Southwest Planning

[Owen Densmore]

Dede found this article in this morning's SFNM.
   http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/1026.html
(need to regester, so I appended the test)

Mainly interesting as yet another economic development approach.

        -- Owen

Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net

Southwest Planning & Marketing draws attention to you

By CINDY BELLINGER | The New Mexican
June 22, 2004

  After 27 years of doing business in Santa Fe, Bruce Poster can put it
succinctly what his company does.

"We help businesses and community meet the needs of their customers
through marketing research and strategic planning," he said.

Poster began Southwest Planning & Marketing in 1977. "Those were the
days before faxes and computers." Poster says he opened shop with a
telephone.

Today, it's the computer that makes his business stand out.

"He created a 'tourism barometer' for us," said Jon Hendry, director of
marketing for the New Mexico Tourism Department. "What Bruce has come
up with lets us have an overview of the past month. When I first came
on board, we could only get historical data from the two years before.
He's done us a real service."

Hendry says with the results that Poster provides, he can contact
various cities in the state and start setting up a marketing plan to
generate more tourism for the particular area.

"We've come up with ways to see the economic impact of tourism. We have
a host of analytic tools to support and increase tourism," Poster said.

Poster and his staff of three and a team of outside contractors
facilitate focus groups that have specific questions or problems to
solve. He works with private groups, public enterprises as well as the
pueblos and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Many groups have outsourced
their research, and Southwest Planning and Marketing is usually working
on 10-20 projects at a time, juggling strategic studies and meetings.

Poster earned a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of
Chicago and a master's in city and regional planning. He then worked as
an energy consultant in Boston and Washington, D.C., before moving to
Santa Fe for the "quality of life" here.

Located now for a year in The Lofts off Cerrillos Road, Southwest
Planning Marketing for years was headquartered in Poster's home office.
But the business outgrew the space. Poster purchased the current
1,400-square-foot office, and it's almost feeling a little tight
already.

Not all of his clients are within the state. He's done work in Texas,
Washington, D.C., and Colorado. But he likes to keep focused on the
Southwest, on New Mexico. By now he is familiar with many of the issues
and the people working within the many areas of community development.

But if Poster and his team isn't familiar with all the fine points,
their research ability is quick.

"Bruce is quick and thorough and is a good facilitator when he meets
with various focus groups," said Jack Kolkmeyer, the planning director
for Santa Fe County. Kolkmeyer has been working in community
development in Santa Fe since the late 1970s and is familiar with
Poster's work.

"He will take a specific thing we're trying to solve or come up with.
His thinking is divergent, and he's forward reaching. Whenever we need
an outsider to work on a project, he's the one we call," Kolkmeyer
said.

Poster says the best part of owning his business is the diversity of
it. "It uses different parts of my brain. I also like all the different
people I meet and work with," he said.

But even more he likes seeing results of a research project, to see
something thriving that he's worked on. He did the original marketing
study for Rancho Viejo. Most gratifying, though, is working with a
group of people with vastly opposing views but who finally come
together. "I like remaking group dynamics," he said.

One example he gave of this was meeting with ranchers and the oil
companies in the Farmington area and coming up with a workable solution
that concerned the environment.

The worst part of the job, though, is meeting deadlines. They always
loom. But Poster meets them and meets them with facts and solutions.
He's been doing that since he started in business with only a phone.

Southwest Planning

& Marketing

Owners: Bruce Poster

Address: 3600 Cerrillos Road, Suite 107

Employees: 3

Phone: [phone]

E-mail: [hidden email]

Web site: http://www.swplanning-marketing.com