By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote
© 2024 New Mexico News Services
Steve Moise and friends have a new way to begin solving New Mexico’s many problems. He’s unveiling Imagine New Mexico. “We want to disrupt the status quo,” he says. “New Mexico is change averse. We want to cause people to think bigger and better.”
The mission, he explains, is to incentivize a few well-respected nonprofits “to collaborate and make positive, measurable change” instead of trying to chip away at the state’s many needs in isolation. “We’ll hire someone to facilitate. We’ll raise enough money to reward them for their work.”
We’ve seen organizations come and go. We’ve seen good groups spin their wheels. Why get excited about this one? Well, for starters, imagine trusted groups tackling problems with more money, greater expertise and fresh ideas. Imagine that the people behind the new organization know New Mexico in ways the rest of us don’t and have spent their careers making big things happen.
Moise is an attorney with deep roots here, descended from pioneering merchants and ranchers in Santa Rosa. He took over the State Investment Office in April 2010, after former an under-qualified appointee’s explosive mix of politics and investments led to investigations by the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission.
Moise “became the Marshal Dillon of state investment when his predecessor left in a tailwind of allegations,” I wrote that year. He scoured the agency from top to bottom and supervised an army of consultants, experts and lawyers who hunted down everybody who profited inappropriately. They clawed back $60 million for taxpayers. When Moise retired in 2023, the State Investment Office was squeaky
clean, and assets had tripled on his watch.
Often asked why he wanted the job, Moise always said, “I love this state.” That’s the drive behind Imagine New Mexico. The other players: Best friend and former banker Doug Brown became interim State Treasurer in 2005 after the elected treasurer resigned rather than face impeachment. Brown was also a UNM regent. Mark Benak is a prominent high-tech entrepreneur and angel investor. Christina Campos, before retiring last year, was the highly respected administrator of Guadalupe County Hospital in Santa Rosa. PGA professional Notah Begay, a Moise family friend, has his own nonprofit focused on Native American children’s health. Alicia Keyes is former secretary of the state Economic Development Department.
Benak planted the seed. After selling his company, “he spent a year in Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, a program for retired executives who are looking for their next iteration,” Moise said. He and Benak talked weekly, often about how to make New Mexico the best it can be. Benak wrote a plan and the two men decided to work together. Moise became president and Benak vice president of Imagine New Mexico.
They decided to focus on five areas – healthcare, education, crime, economy and poverty – and work to improve each area over time. Healthcare quickly became a priority. “Even though education screams for attention, you can’t educate kids who aren’t healthy,” Moise said. “The healthcare system is an abomination.”
To assure their decision making would be grounded in data, they hired Rebecca Kilburn, an economist with the Prevention Research Center at UNM’s medical school, to develop a dashboard that would allow them to see if programs were working. (A dashboard concentrates a lot of information into an easily understood format.)
The dashboard, which Moise describes as a work in progress, is now at ImagineNewMexico.org. “New Mexico has never had anything like it,” he said. “It was a massive project.” The group will work statewide. Already on their radar are New Mexico’s medical malpractice problem and physician recruitment. Imagine New Mexico will support Think New Mexico’s efforts but won’t lobby or campaign.
For nonprofits here, money is always tricky, but Imagine New Mexico already has backing from foundations, businesses and individuals all over the state. “It’s all private sector,” Moise said. “We will accept no government money.”
When Moise talks about his motivation, he recalls that decades ago, as a young attorney, attending a meeting of business leaders in which the speaker was discussing how New Mexico compared to other states. “I was shocked,” he recalled. Nearly four decades later, not much has changed.
Many of us have had those moments. Moise and his allies see a chance to use their collected wisdom, experience and connections to make a difference.