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Allen, Joel, Rosemary, and Yolanda discuss a German study finding 99.8% of birds avoid wind turbines, challenging long-standing collision risk models. They also cover Pattern Energy’s SunZia project nearing completion as the Western Hemisphere’s largest renewable project, lightning monitoring strategies for large-scale wind farms, and offshore flange alignment technology. Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia 2026!Learn more about CICNDTDownload the latest issue of PES Wind Magazine Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now, here’s your host. Alan Hall, Joel Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Alan Hall in the queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina, where a cold front is just blown through, but we’re not nearly as cold as Joel was up in Wisconsin, Joel, you had a bunch of snow, which is really the first big storm of the season. Joel Saxum: Yeah, the crazy thing here was the Wind Energy Podcast. So since that storm I, we, we got up in northern Wisconsin, 18 inches of snow, and then we drove down on last Saturday after US Thanksgiving through Iowa, there’s another 18 inches of snow in Des Moines. I talked to a more than one operator that had icing and snow issues at their wind farms all through the northern Midwest of these states. So from [00:01:00] North Dakota. All the way down to Nebraska, Northern Missouri, over into Indiana. There was a ton of turbines that were iced up and or snowed in from that storm, Allen Hall: and Rosemary was in warm Australia with other icing knowledge or de-icing knowledge while the US has been suffering. Rosemary Barnes: But you know, on the first day of summer here, a couple of days ago, it was minus one here overnight. So. Um, yeah, it’s, uh, unseasonable and then tomorrow it’ll be 35. Allen Hall: The smartest one of us all has been Yolanda, down in Austin, Texas, where it doesn’t get cold. Yolanda Padron: Never. It’s so nice. It’s raining today and that’s about it. Traffic’s going crazy. Joel Saxum: Rain is welcome for us, isn’t it though, Yolanda? Yolanda Padron: It’s sweet. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does. Very rainy for like 24 hours. Allen Hall: We’ve been saving a story for a couple of weeks until Rosemary is back and it has to do with birds and a year long study over [00:02:00] in Germany. And as we know, one of the most persistent arguments against wind energy has been the risk to birds and permitting and operation shutdowns have been the norm, uh, based on models and predicted collision risks. Well. A new study comes, has just come out that says, what if the models are all wrong? And the new German study suggests that they may be wrong. The Federal Association of Offshore Wind Energy, known by its German acronym, BWO Commission Research to examine. Actual collision risk at a coastal wind farm in Northern Germany. The study was conducted by Biocon Consult, a German research and consulting firm, and funded by eight major offshore wind operators, including Sted, Vattenfall, RWE, and E, roa, and. Rosemary using some of the newer technology. They were able to track bird movements with radar [00:03:00] and AI and stereo vision cameras to, to watch birds move through and around, uh, some of these wind farms. And it analyzed more than 4 million bird movements and over 18 months, and they searched for collision victims and what they found was pretty striking more than 99.8% of both day migrating and night migrating birds. Avoided the turbines entirely. The study found no correlation between migration intensity and collision rates. And BD and BWO says The combination of radar and AI based cameras represents a methodological breakthrough. Uh, that can keep turbines moving even when birds are in transit. This is pretty shocking news, honestly, Rosemary, I, I haven’t seen a lot of long-term studies about bird movements where they really had a lot of technology involved to, besides binoculars, to, to look at bird movement. The [00:04:00] 99.8% of the migrating birds are going around The turbines. No, the turbines are there. That’s. Really new information. Rosemary Barnes: I think. I mean, if you never heard anything about wind turbines and birds, I don’t think you’d be shocked like that. Birds mostly fly around obstacles. That’s probably an intuitive, intuitive answer. Because we’ve had it shoved down our throat for decades now. Wind turbines are huge bird killers. It’s kind of like, it’s been repeated so often that it kind of like sinks in and becomes instinctive, even though, yeah, I do think that, um, it’s. Not that, that shocking that an animal with eyes avoids a big obstacle when it’s flying. Um, but it is really good that somebody has actually done more than just trying to look for bird deaths. You know, they’ve actually gone out, seen what can we find, and then reported that they found mostly nothing. We already knew the real risks for birds, like hundreds or thousands, even millions of times [00:05:00] more, um, deadly to birds are things like. Cats. Cars, buildings, even power lines kill more birds than, um, wind turbines do. In fact, like when you look at, um, the studies that look at wind, um, bird deaths from wind turbines, most of those are from people driving, like workers driving to site and hitting a bird with their cars. Um, you know, that’s attributed to wind energy. Not a surprise maybe for people that have been following very closely, but good to see the report. Nonetheless. Joel Saxum: I think it’s a win for like the global wind industry, to be honest with you, because like you said, there’s, there’s no, um, like real studies of this with, that’s backed up by metric data with, like I said, like the use stereo cameras. Radar based AI detection and, and some of those things, like if you talk with some ornithologists for the big OEMs and stuff, they’ve been dabbling in those things. Like I dabbled in a project without a DTU, uh, a while back and it, but it wasn’t large scale done like this. A [00:06:00] particular win this study in the United States is there’s been this battle in the United States about what birds and what, you know, raptors or these things are controlled or should have, um, controls over them by the governments for wind installations. The big one right now is US Fish and Wildlife Service, uh, controls raptors, right? So that’s your eagle’s, owls, hawks, those kind of things. So they’ll map out the nests and you can only go in certain areas, uh, or build in certain areas depending on when their mating seasons are. And they put mild buffers on some of them. It’s pretty crazy. Um, but the one rule in the United States, it’s been kind of floated out there, like, we’re gonna throw this in your face, wind industry. Is the Federal Migratory Bird Act, which is also how they regulate all like the, the hunting seasons. So it’s not, it’s the reason that the migratory birds are controlled by the federal government as opposed to state governments is because they cross state lines. And if we can [00:07:00] prove now via this study that wind farms are not affecting these migratory bird patterns or causing deaths, then it keeps the feds out of our, you know, out of the permitting process for. For birds, Rosemary Barnes: but I’m not sure this is really gonna change that much in terms of the environmental approvals that you need to do because it’s a, you know, a general, a general thing with a general, um, statistical population doesn’t look at a specific wind farm with a specific bird and you’re still need to go. You’re still going to have to need to look at that every time you’re planning an actual wind farm. That’s it’s fair. Yolanda Padron: And it’s funny sometimes how people choose what they care or don’t care about. I know living in a high rise, birds will hit the window like a few a month. And obviously they will pass away from impact and the building’s not going anywhere. Just like a turbine’s not going anywhere. And I’ve never had anybody complain to [00:08:00] me about living and condoning high rises because of how they kill the birds. And I’ve had people complain to me about wind turbines killing the birds. It’s like, well, they’re just there. Joel Saxum: If we’re, if we’re talking about energy production, the, if everybody remembers the deep water horizon oil spill 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. That oil spill killed between 801.2 million birds. Just that one. Speaker 6: Australia’s wind farms are growing fast, but are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Poolman on the park for Wind energy o and M Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at W om a 2020 six.com. Wind Energy o and m Australia [00:09:00] is created by wind professionals for wind professionals because this industry needs solutions, not speeches Allen Hall: well in the high desert of Central New Mexico, near a lot of what were ghost towns that were abandoned during the Great Depression. If there is a flurry of activity pattern, energy sunzi, a project is near completion after 20 years of planning and permitting. When. It’s supposed to be finished in 2026. It’ll be the largest renewable energy project in the Western hemisphere. More than 900 turbines spread across multiple counties. A 550 mile transmission line stretching to Arizona and then onward to California, and $11 billion bet that’s being made on American wind. Now, Joel, it’s a kind of a combination of two OEMs there, Vestus and ge. The pace of building has been really rapid over the last six, eight months from what I can [00:10:00] tell. Joel Saxum: Yeah. We have talked to multiple ISPs, EPC contractors. Um, of course we know some of the engineers involved in building a thing on the pattern side. Right. But this sheer size of this thing, right, it’s, it is three and a half gigawatts, right? You’re talking 900 turbines and, and so big that one OEM really couldn’t, I mean, it’s a, it’s a risk hedge, right? But couldn’t fulfill the order. So you have massive ge tur set of turbines out there. Massive set of vestas turbines out there. And I think one thing that’s not to be missed on this project as well is that transmission line, that high voltage transmission line that’s feeding this thing. Because that’s what we need, right? That was when we built, started building up big time in Texas, the cre, the crest lines that were built to bring all of that wind energy to the major cities in Texas. That was a huge part of it. And we have seen over the last six months, we have seen loans canceled, uh, permits being pulled and like troubles being in hurdles, being thrown up in the face of a lot of these transmission lines that are planned. [00:11:00] These big ones in the states. And that’s what we need for energy security in the future, is these big transmission lines to go. So we can get some of this generation to, uh, to the market, get electrons flowing into homes and into industry. But this thing here, man, um, I know we’ve been talking about Sunz, the Sunz project, uh, and all the people involved in it, in the wind industry for a, what, two, three years now? Oh, at least. Yeah. It’s been in planning and development stage for much longer than that. But the. The, the big bet. I like it. Um, bringing a lot of, um, bringing a lot of economic opportunity to New Mexico, right? A place that, uh, if you’ve driven across New Mexico lately, it needs it in a dire way. Uh, and this is how wind energy can bring a lot of, uh, economic boom to places that, uh, hadn’t had it in the past. Allen Hall: And this being the largest project to date, there’s a, I think a couple more than a pipeline that could be larger if they get moving on them. We see another project like this five years [00:12:00] from now, or we think we’re gonna scale down and stay in the gigawatt range just because of the scale and the things that Sunzi went through. Joel Saxum: We have the choke chair, Sierra Madre project up in Wyoming that’s been chugging the Anschutz Corporation’s been pushing that thing for a long time. That’s, that’s along the same size of this unit. Um, and it’s the same thing. It’s, it’s kind of hinged on, I mean, there’s permitting issues, but it’s hinged on a transmission line being built. I think that one’s like 700. 