Raton Basin Economic Development views regional assets Chaé Organics, TSJC, Whittington, Philmont, and Angel Fire make list of major assets for the region

by Bill Knowles
TRINIDAD — “There is an energy in the area that comes from the people who are moving into the region.  And that energy can be used to bring about change,” notes the Executive Director for Trinidad and Las Animas Economic Development, Walt Boulden, who sees assets at hand that can be applied to the economic development of the region. 
“But this development is a work in progress and funding to help sustain the efforts is difficult to find,” said Boulden.  He also knows that sources of funding which provide larger grants to feed business development like to see collaboration on a regional scale.
Fortunately, regional collaboration has a history in the Raton Basin area.  Trinidad State Junior College has a reciprocal agreement with Colfax County, New Mexico that clearly links the participants as a region.  Huerfano County and Las Animas County in Colorado, have traditionally shared services such as the County Health Department, Social Services, and District Attorney. 
Boulden notes that revenues the three counties in the Raton Basin region received from coal and gas operations are no longer available.  He recalls a bumper sticker he once saw on a pick-up truck in Wyoming.  It read: “Please God, one more boom.  We promise not to waste that one.”  Boulden, John Galusha from Huerfano County, and Bill Sauble of Colfax County, New Mexico all agree the economic conditions in the Raton Basin region have seen better days.
The economics of energy development has shifted so that coal and gas are in the bust end of the cycle.  They all note that it is now necessary to nurture an environment that will support diversified business development.  
The college is a big asset for the region.  Trinidad State Junior College provides the academic base for the rest of the region.  One example is the Science and Technology program the college offers.  Boulden says with students from the program placing first in national robotic competition for the second year, “This is a program that will help boost the region’s ability to attract high tech business and manufacturing, offering a trained work force.”
Another example is the gunsmithing certification that TSJC offers.  This provides a trained workforce that the NRA Whittington Center, located in Colfax County, New Mexico, can draw from.  “This helps keep a trained work force localized,” said Sauble. 
Retention of a trained work force drawing a good wage is necessary to economic development. Workers tend to stay in an area, building careers and families.  They purchase housing and send their kids to local schools.  Their children then stay and repeat the process.  Communities thrive.  
The chairman of the Colfax County commission also noted his county is home to the Philmont Scout Ranch, an internationally recognized Boy Scout Ranch that employs between 1,200 to 1,500 seasonal employees.  The ranch hosts around 25,000 scouts each summer.  “We need to keep Amtrak in the area.  The Southwest Chief brings a large number of the scouts that use Philmont each year.”  Colfax County is also home to Angel Fire Resort, a ski area that draws visitors from all over the world.
At the north end of the Raton Basin region, “Huerfano County has been successful helping businesses such as Chaé Organics stay in the county,” said Huerfano County Administrator Galusha.  The Chaé Organics company, which makes high end organic cosmetics, has moved into its new building and has added 15 more jobs.  “Next year when their new expansion is finished, they will add 15 more jobs,” said Galusha.
Galusha calls the Raton Basin Regional Economic Development Plan ambitious.  “It is doable,” he notes.  “We have to work together as a region because as the saying goes, ‘No one is an island’ and we have to compete together.”