Business panelists from left, Patrick Sullivan, Eric Vasquez and Jeffrey Mitchell, will discuss the local economic outlook at Thursday’s Chamber Breakfast. Courtesy/LACC
CHAMBER News:
Wondering if this is the right time to take out a loan to expand your business? Is there going to be sufficient consumer spending to justify hiring additional employees?
A panel discussion on Los Alamos’ Economic Outlook may help provide the answer to these questions and many others that are on the minds of local businesses, financial institutions, elected officials and nonprofit organizers.
The Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce Business Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, March 19, will feature a panel discussion by Patrick Sullivan, Eric Vasquez, and Jeffrey Mitchell, Ph.D., who will each discuss the factors that come into play for the local economy from their unique professional perspectives.
Sullivan is the executive director of the Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation. Vasquez is the REDI Manager for the Regional Development Corporation and Mitchell is the director of the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research.
Mitchell has been with BBER since 2003 and was appointed director in 2014. His responsibilities include oversight of data collection, model development, forecast preparation, written publication of results, and presentations of the forecast to professional and lay audiences. He is engaged in research on a wide range of issues, generally focusing on problems of community and regional economic development in New Mexico. His work typically involves an integration of economic and institutional analyses, with the purpose of developing a framework and strategies for community economic planning.
His major projects have included 23 community economic assessments for New Mexico MainStreet; inventories and assessments for the state’s Arts & Cultural District program; socioeconomic assessments of the five national forests in New Mexico; studies of the creative economies of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and a statewide study commissioned by the NM Department of Cultural Affairs; housing analyses for Santa Fe County and the Town of Taos; programmatic needs assessments for the United Way of Central New Mexico; strategic and institutional assessments of the economy of San Miguel County; and an analysis of tax increment financing in the City of Las Cruces.
Vasquez has been with the Regional Development Corporation since May 2011. He is the program manager for the Regional Economic Development Initiative. REDI is Northern New Mexico’s Regional Economic Development Initiative, covering the counties of Los Alamos, Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Taos. The REDI Strategic Plan is a long-term plan for economic development in the region, focused on fostering specific economic clusters over a 25-year period. Previously, Vasquez served from 2006 to 2010 as a senior policy analyst for the Lt. Governor of New Mexico.
Sullivan was named executive director of LACDC in 2014. Previously he was the Financial Manager of the New Mexico Consortium where he led the finance team responsible for the accounting, planning and analysis of the company’s funding. He was also the main interface with local governmental organizations on behalf of the consortium.
Prior to working at the Consortium, he was a financial business analyst for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sullivan is also a previous employee of LACDC where he worked as the business development director for seven years. In that capacity he led programs related to business retention, recruitment and expansion. He also managed the business incubation program.
The breakfast will be held in Building 2, room 230, on the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos campus, 4000 University Dr. Tickets are $15 and can be obtained by registering on the events page of the Chamber of Commerce website losalamoschamber.com/events, select the pay by check option and bring a check to the event. Peggy Pendergast will cater the breakfast. For more information call 505.661.4816 or email nancy@losalamos.org.
The Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation is a private, not-for-profit economic and community development organization serving Los Alamos since 1983. LACDC serves as the umbrella organization for the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce, Los Alamos MainStreet, the Los Alamos Meeting & Visitors Bureau, Los Alamos Small Business Center and the Los Alamos Research Park.
