Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Gilding the Lily

Sandia Labs in Albuquerque released their latest economic impact report for their operations in our region.  They spent nearly one billion dollars on goods and services here.  Most of that is money that came from the government in contracts for research.  Who knows what things could be going on there?  (Read Daniel Suarez's new book Influx)

At any rate one would think that this economic lily could not be gilded.  But it can be if there were just a little leadership in Albuquerque and New Mexico.  Think of the brainpower and experience that retires from the labs in the state every year.  Has anyone thought about pairing those smart people up with technology upstarts here?  Could the city or state perhaps fund an effort to organize this?  Somewhat along the lines of UNM's new Innovate Albuquerque project.

These retired scientists and administrators are a wealth of knowledge.  I bet they would love to stay busy helping move things along in our economy and business efforts.  Someone just needs to take the lead with some funding and organization.

2 comments:

Vicki said...

To answer your question, yes, a Democratic candidate for governor (Alan Webber) wants to do this and more. This is exactly what he talks about when trying to keep and retain our brain trust and our innovation here in NM...initiate collaboration and support our technical innovators. It's exactly the opposite of what Susana Martinez has done (or not done) in promoting our economy. Offering tax subsidies to large businesses outside of New Mexico to establish business here? No, why aren't we doing something for the medium and small businesses, especially tech and innovative companies already here? We have a lot of smart people here who need encouragement and support from our state government to start and grow businesses here.

Anonymous said...

I have been hearing about the labs and development for 30+ years here in NM. The venture capital and infrastructure is in California, China, etc., not here. Intel located one factory here because of subsidies, cheap land, etc. But land and skilled employees are much cheaper in Asia, and New Mexico has lousy infrastructure even by American standards. We can count on our leaders to spend their time ignoring these problems because they can get elected by bashing workers and the poor, minorities etc. IOW, we have the state we deserve.