El jefe Bealquin Gomez: sparkplug for small business - economist with the New Mexico Cooperative Extension Service

New Mexico Business Journal, Nov, 1991 by Jack Hartsfield

It's been a long, long time since Bealquin Gomez worked the alfalfa fields near Hagerman where his father was a sharecropper.

He's never forgotten toiling the soil, looking for a bumper crop -- sometimes elated, sometimes disappointed.

Today, Gomez is still toiling the soil, so the speak -- but in a different arena where he is making a difference in virtually every facet of agriculture and every sector of small business in New Mexico.

Gomez, economist with the New Mexico Cooperative Extension Service, has the reputation of being the eyes and ears of what is an important part of New Mexico's future.

In no small respect, he's akin to a circuit-riding preacher twisting arms in the political, business and educational arena to expand and diversify New Mexico's natural agricultural wealth.

If his assessment is accurate, and there's no reason to believe that it isn't, Gomez says New Mexico is giving away its wealth -- when charitable wealth ought to begin at home.

In a state where agriculture historically was the backbone of the economy, New Mexico should be heeding its roots and capitalizing on those same agricultural assets.

The state's food processing and packaging industry, the state's wine industry and a wide variety of other agriculture-related industries are ready to take off and thrive, says Gomez.

That is, he says, if influential people, particularly legislators, stop long enough to smell the roses and support existing businesses to expand in the state.

"A lot of small companies (food processors, wineries, for instance) have reached their production peaks," says Gomez, "and they need financing to expand.

"They've proven their worth in the last five or six years, but financial institutions aren't willing to go with 'em for expansion," he says. "The companies can't grow enough to stay ahead of their creditors.

"You can't reach peak production and just stop there," says Gomez, "because expenses still keep going up."

Gomez, who holds a master's degree in agricultural economics and agriculture business from New Mexico State University, is the brainchild behind "New Mexico's Finest" promotion, a major marketing effort for a number of the state's agriculture-related industries.

He's talking processing and packaging for chile, tortillas, salsa, peanuts, pecans; additional crops in which New Mexico excels; boosting the wine industry.

Gomez asserts that the legislature needs to be more heavily involved in helping small businesses and processors to expand.

Among the avenues, he says, should be a mortgage finance authority for low interest loans for expansion similar to how the current mortgage finance authority operates for first-time homebuyers.

He emphasizes that about 80 percent of New Mexico's businesses are small businesses, many desperately needing some financial breaks for expansion plans.

The best estimates are that perhaps one out of three jobs in New Mexico is related in some fashion to the state's agricultural base.

Salsa Roja of Santa Rosa, for example, manufacturer of red chile salsa, is gaining a foothold in the Southern California market; Bueno Foods in Albuquerque is a leader; Border Foods in Deming is thriving; Joy Cannery in Las Cruces is on the move.

Gomez says while those are striking examples of successes in finished product manufacturing in the state, far too much of the state's raw products are shipped out of state for processing.

"Half to three-fourths of our raw state products go out of state, a lot just across the state line into Texas where it's processed," he says.

Old El Paso, Baltimore Spice and Valley Chile, for example, turn out finished products in Anthony, Texas, much of it from New Mexico raw products.

"Why not process in New Mexico and benefit from the added value?" Gomez asserts.

He says agricultural associations are having to find avenues to self-fund marketing promotions and growth potentials. Those include such groups as the New Mexico Chile Commodity Commission, onion commission, hay growers and cattle growers associations.

New Mexico has been giving away its wealth by failing to set up a broad-based system to process its own agricultural products.

And that, he says, represents millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs down the drain.

Jack Hartsfield is editor of the New Mexico Business Journal.