The University of New Mexico

Category Archives: Finance & Economics

UNM Organizes 14th Annual New Mexico Data Users Conference

November 2, 2012 | By Steve Carr

The 14th Annual New Mex­ico Data Users Con­fer­ence will be held on Thurs­day, Nov. 15 at 7:45 a.m. at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion Con­fer­ence Cen­ter located at 1634 Uni­ver­sity Blvd. NE. Reg­is­tra­tion will be located near Ball­room C. The annual event is pre­sented by UNM’s Bureau of Busi­ness and Eco­nomic Research (BBER).

This year’s speak­ers are from the U.S. Cen­sus Bureau, New Mex­ico Depart­ment of Work­force Solu­tions (NMDWS), Mid-Region Coun­cil of Gov­ern­ments (MRCOG), NM Voices for Chil­dren, and two UNM groups – Geospa­tial and Pop­u­la­tion Stud­ies (GPS) and BBER.

The con­fer­ence will include a ple­nary ses­sion, nine break­out ses­sions and lun­cheon pre­sen­ta­tions. Ple­nary ses­sions will include a dis­cus­sion of the upcom­ing 2012 Eco­nomic Cen­sus, recent and upcom­ing Cen­sus Bureau prod­uct releases, and SHARE New Mexico—a col­lab­o­ra­tive web­site that pro­vides socioe­co­nomic data, orga­ni­za­tional infor­ma­tion on ser­vice providers and fun­ders, and a dig­i­tal library of stud­ies rel­e­vant to com­mu­nity development.

Break­out ses­sions include a pre­sen­ta­tion on the basics of the Cen­sus Bureau’s Amer­i­can Com­mu­nity Sur­vey, the 2010 Cen­sus and an overview of data access through the Amer­i­can FactFinder (AFF) web site. Another ses­sion will cover advanced fea­tures of AFF. There will also be pre­sen­ta­tions on Colo­nia pop­u­la­tion esti­ma­tion and spa­tial regres­sion mod­el­ing for ele­men­tary school stu­dent per­for­mance, both appli­ca­tions of GIS/geographic-based data. Addi­tional ses­sions will cover Cen­sus Bureau eco­nomic sta­tis­tics, the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter web site, online eco­nomic indi­ca­tors from the Bureau of Eco­nomic Analy­sis, inter­ac­tive labor mar­ket data on the NMDWS LASER web site, and a pre­sen­ta­tion by MRCOG speak­ers on a strat­egy to address future con­ges­tion in the ABQ area that inte­grates land use plans with trans­porta­tion plans.

Dr. Jeff Mitchell (BBER) and Dr. Jack Baker (GPS) will be the lun­cheon speak­ers. Mitchell will present a review of New Mexico’s recent eco­nomic per­for­mance and a short-term eco­nomic out­look, while Baker will present the expanded scope of GPS pop­u­la­tion esti­mates, includ­ing new cen­sus tract esti­mates, and related method­olog­i­cal research and data­base development.

The con­fer­ence will pro­vide infor­ma­tion about com­plex socioe­co­nomic data­bases and a sense of how these data are applied in prac­ti­cal sit­u­a­tions. Over the years, the Data Users Con­fer­ence has become a val­ued learn­ing expe­ri­ence for busi­nesses, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions, infor­ma­tion providers, and students.

Reg­is­tra­tion is $55 per per­son and includes all con­fer­ence mate­ri­als, con­ti­nen­tal break­fast, bev­er­age breaks and a lun­cheon buf­fet. For more infor­ma­tion and a reg­is­tra­tion form, visit: Data Users Con­fer­ence or call (505) 277‑8300.

BBER Con­tacts
Karma Shore (505) 277‑8300; e-mail: kshore@unm.edu
Kevin Kar­gacin (505) 277‑3038; e-mail: kargacin@unm.edu
Bureau of Busi­ness and Eco­nomic Research
MSC06 3510
1 Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico
Albu­querque, NM 87131–0001

Media con­tact: Steve Carr (505) 277‑1821; email: scarr@unm.edu

Posted in Campus Community, Events, Finance & Economics | |

UNM Economic Development Summit Will Explore Future Directions

September 20, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth

The UNM Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Sum­mit on Fri­day, Sept. 21, will be a day of struc­tured con­ver­sa­tion and an explo­ration of ideas about prac­ti­cal ways UNM can directly impact how the state, com­mu­ni­ties, employ­ers, and entre­pre­neurs grow our regional economy.

The frame­work for the sum­mit is the book “The Rain­for­est: The Secret to Build­ing the Next Sil­i­con Val­ley,” by Vic­tor Hwang and Greg Horowitt. This book explores why the Sil­i­con Val­ley blos­somed when other areas have not. The authors found the best par­al­lel to con­di­tions needed to spawn the type of cre­ativ­ity and inno­va­tion that flour­ished in that entre­pre­neur­ial envi­ron­ment is the frag­ile ecosys­tem of the rain­for­est. Read more about this on the President’s blog.

The sum­mit will fea­ture UNM Pres­i­dent Robert Frank and a num­ber of guest speak­ers, includ­ing Gov. Susana Mar­tinez, Albu­querque Mayor Richard Berry, Pres­i­dent and CEO of STC.UNM Lisa Kuut­tila, lead­ers from the national labs, eco­nomic devel­op­ment experts and Vic­tor Hwang, co-author of The Rain­for­est: The Secret to Build­ing the Next Sil­i­con Valley.

A pro­gram and back­ground doc­u­ments of inter­est for the sum­mit are avail­able online at: UNM Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Sum­mit.

