NM: State Economic Development Department Awards Record Job Training Funds of $6 Million+ in May  | Trade and Industry Development

NM: State Economic Development Department Awards Record Job Training Funds of $6 Million+ in May 

May 28, 2024
JTIP exceeds $6 million, highlights New Mexico’s strength in science and technology innovation 

The May 2024 Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP) funding was approved to provide 13 New Mexico companies with over $6 million in potential training funds. This month’s record allotment of funding will support up to 405 New Mexico employees.

“JTIP reimburses New Mexico companies a portion of the cost to train workers and thereby grow their local workforce,” Acting EDD Cabinet Secretary Mark Roper said. “This month’s funding has exceeded previous record highs while also highlighting the unique and innovative science and technology enterprises in the state.”

Higher levels of reimbursements are available for positions in rural and frontier areas, for New Mexico higher education graduates, and other criteria.

Companies awarded are located in Albuquerque, Belen, Los Alamos, Rio Rancho, Sant Fe, and Taos. Altogether, they hope to hire and train 404 trainees and one intern.

The 13 companies receiving May 2024 JTIP approvals are:

Arcosa Wind Towers, Belen, 86 trainees, average wage of $23.80, total awarded $1,013,282. 

Arcosa fabricates turbine manufacturers’ designs or works with its customers in the design and fabrication of towers to meet the specific criteria of the turbine and project location. Arcosa has leveraged knowledge in the fabrication of tubular steel structures to set industry-wide standards in safety, quality, delivery, and cost.

B PUBLIC Prefab, PBC, Santa Fe, 1 intern with a wage of $28, total awarded $8,960. 

B PUBLIC Prefab, a woman-owned Public Benefit Corporation, is a team of architects and designers who work to facilitate new construction projects through education, estimating, design, and technical support to architects, engineers, homeowners, builders, and developers.

EMPOCC, LLC dba Oasis Cannabis Company, Albuquerque, 50 trainees, average wage of $19.28, total awarded $260,100.

EMPOCC, LLC is a professional employer organization for Oasis Cannabis Co. The company employs over 120 Oasis Cannabis Co employees currently, with 40 being in the production and manufacturing facility in Albuquerque. The production facility services five stores in Albuquerque and one in Farmington.

Hoonify Technologies Inc., Albuquerque, 4 trainees, average wage of $55.80, total awarded $131,447.

Hoonify Technologies is primarily a software company, putting national labs-level supercomputing power into the hands of everyone with TurbOS, their all-in-one High-Performance Computing (HPC) software platform. TurbOS equips clients with high-performance parallel computing and optimized applications and workflows that are proven in the most demanding environments.

Humble Brands Inc., Taos, 10 trainees, average wage of $24.25, total awarded $148,060.

Humble is an aluminum-free deodorant containing simple, clean, and sustainably sourced ingredients scented only with pure botanicals. Additionally, the company formulated a nourishing lip balm and hand-crafted bar soap with the same less-is-more philosophy and they have more products currently in development.

Infinity Labs, LLC, Albuquerque, 8 trainees, average wage of $63.55, total awarded $292,571.96.

Infinity Labs primarily serves the defense industry with software development, modeling, simulation, and general research and development. Infinity is also developing commercial products to market targeted towards commercial applications. Current NM customers include the Air Force Research Laboratory and Sandia National Labs.

Intel Corporation, Rio Rancho, 200 trainees, average wage of $47.50, total awarded $3.23 million.

As Intel's innovation hub, the Intel NM site plays a unique role in the company's mission to make technology with the power to improve the lives of everyone on the planet. The Fab 9 and Fab 11x facilities in Rio Rancho represent the first operational site for mass production of Intel’s 3D advanced packaging technology. It is also Intel's first co-located high-volume advanced packaging site, marking an end-to-end manufacturing process that creates a more efficient supply chain from demand to final product.

LoadPath, LLC, Albuquerque, 6 trainees, average wage of $53.83, total awarded $180,574. 

LoadPath’s highly technical engineering staff has extensive experience in the design and evaluation of multiple payload adapters, deployable payloads, CubeSat components and launch accommodations, reconfigurable thermal control subsystems, missile structures, and reentry vehicles throughout the complete concept-to-flight development cycle. Additionally, LoadPath has exceptional manufacturing capabilities for the development of novel launch vehicle and satellite composite structures.

Molten Salt Solutions, LLC, Santa Fe, 3 trainees, average wage of $43.59, total awarded $73,422.72. 

The core technology at Molten Salt Solutions, developed in collaboration with LANL, is a novel approach to liquid-liquid extraction of isotopes. Initially, the company is targeting the need for lower-cost, large-scale purification of lithium isotopes. Other nuclear power technologies will also require large-scale enrichment of isotopes. Additionally, there is a large market for stable isotopes used in medical imaging and research.

Olive Tree Pharmacy, Co., Rio Rancho, 2 trainees, average wage of $15.75, total awarded $5,040.

Olive Tree Pharmacy, Co. produces specialized, non-sterile medications for families and pets throughout New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Maryland, Georgia, Alaska, Illinois, and Indiana. Olive Tree’s compounded products are an alternative to commercially available retail medications and are individually tailored to meet the specific needs of their patients.

Pajarito Powder LLC (shown above), Albuquerque, 14 trainees, average wage of $47.94, total awarded $381,778.

Pajarito Powder’s 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. Pajarito’s work on catalysts used in green hydrogen production will dramatically reduce the amount of iridium (one of the most expensive, hardest-to-source elements on the planet) needed in state-of-the-art catalysts.

UbiQD, Inc., Los Alamos, 10 trainees, average wage of $53.83, total awarded $307,548.

UbiQD 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.

Vibrant Corporation, Albuquerque, 11 trainees, average wage of $41.49, total awarded $257,980.

Vibrant’s PCRT services support the worldwide aerospace, automotive, and power generation industries, as well as materials laboratories with unparalleled nondestructive testing (NDT). PCRT applications range from quality assurance and process capability assessment for original equipment manufacturers to in-service structural assessment and life monitoring for maintenance, repair, and overhaul organizations.

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