Small-business success

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, known as Small Business Saturday, offers an opportunity every year to celebrate the jobs, helpful products and services, and economic wealth that small businesses bring to our communities. They must learn how to mitigate risk and quickly adapt to change — as witnessed now more than ever — and navigate critical challenges while they maintain or expand their operations. As they face these challenges, small businesses can turn to experts from the national labs for help.

In 2000, the New Mexico Legislature created the Laboratory Partnership with Small Business Tax Credit Act. As a result, Sandia established the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program to provide technical support to small businesses throughout the state. Los Alamos National Laboratory began participating in 2007. Since the program’s inception, NMSBA has provided $76.1 million of technical assistance to over 3,200 businesses.

“For more than two decades, the NMSBA Program has helped New Mexico businesses create jobs, increase revenues, decrease operating costs and attract new funding opportunities,” said David Kistin, manager of Sandia’s Technology and Economic Development department.

Last year, hundreds of companies were able to test new product ideas, validate their technology or increase operational efficiency with the expertise and resources found at the labs and their contract partners. The top industries served were professional, scientific and technical services (41.5%); manufacturing (37.6%); and agriculture and natural resources (9.8%). The top capabilities used were manufacturing (20.6%), engineering (18.8%) and advanced modeling and simulation (12.8%).

Read more in the Lab News article and NMSBA Perspectives Annual Report. 

Share this story: