LANL gives $500K for economic development

Triad managers are looking for ways to broaden dollar impact

SANTA FE — Triad National Security, LLC — operator of Los Alamos National Laboratory — is providing a $500,000 grant to a local economic development nonprofit.

The Regional Development Corporation, based in Española, will use the money for a range of activities including micro-loans for technology-based and manufacturing businesses and a tribal diversity fund that makes awards to Native-owned companies.

“The laboratory boosts the region’s economy through employment and procurement and we are always looking for direct ways to increase that impact,” said lab director Thomas Mason, who also is president of Triad. “Triad’s partnership with RDC helps businesses provide jobs across all of northern New Mexico.”

Mason said the grant is part of a community commitment plan by Triad, a consortium that includes the University of California, Texas A&M and Ohio-based scientific nonprofit Battelle Memorial Institute. Triad won the $4 billion-plus contract to run LANL last year.

“Particularly in a region that has relatively few large employers, investing in small business is a great way to create opportunity, more jobs and better quality of life for everyone around us,” Mason said at a gathering at the National Center for Genome Resources in Santa Fe, itself a LANL spinoff.

Val Alonzo, executive director of RDC, said the Triad money would increase the funding available for the targeted programs by 10-15%.

Phoebe Suina of Cochiti Pueblo told how RDC supported her business, Highwater Mark LLC, as it grew to more than $1 million in annual revenue. “They helped me make that possible,” she said. Highwater Mark provides support for post-wildfire recovery and grant management and offers environmental consulting.

The RDC works in seven northern New Mexico counties. Its other funders include the cities of Española and Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Santa Fe counties and the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership.