Questa is a community of entrepreneurs, home-based and sole-proprietor businesses, family-owned enterprises, ambitious youth, and visionary innovators. The soon-to-be Questa Business Center is a place where all businesses, potential businesses, and residents alike will find services, training, workspace, resources, and support to launch their new ventures and help guide their business’ growth and expansion.
The Questa Economic Development Fund, partnering with the Village of Questa, will establish the new Business Center on-site at the Questa Public Library. Co-locating at the library will expand and enhance the beneficial offerings of this already successful community resource.
QEDF recently received two grants totaling $27,500 to launch the Questa Business Center. In addition, QEDF will invest an additional $5,000 for this initiative this year. $25,000 was awarded from the New Mexico Economic Development Department LEADS (Local Economic Assistance & Development Support) Fund, and $2,500 was received from Triad National Security LLC/Los Alamos National Laboratory.
With an entrepreneur-friendly environment that is open to the entire community, the Questa Business Center at the library will feature worktables, meeting space, a computer center/virtual training area, a professional multifunctional printer/copier/scanner/fax machine, a Smart Board-combination-whiteboard for brainstorming/notes, video meetings, and PowerPoint displays. Personnel will be available on site to assist with equipment, computers, and other resource needs.
A year-round schedule of no-cost or low-cost business-oriented training and learning opportunities will be central to the mission of the Business Center. Workshops will be presented by instructors who are local business leaders, corporate partners, specialists in their fields, or from UNM-Taos, Taos HIVE (Hub for Internet Vocational Education), the Small Business Development Center, Questa Schools, and more.
The workshops will consist of tech training, career skills development, information on funding resources, one-on-one consulting sessions, legal principles, business basics, and other programming tailored to support the needs and requests of the community.
Once funding is received later this summer, the copier and Smart Board will be purchased; the first training sessions will be scheduled for early September, and a community open house will be announced.
For more information, or to share your ideas about the Business Center, contact Lynn Skall, QEDF Director, at lynn@questaedf.com, or leave a message at (575) 586-2149.