50 miles of transmission. That’s supposed to be, it’s like Wyoming all the way down to Las Vegas. That project is sitting out there. Um, it’s hard to build something of that size in, like say the wind corridor, the Texas, Oklahoma, uh, you know, all the way up to the Dakotas, just simply because of the massive amount of landowners and public agencies involved in those things. It’s a bit easier when you get out West New Mexico. Um, I could see something like this happening possibly in Nevada. At some point in time to feed that California [00:13:00] side of things, right? But they’re doing massive solar farms out there. Same kind of concept. Um, I, I think that, um, I would love to see something like this happen, but to invest that kind of capital, you’ve got to have some kind of ITC credits going for you. Um, otherwise, I mean, $11 billion is, that’s a lot of money Allen Hall: since Zia will have PTC. Which is a huge driver about the economics for the entire project. Joel Saxum: Yeah. But you’re also seeing at the same time, just because of the volatility of what’s happening in the states wind wise, uh, there was a big article out today of someone who got wind that EDF may be selling its entire Allen Hall: US onshore renewable operation or US renewable operation. That was Wood Mac that. Put that out. And I’m still not sure that’s a hundred percent reliable, but they have been 50% for sale for a while. Everybody, I think everybody knew that. Joel Saxum: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s a hundred percent reliable as well. I would agree with you there. However, there’s, it’s the [00:14:00] same thought process of European company pulling outta the United States. That’s where a lot of the renewable energy capital is, or it has been fed to a lot of that capital comes from Canada and other places too. Right. But that’s where it’s been fed through. Um, but you’re starting to see some, some. Uh, purchasing some acquisitions, a little bit of selling and buying here and there. I don’t, I don’t think that there’s, uh, massive ones on the horizon. That’s just my opinion though. Allen Hall: Well, won’t the massive ones be offshore if we ever get back to it? Joel Saxum: Yeah, you would think so, right? But I, that’s gonna take a, uh, an administration change. I mean the, the, all that stuff you’d see out in California, like when we were originally seeing the leases come out and we were like, oh, great. More offshore opportunity. Ah, but it’s California, so it’ll be kind of tough. It probably won’t be till 20 32, 20, something like that. I don’t think we’ll see possibly California offshore wind until 2040 if we’re lucky. Allen Hall: Joel, what were the two wind turbines selected for Sunz? They were both new models, right? One from Renova and then the other one from [00:15:00] Vestas, Joel Saxum: so the Vestas was 242 V, 1 63, 4 0.5 megawatts machines, and the, and the GE Renova. Just so we get, make sure I get clarity on this. 674 of its three. They were 3.6, but they’re 3.61 50 fours. Allen Hall: Okay. So both turbine types are relatively new. New to the manufacturer. CZ has two new turbines styles on the site. Joel Saxum: Yeah, we were told that when they were originally like getting delivered, that they didn’t have type certificates yet. That’s how new they were. Allen Hall: So Yolanda. As Sania starts to turn on, what are things that they need to be aware of blade wise, Yolanda Padron: besides the lightning and the dust in New Mexico? It’s probably gonna tip them. I don’t know exactly what they’re counting with as far as leading edge protection goes. Allen Hall: Pattern usually doesn’t, uh, have a full service agreement. Joel, do you remember if that was an FSA? I don’t think so. Joel Saxum: I would say [00:16:00] because those are Vestas turbines on the one that, yes, Vestas really doesn’t sell a turbine without it. Knowing internally how big patterns engineering group are, I don’t know if they can completely take on the operations of a thousand more turbine, 900 more turbines overnight. Right? So I think that there is gonna be some OE EMM involvement in these things, uh, simply to be at that scale as well. I don’t know of anywhere else with a 1 54 install a GE 1 54. So the things that I wouldn’t looking out is the. It’s the brand new type stuff, right? Like do internal inspections when they’re on the ground. You don’t know what kind of condition these things are in, what, you know, what is the, you haven’t, nobody’s seen them. Like you’re the first ones to get to get your hands on these things. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I think they’re definitely gonna have to go with some sort of consulting or something externally as far as what exactly they’re dealing with. I know, Rosemary, you’ve touched on it a lot, right about. [00:17:00] How the changing the blade types and changing the turbines every x amount of years is really not conducive to, to being able to repeat the same results. And if you’re having that for hundreds of turbines at a new site that you’ve already had so much time and money invested in creating, it’ll, it’s, it’s a big undertaking. Rosemary Barnes: It’s really interesting because. When you have such a large wind farm be, I’m assuming one of the first wind farms may be the first to get this new turbine types, then if there’s a serial defect, it’s gonna be very obvious. ’cause with smaller wind farms, one of the problems is that, uh, the numbers are too small to definitively say whether something is, um, serial or just random bad luck. Um, but when you get. So how many wind turbines is it? Joel Saxum: Almost a thousand total. It’s [00:18:00] 674 GE turbines and 242 Vesta turbines. Rosemary Barnes: You can do statistics on that kind of a population and this area. I mean, there’s lightning there, right? Like this is not an area where you’re not gonna see lightning. You know, in know the first couple of years, like there, there will be. Hundreds of turbines damaged by lightning in the, the first couple of years I would suggest, um, or, you know, maybe not. Maybe the LPS are so, so great that that doesn’t happen. But, you know, the typical standard of LPS would mean that, you know, even if you only see, say we see 10 strikes per turbine to year and you get a 2% damage rate, that is, you know, lots of, lots of individual instances of blade damage, even if everything works as it should according to certification. And if it doesn’t, if you see a 10% damage rate or something from those strikes, then you are going to know that, you know, the, um, LPS is not performing the way that the standard says that it should. It’s not like that’s a slam dunk for, um, [00:19:00] proving that the design was not sufficient or the certification wasn’t correct. It’s always really, really tricky. My recommendation would be to make sure that you are monitoring the lightning strikes, so you know exactly which turbine is struck and when, and then go inspect them and see the damage. Ideally, you’re also gonna be measuring some of the characteristics of the lightning as well. But you do that from day one. Then if there is a problem, then you’re at least gonna have enough information within the, um, you know, the serial defect liability period to be able to do something about it. Joel Saxum: Let me ask you a question on that, on just the, that lightning monitoring piece then. So this is something that’s just, it’s of course we do this all the time, but this is boiling up in the thing. How do you, how do you monitor for lightning on 916 turbines? Probably spread, spread across. 200 square miles. Rosemary Barnes: Well, there’s, there’s heaps of different ways that you can do it. Um, so I mean, you can do remote, remote lightning detection, which is [00:20:00] not good enough. Then there are a range of different technologies that you can install in the, um, turbines. Um, the most simple and longest standing solution was a lightning cart, which is installed on the down conductor at the blade route. That will just tell you the amplitude of the biggest strike that that turbine has ever seen when it’s red. I have literally never seen a case where the lightning card definitively or even provided useful evidence one way or another when there’s a, a dispute about lightning. So then you move on to solutions that, uh, um. Measuring they use, uh, Alan, you’re the electrical engineer, but they, they use the, the principle that when there’s a large current flowing, then it also induces a magnetic field. And then you can use that to make a, a, a change and read characteristics about it. So you can tell, um, well first of all, that that turbine was definitely struck. So there are simple systems that can do that quite cheaply. The OGs ping [00:21:00] sensor, does that really cost effectively? Um, and then OG Ping. Phoenix Contact and Polytech all have a different product. Um, all have their own products that can tell you the charge, the duration, the um, polarity or the, yeah, the, the, if it’s a positive or a negative strike, um, yeah, rise time, things like that. Um, about the strike, that’s probably, probably, you don’t. Need to go to that extent. Um, I would say just knowing definitively which turbine was struck and when is gonna give you what you need to be able to establish what kind of a problem or if you have a problem and what kind of a problem it is. Joel Saxum: I think that like an important one there too is like, uh, so I know that Vest is in a lot of their FSA contracts will say if it’s struck by lightning, we have 48 or 72 hours to inspect it. Right. And when you’re talking something of this scale, 916 turbines out there, like if there’s a lightning storm, like [00:22:00]we’ve been watching, we watch a lot of lightning storms come through, uh, certain wind farms that we’re working with. And you see 20, 30, 40 turbines get struck. Now if a storm comes through the middle of this wind farm, you’re gonna have 200 turbines get struck. How in the hell do you go out without ha Like you need to have something that can narrow you down to exactly the turbines that we’re struck. That being said that next morning or over the next two days, you need to deploy like 10 people in trucks to drive around and go look at these things. That’s gonna be a massive problem. Pattern has about 3000 turbines, I think in their portfolio, and they, so they’re, they’re familiar with lightning issues and how things happen, but something at this scale when it’s just like so peaky, right? ’cause a storm isn’t through every night, so you don’t have that need to go and inspect things. But when you do. That is gonna be a massive undertaking. ’cause you gotta get people out there to literally like, at a minimum, binocular these things to make sure there isn’t any damage on ’em. And it’s gonna be, there’s gonna be storms where hundreds of turbines get hit. