USDA Rural Development helps advance New Mexico

29 Dec 2016

Economic Development

On Friday, my time as state director at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development will end. Little did I know when took this job in 2009 that there were great challenges facing New Mexico’s rural communities, and more down the road.During the last eight years we worked through a recession, post-recession, stimulus program, sequestration, government shut-down, an economic stagnation in New Mexico’s economy, and a rise in in our state’s poverty level and unemployment rate. USDA Rural Development helped stabilize rural communities as these events unfolded by investing more than $2 billion and thousands of man hours to help rural communities toward a sustainable future.

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