Minding Your Business; 315; Bill Connor

Minding your business is provided by support from C11tino of MRIC Realtors, proud to be associated with the quality programs on community service projects of PBS and KRWG-TV. By Camino Real Builders, a committed partner with KRWG Broadcasting providing educational, informative and entertaining programs to our region, and by the New Mexico Humanities Council, working with local groups to bring programs about culture and the human experience to all communities in New Mexico. KRWG-TV presents Minding your business, a look at the people, places, events and issues that impact the business and economy of Southwest New Mexico, with your host Charles Comer. Hello and welcome to Minding Your Business, the show where we explore politics, issues

and business here in Southern New Mexico. This week on Minding Your Business, it's a group of people with their fingers on the pulse of business in Las Cruces and their eyes on economic development issues of our area. Here today to talk about those issues is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, Bill Conner. Bill, thanks so much for being on the show today. Thank you very much, Charles. Let's start off by finding out a little bit about you. Like to start every show with that, and I'm going to say right away, you are the husband of Mayor Pro Tem Dolores Conner. Well, it's probably the most important thing to say to begin with. I don't think that's actually true, but nonetheless, you married well. Well, that Dolores Conner. Somebody has told me I married up, so I totally understand. I always make jokes with Chuck Franco about that about marrying us, who's out of Martinez. But let's find out where you grew up, where you went to school, how you ended up with the Chamber.

Well, I'm a native Las Crucen. I was born and basically raised here in the community. So all my education has been here in the Mosea Valley. I went to public school here in the Las Cruces Public School District, graduated from Las Cruces High, and went to the Mexico State University and got an undergraduate and a master's degree from the Mexico State. So, class of 82 of Cruces High, myself. Oh, okay. Well, I was a class of 78 from Las Cruces High, so I've enjoyed my time here, obviously. I think it's a great community in which to live and also to raise a family. And so during that time, when I started to work, actually while I was in college, while I was getting my undergraduate, I started working part time for the El Paso Electric, and so I basically spent my career with El Paso Electric. And probably about, oh, I would say four or five years ago, kind of, I like to tell people I kind of made a little tour of El Paso Electric, I did some time actually in the El Paso area in the El Paso office, and made it back up to Las Cruces, and about four or five

years ago began working for Bob McNeil, basically, under his direction. And one of the things that Bob was very involved with was community outreach as part of, as representing El Paso Electric in community organizations, and so one of the ones that I began to get involved with was the Chamber of Commerce. And so I've been a boarder on the board for three years, this is my third year on the board, and this year I'm the chairman of the board, and so it's a very exciting time to be on the, or actually associated with Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce. Definitely a household dedicated to public service, and we thank your household as people in Las Cruces and the community. Many of our viewers know what the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce does, but give us a quick run through of the Chamber's basic mission, goals, objectives for people who don't know what they do.

Well, basically, the Chamber provides the mission statement, basically, is to provide a valuable service for members by enhancing and sustaining the economic environment, promoting the community, and serving as the leading voice in public policy advocate for business. So that's our mission statement. And we do that basically through, actually our volunteers, but we do have a staff that maintains the Chamber of Commerce, our president is Jim Berry, so Jim is the paid executive for the Greater Las Cruces Chamber, and we have really five basic divisions that we work through, member services, we have a membership division, marketing and communications division, community development and governmental affairs, and about really Jim Berry came on board three years ago, or a little over two years ago. And when he came on, the Chamber was in a transition period. We came up with a strategic vision that we developed as a board during one of our retreats,

and these divisions were really what we set about developing as part of the Chamber. And within those different divisions, we have obviously various committees that really is where the volunteers can get active and work on. And so within those committees, we have things like Military Affairs Committee, we have an issues committee, within the last year we've developed an Education Committee, Transportation Committee, along with all the other member benefits and retention and socials and networking opportunities that a lot of the committee works is done. Steve Berry had mentioned that one thing in fairly recent history of the Chamber that's gone is that military committee, and he said that's a huge one for white sands and the like, and we're going to get to that in just a second.

