Ms. Claudette Baca

Claudette Baca is currently working toward an MBA.She holds a BBA from the Anderson School of Management at UNM.During her freshman year of college Claudette worked as an Intern at the SBDC UNM Valencia Campus.She also served as an Intern at the Hispano Chamber of Commerce in Albuquerque.Since 2000 Claudette has been a Business Counselor with the TVI SBDC.Her expertise in marketing and finance is a great benefit to her clients.

This past year Bob and Claudette served 500 clients at the SBDC assisting them with business planning, marketing concepts, and resource management.
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In the midst of their already busy schedules Bob and Claudette serve on several committees: Marketing, Quality Council, Professional Development, and Board of Examiners of Quality N.M. CAREERS is very pleased to have an ongoing partnership with this dynamic team.

Though the NMRDRC is still available to help the community with government relations and technical assistance, the project is now fully in the hands of Claudette Baca.Ms Baca is the Executive Director of the Heart of Belen and has just officially kicked off the beginning of construction with a public press conference that included the participation of US Senator Jeff Bingaman.

With counselor Claudette Baca at the SBDC, Shires put together plans, profit-loss projections and zoning requests.

Claudette Bace, executive director of GBEDC, said she had never heard of the DPAC program before she approached the group about Belen's project, but she was very pleased with the results.

"We've been working with them for four months now, and it's just been exciting to see them when they came in and their eyes were all wide open and now they have all these different ideas," she said.

Claudette Baca-Riley, executive director of GBEDC, said now that the first step of developing plans for the area is complete, the group and the city have begun focusing on finding money for improvements to sidewalks, lighting and landscaping.

Work on the first two blocks of the seven block project will begin soon, thanks to $333,000 in Municipal Arterial Program (MAP) money, $233,000 in enhancement funding and $70,000 from the city.The first phase will include infrastructure and street improvements, lighting, benches, and the creation of a plaza area and an arch designed to serve as an entrance point into the area at the intersection of Main Street and Becker Ave.

"We're trying to create a plaza-type feel and create a gateway to the historic district," Baca-Riley said.

Although the project is still in the planning stages, Claudette Baca, executive director of GBEDC, said a $50,000 technical assistance grant from the New Mexico Rural Development Response Council has been obtained to pay for research and planning.

The Idea Group of Santa Fe, a consulting company hired to work on the project, has started researching the possibility of using the old Belen City Hall building, circa 1929, as a hub for the downtown area.One of the first projects is to decide what kind of facility the area needs, and begin looking for funding to do needed renovations.

"The cornerstone of the project is the 1929 Old City Hall building," Baca said.
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As part of the information-gathering process, Baca and Kristin Humes of the Idea Group have begun compiling a list of properties along Becker and are trying to determine who owns them.

Belen If you ask Claudette Baca, the new executive director for the Greater Belen Economic Development Corporation, what Belen needs is a Starbucks - and soon.

The 28-year-old Belen native joked that her only qualm about moving from her job with the Small Business Development Center at the Technical-Vocational Institute in Albuquerque to a position in her hometown was the prospect of losing her afternoon coffee break.

"I need a Starbucks or a coffee shop or something," she said."At my old job, we were a mile from two Starbucks, and, every day at two, we'd have our Starbucks.So now around two o'clock, I'm like, 'I could go for a Frapuccino right now.'"

Baca, a 1994 graduate of Belen High School, replaced former executive director, Mary Lou Chavez, who resigned in February.
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Baca said she did not originally plan to get into the business of growing businesses.In fact, when she started college at the University of New Mexico's Valencia County campus, she was planning to go into medicine.

"Actually, I was a pharmacy major," she said."The first semester, I didn't have a job, but the second semester, I was like 'I need some money, I need to work,' so I got a work-study position with the Small Business Development Center there, and, after a few months, I was like, 'You know what?This business stuff is pretty cool.' I really liked the marketing aspect of it, so I went from being a pharmacy major to majoring in business and marketing."

After completing her degree, Baca was hired by the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce, where she worked with small businesses, and she later moved on to the Small Business Development Center at T-VI, where, Baca said, she loved the interaction with small-business owners her job brought to her.

"Dealing with small businesses, they're so fun, because you don't have the whole corporate mindset," she said."It's very laid back.I've assisted over 50 businesses to get started. ... Just to see the ambition and the skills they have and, most importantly, their ideas, because you're sitting there and they come in with this idea and you're like 'Oh my gosh, you could really make money doing that.'"

But although Baca found her work in Albuquerque rewarding, she said living in Belen made her wish she could use her skills in her hometown.

"I'm born and raised from Belen," she said."So that was the biggest challenge I had was that I was helping the economy in Albuquerque, and when I could come shopping to Wal-Mart, seeing the Furr's building empty and all these different vacancies popping up, I was like 'You know what?With what I'm doing in Albuquerque, I can somehow bring my skills and my knowledge down here.'"

Although her new position calls for Baca to do more work towards bringing outside companies into Belen, she said she believes her understanding of the perspective of small businesses will help her be sensitive to the needs of the community.

"My biggest thing is to bring in retail to where everyone who works here can shop here and keep the gross receipts here to make our schools better and our roads better," she said.

Claudette Bace, executive director of GBEDC, said she had never heard of the DPAC program before she approached the group about Belen's project, but she was very pleased with the results.

"We've been working with them for four months now, and it's just been exciting to see them when they came in and their eyes were all wide open and now they have all these different ideas," she said.

Claudette Baca, executive director of the Greater Belen Economic Development Corporation, said that an increase in residents could be of tremendous help to Belen in attracting business chains to the area.

"People sometimes don't realize that certain businesses look for a population of 10,000 at a minimum before they consider coming to a community," she said.

Claudette BacaMembership Representative

claudette baca@ahcnm.org