NM: Eleven New Mexico Companies Awarded State Job Training Funds in July

The New Mexico Economic Development Department (EDD) approved its monthly allocations of job training funds at the July 2024 Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP) board meeting. EDD Acting Secretary Mark Roper announced that eleven companies applied for nearly $1.2 million this month, in preparation for hiring and training up to 93 new employees. 

JTIP is a tool used by the state to encourage relocation, growth, and hiring within New Mexico. Companies are reimbursed a percentage of eligible trainee expenses once training has been completed. The reimbursement percentages are designed to incentivize hiring in rural and frontier locations, hiring New Mexico higher education graduates and Veterans, and other criteria. The board meets monthly to approve applications during a public meeting in which companies can provide additional information to back up their request. 

“The JTIP program is an essential tool for supporting communities and businesses as they move our economy forward,” Roper said. “Employers from across the state are creating high-quality jobs for New Mexicans.” 

This month, JTIP funding was provided to companies located in Albuquerque, Deming, Las Cruces, Los Alamos, Placitas, Roswell, and Santa Fe. The eleven applicants are: 

Century Sign Builders, Albuquerque, 2 trainees with an average wage of $24. Total award is $25,424.

Century Sign Builders designs, manufactures, and installs interior and exterior signage nationwide. The company handles signage from design to installation and guarantees its work for the life of the building.  

ErgoTech Systems, Inc., Los Alamos, 2 trainees with an average wage of $45. Total award is $52,398.

ErgoTech develops software to be used by engineers with little or no programming or software development skills to build applications for collecting data, monitoring industrial equipment and machinery, and displaying the values from these processes and machines on user interfaces.  

Higher Cultures LLC, Las Cruces, 7 trainees with an average wage of $21. Total award is $50,130. 

Higher Cultures aims to provide the best quality cannabis products in New Mexico, to run a responsible and profitable business, and to create quality jobs in the communities in which they operate. Higher Cultures New Mexico is focused on manufacturing, the area the company has the most experience in.  

Little Toad Creek, LLC (DBA: Little Toad Creek Brewery and Distillery), Deming, 9 trainees with an average wage of $19. Total award is $91,782.

Little Toad Creek operates a nano-brewery and distillery, a seasonal rural hotel, restaurant, and tasting room, and a year-round restaurant and tasting room in downtown Silver City. Since 2014, the company has experienced a steady growth in sales and beer production has tripled. 

Molten Salt Solutions, LLC, Santa Fe, 3 trainees with an average wage of $43. Total award is $72,339.

Molten Salt Solutions provides advanced materials – specifically, isotopically enriched materials – that will be required by companies commercializing new nuclear power generation technologies. The company’s core technology, developed in collaboration with LANL, is a novel approach to liquid-liquid extraction of isotopes.  

New Mexico Consortium (NMC), Los Alamos, 2 trainees with an average wage of $47. Total award is $54,880.

NMC is a partnership between the three New Mexico Universities and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The company collaborates with scientific and educational institutions to support research and education. NMC’s efforts include research that addresses global, national, and local environmental issues, with a current focus on solar energy, high-performance computing, food security, and biofuels.  

Pajarito Powder LLC, Albuquerque, 4 trainees with an average wage of $32. Total award is $73,055.

Pajarito Powder is a privately held LLC, funded by Verge Fund, Omphalos Venture Partners, assorted angel investors, Hyundai Motor Company, and Bekaert Corporation. Their primary products include Engineered Catalyst Supports™ (ECS products) and Platinum Group Metal (PGM) catalysts for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV), advanced catalysts for electrolyzers, Engineered Electrolyzer Catalysts™ (EEC products), and Precious Metal Free™ (PMF) catalysts that are entirely free of PGMs. 

Pecos Valley Production, Inc. (PVP), Roswell, 55 trainees with an average wage of $21. Total award is $674,232.

PVP runs a cannabis cultivation campus and takes a wide collection of products from different manufacturers. PVP provides innovative cannabis products to customers and works to spread awareness about cannabis. The company has 21 dispensary locations in 11 NM counties. PVP also offers one-to-one consultations. 

Securin, Inc., Albuquerque, 3 trainees with an average wage of $22. Total award is $21,600.

In 2022, Cyber Security Works (CSW) acquired Securin, Inc., a leading provider of tech-enabled cybersecurity solutions, helping customers worldwide gain resilience against emerging threats. Securin provides customers with a comprehensive suite of security solutions such as ASM, VI, Vulnerability Management, and Penetration Testing to level up their security.  

The Grow NM Inc., Placitas, 5 trainees with an average wage of $17. Total award is $37,650.

The Grow NM was established recently as the new name for the gardening operations of Leaf & Flower NM. The company has four indoor gardening operations, a packaging department, and seven retail store locations and now has a Vertically Integrated Cannabis Establishment (VICE) license.  

UbiQD, Inc., Los Alamos, 1 trainee with average wage of $72. Total amended award is $41,252.

UbiQD (shown above) is an advanced materials company that manufactures high-performance cadmium-free quantum dots and composite materials. UbiQD offers products that utilize quantum dots which are incredibly small pieces of material with photoluminescence referring to the light emitted from matter that can be tuned based on size. Quantum dots are known for their near-perfect ability to convert one color of light into another.