Give us a 1-2-3 of the big issues the Chamber is facing right now. I think obviously from the Chamber standpoint, we're looking at the upcoming vote for the Space Port GRT is an important issue that we're asking our members to support. The Board of Directors has been so very supportive of that particular issue. And I apologize. I do have to interrupt this. The show is taped before it actually airs. So that vote will actually go down. That's correct. So someone by you, like you can cross your fingers, and maybe you can talk like it's already passed, but I apologize that we were on the 1-2-3s of the big issues on the Space Port GRT. Well, hopefully what we can say then is hopefully all our members have gone out and both. And we were successful in about it. It is an important issue. It's something that the Chamber has been involved with for the last couple of years, at least very strongly.

One of the other issues, so I know we're taping a little bit before, but we just had a recent vote by the City Council in support of the, what they call the Las Cruces Center, the Convention Center issue. And so that's something that, again, the Chamber has been very supportive, probably much longer than a couple of years, but it's been something we've been advocating for, and feel very strongly that it would be an asset that the whole community can take advantage of. And I think one of the issues that we're really starting to take a look at, we've got a very dynamic education committee chairman, Patsy Duran, and so we're looking at how can the Chamber and its membership and its advocacy work to help better the, not only the education in our community, but also the workforce development. I think that's one of the things that's really important, not only from a Chamber standpoint, but also in talking with Steve Vericamavita.

It's one of their top issues. It's something that comes to the forefront of businesses when they're looking at a community. They're not only looking at how it can enhance their business, but when they're bringing, looking at bringing employees to a community, they're also going to look at what is the educational structure, what is the workforce development for their potential employees, and then what is the quality of life. And so all of these types of things start to intertwine themselves when you start looking at what the business community can advocate for and how it relates to not only the current business community, but also what kind of economic development you want to develop in your region. Now, granted, NMSU and public schools and New Mexico in general are gearing up for the space port, if it comes, if it becomes a reality. But the rest of the future, clearly, you can't predict.

But right now, what are the big workforce development issues? What are their problems, are their shortcomings, are their surpluses, what are the big issues for workforce development? Well, I think on a workforce development, we're just looking at the types, when we're looking at types of manufacturing companies or companies that would be interested on the aerospace side, whether it's for the space port or whether it's for the things like the future combat system and those types of companies that could be looking at our region. They're just looking for the employees that would be able to do that type of work, whether it's a machinist or whether it's even in the contracting side, the polemurs, the electricians, making sure that the employees have the skills that will make them successful as they proceed on their jobs. So, I think that's some of the basic things that we're looking at as a community. How can we get even, it's unfortunate, but I think companies will look at how good of an

employee you will have when they're looking at our community. So are they looking at, will they show up on time and some of the even the basic things that they're looking for, but also do they have the math skills and other types of skills that will make them a successful employee and that's what really can help us as we start to make sure that our kids have those basic skills and the thing that we like to point out is that it's not just for, we're not doing it just for the employers, but it's really for the employees because the more that we can have those types of people out there that can take these types of jobs and really run with them, the more successful they will be, obviously that probably translates into a higher wage that they'll be able to earn, especially over the life of their career and so, the more that we can do those types of things, I think the better off we'll make our community, but we'll also create better community

members. Nice to have a qualified work pool, there's no doubt about that. Let's talk about white sands. We had a scare, it was on the chopping block, Holloman, Cannon, Kirtland, the government was either looking to majorly cut programs there and I know for sure even with Cannon possibly an outright closure. Now a lot of different groups including the chamber, including Mavita, some top state officials got very involved and went to Washington and actually got it off the list, but in the show that we aired the week before this, we talked with the Steve Verick and he feels that Lost Crucence kind of takes white sands for granted. I know I do just speaking for myself that I just assume it's been there since the 50s,

it's going to be here another 50 years. How important is it to our economy to Lost Crucence to Doniana County that it stays open? Well I think on a very basic sense when you're just talking, the pure economics of it, white sands and missile range generates about $1.8 million of economic activity a day in our region and so it's from that basic standpoint. You can see how important it is to the economic livelihood of our community and you're probably right in that it was something that was not really focused on I guess instead of not saying it was taken for granted but my father worked actually at all three different bases that we had he worked time at the white sands test facility worked at white sands missile range and worked out it actually made the drive to Holland Air Force base for

a few years so even from that standpoint I think I even took it for granted that it was always going to be there and I think what the the BRAC process a couple of years ago really showed us showed me I guess two things is that white sands is vulnerable it's not going to go away because when you talk about white sands missile range it's 25% of the Department of Defense land assets has restricted airspace it's a valuable asset for the Department of Defense but there's obviously a number of different programs that are running through that base and those are the things that can be vulnerable and so you look at things like the Army Research Lab there's powers on the east coast that would like to consolidate things on the east coast even though it doesn't make sense from an operational standpoint and unfortunately the east coast Washington DC is where the money is being where the money power is and so that was I think one of the reasons why it was looked at the Army

Research Lab of moving back even though it didn't make sense like I said operationally and I think that's what we were able to do as a community group was to make that argument and obviously we made it very successfully to the Brack Commission and that was the reason why the decision was reversed I think the other lesson that I took from that is that we can't really rest on our laurels and that's kind of what the chamber has done with the military affairs committee and it was about that time that we really started to focus on a military affairs committee because we as a chamber standing committee we hadn't really had anything like that for the past or up until about a couple of years ago and so we're relatively new community for the chamber and what we've been doing over the past couple of years is really trying to gain a better knowledge of what really goes on as much as they can tell us out at White Sands Missile Range what are some of the new issues that are coming up and to be honest it's an exciting time for White Sands

Missile Range there's a lot of things that can happen on that base and I think as a community group we just need to be able to tell that message out in the community be able to tell people how important it is and then inform some of our governmental leaders whether it's local leaders the state leaders or state legislators I mean just kind of reiterate how important it is things that they can do to help it help make it easier to do business on White Sands Missile Range and then also how to enhance it so that future businesses can look to come to the base now you you mentioned that key word future when we met before before the show something we talked about half our time together on were future combat systems right why is that a big deal for White Sands what are they why is it a big deal and and tell me a little bit about the event you had at Farm and Ranch in February

well we we had an event back in on February 22nd and really what it was was to to almost try to we call it a business networking event but it was a chance to get these major contractors that are playing a big part in not only future combat systems but what we've learned is another initiative another government initiative from the Department of Homeland Defense is the secure border initiative those two kind of items were in many of the major players in those particular items were coming to Oscar's and what we wanted to do was network them with New Mexico based companies and other companies from outside that may be looking to relocate to to New Mexico or the southern New Mexico region put them together kind of explain what what's going on and then hopefully be able to make some business

connections with all of that now you had told me earlier that NMSU is interested in these future combat systems as well how so why so why I think it's it was it's real important because a lot of what the future combat systems is is it's the new types of equipment that are coming out that the army is or the Department of Defense is really developing for their future soldiers and airmen and the Navy and so these are all the new technologies and it's all the it's it's very exciting time in terms of development a lot of its research based and so it's taking some of the research that they're developing and and manufacturing it to testing and then getting it to the point where they could be manufactured so it could be placed out in in the field and so New Mexico State is I think one of the top research universities in the nation you there they have have always had a long history of working

with white sense missile range and so it starts to become a natural tie on the research side where you can start to get some of your professors and they're teaching their the students about these kind of the new things that are happening the new technologies and on the same side the university is starting to develop their research park where it starts to to put together kind of the research and the business aspects with companies that are looking to enhance that and use that research and that technology for its development in whatever kind of equipment that they're working on and so you have things like unmanned aerial vehicles that PSL has really has spent a lot of time working on that's a big one for an area and so those are the types of connections that when you start looking at a lot of the new equipment that the future combat systems calls upon are unmanned aerial vehicles and so you start to build this connection between what work and research that the university