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, well [00:23:00] those three companies, those three products that I mentioned are aiming to get around that. I mean, it will depend how contracts are worded. I know in Australia it is not the norm to check for lightning ever. So if the contract says someone has to, you know, use human eyeballs to verify lightning damage or not, then. That’s, you know, that’s what has to happen. But all of these technologies do aim to offer a way that you wouldn’t have to inspect every single one. So Polytech is using, um, different lightning characteristics and then they’ve got an algorithm which they say will learn, um, which types of strike cause damage that could. Potentially progress to catastrophic damage. Um, and then the other one that is interesting is the eLog Ping solution because they’ve also got the, um, damage monitoring. That’s their original aim of their product, was that if there’s a damage on the blade tip, say it’s been punctured by lightning, it, it actually makes a noise. Like it makes a whistle and they listen out for that. So if you combine the [00:24:00]lightning detection and the, um, like blade. Tip structure monitoring from Ping, then you can get a good idea of which ones are damaged. Like if it’s damaged badly enough to fail, it is almost certainly gonna be making a noise that the ping can, um, detect Allen Hall: as wind energy professionals. Staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it, d. That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit PE ps win.com today and this quarter’s PES WIN Magazine. There’s a lot of great articles, and as we roll into December. You’ll have time to sit down and read them. You can download a free copy@pswin.com. And there’s a, a really interesting article about [00:25:00] offshore, and there’s a number of articles about offshore this quarter. Well, two Dutch companies developed a solution to really one of the industry’s most persistent headaches. And when it’s flange alignment. So when you’re trying to connect the transition piece to the mono paddle out in the water, it’s not really easy to do. Uh. So PES interviewed, uh, Ontech and Dutch heavy lift consultants to explain their flange alignment system known as FAS. And it started when a turbine installation needed a safer, faster way to try to align these two pieces. So if you can think about the amount of steel we’re talking about, these are really massive pieces you’re trying to line and put bolts in, not easy to do out in the ocean. Uh, so what this new device can do is it can align the flanges in a couple of minutes. It can reshape deformed, flanges and Joel, as you know, everything offshore can get dinged warped. That’s pretty easy to do, so you don’t want that when you have a, a heavily loaded, bolted joint, like those flanges to be [00:26:00] perfectly, uh, smooth to one another and, and tight. So these two companies, Amek and Dutch heavy Lifting consultants have come up with some pretty cool technology to speed up. Installations of wind turbines. Joel Saxum: Yeah, I would say anybody who’s interested in wind, offshore wind, any of that sort, and you have a little bit of an engineering mind or an engineering, uh, quirk in your mind. As, as I think we said earlier in the episode today, engineering nerds. Um, I would encourage you to go and look at some heavy lift operations offshore, whether it is offshore wind, offshore oil and gas, offshore construction of any time or any type even pipe lay operations and stuff. Just to take, just to take in the, the sheer scale. At how, uh, at how these things are being done and how difficult that would be to manage. Think about the just tons and tons of steel and, uh, trying to put these pieces together and these different things. And then remember that these vessels are thousands of dollars, sometimes a minute for how specialized they are. Right? So a lot of money gets put into [00:27:00] how the, like when we’re putting monopiles in that these transit transition pieces get put on. A lot of money has been spent on. The ver like technology to get, make sure they’re super, super tight tolerances on the verticality of those when they’re driving the actual piles in. And then you’re doing that offshore in a nasty environment, sometimes from a jack up vessel, sometimes not from a jack vessel, sometimes from a mor or like a, you know, a pseudo mor vessel on, uh. Dynamic positioning systems, and then you’re swinging these big things with cranes and all this stuff, like, it’s just a crazy amount of engineering eng engineering and operational knowledge that goes into making this stuff happen. And if you make one little mistake, all of a sudden that piece can be useless. Right? Like I’ve been a part of, of heavy offshore lifting for oil and gas where they’ve. It’s built a piece on shore, got it out to the vessel, went to go put it off sub sea in 2000 meters of water, lowered it all the way down there and it didn’t fit like you just burned [00:28:00] hundreds and hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars in time. So this kind of technology that Anima Tech is putting out in Dutch Heavy Lift consultants. This is the key to making sure that these offshore operations go well. So kudos to these guys for solve for seeing a problem and solving a problem with a real solution. Uh, instead of just kind of like dreaming things up, making something happen here. I’d like to see it. Allen Hall: Check out that article and many more in this quarter’s. PES Wind Magazine downloaded free copy@pswind.com. Well, Yolanda, as we know, everybody’s out with Sky Specs, uh, doing blade inspections, and so many turbines have issues this year. A lot of hail damage, a lot of lightning damage and some serial defects from what I can tell. Uh, we’re, we’re getting to that crazy season where we’re trying to get ready for next year and prioritize. This is the time to call C-I-C-N-D-T and actually take a deep hard look at some of this damage, particularly at the blade root area. We’ve seen a lot more of that where, [00:29:00] uh, there’s been failures of some blades at the root where the bolt connection is. So you’re gonna have to get some NDT done. Boy, oh boy, you better get C-I-C-N-D-T booked up or get them on the phone because they’re getting really busy. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, you definitely need to schedule something. Make sure that you know at least where you stand, right? Be because imagine going into try to fix something and just have a hammer and then close your eyes and then see what you can fix. That way, like sometimes it feels like when you’re in operations, if you don’t have the proper. The proper inspections done, which sometimes there’s, there’s not enough budget for, or appetite or knowledge, um, in some of these projects to have early on. You come in and just, you, you see the end result of failure modes and you might see something that’s really, really expensive to fix now. Or you might think of, oh, this problem happened at X, Y, Z. [00:30:00] Site, so it’ll probably happen here. That’s not necessarily the case. So getting someone like NDT to be able to come in and actually tell you this is what’s going on in your site, and these are the potential failure modes that you’re going to see based on what you’re getting and this is what will probably happen, or this is what is happening over time in your site, is a lot more indicative to be able to solve those problems faster and way. More way, in a way less expensive manner than if you were to go in and just try to fix everything reactively. You know, if you have half a bond line missing. Then later you, your blade breaks. It’s like, well, I mean, you, you could, you could have seen it, you could have prevented it. You could have saved that blade and saved yourself millions and millions of dollars and, and so much more money in downtime. Joel Saxum: Yeah. The first time I ran into Jeremy Hess and the C-A-C-N-D team was actually on an insurance project where it was Yolanda, like you said, like [00:31:00] they let it go. The, the operator and the OEM let it go way too long, and all of a sudden they had a, like wind farm wide shutdown costing them millions in production. Uh, to find these, these issues that, uh, could have been found in a different manner when you talk to the team over there. Um, why we like to recommend them from the podcast is Jeremy has an answer for everything. He’s been around the world. He’s worked in multiple industries, aerospace, race, cars, sailboats, you name it. Um, he’s been a client to almost everybody, you know, in the wind industry, all the OEMs, right? So he knows the, the issues. He has the right tool sets. To dive into them. You, you may not know, not, you don’t need to be an NDT expert to be able to have a conversation because he will coach you through, okay, here you have this problem. Alright, this is how we would look at it. This is how we would solve it. Here’s how you would monitor for it, and then this is how you would, you know, possibly fix it. Or this is what the, the solution looks like. Um, because I think that’s one of the [00:32:00] hurdles to the industry with NDT projects is people just don’t. Know what’s available, what’s out there, what they can see, what they, you know, the issues that they might be able to uncover, like you said, Yolanda. So, um, we encourage, um, anybody that says, Hey, do you know anybody in NDT? Yeah, it’s Jeremy Hanks and the C-I-C-N-D-T team. Call ’em up. They’ve got the solutions, they’ll help you out. Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:33:00] Podcast.

Damian Necochea, Technical Support Specialist at Central New Mexico Community College joins Joe Way on the show. He discusses his career growth and current daily role. Damian also discusses the importance of the Prism Scholarship program and how it has impacted his life and career.Connect with Damian Necochea:Find him on the HETMA Community at: https://community.hetma.orgConnect with Joe Way:Web: https://www.josiahway.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiahwayX (Formerly Twitter): https://www.twitter.com/josiahwayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josiahwayFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/josiahway 

Samaritan's Purse mobilizes staff and equipment and enlists thousands of volunteers to provide emergency aid to victims of tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters in the United States. Disaster Relief teams are now in Central New Mexico where multiple wildfires have consumed over... The post Rick & Kater Zemke appeared first on ABQ Connect.

Welcome to another Western Ag Voices Episode! On this episode, we had the opportunity to visit with Devin Sisk of Muleshoe, TX. Devin was raised in New Braunfels, but now calls the Panhandle home. She served as Miss Rodeo Texas in 2009, where she traveled the country promoting rodeo and agriculture. While in college at Texas A&M, she started her photography business to help pay for rent and entry fees. Upon graduation with her Bachelor of Science in Ag Leadership and Development, Devin decided to take photography full time and hasn't looked back. Her team has grown to over 15 members and they specialize in photographing and marketing large western events like livestock shows, rodeos, and weddings. Aside from photography, Devin and her husband Jed are immersed in their AQHA and cattle operation in the Texas Panhandle and Central New Mexico. They share their love for agriculture with their two children, Sunnie and Ira, and are passionate about promoting and preserving the Western way of life. This episode is brought to you by the 19th Annual Hershberger Performance Horse Sale, happening March 1st 2024 at WestWorld of Scottsdale. This sale will feature some of the top horses in multiple western disciplines including team roping, calf roping, cutters, reiners, and cow horse. Save the date for March 1st and head to hersbergerhorses.com for more information and to see the consignments.

It has been said many times that a picture is worth a thousand words. Our guest today is documentary photographer Sally Thomson, the creative genius behind the book "Homeground." She hopes her photos of 24 ranchers and land managers can broaden people's understanding of the impact conservation ranching has on the health of the land, the animals, and the people who live, work, and recreate in Southwestern and Rocky Mountain rangelands. Her book also includes rancher quotes and essays from land managers working to address challenges of climate change and diminishing resources and to find sustainable land management solutions. Interview Summary   I was especially interested in doing this podcast because we've had a lot of people on to talk about regenerative agriculture and there have been farmers and ranchers, some of whom we both know in common. There have been scientists who work on this, people who work with NGOs trying to promote this work, and even some policy makers, but never a photographer. It's going to be really interesting to hear from you and I look forward to what you have to say. So, we have spoken to chefs and filmmakers before who've used their arts to shape and change the food system. But as I say, you're the first photographer we've spoken to. Let's go back to the beginning. What got you interested in photography in the first place, and how can photography be used as a social or political statement?   Well, I didn't start out to become a photographer. I took a art class in college and that is really what first introduced me to photography. I was gifted a used cannon camera and a couple of lenses and I started experimenting with the camera. And I was immediately drawn to the medium. Especially watching the images kind of emerge in the dark room was just fascinating and kind of magical. But it never really occurred to me to consider photography as a career. I eventually went on to graduate school and I studied landscape architecture following my interest in environmental design and planning. I figured this would also give me the opportunity to incorporate photography into my creative process. I practiced landscape architecture for many years. But it wasn't until much later that I realized the power photography can have in storytelling, and raising awareness, and connecting me with people in places that, you know, I wouldn't have otherwise thought possible. So, up until about this point, I had used photography more for documenting my work. I had worked for a conservation organization in the Amazon Rainforest, and in order to communicate their message, I felt that photography was extremely useful in doing that. That's really what caused that shift in my thinking of turning to photography. In 2008, I created On Focus Photography, which was an effort to highlight the work of various underrepresented environmental cultural NGOs. I set about trying to learn everything I could about documentary photography at that point. That sort of led me to where I am today. What I do today is primarily divide my time between freelance assignment work, fine art and documentary photography.   Thanks for that background. It's really helpful to understand how you got to where you are now. So, let's turn to your book, "Homeground" brand new. Can you provide an overview of the book and what are some of the key things that you're hoping to convey?   Well, Homeground, of course, is a visual narrative. It explores the endangered rangelands of the American Southwest and the Rocky Mountains, and the people and the practices that are involved in restoring and sustaining these landscapes. I think one of the things that was kind of startling to me was the account of our rangelands, and I just wanted to talk about that briefly. Rangelands account for the largest share of the nation's land base. They cover more than one third of the land service in the continental US and that's according to USDA data. Unlike pastureland, rangelands consist of native vegetation, and they include a wide variety of different landscape types such as grasslands, desert shrub lands, and so on. They provide essential habitats for all kinds of living creatures, forage for livestock, and recreational opportunities. But in this country and elsewhere around the world, I learned that these lands are threatened due to land conversion, unmanaged grazing, invasive species, climate change, and things like that. The Nature Conservancy, in fact, says that grasslands represent the most threatened and least protected habitat on earth. Less than 2% worldwide and just 4% in the United States receive any kind of formal protection.   So, thinking about the Southwest and the Rocky Mountains, as you probably know, they connect vast areas of habitat and there are all kinds of organizations, federal, state, private and tribal ownership that form this mosaic of pattern on the land. But private individuals own more than half of the nation's range lands. The federal government manages about 40%, and state and local governments and tribal councils manage the remainder. I found these numbers were rather compelling, and it sort of put, for me, into perspective not only the scale and significance of these landscapes but point to the important role private land managers play in caring for this huge amount of land in our country.   There's a lot at stake, isn't there? Given how much land you're talking about and the importance of it to environment and everything else.   It is. And there's a map in the book that shows that distribution. It was based on data collected by USDA, but it was interpreted by Dave Merrill, who works for Bloomberg. It's just very insightful when you see that big square of rangeland and you realize how much landmass that really is. So, that really struck me and I wanted to make sure that people understood that.   Let's get back to the themes of your book, because I'm dying to hear about them. But tell me first, what inspired you to take on the issue of regenerative agriculture in particular?   I've always been deeply interested in the relationship between people and environment, and sort of how our actions can shape and impact the landscapes that we live in. When I moved to New Mexico in 2013, I'm originally from the East and went to school in North Carolina as a matter of fact. I got a job helping a local nonprofit organization called the Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance here in Santa Fe, SWGLA for short. I helped them to produce a short video about how some producers were beginning to manage their animals on the land by utilizing a method called Holistic Planned Grazing. This was a term first introduced by Alan Savory, decades earlier. So, for this project, I visited six ranches spread across the states of New Mexico, and Colorado and Arizona. Traveled all around interviewing these ranchers. And through that experience, I grew a deep appreciation for these people, the men and women who managed these vast and often very remote tracks of land, and their dedication to regenerating some of the most incredible degraded landscapes that I've seen. I was inspired by their dedication and their determination, and I continued to visit and photograph over the years dozens of ranches and others who worked toward improving the ecological health of our rangelands. I guess you could say that the book "Homeground" was my pandemic project because I'd always wanted to find a way to share these images and the information that I had accumulated over the years. The lockdown kind of gave me time to sit down and think about how to organize and present what I had learned. So, around 2021, I decided that I was going to create this book and it would be titled "Homeground." Home alluding to a place of belonging and identity relating to the land. This seemed appropriate for me and the way of life that I wanted to feature.   Sally, you mentioned Alan Savory and I wanted to make a note to remind our listeners that we've recorded a podcast with Alan Savory that's part of our series on regenerative agriculture. And, the person who connected the two of us, Nancy Ranney, a rancher in New Mexico, and I know somebody you know well also has been a guest for part of our podcast series, both very impressive people. So, now let's talk a little bit more about the book and some of the choices you made in producing it. Some of the book's photographs are in black and white and some are in color, that's an interesting choice you've made. Can you share some insights about the process of selecting and capturing images, why you did some in color, some in black and white, and how did these reflect the principles of regenerative ranching?   I've had a few exhibitions that revolve around this work, and most of those were all done in black and white. When I started putting the book together, I felt because you're up close and personal looking at these images, that color would be good in moving you along the story. Also, some of the images were old, some were taken back in 2013, some were taken in 2022 and 2023. So, it was sort of a way to differentiate the flow of the work. Along with the images, there are three essays in the book that are written by well-known land managers in the region. Nancy Rainey provided one of the essays on community engagement, Bob Budd, who works in Wyoming, and Tony Berg, who has also worked in Wyoming but is now in Oregon, and he's a mentor with the Savory Institute. Each of them provided insightful personal accounts of their experiences in regenerative ranching, highlighting themes of the book, which are the importance of rangeland biodiversity, healthy soils, and community engagement. Ranchers also have some quotations in the book, but I worked quite closely with various state federal agencies and local nonprofits and academic institutions, and there's a lot happening out there in terms of all these other people that are involved in helping ranchers to manage their lands more sustainably. So, some of those are like the Covera Coalition, the Western Landowners Alliance, Holistic Management International, and of course Alan Savory Institute. It's a very complex and interesting world that is evolving and growing, fortunately.   Well, that's so true. I mean, if you go back just a few years even, there's a lot less knowledge about these sorts of approaches to ranching and agriculture, and now a lot more people are talking about it, thinking about it, studying it, writing about it, and photographing it, which is really wonderful. You mentioned that the work took place over a period of 10 years. Are there any specific stories or experiences from this journey you had that you found particularly impactful or enlightening?   Every time I set foot on a ranch, it was impactful. And it's hard to separate out just one story, but one of the most interesting experiences, I think we talk a lot about holistic grazing and how it tries to mimic the bison that roamed hundreds of years ago on the land. I had an opportunity to go out and visit one of Ted Turner's ranches in Central New Mexico where they were having a bison roundup. I rode out into this landscape, which was like actually transporting myself back 200 years where there were no cars, no telephone poles, just the land and the animals. It was pretty fascinating to see those bison, 500 of them roaming across the landscape. When I was out there also, there was a herd of antelopes and another herd of elk. So, I really felt privileged to be out on that land and to witness, almost like stepping back into history.   There are a lot of young people now that are getting involved, which is really great because there was a time when it seemed like people talked about ranching dying. And there have been organizations like the Covera Coalition that have really worked hard to get young people involved in now there's a lot of interest. And not just amongst doing ranching work, but also in the scientific and academic communities. And so, I was able to work with some scientists from the University of Colorado and they were working in robotics of all things, using these robots to monitor the ground and collect data on the temperature of the soil, the composite of the soil, all sorts of things.   Another ranch I went to in Lamar, Colorado, they had reintroduced the black-footed ferret, an endangered species, that almost went extinct in the 1980s and they were bringing back to, you know, regenerate the soil in that part of the country. So, I actually went out with a team of scientists at night because they're nocturnal animals and the only time you can see them and that they can figure out what they're doing and where they're living, and how they're living is to spot them at night. They ride around from maybe 10 or 11 o'clock at night until the early hours of the morning searching for these black-footed ferrets. They'll stick their heads up out of a hole in the ground, but they're determined. And that determination and that interest was really exciting to see.   You paint a wonderful picture of all this when you were talking about the bison and being transported 200 years in the past created this very vivid image in my mind, and I can imagine how powerful it must have been to be there and how wonderful it is that you've captured this in your photographs. It is just so important that this kind of work gets communicated. One of the reasons I'm delighted that you did your book. Let me ask you a final question. How do you envision your book contributing to the broader conversation about regenerative agriculture and ranching, and the sustainable use of land, and what do you hope readers will take away?   I think the book provides a broad understanding to a very complex issue. Sometimes those issues are difficult to understand because they're wound up in a lot of statistics, or the media is not reporting accurately, or even reporting at all on the issue. I'm hoping that a book like this that shows photographs will draw people in to want to understand more. The other thing I wanted to mention was that these land managers that I have met, they understand that ranching and healthy systems go hand in hand, and making the regenerative transition is a slow, and it's a complex process. There are no quick fixes, there's no one size fits all answers. And that's most likely true, I would say, for anyone, anywhere who's trying to make that regenerative switch. In our fast-paced world, it seems like that nothing is happening, but it just takes time. That's one thing that I can see over this 10-year period is I can see a change. That's pretty gratifying.   Grasslands in particular are very overlooked ecosystem in our country, but they play a crucial role in guarding against climate change. And one thing that amazed me was that a three-foot-tall grassland plant has a root system that extends more than three to four times below the surface of the earth. And those deep roots work to stabilize and they nourish the soil and can sequester huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. So, rangelands are important in that way, and I think it's important for people to understand about that. Another thing is that I think our Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Rangelands, they're a part of our collective history and legacy, and their landscapes that provide us all with clean water and clean air. They offer us respite and recreational opportunities. And in our world now where 80% of the population resides in urban areas, it's pretty easy for us to overlook what we don't encounter every day. It's my hope that "Homeground" will engage viewers from across the country to consider the significance of regenerative ranching and its potential benefits to all of us regarding climate and conservation, wildlife, and food production.   Well, what an important goal. So good luck looking forward. So, for people who are listening, who'd like to obtain a copy of the book, how should they go about doing that?   They can go onto my website: sallythomsonphotography.com.   Bio Sally Thomson is a documentary and fine art photographer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work explores the relationship between nature and culture and how that forms our perception and expression of where and how we live. Thomson's previous experiences in landscape architecture and conservation planning inform her work as a photographer, which aims to inspire the conservation and regeneration of endangered environments and the cultural legacies they support. She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from North Carolina State University School of Design. She is the Past President (2017-2021) of the American Society of Media Photographers New Mexico Board of Directors.    

