New Mexico

LANL Foundation Launches Scholarship For Northern New Mexico Veterans

Published

1 year ago

September 8, 2024

LANL Foundation Launches Scholarship For Northern New Mexico Veterans

LANL FOUNDATION NEWS RELEASE

The LANL Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of the Veteran’s Scholarship Fund to provide scholarships to students across Northern New Mexico with ties to the military.

The LANL Foundation’s Board of Directors, in partnership with the Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund (LAESF) Advisory Committee and the LANL Veterans Employee Resource Group, established the fund with the goal of raising $10,000 in the first year. The Foundation met this goal within the first two months and will continue to grow the fund with donations from LANL employees, local Veterans groups, and the broader community.

“It is an honor to serve as a steward for this impactful scholarship in service of our veteran community. Our scholarship program seeks to acknowledge those with a demonstrated commitment to achievement, leadership and service, and we know that veterans live these values every day while serving our country. I am proud to add this opportunity to our growing portfolio of scholarships for the people of northern New Mexico,” said Mike Ammerman, LANL Foundation Scholarship Program Director.

The Veteran’s Scholarship will be included among the scholarships awarded by the LAESF Advisory Committee and administered by the LANL Foundation to provide two-year and four-year scholarships to New Mexicans from the seven-county area surrounding LANL. (Los Alamos, Mora, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Miguel, Santa Fe, and Taos).

The fund aims to recognize LANL’s dedication to employing veterans by providing scholarships to continue to build the pipeline for veterans and their families to LANL and to make Northern New Mexico an even greater home for those who have left the service. The Veteran Scholarship will initially be offered as one-time awards through the existing Four-Year Undergraduate Scholarship and Career Pathways Scholarship programs, with anticipated increases in the number and value of awards based on projected growth of the fund.

“Like many veterans at the Laboratory, I was blessed to receive an outstanding education and post-service career as a result of my time in the military. There are many veterans however who struggle to find the means to pursue higher education for themselves and their families. This scholarship to me is a demonstration of continued commitment by the veteran community to our fellow service members. At home or abroad, during war or peace, we will always have each other’s back,” said Aaron Charles Miley, who works as a Manager of Projects at Los Alamos National Laboratories and serves on the LAESF Advisory Committee.

In addition to meeting general LAESF eligibility criteria, eligible candidates will be veterans (preferred) or children of veterans who demonstrate a commitment to academic achievement, leadership and service. If no other candidates meet this criterion, students involved in military preparatory courses (JROTC, ROTC, OCS, Service Academy etc.) will be accepted. Members of Veteran affiliated groups outside of LANL (Veterans Affairs, VFW, American Legion, Elk’s Lodge, etc.) are invited to contribute to this fund, which will be administered by the LANL Foundation at no cost to the donors. 100% of donations go directly to scholarships.

Anyone interested in donating to the Veteran’s Scholarship Fund can make a tax-deductible gift via our website here.

Applications for the 2025 scholarship cycle will open in October. To learn more about the LANL Scholars Program, visit our website.

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New Mexico

New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

Published

8 hours ago

January 9, 2026

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New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

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New Mexico

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

Published

20 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

The governor sets the agenda for the session, including for the budget, so here is what they are looking at so far.

SANTA FE, N.M. — As the regular session of the New Mexico Legislature is set to begin Jan. 20, lawmakers have already filed dozens of bills.

Bills include prohibiting book bans at public libraries and protections against AI, specifically the distribution of sensitive and “Deepfake” images

Juvenile justice reform is, again, a hot topic. House Bill 25 would allow access to someone’s juvenile records during a background check if they’re trying to buy a gun.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sets the agenda and puts forth the proposed budget lawmakers will address during the session. The governor is calling for lawmakers to take up an $11.3 billion budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which is up 4.6% from current spending levels.

Where would that money go? More than $600 million would go to universal free child care. Meanwhile, more than $200 million would go to health care and to protect against federal funding cuts.

There is also $65 million for statewide affordable housing initiatives and $19 million for public safety.

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New Mexico

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation
| Las Cruces Sun-News

After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.

It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.

Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.

Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:

Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).

What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.

That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.

With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.

New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.

But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.

Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.

What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.

Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility

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