County hires economic development director

Position to build private capital

Taos County management’s newest hire is taking on a slightly different role. The new Economic Development Director, Patti Sunday, was hired to find private capital to help aid Taos County’s quickly evolving economy.

Sunday, who comes to Taos County from Panama City, Florida, where she served as the city’s manager of economic development, was brought on late last year to fill a brand new position created by the county.

She said she is creating the role as she goes, but acknowledged “it’s

mostly about attracting private capital. We’ve got plenty of people doing government fund stuff.”

Rather than the more traditional bureaucratic act of grant-writing

to request funds, Sunday’s goal will be to find sources of private

money to inject into the local economy. “I’m probably the least

government person in this building,” she said.

The county created the position in order to help bring in new

funding sources and broaden the county’s tax base through the introduction of new private capital,

said Taos County Manager Brent Jaramillo.

Before she can begin reaching out to her network of private donors, Sunday said she is starting

her job by identifying the needs

of the various “micro-economies” that exist in Taos County.

“In the county, there’s the macro-economy — the whole thing — but then there are little microeconomies,” she said, referencing

places like Taos Ski Valley, Red River and Arroyo Seco.

This is where her background in advertising (she ran an ad agency in Mexico for 20 years) comes in

handy, as she said getting to know the different micro-economies is just like getting to know your customer.

“Taos is a customer, Arroyo Seco is a customer, Picuris Pueblo is a customer, and none of those are

the same,” said Sunday. “They’re all in the same region. But they’re completely different. So the approach of economic development is a lot of ‘know your customers.’ ”

In order to get to better know the region for which she is seeking investments, she said she has been driving around the different parts of the county to get to know places and businesses on a more personal level. However, she said the best way to recognize and analyze

the economic needs of the county is by running the numbers.

Sunday is familiar with data, and said she likes to work with

hard facts. “We’ve got to get our metrics first in order to tell our

story and be competitive nationally,” she said. “The data will show us the industries where we are short and then I will create assets where I attract certain types of entrepreneurs and private capital, to say, ‘Here’s something that we know that we’re short on and here’s something that could happen.’ ”

Sunday, who officially started at the top of the year, said it should take her about 90 days to gather the data, at which point various needs can begin to be addressed.

Though she was clear that the data will show the overall needs, Sunday acknowledged affordable and sustainable housing as one area of focus. She made a clear distinction between “affordable

housing” and “sustainable housing,” saying the focus should be on

providing housing that is sustainable for people over time, not just affordable at the moment. “I think

private capital will probably be the entity that solves that [sustainable

housing issue] not just government funds.”

Sunday is excited to see what private capital can do for Taos County. “We’ve been trained around here to either rely on the

ski resorts and tourism or [figuring out] a way to get the most government funds, and then we live or die by that. Now we’re bringing in a whole new option into the mix.”