Historical perspective
NM was built with entrepreneurial spirit and courage. That past should motivate us now.
While it was suggested in a recent column in the Albuquerque Journal that New Mexico history, with its resulting mindset, might be a drag on business in New Mexico, nothing could be further from the truth. New Mexico history from the earliest days to the present is replete with a tradition of risk-taking, survival under difficult circumstances, self-sufficiency, accommodation, courage, heroism, innovation and achievement, all with the purpose of improving the human condition.
Beginning with the Native Americans, life was one of entrepreneurship, making the most of the meager resources at hand in order to survive and endure, even while trading with other tribes and pueblos. The Spanish explorers and colonizers, who arrived in 1598, were entrepreneurs of the first order, risking their lives and fortunes to find riches and colonize New Mexico. The Spanish settlers, as the Native Americans, had to be resourceful to survive, succeed and endure in a strange land and harsh environment.
From the beginning, the Spanish government encouraged trade within the Spanish realm, resulting in a thriving Camino Real, the royal road from Santa Fe to Mexico City, a major trade route for hundreds of years.
In the 18th-Century, the Spanish settlers and the Indian pueblos often joined in common cause to resist the nomadic Indian tribes coming off the plains, intent on taking the hard-earned gains of both the Spanish settlers and the Indian pueblos. Certainly, we cannot forget the explorers, frontiersmen and trappers in the mix of those who roamed New Mexico seeking to provide services and products for local and foreign markets.
When Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, one of its first acts was to declare New Mexico open for business, by allowing trade along the now famous Santa Fe Trail between American settlements and New Mexico. In 1848 New Mexico became a territory of the United States, resulting in additional in-migration and cross-cultural accommodation.
In 1880 when the railroad came to New Mexico, the trade and export of New Mexico goods exploded, given the capacity of the trains to move substantial amounts of goods and numbers of people in relatively short order. Statehood was achieved in 1912, providing additional exposure to the other states in the Union.
New Mexico, with its cultural diversity, was able to weather the Depression better than most, due to the rural and agrarian economy of New Mexico, which was one of self-sufficiency. However, regardless of economic condition, New Mexicans, at all times, have exhibited loyalty, courage and heroism by serving, in disproportionately high numbers, in every conflict in which our country has been involved, providing particularly valiant service in World War II.
Following World War II, New Mexico, which made substantial contributions to the effort on many fronts, was thrust to the forefront of the Atomic Age, resulting in multiple military bases within the state, together with our treasured national laboratories and a significant federal payroll. However, small business has remained the order of the day for most New Mexicans in business.
It is this historical spirit of entrepreneurship that has led to the ready acceptance of the rapidly developing and expanding high-tech activity in New Mexico. The recently established local broad-based public-private partnership focused on entrepreneurship has already achieved impressive results, including Innovate ABQ, mentorship programs, entrepreneurial incubators, increased patent applications, additional seed money, new start-ups, more angel investors and even funding from the State Investment Council.
Our ancient, living and shared history has produced this positive New Mexican mindset. New initiatives in the high-tech entrepreneurial world, together with the beauty, diversity, culture, climate and people of New Mexico make it a certainty that, if we will continue to coalesce around a limited number of strategic economic development initiatives, marshal our resources, play to our strengths and celebrate our many successes, our future will be very bright indeed.