One of my New Year resolutions is to gain a greater presence in New Mexico by partnering with other local businesses. We would like to develop local suppliers and we would like to gain some local customers for our product. I have been looking for places to go and people to talk to hoping to learn more about the city and state we live and work in. So far, all NM roads lead to the two national labs. It appears that NM is lacking private technology companies or manufacturing.

I found your show (1/17/10) interesting, especially the topic titled Brain Drain. I suspect private technology and manufacturing companies also leave NM faster than they can be created.

I listened to the comments about taking advantage of the labs from your guests. This theme was repeated several times on your show. This theme is also repeated by all state government people at any meeting I have even attended. I’m concerned NM is being hurt by an over dependence on the labs. For example; Go to any green tech government meeting or go to any energy conference held in NM and you will see that about the 50% of the organizers are lab people. The room is filled with government people or government contractors. As such, the general effort of the meeting or conference is on gaining federal funding for the labs. There is a noticable lack of effort in NM on building private sector technology or manufacturing companies.

Thanks,
Randy