Last September, Albuquerque Business First honored five New Mexicans under the age of 25 who were driving innovation and leading their own startup companies. These five folks represented the inaugural New Mexico Inno Under 25 cohort.
While Business First honored four more young innovators this year, we didn't forget about those we wrote about last year. How could we, when they're all still innovating and building different organizations and companies in the Land of Enchantment?
Business First caught up with last year's five inaugural Inno Under 25 honorees to see what they're up to now. Some have started new ventures, some have leaped into positions at new places and others have kept innovating in their existing roles. Whatever their stories over the past year have been, these are five folks to continue keeping an eye on.
The honorees are profiled below, sorted alphabetically by last name. Each honoree's original Inno Under 25 profile can be read at the link in their name.
When Business First interviewed Avcil last year, she was the program manager for Global Ties ABQ, a local nonprofit that invites and guides visitors to New Mexico. But at the end of the summer, she moved to a different nonprofit, one with a different focus.
Avcil is now the executive director of New Mexico Open Elections, a nonprofit dedicated to driving voter participation in the state.
"It's a completely different job," Avcil said. "And what I do is completely different."
She moved to Open Elections to gain experience in a different field and work closely with local and state politicians. It's an interest she found while taking classes for a political science master's program at the University of New Mexico.
Bob Perls, the founder and president of Open Elections and a former state representative and U.S. diplomat, contacted Avcil about the job opening.
"He was like, 'Hey, I have this nonprofit and I'm looking for an executive director. Do you know anyone?'" Avcil said. "And I was like, 'I know me! Would you be interested?' So that's how I ended up there."
Although Avcil acknowledged that there might be more money and better benefits at corporations, she said that the mission-oriented focus of nonprofit work has kept her in that field. She even has a dream to found her own nonprofit to help children in war zones, later on in her career.
"I think once you get into a nonprofit and then you get into another one, you just end up in another one," she said. "It just keeps going like that."
Bierle couldn't disclose the name of the "stealth startup" she had started work with when Business First interviewed her last September. But since then, that startup — Graphite Health — emerged with such promise that Business First named it one of this year's Startups to Watch.
Bierle is the executive office manager for Graphite Health. She described her work at the data-driven healthcare startup as multifaceted, jumping from human relations to marketing to calls with investors and other large healthcare companies.
"Graphite's just been a really fun experience so far because I've gotten to dip my toes into lots of different things within the organization," Bierle said.
Thuvia Systems LLC, a startup Bierle cofounded that's making "smart" medical devices, has hired new team members and is "continuing to pick up funding here and there," she said.
And Bierle is finishing up a dual degree — a master's of business administration and a master's of public policy — at the University of New Mexico. She said that the dual degrees will be wrapped up next year.
So, in short, Bierle is still doing a lot. But, she said, she couldn't achieve so much alone.
"I'm constantly trying to surround myself [with] people who are more experienced and smarter, more driven because it helps me work harder," Bierle said. "It pushes me and ultimately will help me get to where I want to be at the end of the day, which is to improve lives."
EasyFlo was just getting off the ground when Business First interviewed Chavez last year. Now, the startup that's making baby bottles with storage for baby formula and water has received national recognition and is ready to really start scaling.
Chavez launched EasyFlo after creating another product, called the Hot Seat, which is an alarm system for children left in hot vehicles. While the Hot Seat has received local news coverage, Easy Flo has started to gain some national attention.
The company won the 2022 Heartland Challenge, an entrepreneurship competition put on by the University of Arkansas. Then, EasyFlo was selected to work with students at the University of Texas - Austin's Texas Venture Labs. And, most recently, Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business named EasyFlo one of the top 100 most fundable companies out of nearly 4,000 that applied for the recognition, according to a release from the company.
Chavez is currently in a seed funding round for EasyFlo that she wants to close in the next couple of months. She's hoping to raise $750,000 for the company through the seed round.
Sometime in 2023, Chavez wants to take EasyFlo into retail stores. The product will be available on the company's website in the next few months, she said.
"I wanted to do something that was eliminating the hassle for parents and childcare workers," Chavez said. "But I also want to leave a lasting impact on our planet through eliminating as much waste as possible."
Sometimes you start a company doing one thing, and then, after some time, turn that business into something else. That's what happened with Christian Chavez who, after starting a business called Internet Science Innovators last year, turned that project into something new in 2022.
That "something new" is a company called Vital Grow Inc. The company has a "Smart Compost Thermometer" that compost farmers can use to monitor the temperatures of compost. If compost piles aren't kept at the right temperature, then the materials in the piles won't be able to actually decay.
The thermometer comes with a live dashboard to actively monitor the temperatures of compost piles that can be the size of football fields, Chavez said.
He formed Vital Grow at the very beginning of 2022 when he decided to "fully focus on compost monitoring" instead of on farming practices in general. "We decided that the compost industry has a need for smart equipment like this," Chavez said.
Vital Grow took on its first beta customer in Wisconsin in March. This fall Chavez said that Vital Grow opened for pre-sales, and he's now shipping the thermometer to more customers in California and Oregon.
"They're very interested in soil health and soil regeneration," Chavez said about Vital Grow's recent customers. "So while they're not necessarily producing gigantic amount of compost, they're very interested in having those twenty-four-seven temperature logs."
The goal for Vital Grow, Chavez said, is to have a retail product in stores like Home Depot or through the Amazon marketplace for people who compost at home to use, too. And, Chavez said that his company is working with Los Alamos National Laboratory to research if there are better ways to monitor compost health than using temperature.
New Mexico has a fast-growing aerospace sector that's led by a slew of different organizations and companies. One of those organizations is NewSpace New Mexico, and DeHerrera has been central to the aerospace advocacy organization's growth.
DeHerrera was the operations manager for NewSpace when Business First interviewed her last September. Now, she's taken over as the organization's director of engagement. She handles the bulk of the marketing and promotion for NewSpace now in this new role, including event hosting, social media management and coordinating partnerships with other groups.
"The saying that we have with 'Unite and Ignite,' that's what we do, and I love every part of it," DeHerrera said. "I am definitely on the 'Unite' side but I also do help with the 'Ignite' side."
She joined NewSpace as an intern while studying in a master's of business administration program at the University of New Mexico in 2019, the same year the nonprofit organization got its 501(c)(3) status, DeHerrera said. She's since finished her degree at UNM but has stuck with the aerospace nonprofit.
It aligns with DeHerrera's mission in life to help people and make a positive difference in the world — starting here in the Land of Enchantment.
"I just really want to make New Mexico the place for space, so that New Mexico isn't known for any negativity, but known as this great place, this kind of space hub," DeHerrera said. "I see NewSpace New Mexico as the next nexus for space."
