for a company to move here. New Mexico cities and counties are authorized to issue IRBs. Continue reading →