Tag Archives: The Loan Fund

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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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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Following the Signs to Small Business Success

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Virtually everyone in New Mexico has seen signs made by P&M Signs. Article by Jason Gibbs.

You’ve seen the signs.

For nearly half a century, Phil Archuletta, the CEO of P&M Signs, has crafted signs for the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. He got his start in 1970 in Ojo Caliente before opening P&M Signs in Mountainair in 1991. He now employs a dozen people in the rural community in Central New Mexico.

If you’ve toured a national forest, Archuletta’s signs likely guided your way. If you’ve seen the ubiquitous Smokey Bear fire danger signs in New Mexico, that’s his handiwork. Stopped to read a historical marker in the state? Yup, that’s his too.

The signs are produced in an 11,000 square-foot, $1 million facility in Mountainair. He’s designed and manufactured Forest Service road signs all over the country, “coast to coast,” he said. Around 70 percent of the signs in New Mexico are churned out of the giant, blue building in Mountainair with “lots of cars parked around it,” Archuletta said. He also holds a patent for the road closure signs used in the national forest and BLM lands. Continue reading →

Define Need Before Applying for Business Loan

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Cabra Coffee in Cedar Crest, New Mexico

Cabra Coffee in Cedar Crest financed growth through The Loan Fund

Most New Mexico entrepreneurs can’t start or operate a small business without occasionally borrowing money. And that requires preparation and a methodical approach.

It begins by identifying why the money is needed and the most appropriate loan to fulfill that need. It continues with finding a lender that offers optimal terms and fees for clients with the borrower’s credit score and financial resources and gathering documents the lender needs to review.

Define the need: Businesses may need loans for daily operating expenses or to build reserves, renovate a commercial building or buy equipment. The specific need typically drives the decision about what type of loan to shop for. Continue reading →

The Loan Fund Helps Launch In-Home Care Service

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Joe Justice

Joe Justice, Community Development Officer, The Loan Fund

Leslie Van Pelt knew she wanted to do some type of work that improved people’s lives when she visited the Albuquerque offices of Comfort Keepers, a national for-profit company that provides in-home nonmedical care to the elderly and other adults recovering from illness and injuries. What she saw persuaded Van Pelt, co-owner of Cutlery of Santa Fe, to begin searching for funding to open a Santa Fe franchise.

Van Pelt already had a home equity line of credit, but she needed more money to launch the franchise. Her inquiries led her to The Loan Fund, an alternative lender that provides capital to businesses and nonprofits in New Mexico.

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Loans Help Contractor Build, Renovate Homes in Native Communities

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F. Leroy Pacheco

F. Leroy Pacheco, CEO, The Loan Fund

Doris Sandoval works in an industry hard hit by the recession and lagging recovery, yet by following a strategic plan of borrowing through lines of credit, the owner of SSC Construction has kept her business going strong.

SSC Construction is based in San Felipe Pueblo in northern New Mexico near Algodones. The woman- and Native-owned company builds houses on tribal lands all over New Mexico and employs seven members of Sandoval’s family and numerous subcontractors.

While most contractors struggled to find work and financing as home construction slowed and home prices dropped, SSC Construction received five lines of credit from The Loan Fund to underwrite various building projects in Native communities.

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Outside Capital Helps Aerial Photography Company Take Off

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F. Leroy Pacheco

F. Leroy Pacheco, CEO, The Loan Fund

Blue Skies Consulting knows a lot about building a business through strategic growth funded by outside capital. The Belen-based aerial photography company is a client of The Loan Fund, a top-ranked community development financial institution that provides loans and other banking services to underserved markets in New Mexico.

Blue Skies began its relationship with The Loan Fund in 2009 when it sought funding to buy aerial camera system components in preparation for the purchase of a digital aerial camera designed for high-resolution photography. Two loans in 2011 made it possible for the company to buy the Microsoft Vexcel UltraCam Lp, the only photogrammetric digital mapping camera in New Mexico. Continue reading →

Quemado Rito Convenience Store Puts Rural Community Back on the Map

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F. Leroy Pacheco

F. Leroy Pacheco, President and CEO, The Loan Fund

Tommy Padilla works full time for the state Livestock Board and owns a 2,000-acre cattle ranch near Quemado, a rural community that’s home to 781 people. In 2008, he saw an opportunity to provide a needed service to motorists driving through the town.

Quemado is on U.S. Highway 60 in rural western New Mexico. For decades, the community supported five gas stations and four restaurants that served travelers heading to and from Arizona and California. But after east-west Interstates 10 and 40 were built in the 1960s, Quemado began a slow decline.

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