BUSINESS PEOPLE
Ivan Lopez Hurtado will become associate vice president for academic affairs at Santa Fe Community College in January. He previously served at Northern New Mexico College as provost and vice president since 2016. Before that, he was dean of the school’s College of Engineering. He has been a tenured associate professor of engineering and technology since 2012. Lopez Hurtado has a bachelor’s degree in industrial physics engineering from Tec de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, a master’s degree in automation from Tec de Monterrey and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of New Mexico.
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Joshua L. Smith has been elected president and board chair of the New Mexico Small Business Investment Corp. He is the New Mexico commercial division manager and senior vice president at WaFd Bank. Smith replaces Joseph Badal, who was president and board chair from November 2011 to October 2013 and from October 2018 to October 2023. Smith has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Colorado.
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Dylan Fuge has been appointed deputy secretary of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, a position that is the equivalent of chief operating officer. He previously served in the same department as director of the Oil Conservation Division and as general counsel. He also spent six years at the U.S. Department of the Interior as counselor to the director of the Bureau of Land Management. He has degrees in geology and the environment from Yale University and has a law degree and master’s of environmental management from Duke University.
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Deborah Collins is the new director of the New Mexico Small Business Development Center. She was previously the center’s assistant director since 2016 and has been with the Santa Fe Small Business Development Center since 2005. Before that, she worked for five years at the Santa Fe Business Incubator. Collins has a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the University of California at Irvine.
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The Santa Fe Children’s Museum has added Rikki-Lee Chavez, Shanda Young and Denzler Cassidy to its board of directors. Chavez is founder of New Mexico Capitol Counsel & Consulting. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Spanish from the University of New Mexico and a law degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law. Young is the director of enterprise application services at Thornburg Investment Management. She has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Texas Tech University. Cassidy operates Cassidy’s Landscaping. She has a degree in theater from Arizona State University.