MVEDA would like thank everyone who was able to attend Friday’s Regional Economic Development Forum, titled “A Tale of Two Ports.” Those who attended were able to hear directly from leading experts on both the opportunities and challenges we face in Southern New Mexico in growing our region’s two commercial ports of entry, both the Santa Teresa Port as well as Spaceport America.
The MVEDA Board of Directors and Staff want to give special thanks to our key note speakers:
• Francisco Urango, Corporate Vice President and Chief Business Operations Officer for Latin America,for Foxconn. Foxconn is the largest contract manufacturing company in the world with a significant manufacturing presence in San Jeronimo, next to the Santa Teresa Port of Entry,
• Carissa Bryce Christensen, founder and Managing Partner of The Tauri Group, an analytic and engineering firm based in Alexandria, VA, which provides expertise on the economic, market, technology and policy issues associated with commercial spaceflight, and
• Dr. Lowell Catlett, Regent’s Professor/Dean and Chief Administrative Officer at NMSU’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Catlett is also a national speaker and futurist on trends associated with technologies and their implications on the way we live and work.
Special thanks also go out to our expert panelists that included:
• Juan Massey, Director of Regulatory Affairs at Verde Realty,
• Jerry Pacheco, Executive Director of the International Business Accelerator,
• Andrew Moralez, Executive Director of the New Mexico Border Authority,
• Zoe Gisela Richmond, Director of Public Affairs for Union Pacific,
• Robert X. Martinez, VP of Construction Management for Gerald Martin,
• Keith Beck, VP and General Manager of the Jacob’s Technology Test and Evaluation Center,
• Wayne Savage, Program Manager of Progressive Construction Management, and
• Mark Lautman, Principal of Lautman Economic Architecture Partners, LLC.
For those of you who could not attend, we will be placing parts of the presentations on our website in the coming weeks.
Q1 2010-’11 Activity
MVEDA entered the 2010-’11 Fiscal Year with twelve, high-priority projects, consisting of approximately 1,200 jobs with a realistic chance of closing in the current fiscal year. Approximately 1/3 of those jobs (as illustrated in the blue on the chart below), consisting of primarily manufacturing and renewable energy companies, show a very strong chance of closing. What this means to MVEDA’s internal operations is that we have turned much of our attention this past quarter towards the project management needs of our clients.
Additionally, MVEDA continues its aggressive marketing campaign and year to date we have developed 22 new leads consisting of approximately 925 employees and 785,000sf of required space. In comparison to last year, total new leads are slightly down and we see a shift in industry specific leads especially within food processing which currently represents 25% of all our new 2010-’11 leads as compared to only 3% of total leads for the same period last fiscal year.
Manufacturing/logistics and aerospace also showed some slight growth as a percentage of total leads while renewable energy leads dropped to 21% of total leads YTD 2010-’11 compared with 32% for the same period last fiscal year. Additionally, whereas a large portion of our renewable energy leads last year were involved in manufacturing, we see a much larger portion of this year’s renewable energy leads involved in renewable energy generation.
With respect to employment trends in the region versus the rest of the United States, the Las Cruces market has fared very well. In a September 2010 report by Garner Economics LLC, which measured job growth trends amongst 158 U.S. metros, Las Cruces was recognized along with 15 other metros as setting new record employment numbers. Garner Economics’ report quoted:
“The July 2010 employment numbers also show that sixteen metros have set new records; surpassing July peak employment totals from the previous five years (see map and table).”
As illustrated in the map and table provided as part of the Garner Economics report, Las Cruces NM was ranked 8th amongst these 16 cities in terms of the percentage increase in jobs with over 1,900 new jobs added over July 2009.
In the upcoming months, MVEDA will continue to be active in several events. Later in October, MVEDA is sponsor to ISPCS as well as to the VC Speed Dating Event put on by the Arrowhead Center. We will also be attending the BizTech 2010 Expo in El Paso.
Finally, if you were not already aware, the MVEDA staff is now settled into our new offices in the First Community Bank Building in downtown Las Cruces. Our formal address is: 1st Community Bank Tower, 277 E. Amador, Suite 304, Las Cruces, NM 88001. We hope you can all stop by and visit us in the very near future.