is doing with what these companies are looking for and then what can be tested and then put out into the field for the Department of Defense and so there's this synergy that can start to happen and that was part of what this event was on the 22nd was not only to make the connection between the business business to business the the Lockheed's the Boeing is the one of the prime contractors there the what they call the lead system integrator along with SAIC but they those two contractors are overseeing hundreds of contractors and many of them small but there are large ones like Raytheon, Lockheed, General Dynamic, Honeywell and so we had representation from those organizations talking with local businesses some of them on the technology side that do technological visit or work you had them talking to machine machineists and so there's a lot of that type of activity around the spectrum

that what these companies are looking for trying to match them up with local or regional companies that are doing that type of work or could be a subcontractor for them and then also we had companies that were looking to some of the smaller contractors that are working on future combat systems or SBI net type of programs they could be looking at coming into the region because they're we're able to show them that the community supports them the state supports them the university is is supporting them it's a very energetic business community that's developing here and that we were basically wanting to show them that we're standing at the ready to to help them as they begin their process of doing operational testing out of white sands definitely sounds like you've rolled out the the welcome mat in the red carpet for these folks and well I think it was it was a very we were very pleased and when we went into the the planning of this event we figured there might have been about 70 companies if we got

that many we would have been happy we actually ended up with about 100 and a little over 150 companies that were interested in coming in over two-thirds of those were in a Mexico-based companies in total the event had 300 that participated and the only thing that capped us from really expanding that any further was the size of the venue and that kind of I think that's one of the things that really plays into the reason or one of the reasons why we need something like a Las Cruces Center or a convention center because in in our particular area we've pretty much maxed out on holding these types of events just simply because we don't have the facility to do that anymore bill unfortunately that is all we have time for thanks so much for being on the show thanks for sharing your information no problem it's time again for our weekly period of peace here

on mining your business that showcases some of the hard-working entrepreneurs and business people in our area we call it the greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce local business feature we've been in business going on 11 years now we bought an existing hardware store in Hatch New Mexico we expanded an open-to-store and dimming we had the opportunity to open up a store here in the Sea of Park and that's what we did April 2006 is opened up Sun Valley number three here in the Sea of Park out of the three stores we employ about 42 we probably have a customer base of about 3500 from just irregular hardware needs we have basically everything you need in the hardware industry from PVC fittings to frying pan to gallon or five gallon can of paint to a

chopping hole to a shovel right here that'll work we give the best service of the knowledge of what you need for your project secondly we sell to still chainsaw line we service all the machinery here at the location in the farm implement and tractors and all of this we we stop all the parts in the service we have a shop here at the location i mean it's just part of the customer service and that's what you can't get it a big box yes sir okay yeah thank you very much yes sir great chair you have a good day one of the biggest rewards is all the new people i've met and friends that you've made of being in business it's just it's very rewarding to just have the new friends because they last forever

that just about does it for this week if you have a question or a comment about the show you can call the mining your business hotline at 646 7350 or email me at Charles Comer at yahoo.com again i'd like to thank my guest Bill Connor chairman of the board of chairman of the director of the board of the greater Las Cruces chamber of commerce and thank you so much for putting up with me mangling that ending i'm Charles Comer here's hoping you have a great one you

Mining your business is provided by support from seal levotino of MRIC Realtors proud to be associated with the quality programs and community service projects of PBS and KRWG TV by communal real builders a committed partner with KRWG broadcasting providing educational informative and entertaining programs to our region and by the New Mexico Humanities Council working with local groups to bring programs about culture and the human experience to all communities in New Mexico you classical stretch is made possible in part by a barrel star hotels and resorts with beachfront resorts around the world each resort features extensive curtains and large swimming pools with maximum respect for the surrounding environment

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