In addi­tion Uni­ver­sity Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Mar­ket­ing will be live blog­ging the summit.

The blog will be acti­vated at 9 a.m. on Fri­day, Sept. 21.

Media Con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu

Posted in Administration, Finance & Economics, University News | |

UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research Hosts Data Users Conference

September 30, 2011 | By Steve Carr

The 13th annual New Mex­ico Data Users Con­fer­ence will be held on Thurs­day, Nov. 3 at 7:45 a.m. at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion Con­fer­ence Cen­ter, 1634 Uni­ver­sity Blvd. NE. Reg­is­tra­tion will be located near Ball­room C. The con­fer­ence pre­sented annu­ally by UNM’s Bureau of Busi­ness and Eco­nomic Research (BBER), will fea­ture speak­ers from the U.S. Cen­sus Bureau, NM Dept. of Work­force Solu­tions, City of Albu­querque, and two UNM groups includ­ing Geospa­tial and Pop­u­la­tion Stud­ies and BBER.

The con­fer­ence will pro­vide infor­ma­tion about com­plex socioe­co­nomic data­bases and a sense of how these data are applied in prac­ti­cal sit­u­a­tions. Over the years, the Data Users Con­fer­ence has become a val­ued learn­ing expe­ri­ence for busi­nesses, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions, infor­ma­tion providers, and students.

The con­fer­ence has a ple­nary ses­sion, nine break­out ses­sions and lun­cheon pre­sen­ta­tions. This year’s event fea­tures a pre­sen­ta­tion by Tom Mesen­bourg, Cen­sus Bureau Deputy direc­tor, on cur­rent and future devel­op­ments at the Cen­sus Bureau, includ­ing FY 2012 bud­get sta­tus, orga­ni­za­tional ini­tia­tives, lessons learned from the 2010 Cen­sus and impli­ca­tions for the next Cen­sus, and high­lights from the Bureau’s diverse pro­grams and prod­ucts. Ple­nary ses­sions will also include a dis­cus­sion of New Mex­ico demo­graphic pat­terns and trends using cen­sus data, and upcom­ing Cen­sus Bureau prod­uct releases.

Break­out ses­sions include two pre­sen­ta­tions on the new Amer­i­can FactFinder2 Web site, one for begin­ner to inter­me­di­ate data users and another for advanced users. There will also be pre­sen­ta­tions on school enroll­ment pop­u­la­tion pro­jec­tions, the Amer­i­can Com­mu­nity Sur­vey, Cen­sus Bureau gov­ern­ments data, Cen­sus Bureau race and His­panic eth­nic­ity data, three content-heavy Web sites (a tour of Cen­sus Bureau, Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics, and BBER sites), OnTheMap (an inter­ac­tive Web site to help ana­lyze com­muter pat­terns and worker con­cen­tra­tions), and the impor­tance of data and assump­tions in local gov­ern­ment rev­enue forecasting.

Jeff Mitchell, BBER senior research sci­en­tist, and Jack Baker, UNM Geospa­tial and Pop­u­la­tion Stud­ies, will be the fea­tured lun­cheon speak­ers. Mitchell will present a review of New Mexico’s recent eco­nomic per­for­mance and a short-term eco­nomic out­look. Baker will dis­cuss a novel process for gath­er­ing local inputs for pop­u­la­tion estimation.

Con­fer­ence reg­is­tra­tion is $50 per per­son and includes all con­fer­ence mate­ri­als, con­ti­nen­tal break­fast, bev­er­age breaks and a lun­cheon buf­fet. For more infor­ma­tion and a reg­is­tra­tion form visit: Data Users Con­fer­ence.

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact, Karma Shore (505) 277‑8300 or e-mail, kshore@unm.edu and or Kevin Kar­gacin (505) 277‑3038 or e-mail, kargacin@unm.edu

Media con­tact: Steve Carr (505) 277‑1821; scarr@unm.edu

Posted in Events, Finance & Economics, University News | |

STC.UNM Fall 2011 Fall Seminar Series

September 20, 2011 | By Karen Wentworth

STC.UNM, the Uni­ver­sity of New Mexico’s technology-transfer office, will be host­ing its fall sem­i­nar series in Sep­tem­ber, Octo­ber and Novem­ber.  The sem­i­nars are free and open to the UNM com­mu­nity and the pub­lic but reg­is­tra­tion is required.  Box lunches will be served at all seminars.

Sept. 22, 12 — 1 p.m.
Domenici Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter West, Room 3010, UNM HSC Campus

“New Mex­ico Financ­ing Envi­ron­ment for Bio­med­ical Start-ups“
Richard D. Gill, Pres­i­dent & CEO, TruTouch Tech­nolo­gies, Inc.

Richard Gill

Richard Gill

Gill will start with an overview of the char­ac­ter­is­tics nec­es­sary for suc­cess­ful drug devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion, dis­cuss finan­cial issues new bio­med­ical com­pa­nies need to pay atten­tion to, and present dif­fer­ent invest­ment strate­gies for start-ups to con­sider. He will wrap up his pre­sen­ta­tion with a sum­mary of TruTouch Tech­nolo­gies’ finan­cial turnaround.

As Pres­i­dent & CEO of TruTouch Tech­nolo­gies, Inc., Gill brings three decades of strate­gic man­age­ment, research, and tech­nol­ogy com­mer­cial­iza­tion expe­ri­ence in the life sci­ences indus­try. Gill pre­vi­ously served as Pres­i­dent & CEO of ProNAi Ther­a­peu­tics, where he raised $11.5 mil­lion and achieved IND approval of their lead drug in less than two years. Prior to ProNAI Gill led Signet Lab­o­ra­to­ries to acqui­si­tion by Covance.