Welcome back to Wayward Stories! Our holiday adventure is complete, and this week we're going to talk about the adventures we found! Tales of back country drives through tunnels in dramatic box canyons, ancient cultural relics, petroglyphs, national monuments, Route 66 and the Big Chili Cartel await you in this week's show! Tune in to hear all about it! If you'd like to get in touch, send me an email at mywaywardstory@gmail.com   or visit   www.waywardstories.com   Thanks for listening!!!

The Last Padilla Standing by Joseph N. PadillaThe Last Padilla Standing is a look back in time, my journey through the years as told by me. Through memories and story's passed down through generations. The good times and the bad, But my family always seemed to prevail. This story will live on through my pages for future relatives. I am the last Male Padilla in my family tree, and this is how I remember it.My name is Joseph N Padilla better known as Joe to my friends, I was born in 1932 in a coal mining town called Madrid in Central New Mexico between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. My wife and I were happily married for 52 years we raised three children 2 daughters and one son. My wife Alta passed away in 2005 followed by son who passed away in 2019. I'm retired and have several hobbies I like to paint I'm a musician and of course a writer. At my 89 years old I'm still going strong.https://www.amazon.com/Last-Padilla-Standing-Joseph-N/dp/1959449508/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1NL84ECNTLF81&&keywords=Joseph+padilla&&qid=1673032815&&s=books&&sprefix=joseph+padil,stripbooks,380&&sr=1-2https://josephnpadillabooks.com/http://www.urlinkpublishing.com   http://www.bluefunkbroadcasting.com/root/twia/121423jpurl.mp3  

We welcome YOU back to America's leading higher education podcast, The EdUp Experience! It's YOUR time to #EdUp In this episode, President Series #199, YOUR guest is Tracy Hartzler, President of Central New Mexico Community College & Chair of the Unmudl Steering Council. YOUR host is Dr. Joe Sallustio & YOUR sponsor is Unmudl! What is a very unique model that can help colleges create partnerships with other colleges & employers? How does this model help to fill today & tomorrow's learner & workforce needs What does Tracy see as the future of Higher Ed? Listen in to #EdUp! Thank YOU so much for tuning in. Join us on the next episode for YOUR time to EdUp! Connect with YOUR EdUp Team - Elvin Freytes & Dr. Joe Sallustio ● Join YOUR EdUp community at The EdUp Experience! We make education YOUR business! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/edup/message

In this episode we have Rachel Yazzie, a Navajo student and alum of the TRIO Student Support Services program at Central New Mexico Community College. Rachel is on the podcast to discuss her educational journey, TRIO experience, being an advocate for the Navajo tribe, and the importance of community support. A HUGE thank you to our sponsors: Angelica Vialpando, Rosario Riley, and StudentAccess (ad within the podcast) Visit our sponsor at: Student Access: https://www.studentaccess.com/ Help keep our podcast going: Become a Patron of the Let's Talk TRIO podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/letstalktrio Donate a one-time tip to our PayPal account: https://paypal.me/letstalktrio?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US Let's Talk TRIO Podcast Team Audio Engineer, Editor and Music Composer/Production (Intro/Transition/Outro): John Russell Producer, Social Media Manager, Marketing Manager, Script Supervisor - Voiceover and Ad: Amelia Castañeda Executive Producer & Host: Juan Rivas Cover Artwork: Raul Perez #TRIOworks #LetsTalkTRIO #TRIOvoices #TRIOpodcast #TRIOprograms #TRIOstudentsupportservices #TRIOstaff #TRIOprograms #TRIOupwardbound #TRIOtalentsearch #TRIOmcnair

Our Land Correspondent Laura Paskus explores the harsh realities of shrinking water supplies here in Central New Mexico. Jason Casuga from the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District explains why we're just days away from the water available to farmers going dry and what the MRGCD is doing to mitigate the ongoing drought. The Line Opinion Panel discusses the lingering threat of flooding in parts of the state, in the wake of this summer's devastating wildfire season. Our Panelists also talk about the opportunity ahead for President Biden as he prepares to visit New Mexico to address wildfire damage. Plus, host Gene Grant has an in depth conversation with former Albuquerque Journal columnist Joline Gutierrez Krueger, who recently retired. Line Host: Gene Grant Line Opinion Panelists: Dede Feldman, former New Mexico State Senator Dan Foley, former New Mexico state representative Dave Mulryan, founder, Everybody Votes NM & president, Mulryan-Nash Advertising Correspondent: Laura Paskus Guest: Jason M. Casuga, CEO/chief engineer, Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District For More Information: Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District VIDEO: Cochiti Canyon Flood, Dixon Apple Orchard - YouTube 2011 Flood Footage – AfterWildfireNM.org --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nmif/message

