Category Archives: Investment in New Mexico

Visitors Get Inside Look Into How Herbal Supplements Are Made

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Claudia Infante

By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

The people who toured the Herbs Etc. manufacturing plant during New Mexico Manufacturing Day activities last October saw how the Santa Fe company converts plant parts into liquid extracts that customers can buy online or at 2,800 U.S. retail outlets to treat a variety of ailments.

Anyone who missed out on that tour will get another chance this fall, when the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership lines up a new round of tours to highlight the state’s manufacturing sector.

“We like to do these types of tours, because it allows people to see our operations,” said Glenna Warwick, director of production at Herbs Etc. Before the tour, “they have no concept of how a dietary supplement is made.” Continue reading →

Business Accelerators Invited to Compete for SBA Funds

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Competition for accelerator funding

By Finance New Mexico

For the second year in a row, the Small Business Administration is sponsoring a competition to award $50,000 each to 50 business accelerators, incubators, shared tinker spaces and co-working startup communities.

This time around, Javier Saade, associate administrator for the SBA’s Office of Investment and Innovation, hopes to see more applicants from New Mexico. Continue reading →

Business Volunteers Give Eighth-Graders Incentive to Graduate

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By Holly Bradshaw-Eakes, Finance New Mexico (and board member of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce)

By Holly Bradshaw-Eakes, Finance New Mexico (and board member of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce)

The earnings and opportunities gap that separates high school dropouts and graduates is wide, and it’s widening all the time. Yet 40 percent of New Mexico’s public school students quit their formal education before earning a diploma that can improve their options over a lifetime.

Those dismal statistics motivated David Sidebottom, a branch manager of Century Bank, to introduce the Choices education program to Santa Fe schools six years ago. Using a curriculum designed by the nonprofit Choices Education Group, Sidebottom and other volunteers visit eighth-graders for two hour-long workshops that illustrate in tangible, age-appropriate terms the consequences of quitting school prematurely. Continue reading →

Young Adults Are Target of Entrepreneurial Initiative

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By Michelle Miller, founder and CEO, High Desert Discovery District

By Michelle Miller, founder and CEO, High Desert Discovery District

A frequent lament of New Mexico’s business community is the loss of brainpower and energy that results when young people move out of state to pursue economic opportunities they can’t find at home.

This exodus isn’t unique to New Mexico and, by itself, isn’t cause for alarm.

No matter where they live, young people almost always leave their home state after completing their schooling or training, even if they obtained that education tuition-free at New Mexico universities. Exploring the larger world and all its offerings helps young adults mature into self-aware global citizens — an asset to any community they choose to settle in.

What most concerns economic-development advocates is how to make New Mexico that destination of choice for our dispersed millennials — the generation now in its 20s and 30s. Continue reading →

Federal Program Offsets Cost of Solar Power for Belen Pecan Farm

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Terry Brunner

By Terry Brunner, New Mexico State Director, USDA Rural Development

Mike and Kathy Mechenbier used to wait until night, when electricity was cheaper, to irrigate their pecan farm near Belen. Now the couple lets the sun create no-cost power to run the pecan farm’s irrigation pumps during the day.

With help from a $107,100 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP, the couple installed a 564-panel solar array at the Burris Pecan Farm, which is owned by their Four Daughters Land and Cattle Company.

Because they will receive production credits from Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) for any surplus energy generated by their 147-kilowatt system, the Mechenbiers hope Continue reading →

High-Flying Vista Photonics Recognized for Growth Potential

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By Kathy Keith, Executive Director, Regional Development Corporation

By Kathy Keith, Executive Director, Regional Development Corporation

Jeffrey and Melissa Pilgrim launched Vista Photonics in 2003 to research how laser-based trace-gas sensors could be developed for a variety of commercial and project-specific uses.

Among other innovations, the company created an instrument that helps farmers plan harvests by measuring how much ethylene gas crops emit to accelerate ripening. But the couple’s favorite brainchild so far is the optical life gas analyzer they developed for the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. The device monitors gas levels on the International Space Station — a function that’s critical to maintaining a balance of oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and ammonia in the craft’s controlled atmosphere. Continue reading →

Clovis Video Producer Gets Boost With Accion Loan

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By Alfonso Ramos, Accion Loan Officer

By Alfonso Ramos, Accion Loan Officer

Randy Johnston needed working capital for his Clovis video production business two years ago and approached his banker for a loan.

Johnston had a decade of experience producing infomercials and videos and doing web design and computer animation through his company, 12th Gate Studios, but he needed a small infusion of cash to meet his ongoing financial obligations so he could pursue opportunities to build the business’s client base.

The bank wasn’t able to accommodate Johnston’s request because he hadn’t been an account holder long enough to qualify. But his loan officer referred Johnston to Accion New Mexico (Accion), a nonprofit community development financial institution that specializes in serving entrepreneurs whose businesses don’t yet qualify for traditional credit — startups, for example — and who seek a “microloan” of as little as a few hundred dollars or a larger loan of up to $750,000. Continue reading →

WESST’s Digital Media Studio Drives Economic Innovation, Job Creation

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By Julianna Silva, Albuquerque Regional Manager, WESST

By Julianna Silva, Albuquerque Regional Manager, WESST

The Comcast Digital Media Studio at the WESST Enterprise Center is more than the sum of its state-of-the-art parts. Under the direction of managing director Russell Combs, the studio is a hive of business networking and creation.

“We didn’t want this to be just another studio where you can produce a Kickstarter video,” said Combs, who led the Erie Technology Incubator at Gannon University in Erie, Pa., before taking the job at WESST in March 2013. “We want to combine technology and entrepreneurial aspects. And that only happens if we bring together multiple groups, multiple resources and multiple opportunities.”

The studio, which formally opened in October, features video, sound, editing, lighting and streaming equipment that clients can use to produce and distribute multimedia presentations for commercial or educational projects. Continue reading →

Small Business Saturday Benefits Local Communities

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Rich Williams

By Rich Williams, New Mexico MainStreet Director and Arts & Cultural Districts Program Coordinator

Maria-Alicia Cordova cares about her business and the community it serves. Besides offering manicures, haircuts and other personal-care services at Al’s Styling Salon in Belen, Cordova serves on the board of the Belen MainStreet Partnership — a community effort to improve the appearance and economic vitality of the city’s downtown.

Small Business Saturday — the Saturday after Thanksgiving — draws attention to the important role that Cordova and other independent merchants in New Mexico play in the local, state and national economy.

“Belen has always been good to my business,” Cordova said of the venture her father started 57 years ago. “My father raised our family on salon work.” Continue reading →

Venture Acceleration Fund Helps Native-Owned Businesses

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By Kathy Keith, Executive Director, Regional Development Corporation

By Kathy Keith, Executive Director, Regional Development Corporation

Native-owned businesses in Northern New Mexico are eligible for grants of up to $25,000 to spend on specialized services that will help them increase revenues and create jobs.

One business, Than Povi Gallery, was awarded a Native American Venture Acceleration Fund grant in February 2014 to develop a marketing plan and ad campaign for the business, which moved in 2013 from San Ildefonso Pueblo to a site north of Santa Fe on U.S. 84/285. That move was partially enabled by a NAVAF grant in 2013, co-owner Elmer Torres said, and resulted in “a lot more foot traffic.”

Torres and his wife, Deborah, both members of the pueblo, eventually hope to move their gallery to downtown Santa Fe so the many artists they represent Continue reading →