Gill has also served as the Pres­i­dent of AnVil, Active­Cyte, and Genome Ther­a­peu­tics Cor­po­ra­tion, rais­ing 10’s of mil­lions of dol­lars for the devel­op­ment of their novel med­ical tech­nolo­gies and orches­trat­ing attrac­tive investor exits.

His ear­lier career high­lights include serv­ing as gen­eral man­ager and senior vice pres­i­dent of BTG Inter­na­tional, where he led the global bio­sciences sec­tor. In that role Gill helped lead the man­age­ment buy­out of British Tech­nol­ogy Group plc from the British gov­ern­ment, the firm’s expan­sion into inter­na­tional mar­kets, and its sub­se­quent ini­tial pub­lic offer­ing. Gill began his career at Unilever.  Gill holds a Ph.D. in Endocrinol­ogy and a B.Sc. with hon­ors in Phys­i­ol­ogy and Bio­chem­istry from Read­ing Uni­ver­sity, UK.

Oct. 19, 12 — 1 p.m.
Stu­dent Union Build­ing (SUB), Room Acoma A & B, UNM Main Campus

“The Oppor­tu­nity Assess­ment”
Paul Short, ven­ture part­ner, The Verge Fund
Do you have a tech­nol­ogy that you think has com­mer­cial­iza­tion poten­tial? Short will dis­cuss the impor­tance of assess­ing the mar­ket for newly devel­oped tech­nolo­gies before a busi­ness plan is even writ­ten. Based on con­cepts devel­oped by Steven Gary Blank and Ralph Grabowski, Short’s pre­sen­ta­tion will focus on how to talk to poten­tial cus­tomers and what kinds of ques­tions to ask, pro­vid­ing exam­ples from his own expe­ri­ences as illustration.

Short was the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the Verge Fund, hav­ing joined in late 2005. He is now a Ven­ture Part­ner respon­si­ble for the Fund’s El Paso and south­ern New Mex­ico strategy.

Prior to join­ing the Verge Fund, Short founded Inno­vA­SIC, orig­i­nally a ser­vices com­pany that pro­vided inte­grated cir­cuit designs to cus­tomer spec­i­fi­ca­tions. With only a $5,000 invest­ment, he boot­strapped this com­pany from zero to $1,000,000 in sales. How­ever he saw that the mar­ket was evolv­ing in a way that pro­vided bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties. Mod­i­fy­ing the clas­sic fab­less semi­con­duc­tor busi­ness model, he cre­ated a new model, cre­at­ing clones of micro­proces­sors that large com­pa­nies had dis­con­tin­ued. He raised $3.5M in ven­ture cap­i­tal, and trans­formed the company.

Dur­ing a period where the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try con­tracted 45 per­cent, Inno­vA­SIC grew prod­uct rev­enue from zero to $5 mil­lion. To this day, the company’s best sell­ing prod­ucts are the ones Short spec­i­fied, and Inno­vA­SIC has sold more than a mil­lion 186 proces­sors and has up to 90 per­cent gross mar­gins. In 2005, rec­og­niz­ing the need for an addi­tional skill set to carry the com­pany for­ward to the next level of growth, Short raised a new $4M round of fund­ing, recruited a replace­ment for him­self as CEO, and stepped into a tem­po­rary busi­ness devel­op­ment role.

Upon join­ing the Verge Fund, Short began review­ing deals and devel­op­ing new busi­ness con­cepts, pri­mar­ily in the elec­tron­ics and semi­con­duc­tor space. In 2006, he devel­oped the con­cept for Quadric Semi­con­duc­tor and formed that com­pany with Verge seed fund­ing. Based upon mar­ket input, and the cur­rent state of the financ­ing mar­ket for fab­less semi­con­duc­tor com­pa­nies, Short changed the direc­tion of the busi­ness and re-launched it as Metaphor Com­put­ing. He devel­oped a unique tech­nol­ogy, and Metaphor today owns mul­ti­ple patents based on that effort.

In an exam­ple of the Verge model, in March of 2010 Verge was informed that a port­fo­lio com­pany, Altela, was in some trou­ble. Rather than hav­ing the com­pany shut down, Short put Metaphor in hiber­na­tion and assumed a one-year role as Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer for the com­pany. Dur­ing that period, he devel­oped, built, and installed the next gen­er­a­tion prod­uct upon which the company’s future rests. The prod­uct was respon­si­ble for grow­ing rev­enue from zero in 2009 to over two mil­lion in 2010. Short also dra­mat­i­cally improved Altela’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sys­tem, helped drive the sales process, fos­tered a more pro­duc­tive cul­ture, and helped raise $11M from a new set of investors.

Short holds BS and MS Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing degrees from New Mex­ico State Uni­ver­sity, and held posi­tions as an engi­neer with NMSU’s Phys­i­cal Sci­ence Lab­o­ra­tory and with Hon­ey­well in Albuquerque.

Nov. 3, 12 — 1 p.m.
Stu­dent Union Build­ing (SUB), Room Acoma A & B, UNM Main Campus

“The Chang­ing World of Ven­ture Cap­i­tal and Angel Invest­ing”
John Chavez, pres­i­dent, New Mex­ico Angels

John Chavez

John Chavez

Chavez will dis­cuss the chang­ing roles of angel invest­ing and ven­ture cap­i­tal invest­ing in early stage tech­nol­ogy com­pa­nies due to changes in the econ­omy.  Angel investors are focus­ing their invest­ment goals increas­ingly on help­ing these start-ups bring their tech­nolo­gies to the pro­to­type stage and into the next phase of fund­ing from ven­ture and cor­po­rate investors to bring the prod­uct to the marketplace.

