Congratulations to the Greater Gallup Economic Development Corporation on receiving the 2025 “Rural Project of the Year” award, recently announced by New Mexico IDEA, the statewide economic development professional association.
According to IDEA, the Rural Project of the Year award “recognizes a collaborative project in a rural community having significant and measurable impact on a local, regional, or statewide level.” The award will be publicly presented on Sept. 25 at the governor’s annual Economic Development Conference in Isleta, N.M.
The awarded project is titled “Designing and Moving the Gallup-McKinley County TradePort Forward,” referring to the GGEDC’s economic roundtable held in Santa Fe in February.
The roundtable, attended by 60 civic and business leaders from the local community and state government, and featuring presentations and workshops by national experts in trade port development, was a defining event for the multi-year, community-based effort facilitated by the GGEDC to establish an inland “trade port” in the Greater Gallup area.
The trade port initiative has been planned and developed to take advantage of the community’s key economic assets – largely organized around the major transportation facilities and commercial networks that have been established over more than a century as the foundation for the Gallup and McKinley County economy. Building on over 12 years of work by the GGEDC and its partners, the initiative has been guided by a steering committee and several teams of national experts, and accelerated in the past couple of years by a series of planning grants from the State’s Department of Transportation administered locally by McKinley County and the City of Gallup.
Plans for the trade port, designed for new development primarily along the Carbon Coal Road corridor, include provisions for a county-owned business park, an automotive proving ground, a hydrogen/multi-fueling hub, recruitment and siting of import-export industry, and a foreign trade zone, along with developing critical infrastructure in support of these facilities. Sustainable industry and innovative technologies will be important development themes. The GGEDC is actively engaged in attracting and recruiting companies to be established in the newly-established trade port district.
“This award acknowledges a tremendous body of work undertaken by the staff of the GGEDC, our public and private partners at the local, state, national, and international levels, and our expert consultants,” GGEDC Board President Tommy Haws said. “It’s something our community can be proud of, because it demonstrates our vision and our willingness to forge new economic opportunity for our people – even in the midst of all the turmoil and change in the global economy. The roundtable itself was a big success, providing deep information and insights into the TradePort initiative, along with interactive workshop discussions involving all participants.”
Robert Roche 