On Nov. 12, 2019, the Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) Governing Board unanimously selected Tracy Hartzler to become the sixth president of CNM. She officially began her presidency on Jan. 1, 2020. Before becoming CNM President, Ms. Hartzler was CNM's Vice President for Finance and Operations and has been at CNM since 2015. In September 2021, President Hartzler was one of 25 community college presidents nationwide selected to participate in the Aspen New Presidents Fellowship, managed by the prestigious Aspen Institute College Excellence Program. The program supports community college presidents in the early years of their tenure as they strive for higher and more equitable levels of student success. President Hartzler has been a key leader among a partnership of five colleges in New Mexico to establish the Collaborative for Higher Education Shared Services (CHESS). The five partner colleges are collaborating on an unprecedented level to implement shared technology platforms that all five colleges will use to improve the student experience from recruitment and enrollment to completion and career, as well as modernizing and streamlining technology and processes that will be consistent across the colleges for administrative, HR and financial services. CHESS' unique structure allows the colleges to take advantage of the efficiencies of a true college system while retaining their independence and unique connections to their local communities. In addition to CNM being a founding partner for CHESS, President Hartzler also serves as the Vice Chair on the CHESS Board. Under President Hartzler's leadership, CNM was one of five community colleges nationwide that helped found and launch Unmudl, a national skills-to-jobs marketplace that provides working learners with the shortest, most flexible and affordable options for skilling up quickly and improving their career prospects. Businesses use the service to find the skilled workers they need to grow. President Hartzler serves as Chair for the Unmudl Steering Committee. President Hartzler has served the public sector for more than 25 years in education, government, and policy roles. She earned her Juris Doctorate from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. She earned her Master of Education Degree from the University of Virginia with highest honors; and she earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree, cum laude, from Saint Mary's College in Indiana. She is a member of the New Mexico, Indiana (inactive), and District of Columbia Bars.

In this episode, we sit down with John Black, which is a synonymous name with Commercial Real Estate in Albuquerque, NM. We discuss John's history with taking his 1,000 plus acre ranch and developing it into one of the largest retail trade areas in the State of New Mexico. We discuss what he learned and experienced throughout the years and also how he feels about today's market. John F. Black has been in the real estate business for over 40 years. John specializes in vacant land entitlements, sales, and project development in the Albuquerque and Rio Rancho Metropolitan area. John originally developed a 1,150 acre planned community known as the Seven Bar Ranch and Cottonwood Mall 3.8 million square foot commercial trade area within the Seven Bar Ranch development and planned and zoned and annexed the 6,700 acres NW Bernalillo County Black Ranch property now referred to as the Quail Ranch in the City of Rio Rancho. As the former Managing Partner in the Seven Bar Land and Cattle Company which owned 1,150 acres in NW Albuquerque John planned, re-zoned, and developed and/or sold over 400 acres of commercial land in the Seven Bar Ranch project (Cottonwood Mall retail subarea of Albuquerque). This retail development area is the largest retail trade area in New Mexico containing over 3.8 million square foot commercial development today. The feature retail project in the Seven Bar Ranch Cottonwood subarea is the 95 acre 1.2 million square foot Cottonwood Regional Mall owned by the world's largest retail mall owner, the Simon Group. Other featured retail developments that are in this 3.8 million square foot retail trade area are the 41 acre Cottonwood Plaza and 60 acre Cottonwood Corners power center located within the Seven Bar Ranch on Albuquerque's Northwest metro area. John is also involved with many build-to-suit leases and ground leases in the Cottonwood Mall area. As the Managing Partner owner and developer, John was the principal partner responsible for developing and leasing the Corrales Shopping Center, Alameda West Shopping Center, and Las Tiendas Shopping Center in the Seven Bar Ranch project. John has been a partner and developer in several other major developments outside of the Seven Bar ranch. He developed the Promenade Shopping Center in Northeast Albuquerque, Montano Plaza, and Coors Central Shopping Center in Northwest Albuquerque. John is currently working on several new retail projects in the City of Rio Rancho and his remaining properties in the Cottonwood Mall subarea. John is a partner in two planning and development lease projects with the State Land Office of New Mexico. These properties are in the northern area of the City of Rio Rancho. City Centre project is a new urban downtown development in Downtown Rio Rancho. The 530 ace mixed-use Paseo Gateway project fronts on the new Paseo del Volcan west side freeway (the only new Metro freeway in Central New Mexico since the 1960s). Paseo Gateway features the new LEEDS certified Sue Cleveland High School in Rio Rancho and the new Cleveland Heights residential subdivision now under development and several key commercial land tracts in the City of Rio Rancho. John Black has served over 13 years on the Board Member of the Laguna Development Corporation which is a multi-million dollar company operating a hotel and casino, a supermarket, travel centers, restaurants, and over 1,100 employees in the west Metro area.

Dan sits down with green entrepreneur and activist, Danny Korman Danny recently took a position at United Way of Central New Mexico. He previously provided mental health services and housing support to clients of a regional mental health nonprofit in Colorado. Danny started his career working in a series of positions in multiple nonprofit settings focused primarily on community organizing, specifically in the area of historic commercial district revitalization. He eventually found himself working for a government agency focused on economic resourcefulness and tourism. He returned to his hometown of Cincinnati to establish and self-finance its first green general store, where he managed day-to-day operations while being the face of the business. During this time, he began a career in freelancing as a published author and communications consultant, which continues to do this day. After he closed Park + Vine, he coordinated social media marketing and events for a regional trails nonprofit organization. Prior to all of this, Danny received a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Planning from the University of Cincinnati. Danny is a city explorer, nature lover, believer in local economies, and steward for the environment and animals. He likes to prioritize his activities primarily within walking or biking distance. An avid fan of all four seasons—including the often misunderstood winter—he has an interest in year-round outdoor adventures in places both near and far. He is an occasional speaker on topics ranging from small business basics and neighborhood life to the outdoors. Danny Korman is an accomplished and engaging person adept at working with people and projects in a humanitarian manner. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Danny is a bit of a boomerang kid. He has lived in seven states (Ohio, California, Kentucky, New York, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico) to date. He is currently living in an old house in Albuquerque with his partner. Follow Danny on Instagram: @walkingcincinnati @walkalbuquerque @citycenterproperties Listen to ZigZag podcast: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/zigzag (Concrete exercises on aligning professional ambitions with personal values) Listen to Art of Manliness: https://www.artofmanliness.com/podcast (Useful, no-fluff content to help men become better humans in all areas of their life) Read "What You Learn in Your 40s" by Pamela Druckerman in New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/opinion/sunday/what-you-learn-in-your-40s.html ("Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently.") --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rhizomagazine/support

Joined by Rodney Prunty, President/CEO at United Way of Central New Mexico, Alyson and Matt dive into equity and inclusion work, uplifting diverse voices, the importance of truly listening to your community, and more.