Chavez has been the Pres­i­dent of the New Mex­ico Angels since 2008, but has been an active Angel investor since 2003. Since becom­ing Pres­i­dent, the Angels have seen an increase of over 100% in invest­ment deals in new com­pa­nies. The Angels are now lead­ing invest­ment deals, rather than fol­low­ing ven­ture cap­i­tals into them. Show­case forums allow Angel tech­nol­ogy part­ners, Los Alamos National Lab, San­dia National Lab­o­ra­to­ries, and the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, the oppor­tu­nity to present tech­nolo­gies avail­able for licens­ing to Angel mem­bers and guests. Chavez, with the aid of an advise­ment team, screens poten­tial invest­ments for pre­sen­ta­tion at the quar­terly din­ner meet­ings. The Angels also host edu­ca­tional sem­i­nars to teach both investors and entre­pre­neurs alike about Angel funding.

Out­side of the Angels, Chavez is Man­ag­ing Part­ner and Founder of Phase One Ven­tures, based in Santa Fe, NM. Phase One is a start-up fund aimed at bio and nan­otech­nolo­gies. Addi­tion­ally, he is the Pres­i­dent of Tafoya and Brain­erd Part­ners LLC, a nation­wide busi­ness devel­op­ment con­sult­ing firm.  Prior to his adven­tures in entre­pre­neur­ship, Chavez served as the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary of the Tax­a­tion and Rev­enue Depart­ment of the state of New Mex­ico by Gov­er­nor Gary Johnson.

Chavez is a mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Ander­son School Foun­da­tion, as well as the All Faiths Receiv­ing Home Foun­da­tion. He was recently asked to speak at the Inter­na­tional Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Council’s 2011 Sum­mit.   Chavez holds a BA in Eco­nom­ics, a BBA in Finance and an MBA from New Mex­ico State University.

Nov. 14, 12 — 1 p.m.
Domenici Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter North­east, Room 2410, UNM HSC Campus

“A Brief Update on Deal­ing with the U. S. Patent Office:  Issues and Per­spec­tives”
Henry D. Cole­man, part­ner, Cole­man, Sudol, Sapone P. C.

Henry Coleman

Henry Cole­man

Cole­man will present a brief update on the lat­est devel­op­ments at the U. S. Patent Office. The rest of the ses­sion will be devoted to Q & A, allow­ing atten­dees to ask Cole­man ques­tions with follow-up dis­cus­sion.  He is a Part­ner with the IP law firm Cole­man, Sudol, Sapone P.C. and has been in patent prac­tice since 1985, with an empha­sis on high-technology chem­istry, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, biotech­nol­ogy, poly­mers, cos­met­ics, and med­ical devices and instrumentation.

Cole­man has more than 24 years of expe­ri­ence in patent pro­cure­ment and related pro­ceed­ings, includ­ing inter­fer­ences, before the United States Patent and Trade­mark Office in a vari­ety of chem­i­cal, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, biotech­no­log­i­cal and cos­metic tech­nolo­gies. He has exten­sive nego­ti­at­ing and licens­ing expe­ri­ence in tech­nol­ogy trans­fer and joint ven­ture research rela­tion­ships, hav­ing nego­ti­ated agree­ments in the areas of cos­met­ics, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, biotech­nol­ogy, med­ical devices, con­tact lenses, poly­mer coat­ings, paint strip­pers, print­ing tech­nol­ogy and related prod­ucts. Cole­man has patent and con­tract lit­i­ga­tion expe­ri­ence (includ­ing arbi­tra­tion expe­ri­ence) in the tech­ni­cal areas of con­tact lens copoly­mers, spe­cialty chem­i­cals, cos­met­ics and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Cole­man also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in con­duct­ing due dili­gence and pro­vid­ing opin­ions on patent mat­ters, includ­ing licens­ing. Cole­man has been coun­sel in inter­fer­ence pro­ceed­ings in the U.S. Patent and Trade­mark Office in the biotech­nol­ogy and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal arts.

Cole­man was a sum­mer asso­ciate (1984) with the Boston patent law firm Fish & Richard­son where he han­dled patent pros­e­cu­tion and tech­nol­ogy assess­ment in the biotech­nol­ogy area (mon­o­clonal anti­bod­ies, expres­sion vec­tors, genetic engi­neer­ing tech­niques, DNA probe tech­nol­ogy) and was an asso­ciate attor­ney with Kenyon & Kenyon from 1985 to 1987 where he han­dled patent pros­e­cu­tion, licens­ing, and opinion-related mat­ters in a num­ber of tech­ni­cal areas includ­ing poly­mer chem­istry, poly­meric resins, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, biotech­nol­ogy, met­al­lur­gi­cal prod­ucts, mate­ri­als sci­ence, cos­met­ics, med­ical devices and instru­men­ta­tion and food tech­nol­ogy. Cole­man was also a part­ner in the firm McAulay Fisher Nis­sen Gold­berg & Kiel, LLP from 1996–1997 where he prac­ticed intel­lec­tual prop­erty law pri­mar­ily in the chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal areas.

Cole­man has served as a patent expert wit­ness (Ham­man & Benn, Chicago, Ill., 1995–1997) in a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal patent infringe­ment lit­i­ga­tion as well as an expert wit­ness (Habush, Habush & Davis, Madi­son, Wis­con­sin l984-85) in a med­ical mal­prac­tice case.   He is admit­ted to prac­tice before the United States Patent and Trade­mark Office, the United States Dis­trict Courts for the Dis­trict of New Jer­sey, the South­ern Dis­trict of New York and the East­ern Dis­trict of New York and before the Appel­late Courts of the States of New York and New Jersey.

Cole­man has com­pleted grad­u­ate research in syn­thetic organic chem­istry (nucle­o­side, car­bo­hy­drate, and het­e­ro­cyclic), bio-organic chem­istry (RNA and DNA phos­pho­di­ester and phos­pho­tri­ester chem­istry), biochemistry/pharmacology (RNA and DNA bio­chem­istry, mod­i­fied poly­meric nucle­o­side cell uptake stud­ies, cell cul­ture tech­niques, and RNA and DNA purifi­ca­tion), and drug design (design of anti-neoplastic DNA and RNA probes mod­i­fied with unnat­ural nucle­o­side analogs for inhi­bi­tion of reverse tran­scrip­tase and neo­pla­sia). His Ph.D. the­sis, “Stud­ies on the Chem­i­cal Syn­the­sis of Olig­ori­bonu­cleotides Con­tain­ing 5-Mercaptopyrimidine Bases,” dealt with research on the design and chem­i­cal syn­the­sis of mod­i­fied deoxyri­bonu­cleic acid and ribonu­cleic acid.

Cole­man has expe­ri­ence in poly­mer research direct­ing the devel­op­ment of novel gas per­me­able con­tact lens poly­mers, and served as Direc­tor of Poly­mer Research and Devel­op­ment at Per­me­able Tech­nolo­gies, Inc., direct­ing poly­mer devel­op­ment in the con­tact lens area in con­cert with a joint ven­ture research group from E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Com­pany. He is a for­mer exec­u­tive vice-president of Per­me­able Tech­nolo­gies, and a co-inventor of three United States patents in the poly­mer chem­istry area.

Cole­man grad­u­ated from the State Uni­ver­sity of New York at Buf­falo in 1977 with a B.S. in Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chem­istry, magna cum laude, and a B.A. in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, magna cum laude, and in 1982 with a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chem­istry. He attended the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin School of Law, grad­u­at­ing in 1985, cum laude.   Cole­man is admit­ted to prac­tice in New York, Wis­con­sin, and to the Patent Bar. He is also a mem­ber of the New Jer­sey Patent Law Asso­ci­a­tion, New York Patent, Trade­mark and Copy­right Asso­ci­a­tion, Asso­ci­a­tion of Uni­ver­sity Tech­nol­ogy Man­agers and the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Society.

To reg­is­ter online for any of these sem­i­nars, visit STC Events and Sem­i­nars or e-mail Denise Bis­sell or call (505) 272‑7310.

Posted in Academics & Faculty, Campus Community, Events, Finance & Economics | |

UNM Awarded Kellogg Grant for Community Learning and Public Service

August 5, 2011 | By Carolyn Gonzales

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Com­mu­nity Learn­ing and Pub­lic Ser­vice (CLPS) office in the Divi­sion of Stu­dent Affairs was recently awarded a $400,000 grant from the W.K. Kel­logg Foun­da­tion of Bat­tle Creek, Mich.

CLPS main ini­tia­tives include inten­tion­ally enhanc­ing and increas­ing inter-generational men­tor­ing among chil­dren, youth and adults; engag­ing in and sup­port­ing com­mu­nity learn­ing; ini­ti­at­ing and engag­ing in com­mu­nity and aca­d­e­mic part­ner­ships; cul­ti­vat­ing and advo­cat­ing for social jus­tice and inclu­sion and pro­mo­tion youth and com­mu­nity agency through service-learning and long-term civic engagement.

CLPS uses com­mu­nity and uni­ver­sity assets to meet com­mu­nity iden­ti­fied needs by con­nect­ing 150 uni­ver­sity stu­dents to 30 com­mu­nity based projects where stu­dents appren­tice with com­mu­nity lead­ers and pro­vide direct ser­vice. Com­mu­nity based projects include community-schools, com­mu­nity gar­dens, an afford­able health clinic, a pro­gram where peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties work on gar­dens, as well as pro­grams that address food inse­cu­rity issues.

The pro­gram nur­tures stu­dent lead­ers to con­nect their aca­d­e­mic aspi­ra­tions to address soci­etal needs through pro­grams such as UNM Ser­vice Corps (UNMSC). UNMSC mem­ber Yev­geniya Nov­gorod­skaya said, “The UNM Ser­vice Corps has in many ways helped me to find mean­ing and focus in my col­lege career. For the first time I was com­pelled to envi­sion the things that mean the most to me.”

For the past 12 years CLPS has helped stu­dents con­nect their aca­d­e­mic pro­gram of stud­ies to their com­mu­nity projects, man­aged four con­sec­u­tive Ameri­Corps grants, and part­nered with local, national, and inter­na­tional com­mu­nity engage­ment ini­tia­tives. CLPS has recently been selected to be the host site for New Mex­ico in the first cohort of the National Food­Corps pro­gram, designed to build com­mu­nity capac­ity and lead­er­ship to address sus­tain­able solu­tions to food inse­cu­rity and com­mu­nity health.

The W.K. Kel­logg Foun­da­tion, estab­lished in 1930, sup­ports chil­dren, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties as they strengthen and cre­ate con­di­tions that pro­pel vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren to achieve suc­cess as indi­vid­u­als and as con­trib­u­tors to the larger com­mu­nity and soci­ety. Grants are con­cen­trated in the United States, Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean and south­ern Africa.

For more infor­ma­tion about CLPS, please con­tact Kiran Katira or call 505–400-6828.

Media con­tact: Dorene Dinaro, (505) 277‑5299; e-mail: ddinaro@unm.edu

Posted in Administration, Finance & Economics, University News | |

University of New Mexico Boosts New Mexico Economy

March 24, 2011 | By Karen Wentworth

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico is not just a fore­most edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tion for stu­dents in the com­mu­nity. It’s also a prime mon­ey­maker for the state. A new study from the University’s Bureau of Busi­ness and Eco­nomic Research (BBER) shows how the uni­ver­sity brings money into the New Mex­ico econ­omy. Accord­ing to the report, dur­ing the 2010 fis­cal year, UNM oper­a­tions accounted for $1.86 bil­lion in expen­di­tures and more than 25,000 jobs, mak­ing it the largest employer in the state. Total salaries and ben­e­fits were $1.03 billion.

“One of UNM’s great­est con­tri­bu­tions is its role as a sta­ble employer in New Mex­ico,” said Doleswar Bhan­dari, the author of the report. “This is espe­cially impor­tant when the New Mex­ico econ­omy is fac­ing eco­nomic downturn.”

How­ever, accord­ing to BBER Direc­tor Lee Rey­nis, the real eco­nomic ben­e­fits occurred as UNM was able to lever­age state and local dol­lars, includ­ing a $302 mil­lion State appro­pri­a­tion, to attract dol­lars from out­side the state. In Fis­cal Year 2010, out-of-state rev­enues for research, patient care and other activ­i­ties and from dona­tions, totaled just over $900 mil­lion. The $620 mil­lion from these out-of-state sources that UNM spent in New Mex­ico on employee com­pen­sa­tion and on goods and ser­vices sup­ported directly and indi­rectly an esti­mated $1.1 bil­lion in eco­nomic activ­ity, almost half a bil­lion in labor income and more than 11,100 jobs.

UNM Vice Pres­i­dent for Research and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Julia Ful­ghum added, “This is a very tan­gi­ble exam­ple of the ben­e­fits of UNM’s diverse research port­fo­lio and the tal­ents of our fac­ulty. The impact of our research extends well beyond the bound­aries of the UNM cam­pus, improv­ing every cor­ner of the state through job cre­ation and eco­nomic growth.”

The report, “Eco­nomic Impact of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico on the State of New Mex­ico,” is avail­able on the UNM Vice Pres­i­dent for Research website.

One clear exam­ple of such ben­e­fi­cial projects is the start-up com­pa­nies that emerge because of UNM fac­ulty research. The Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Cen­ter (STC) is a non­profit cor­po­ra­tion formed and owned entirely by UNM to pro­tect and trans­fer fac­ulty inven­tions to the com­mer­cial mar­ket­place, and as BBER notes, a vital tool in the eco­nomic devel­op­ment of a high-tech indus­try in New Mexico.

BBER reports 16 cur­rently active start-ups in New Mex­ico ser­viced by STC, which have already attracted over $12.4 mil­lion in ven­ture cap­i­tal money to the state since 2004.

In terms of jobs, the start-ups pro­vided 88 full-time, part-time and con­tract employ­ees at an aver­age com­pen­sa­tion of $66,225. STC.UNM Pres­i­dent and CEO Lisa Kuut­tila said, “Most of the com­pa­nies sur­veyed were formed since 2006. Of the 16 stud­ied, 12 are head­quar­tered in New Mex­ico. Most are still in the startup phase, but some are gen­er­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue, with a com­bined $7 mil­lion in sales in 2009.”

“The amount of ven­ture cap­i­tal that has been attracted to the state in 2009 and sales in 2009 has yielded an indi­rect impact on the state of $3.3 mil­lion in addi­tional eco­nomic activ­ity,” accord­ing to the BBER report. That gen­er­ated 25 full and part– time jobs result­ing in $1.6 mil­lion in compensation.

The STC report by BBER titled, “UNM’s Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Cor­po­ra­tion: The Impact of Start-up Com­pa­nies,” and authored by Michael O’Donnell, is avail­able on the OVPR website.

Media Con­tacts: Karen Went­worth, (505) 277‑5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu or Steve Carr, (505) 277‑1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu

Posted in Campus Community, Finance & Economics, Research, University News | |

UNM Unveils Road Map for Dealing with Budgets

December 14, 2010 | By Karen Wentworth

The UNM Board of Regents was pre­sented with a three-year finan­cial strate­gic plan for main cam­pus at its last meet­ing.  The plan will be used to guide the uni­ver­sity through a process that will pre­serve the core val­ues of UNM.

The plan is avail­able for review at Main Cam­pus Three-Year Finan­cial Strate­gic Plan. Indi­vid­u­als may send ques­tions or com­ments to: unmpres@unm.edu.

Media con­tact: Susan McK­in­sey (505) 277‑1807, cell: (505) 362‑5530; e-mail: mckinsey@unm.edu

Posted in Administration, Finance & Economics, For the Record, University News | |

Lessons Not Learned? UNM Professors Comment on Parallels Between Oil Spill, Financial Crisis

July 16, 2010 | By Sari Krosinsky

When the econ­omy crashed, the United States gov­ern­ment was blamed for fail­ing to effec­tively reg­u­late the finan­cial sec­tor. Two years later, may sim­i­lar prob­lems have led to the BP oil spill?

Oil offshore of Alabama and Florida’s western panhandle, silver-gray in this June 27 satellite photo courtesy of NASA MODIS Rapid Response Team.

Oil off­shore of Alabama and Florida’s west­ern pan­han­dle, silver-gray in this June 27 satel­lite photo cour­tesy of NASA MODIS Rapid Response Team.

Whether finan­cial or envi­ron­men­tal, reg­u­la­tion deter­mines how much risk com­pa­nies can take on.

“In both cases, nei­ther com­pa­nies nor the gov­ern­ment had a viable plan for what would hap­pen if dis­as­ter hap­pened, largely because they refused to take seri­ously the pos­si­bil­ity of cat­a­stro­phe,” said Erik Gerd­ing, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor, School of Law.

“Both the pri­vate sec­tor and reg­u­la­tors placed an almost reli­gious faith in the capac­ity of engi­neer­ing to deal with risk. In the case of the finan­cial cri­sis, it was faith in finan­cial engi­neer­ing, like com­plex finan­cial instru­ments and computer-based mod­els for mea­sur­ing risk. In the Gulf dis­as­ter, it was faith in petro­leum engineering.”

Bit­ing with­out teeth
Doug Brown, dean, Ander­son School of Man­age­ment said “the right kind of enforce­ment” is as impor­tant as “the right kind of reg­u­la­tion.” He said the U.S. Min­eral Man­age­ment Ser­vice, which reg­u­lates off­shore drilling, “got too cozy with big oil.”

A fail­ure in enforce­ment was also to blame for Bernie Madoff’s $60 bil­lion “mirage,” Brown said. Harry Markopo­los, then an invest­ment offi­cer at Ram­part Invest­ment Man­age­ment, inde­pen­dently inves­ti­gated Mad­off, dis­cov­ered the invest­ment scam and reported it to the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion more than nine years before Madoff’s arrest. “He went to the SEC say­ing ‘This guy is cheat­ing, go after him,’ for years and years,” Brown said.

Con­flicts of inter­est between MMS agen­cies – as well as between reg­u­la­tors and indus­try lead­ers – may have derailed effec­tive enforce­ment of regulations.

Law Pro­fes­sor Denise Fort said MMS failed to prop­erly review the BP project that led to the oil spill. “The sec­re­tary of the inte­rior has con­cluded that the MMS… should be restruc­tured, because the reg­u­la­tory mis­sion was com­pro­mised by the agency’s other mis­sion of encour­ag­ing min­eral devel­op­ment. Major ques­tions have been raised about the fail­ures of the MMS to ade­quately scru­ti­nize the project, fail­ures for which the peo­ple and wildlife of the Gulf con­tinue to pay.”

“The messi­ness comes in try­ing to allo­cate author­ity among dif­fer­ent reg­u­la­tory agen­cies,” Gerd­ing said. “Frag­mented author­ity allows pol­i­cy­mak­ers to shift blame eas­ily, but cen­tral­ized author­ity runs the risk of one mis­take being cat­a­strophic. The trick is to fig­ure out if there is a nat­ural bias towards one type of result – more oil explo­ration, more prof­its from finan­cial mar­kets – for exam­ple because of reg­u­la­tory cap­ture. If there is a bias, we need to build in checks and bal­ances to level the play­ing field the other way.”

Too lit­tle gov­ern­ment or too much?
Law Pro­fes­sor Reed Ben­son attrib­utes the cozy rela­tion­ship between MMS and the oil indus­try – and between reg­u­la­tors and busi­nesses in the finan­cial sec­tor – to “a pre­vail­ing view that seri­ous gov­ern­ment over­sight of the indus­try was bad pol­icy. That view was based partly on an assump­tion that the indus­try under­stood these tech­ni­cal, com­plex fields bet­ter than any­one else, and that the estab­lished play­ers had the know-how and savvy to avoid doing any­thing stu­pid or rash.”

“Gov­ern­ment over­sight came to be viewed as sim­ply impos­ing undue bur­dens on respon­si­ble cor­po­rate actors, at the expense of impor­tant eco­nomic inter­ests: finan­cial inno­va­tion and energy pro­duc­tion,” he said. “It will be inter­est­ing to see whether these two dis­as­ters lead to a shift in per­cep­tion about the value of regulation.”

Brown said “heavy-handed” reg­u­la­tion is a real prob­lem, requir­ing exces­sive paper­work that increases costs and slows pro­duc­tiv­ity. He stresses that the cen­tral ques­tion isn’t how much reg­u­la­tion there is, but how effec­tive it is in pro­tect­ing pub­lic safety.

A prob­lem he sees is the fail­ure to dis­card reg­u­la­tions that have proven inef­fec­tive. “Reg­u­la­tions tend to just build and build and build and get encrusted,” he said.

Too much gov­ern­ment – as well as too lit­tle – may have set the stage for the finan­cial cri­sis and the oil spill.

Gerd­ing said, “The finan­cial cri­sis mush­roomed because the mar­ket cor­rectly assumed the gov­ern­ment would bail out too-big-to-fail finan­cial insti­tu­tions. The oil indus­try engaged in risky drilling because Con­gress imposed a cap on their liability.”

The costs of cat­a­stro­phe
As of July 12, more than 550 miles of Gulf Coast shore­line were oiled, 31 mil­lion gal­lons of oiled water recov­ered and 10 mil­lion gal­lons removed through con­trolled burns, accord­ing to the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon Inci­dent Joint Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Ser­vice lists more than 50 endan­gered or threat­ened species that could be impacted by the Gulf oil spill. BP recently announced that response costs have exceeded $3 billion.

