The September Business on the Border Luncheon featured Lisa Munoz from Paso del Norte Group who spoke about OECD’s regional study of the 11 higher educational institutions within the region to include El Paso and Juarez. Although this study is just getting underway, we hope that it will provide us with a road map of the regional assets and common threads we have between these institutions to help us better identify opportunities for further economic development growth and the skill sets to both serve and attract future industry. A copy of Lisa’s presentation is attached (Adobe Acrobat -375KB).
In the first month of our fiscal year, as reported August 15th to MVEDA’s Board, MVEDA’s new activity consisted of 10 leads totaling 1,275 jobs and nearly 500,000sf of facility space. Leads are classified as companies with identifiable project parameters to include real estate and project timelines and who are requesting specific information about the region. These 10 leads represent 11.2% of all MVEDA lead generation activity for the past fiscal year so in terms of building out our future pipeline of new project opportunities, we feel we started the fiscal year on the right foot. As you can see from the accompanying chart, 
40% of all new leads fall within the renewable energy industry, all solar energy related. It is important that we concentrate on lead activity because this defines our opportunities for job creation 12 to 18 months out.
At the August 15th board meeting, MVEDA reported forty (40) active prospects totaling 3,158 jobs. Prospects are defined as companies who have toured the region to include local industries considering expansion. Of this group, MVEDA has defined 8 top prospects who we are actively working with on a regular basis and who we have determined are close to making decisions, whether that is in Dona Ana County or somewhere else. As we track lead generation for job creation 12 to 18 months out, our prospect activity is meant to track potential new job creation within the current fiscal year.
MVEDA has also participated in two prospect missions with the New Mexico Partnership; one to the New England region where 15 companies were visited and more recently to the San Francisco/Bay area where we met with 12 companies. Of the 12 companies we met with in the Bay Area, 10 were solar manufacturing companies and almost all foresaw the potential of projects in the next 12 to 18 months.
I believe that even in this economic climate, we are off to a great start on our marketing and lead generation efforts and we continue to develop the building blocks for future economic development growth to occur. We hope to see you at our next Business on the Border Luncheon, October 6, 2009.
