Spaceport to fly high with continued support

Years of collaboration paying off in new businesses and jobs

The New Mexico Partnership is dedicated to helping grow and diversify the state’s economy by attracting new businesses to invest here and create high quality jobs providing a wide range of opportunities for all New Mexicans.

Spaceport America is one of many assets in the state that we are eager to leverage to accomplish our mission. As the Spaceport continues to attract and grow the number of companies operating there, it creates additional broader opportunities throughout the state: from helping to spur the attraction of aerospace manufacturing and technology sector employers to creating service sector, retail and professional services jobs.

We’ve recently seen tangible, positive momentum as Virgin Galactic has grown its southern New Mexico fulltime, permanent workforce from 40 to 140 in just the last year. Those are jobs being filled by highly skilled professionals who are working to ensure that after Virgin launches its first commercial space flight, it then has the necessary team in place to support ongoing launch operations, just as Sir Richard Branson has envisioned. In addition to these tangible benefits we’re starting to see in the form of jobs, the Spaceport story is garnering international attention and raising the profile of our state globally. It is putting us on the “radar screen” and sharing a positive image of New Mexico as a place with an exciting, innovative and vibrant business environment focused on the industries of the future.

New Mexico should be proud that it set out to pursue such a visionary endeavor over 14 years ago, that it was leading the charge in front of all other states when it went down that path, and that it has persevered and remained committed to such a longterm objective.

Achievements such as this occur because of the collective efforts of a broad range of individuals and organizations, and that includes strong participation by the state. The state has been a central force driving the success of Spaceport from its founding, and its ongoing support and leadership is crucial to realizing Spaceport’s full potential and ensuring that there are no limits to how high New Mexico can ascend.