“The first ques­tion we all have to ask is whether we should be tran­si­tion­ing away from using oil because of its inher­ent safety and envi­ron­men­tal risks,” Fort said. “Whether oil is devel­oped off shore, in Nige­ria or in New Mex­ico, there are envi­ron­men­tal haz­ards asso­ci­ated with its devel­op­ment and use.”

Media Con­tact: Sari Krosin­sky, (505) 277‑1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu

Posted in Finance & Economics, UNM Talk | |

UNM Office of Capital Projects Downsizes

March 30, 2010 | By Karen Wentworth

Stag­nant Econ­omy Forces Work­force Reduction

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico enjoyed a boom in cap­i­tal projects over the last four or five years, receiv­ing an aver­age of $100 mil­lion for cap­i­tal projects annu­ally. Money came from the state and fed­eral gov­ern­ments and from bonds as the uni­ver­sity worked to catch up with bal­loon­ing demands for square footage.

To accom­mo­date the vol­ume of work, the Office of Cap­i­tal Projects expanded its oper­a­tion in staffing and con­trac­tual part­ner­ships. With the down­turn in the econ­omy, cap­i­tal fund­ing is a shadow of its for­mer vol­ume, so OCP is forced to down­size and will see a reduc­tion in workforce.

OCP oper­ates under a model for fees-based project man­age­ment that was cre­ated to accom­mo­date its rev­enue needs. Cur­rently, it col­lects an aver­age of 4 per­cent in fees off of the total project amount. In fis­cal year 2011-12, the cap­i­tal project fund­ing to UNM is esti­mated around $40 mil­lion – a 60 per­cent reduc­tion. Due to this drop, OCP is pro­ject­ing an approx­i­mate bud­get deficit of $800,000.

“As an enter­prise oper­a­tion, OCP must be self-supporting,” said Steve Bef­fort, vice pres­i­dent, Insti­tu­tional Sup­port Ser­vices. “There are fewer projects to man­age, so OCP can­not gen­er­ate the funds to sup­port itself.” Bef­fort pre­dicts that cap­i­tal projects fund­ing will trend down for the next 3 –5 years, so a sus­tain­able busi­ness model has to be adopted.

OCP held six posi­tions vacant dur­ing the cur­rent fis­cal year and these posi­tions will be elim­i­nated. In addi­tion, OCP ana­lyzed its cur­rent orga­ni­za­tional struc­ture to eval­u­ate crit­i­cal posi­tions, based on the new model of sus­tain­abil­ity, and six addi­tional posi­tions will be elim­i­nated, with the employ­ees being placed on lay­off sta­tus. Three posi­tions are senior project/construction man­agers. Per uni­ver­sity pol­icy, the lay­offs are based on lowest-level senior­ity within the depart­ment and within the spe­cific job title. Addi­tion­ally, an employee on annual con­tract was noti­fied the con­tract will not be renewed.

Per pol­icy, the affected staff must be pro­vided a min­i­mum 30 days’ notice of the lay­off. In this case, notice has been extended to 90 days and all efforts will be made to help the indi­vid­u­als secure other posi­tions within or out­side the university.

Analy­sis indi­cated the down­siz­ing should have occurred in Novem­ber 2009, but emer­gency funds were iden­ti­fied to sus­tain oper­a­tion through the end of the fis­cal year.

“These are good employ­ees,” Bef­fort said. “We hate to see them go, but cap­i­tal money has just gone away.” Bef­fort said the sev­er­ance tax bond money approved by the leg­is­la­ture and the upcom­ing gen­eral oblig­a­tion bond elec­tion are vital to sus­tain­ing the reduced level of work.

Media con­tact: Ben­son Hen­drix (505) 277‑1816; bhendrix@unm.edu

Posted in Finance & Economics, University News | |

Weathering the economic storm

March 2, 2010 | By Sari Krosinsky

The eco­nomic cri­sis could threaten the secu­rity of the tenure sys­tem, accord­ing to an arti­cle on Inside Higher Edu­ca­tion today, “Lay­offs With­out ‘Finan­cial Exi­gency.’” The arti­cle names two uni­ver­si­ties – Florida State and Clark Atlanta– that have already made or plan to make sub­stan­tial cuts among tenured fac­ulty, and pol­icy changes in other uni­ver­sity sys­tems that may make it eas­ier to lay off tenured professors.

Other col­leges have made head­lines over the past two years for planned fac­ulty lay­offs, includ­ing Ari­zona State, the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia sys­tem, Florida State and Vir­ginia Com­mon­wealth. Oth­ers estab­lished manda­tory furloughs.

UNM has been hit hard by the reces­sion as well. While the hir­ing pause and other belt-tightening mea­sures have helped stave off deeper cuts, many staff and fac­ulty strug­gle to keep units run­ning smoothly with less support.

Still, pro­tect­ing the university’s aca­d­e­mic mis­sion has remained a top pri­or­ity. Not only is UNM not lay­ing off fac­ulty, we’re grow­ing it. As of this writ­ing, 29 tenure or tenure-track fac­ulty posi­tions were posted on UNMJobs. In a fac­ulty retire­ment incen­tive pro­gram under devel­op­ment, reserv­ing those lines for tenure-track hir­ing has been a key point.

Of course, that things could be worse doesn’t mean they couldn’t be better.

While bud­get deci­sions may need to be made quickly, they should also be made strate­gi­cally, avoid­ing quick fixes in favor those that will strengthen – or at least not dam­age – the long-term suc­cess of the uni­ver­sity and its abil­ity to serve stu­dents, patients and the community.

Sub­mit your bud­get sug­ges­tions to the president’s cost con­tain­ment Web site.

Posted in Finance & Economics, UNM Talk | |