New Mexico Interim Jobs Council
Three years ago, Speaker Ken Martinez tasked us with coming up with a process for getting the state to full employment by 2024. The approach we have taken was not to impose a plan on the state as an outside consultant but to participate in each community with everyone who will need to be involved so that we can have clarity and consensus on what this undertaking will require from both policy makers, those tasked with creating jobs, and those responsible for creating a job friendly environment.
During the first two years, we met with groups from each region to determine by unanimous opinion what the job needs are, where the jobs will come from, and what would prevent those jobs from coming about.
This year, we have moved toward splitting responsibility for economic base job procurement between what we have come to call “program theaters.” These are solopreneurs, retirement, start-ups, visitor driven, employer recruitment/retention/expansion, film and digital media, federal government, agriculture, and extractives/energy. Each of the council meetings has consisted discussion on how each theater creates jobs, organizations involved, how many each can achieve, what obstacles will arise, and what solutions, legislative or otherwise, we need to overcome them.
Sandoval County
Van Wert, Ohio
Luna County
For each of these projects, the team followed the same process as that taken by the Interim Jobs Council to get each community to full employment in a ten year time frame. The process follows a Think>Plan>Do model for approaching this ambition.
Think: Key people from the community convene and decide on how many jobs they will need, how long it should take, where the jobs will come from and what will prevent them from being created.
Plan: The jobs are divided into program theaters made up of organizations that are equipped and missioned to create them and cures are prescribed for obstacles to job creation in each theater.
Do: The programs are organized, staffed and funded to carry out the plan in the given time frame and the progress is reported back to the stakeholders and investors.
EB-5
This program enables foreign nationals to achieve permanent resident status in the U.S. if they invest in a commercial enterprise and plan to create a minimum of 10 full-time jobs for U.S. qualified workers.
CELab is forming the state’s first EB5 regional center. The US Customs and Immigration Service EB5, allows high net worth foreign nationals, seeking permanent resident status, to invest $1,000,000 ($500,000 in rural areas) in a local US business that creates ten new jobs, to fast track their immigration process. We believe the program could generate $150,000,000 to $300,000,000 in foreign direct investment into new local economic base activity.
Circles
The CELab is partnering with Move the Mountain (MTM) to pilot the integration of an array of workforce development solutions for the chronically poor and hard to employ. MTM has developed and tested a nationally syndicated program called “Circles” that efficiently and effectively converts the chronically poor and hard to employ into mainstream productive workers. The program systematically breaks the cycle of poverty with a proven curriculum of pre-placement training, a circle of local personal allies trained to get the candidate through the predictable barriers to success and preparing work groups and employers. CELab and Circles are collaborating in three pilot communities, deploying and testing a continuum of programs and services designed to address most difficult job creation and workforce issues simultaneously.
Solowork
The most overlooked and promising new source of new economic base jobs, for any community, is a sector CELab calls, “Location-Neutral HomeBased Work.” These are jobs often performed by the self-employed, from home or on the road. If the work done by a home based worker is substantially paid for by revenue from outside the state or community, it is economic base in nature, and creates additional new jobs in the local services sector. New Mexico’s 18,000 existing homebased economic base workers, support an additional 78,000 local service sector jobs. This sector of economic base activity could be doubled or even trebled in the next decade, with a concerted program effort. Program elements under design and test include: Recruiting module, Start up module, Expansion module, Web-based marketing and transaction management system, Shared Services Platform (Existing Incubator expansion), State and community program
Middle School Physics
See The Change USA is an educational and charitable non-profit organization committed to student advancement in Science & Engineering. This is accomplished through introducing physics, chemistry and computer programming in middle schools paralleling what is already in existence internationally
St. Christopher’s Mission Economic Development Plan (2014)
The Episcopal Church in Navajoland
The Episcopal Church in Navajoland has engaged Lautman Economic Architecture to research, design and develop a proprietary economic development strategy and plan for the assets of St. Chrisopher’s Mission in Bluff, Utah.
Legislative Interim Jobs Council (2013)
New Mexico Speaker of the House
Mark Lautman has been asked by House Speaker Martinez and Senate Pro Tem Papen to take the leadership of the House and Senate through a process to clarify an economic development agenda for the state. The program of work proposed for the council is to be conducted in five to six deliberative sessions, one each month from June through October/November.
Master Economic Development Plan (2013)
Sandoval County, New Mexico
Mark Lautman was contracted to develop and recommend a set of job creation strategies and programs that will cause Sandoval County’s economy to grow faster than the population and put the region back on a path to prosperity.
Technology Commercialization Plan (2013)
New Mexico Economic Development Department
The NM Dept of Economic Development engaged Lautman Economic Architecture to help develop the state’s five year Technology Commercialization plan. The project included mapping major opportunities, barriers and program resources across the continuum of innovation, enterprise development and maturing economic development activities.
UNM Economic Development (2013)
Office of the President
Lautman Economic Architecture has been under contract with UNM to advise the University on economic development for more than a year. Primary focus areas of the engagement include the design and development of the UNM Economic Development Summit and other ongoing work with the Science and Technology Center.
New Mexico Workforce Gap Model (2013)
New Mexico Higher Education Department
Mark Lautman, along with Labor Economist, Charles Lehman, were asked by the New Mexico Higher Education Department, to create a model to predict future gaps in education and skill competencies. The proposed system integrates several sources of information to provide the best estimate of future training needs in New Mexico:
- Official and comprehensive projections of the New Mexico workforce and educational needs
- Current hiring needs by employers
- In-depth discussions with regional and industry experts
- Employer surveys
- Job skill requirements from governmental and educational organization’s sources
- Recent number of program graduates
Talent Attraction Strategy and Workforce Housing Solutions (2012)
City of Vermillion, South Dakota
The City of Vermillion has engaged Community Housing Laboratory, LLC (“CHLab”) to determine the extent to which a chronic lack of workforce housing and other factors have impaired the ability of local employers to attract and hold qualified workers, analyze its impact on the Vermillion Area Chamber and Economic Development Company’s (VCDC) ability to attract large employers, recommend specific steps the community should take to solve the problem and put the community on solid footing for the future.
Affordable Housing Study (2013)
City of Artesia
Mark assisted in the development of a plan to identify housing needs and barriers to housing development within the City of Artesia, and propose goals and implementation steps aimed at addressing housing needs.
EB-5 Regional Center (2013)
New Mexico Foreign Investment Center, LLC
The New Mexico Foreign Investment Center, LLC is a proposed regional center under the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Immigrant Investor Pilot Program. New Mexico Foreign Investment Center, LLC intends to serve as an important community economic development resource to help jump-start New Mexico’s economy with foreign venture capital placed into high-quality, economically sound, public and private enterprises that spur such development with a rippling statewide effect.
Spaceport America Economic Development Plan (2010)
New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMEDD)
Mark Lautman conducted a six month economic development assessment and program design for a new regional economic development effort for Space Port America. The project included an assessment of the economic and the resource impacts expected to result from future development of the Space Tourism industry in and around the four county regions supporting the Space Port.