In 2012, Associated General Contractors New Mexico (AGC) began working with the Greater Gallup Economic Development Corporation (GGEDC) and UNM-Gallup to connect the local education system with job opportunities.  An informal agreement was signed to help align what students learn at school with what employers need at the workplace and what industries need to locate in northwest New Mexico.  We struck up a new conversation to see how worlds that sometimes collide can cement new partnerships that benefit the whole community.

The three-way partnership among AGC, GGEDC, and UNM also reaches into the Gallup-McKinley school system.  In order for students to graduate “career ready” and...

The Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments is using the resources of a federal EDA “POWER” grant and working with partners in our region to create jobs replacing energy and coal jobs that have been or will be lost.

The long-term demand for coal has fallen, with energy industry sources blaming governmental regulation, international climate agreements, alternative energy production, and supply-and-demand pressure as the culprits. The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates that U.S. coal production in the Western region will decline by 20% in 2016.

Farmington, NM has recently been named as the “Fastest Shrinking City in the US,” and general economic trends in the Four...

While at first glance jewelry-making and construction technology may appear to have little in common, two creative instructors at the UNM-Gallup campus found a way to bring their departments together to improve the work environment for one group while providing valuable educational experience to the other.

Kristi Wilson, Visiting Assistant Professor and Instructor of Small Metals Construction, received an internal mini-grant to fund the design and construction of new jewelers benches for her students.

Chris Chavez, Instructor and Coordinator of Construction Technology, was happy to have his students construct the new ergonomically correct island workstations which gave them...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Members from communities that have been hardest hit by the growing opioid crisis joined together today to introduce legislation calling for more than $1 billion in funding to combat the epidemic.

Led by Representatives Ben Ray Luján (NM-3), Elijah E. Cummings (MD-7), Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-40), Joe Kennedy III (MA-4), Derek Kilmer (WA-6), and Anne McLane Kuster (NH-2), the Opioid and Heroin Abuse Crisis Investment Act has the support of 90 House Democrats and reflects President Obama’s budget request for much-needed resources to increase treatment programs that will help address the drug crisis.

In 2014, 47,055 people died from drug overdose, with opioid...