Tucumcari & Santa Rosa

New Mexico Business Journal, July, 1998 by Matthew Kreitman

Dinosaur bones, cheese and the promise of shrimp spur Tucumcari's economy, while the big news in Santa Rosa is its new prison.

The celebrated "kicks" supposedly available along Route 66 are a vital part of America's mythology. Along Tucumcari Boulevard, part of the historic roadway, the museum-quality motel signs still promise a journey back to that recent past.

Other than a couple of state parks and lakes, this was pretty much all Tucumcari had to offer contemporary motorists speeding by on I-40. But now three examples of creative entrepreneurship could once again make the town an essential stop on the highway.

For a small-town institution, Tucumcari's Mesa Technical College has several unique attributes. It has one of the country's leading truck-driving schools and a well-equipped bronze foundry, and it is located in the middle of the country's most abundant concentration of early Triassic dinosaur bones. And for the past two years it's had an experienced paleontologist, Dr. Adrian Hunt, to excavate them.

Real dinosaur bones are fragile and hard to display without damage. Most museums display only replicas. Bronze replicas are ideal because visitors can touch them. But bronze casting dinosaur bones is a long and very expensive process, costing about $75 per hour.

Tucumcari can offer major museums and academic institutions the combination of low-cost bronze casting and then low-cost shipping via the trucking school, all under the watchful eye of a dinosaur expert. In exchange, Mesa College is allowed to take its own cast (dinosaur bones have complex intellectual property considerations). The result is that the school is set to open its own museum next year that will feature bronzes of some of the best specimens in the country.

"We have raised $300,000 locally out of the $400,000 we need," says Hunt. "We wanted to make sure there was local commitment before we looked for other funds."

Dr. Hunt points out that a similar museum in Fruita, Colorado, which draws 80,000 visitors per year, has spawned an estimated $8 million investment for Fruita, despite having an inferior collection and far less winter traffic.

In addition to dinosaur bones, Tucumcari has cheese. New Mexico is the 8th-largest milk-producing state in the country, and due to various regulations, the milk must stay in the state. The Tucumcari Mountain Cheese Factory, opened a little over two years ago by Chuck Krause, a fourth-generation cheese maker from Wisconsin, is putting the milk to good use.

"The town really wanted a cheese factory, and the availability of an old bottling plant for the factory swung the deal," Krause says. "We are funded by a Small Business Administration loan and now employ 26 full-time staff."

The factory recently took fourth place at the World Championship Cheese Contest for its feta. This Greek cheese has rapidly become the factory's mainstay due to fast-growing demand for the product and the absence of other established manufacturers. Krause says that cheddar or mozzarella would have been too competitive.

"Our problem at the moment is we can't continue to grow at the present rate," he says. "We are set to ship 400,000 pounds of feta this month, worth about $500,000. But sales are growing at around 25 percent per month, six times more than our initial business plan. The profit margin on cheese is about five percent at best, so we just can't afford this level of expansion. We already dominate the Los Angeles market and arc growing in the Northwest and arc probably the country's fourth or fifth biggest feta maker."

Potentially the most exciting project to be planned in Tucumcari is a large scale commercial shrimp farm.

According to Joseph L. Miller, president and ceo of The Desert Shrimp Co., when the shrimp farm opens in March, 1999, it will produce around 20,000 tons of shrimp in its first year. This will be worth an estimated $240 million on the market. Miller is hoping for a profit in the $100 million per year range, not the sort of figure usually associated with Tucumcari business. Miller, who intends to build his own power plant for the shrimp farm, faces the formidable task of raising $44 million to start this project. But he says his partner already has "the vast majority of the money" and Miller is confident he will obtain the remainder.

"Tucumcari has the right elevation at 4,000 ft., and the right amount of sunlight to make it an ideal shrimp farming location," he says. "Plus its position on two major highways means we can supply anyone. While we will ship anywhere, we expect to sell most of our shrimp within a 1,000-mile radius." The farm will employ 120 people in Tucumcari.

Tucumcari's fortunes are improving in other ways. The town has two local banks, Citizens and Zia New Mexico, and a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development, which is paying for an incubator facility and small industrial park with a 12-inch water line and lift station.

The town also has received $300,000 for a feasibility study to pipe water from Ute Lake that would provide 5.5 million gallons per day, mostly for agribusiness in the county. Interest in joining the project from nearby Clovis adds to the probability of federal funding. The widening and improvement of I-54 between Tucumcari and the Oklahoma line, as well as further south around Alamogordo, will enhance the already extensive road network surrounding the town.