Parade of Homes - HBACNM's Twice-a-year event for builders (Transcript Snippet): "Tego: Okay. Tego: Let's see. Parade of homes, Tracy, Tego: Big weekend for the home builders twice a year, the New Mexico, central New Mexico home. What is it? Home builders association, HBA is just what I always call them. They do their big parade of homes where they, they put homes out for open they're open houses to show off the, the latest products and what the builders are. Tracy: Yep. And it's Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So yesterday, today, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and next Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 11 to 5. There's 21 homes in the spring parade of homes. The the featured builder this year is Pulte homes at inspiration, which is in the petroglyph area. Just North of I-40 and West West of the river inspiration, the homes, the lots, there can be just some phenomenal views because it's sort of below the petroglyphs. And if you haven't been out that way and you're thinking of new construction, give us a call. We'd love to show you that neighborhood as well as the others that are available, but that neighborhood is quick to everywhere. There's some new cluster schools over there. There's some new, big fields. Like if your kids play soccer, you probably know that part of town. But it's, it's a great neighborhood, but in addition, lots of other homes to tour to go, do you happen to know how people are touring them in the days of COVID? Tego: Well, I don't, Tracy: I was thinking I didn't find that out either because Eddie said that we'll tell you how to get inside of them. There's the safety protocol. So the homes vary right from Corales to the West side I'm sure there's a map. So if you go to just Google homes of enchantment, but it's the websites, homes of enchantment parade.com and it's Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico. And it's all the information is right there, but you can tour if you're thinking of building anytime in the future or remodeling, this is the way to go, right? Go hit up these homes. https://welcomehomeabq.com Tracy & Tego Venturi Venturi Realty Group Keller Williams 1119 Alameda Blvd NW Albuquerque, NM 87114 (505) 448-8888 info@welcomehomeabq.com

This episode of Big Blend Radio features Steve and Kathy Hiatt, owners and innkeepers of the historic Bottger Mansion Bed and Breakfast, overlooking historic Route 66 and located in the heart of Historic Old Town Albuquerque, in Central New Mexico. From Machine Gun Kelly to Elvis Presley, hear about the Inn's fascinating history as well as the wonderful experience guests enjoy including gourmet breakfasts, comfortable and well appointed rooms, a lovely garden setting and warm hospitality. Learn more: https://bottger.com/This episode broadcasted live from Bottger Mansion and also features Steve Schneickert's Hollywood History segment on Road Trip Moves and Route 66, plus the song "Adobe Cafe" by Wally Lawder.

In this episode we have Rob Carriaga, an achievement coach for TRIO Student Support Services program at Central New Mexico Community College (Albuquerque, NM). Rob is on the podcast to share his educational journey, careers, and experience with the TRIO community. A HUGE thank you to our sponsors: Angelica Vialpando, Rosario Riley, & StudentAccess (ad within the podcast) Visit our sponsor at: https://www.studentaccess.com/ Help keep our podcast going: Become a Patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/letstalktrio Let's Talk TRIO Podcast Team Audio Engineer & Music Composer/Production (Intro/Transition/Outro): John Russell Producer & Marketing Manager - Voiceover and Ad: Amelia Castañeda Executive Producer & Host: Juan Rivas #TRIOworks #LetsTalkTRIO #TRIOvoices #TRIOpodcast #TRIOstudentsupportservices #TRIOprofessional

Rodney Prunty, CEO of United Way of Central New Mexico, is relatively new to Albuquerque but he figured out quickly why this community was perfect for him and his family. In this show, you’ll hear what he’s doing to make Diversity, Equity & Inclusion a priority in Albuquerque, what it means to be a servant leader, and what advice he’d give to the younger generation.

In this episode we have Magda Martinez-Baca who serves as the Director of the TRIO Student Support Services program at Central New Mexico Community College. Magda is on the podcast to discuss her journey through college, career experiences, and what inspired her to work for TRIO Student Support Services.   A HUGE thank you to our sponsor: StudentAccess (ad within the podcast) Visit our sponsor at: https://www.studentaccess.com/ Help keep our podcast going: Become a Patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/letstalktrio Make a one time donation to our Kickstarter: http://kck.st/30q4a9t  Audio Engineer & Music Composer/Production (Intro/Transition/Outro): John Russell Producer & Marketing Manager - Voiceover and Ad: Amelia Castañeda Executive Producer & Host: Juan Rivas   #TRIOworks #LetsTalkTRIO #TRIOvoices #TRIOstudentsupportservices #TRIOpodcast #FirstGen 

David Parker Ray is the most notorious serial rapist and assumed serial killer in NM history. He rocked a small town in Central New Mexico with the worst crimes the state had ever experienced. 

Sarah Wentzel-Fisher is the Executive Director of the Quivira Coalition, a Non-Profit based in Santa Fe, NM. Sam Ryerson is a Rancher based in Central New Mexico and a 2010 graduate of Quivira Coalition's apprenticeship program.

Sarah Wentzel-Fisher is the Executive Director of the Quivira Coalition, a Non-Profit based in Santa Fe, NM. Sam Ryerson is a Rancher based in Central New Mexico and a 2010 graduate of Quivira Coalition’s apprenticeship program. They join me today to talk about the opportunities afforded to young ranchers by Quivira’s New Agrarians Apprenticeship Program....

Dr. Joseph Goins is joined by Mr. Arthur Martinez and Ms. Joy Forehand from the Workforce Connection of Central New Mexico to discuss workforce conditions in the central region of New Mexico. Go to www.careerpathways-nm.com for more information.

Judd Gardner and I have been friends for almost 20 years and I am very excited to have him on the podcast today to talk about the Farm Bill.  You will see quickly that he is extremely well versed in farm policy and the 2014 Farm Bill. Judd grew up on his family ranch in Central New Mexico, attended Clarendon College, obtained his Animal Science degree from Texas Tech University, and his Masters in Agricultural Science at West Texas A&M University. Since graduation, he has been in Washington DC working in agricultural policy.  Currently, he serves as a legislative assistant to Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas. We kick things off with a basic overview of the Farm Bill.  In the 2014 Farm Bill, there are 12 titles including commodity, conservation, research, nutrition, trade, and many others.  It is important to note that the Farm Bill covers far more than the classic commodity programs that most farmers are more familiar with. Judd then offers a great discussion of the major changes to Title I programs in the 2014 Bill.  This includes the shift from the direct payment approach to allowing producers to select between the PLC and ARC programs.  As he explains, PLC is a program based solely on guaranteed reference prices with payments made if a national average price falls below the set reference.  ARC, on the other hand, is a shallow loss revenue program.  It is based on 5 year moving averages of county revenue--essentially county yields times a national price--dip below a certain level, then farmers receive a payment.  Additionally, he mentions the removal of cotton from being a Title I covered commodity, a change that has had major impacts on producers here in Texas. Currently, Judd reports that Congress is essentially in a listening phase, gathering information about what is working and what is not working with the 2014 Farm Bill.  Soon, they will move into the writing phase where they begin actually drafting the language of the next Farm Bill. Judd offers several predictions for the next Farm Bill.  He does not foresee a wholesale modification like we saw in the 2014 Farm Bill, but instead feels like we will see tweaks made to the existing design.  He expects farmers to still have a choice between programs similar to ARC and PLC and he says he believes that cotton will be written back into Title I in some way. We wrapped things up by asking Judd for a law he would like to see changed.  He says he wishes we would change the way Congressional District lines are drawn.  Specifically, he says we should get away from gerrymandering to guarantee results for one party or the other. While admitting that the best Mexican food is found in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Judd decided to go with his favorite restaurant in Washington, DC, Ted's Bulletin. Contact Info for Judd Gardner (Email) Judd_Gardner@moran.senate.gov Links to information mentioned in the show - Overview of the Farm Bill

In this show, we discuss the Department of Justice’s 37-page report on UNM’s handling of sexual assault on campus. We will hear from May Sagbakken of the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico, students and Cathy Cook from Students for Reproductive Justice. We discuss the report and what resources are available for all survivors of sexual violence.

This Valentine’s Day, we talked about love, self-love, and sex education. We talked with Juan Silva, Danny Perez, and Mariana Rodriguez - 3 Enlace Comunitario members who spoke out about the importance of healthy relationships and how to prevent teen dating violence. Then, we were joined by Kira Luna of the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico to talk about the realities of sexual violence.