340 Building a Community of Climate Entrepreneurs in New Mexico with Ward Hendon

Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app that helps people learn how to have a positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to Ward Hendon, and our topic today is building a community of climate entrepreneurs right here in New Mexico where we both live.

Ward is an investor, a teacher, and an entrepreneur. His career has included a legal practice, starting and exiting a legal tech company, teaching MBA, legal, and incarcerated individuals, and impact investing. He is currently a general partner in

Dangerous Ventures, a VC firm that backs

companies building a more sustainable and resilient future. Ward, welcome to the show. Hey, Paul. It's great to

be here. Thanks for having me.

You've done quite a few things that I'm excited about. I just had a conversation with an awesome New Mexico entrepreneur who is doing a recruitment firm, helping people coming out of prison find job. Like, we got some awesome stuff going on in New Mexico. But today, we're gonna specifically talking about the climate ecosystem that's growing here. Before we do that, Ward, what would somebody wanna know about you and your career trajectory that you're bringing to the climate conversation that wasn't in that little 3 sentence intro that I just read?

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that offer. You know, I haven't I haven't followed a traditional career path. And as I as I look back and I think as one look back, one looks back on his or her career, it's kind of fun to try to make sense of it. And I think I'm still I'm still trying to make sense of my of my career. But one thing I'll say that I'm most proud of is just the diversity of experiences I've had, which has given me, you know, a real diversity of viewpoint, and I think it helps me make better decisions. And it's just led to a fun life.

It wasn't sort of meant to be that way when I started out, but as I look back, I just I can't believe I've been able to live in these amazing cities and and work with such a diversity of people. You mentioned, you know, my prison work, my work teaching in MBA schools, living in in some pretty amazing places. So I just I look back on that very proudly. And not that I would recommend it to everybody because it's not the it definitely has its share of stresses and and questions along the way. But I really couldn't be happier being where I am now in New Mexico, doing what I'm doing and trying to build a climate tech ecosystem here.

Well, let's focus in a little more on the climate aspect of your work, Ward. When did you start really saying, oh, I I wanna put some time and concentrated attention into climate and in particular, funding great climate and sustainability focused companies? When when did that become, you know, top of mind for you?

Yeah. I'll answer that in a couple of ways. I think there was a there was a very specific point in time where I made the career decision to move into climate, and that was a couple years ago. But and and starting my firm, Dangerous Ventures, with my partners, Mike Lynn and Gabby Derbyshire. But it's it's so I think it's a lot longer story. And, again, the benefit of hindsight really helps piece it together. But I was raised in the Great Smoky Mountains in Western North Carolina, And I always loved backpacking and and drinking out of streams and just taking in the beauty of of those mountains. And so I've always had a soft spot for preserving wild spaces, being in wild spaces, engaging, you know, with nature.

And I've just seen it deteriorate so much. I mean, in Western North Carolina, we had, when I was probably a teenager ish, massive acid rain issues that killed all these beautiful, you know, trees in the Smokies. And that was a wake up call. And I think more immediately, and I talk about this when I tell my story on on New Mexico as leader for climate change or or climate tech, and we can talk more about that later. But that that sort of j curve up into the right of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the industrial revolution to today, it's just so dramatic and so exponential that when I saw that for the first time, I just thought there there's just nothing good that can come of this. We've never, to my knowledge, had this much stress on our planet as a result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as a result of, you know, greenhouse gas trapping heat. That I just felt like if I'm gonna do anything, it's gonna be to help the you know, soften the edges of that, help us become more resilient to what's gonna become as a result of that. And then I just started looking at the data around, you know, global population.

We just crossed 8,000,000,000, I think it is, as a globe. It was 3,000,000,000 in 1960, a decade before I was born. And that's just another exponential sort of metric. I just look at and think there's nothing good that can can come of that when it comes to preserving the environment. And that's just not about saving trees. It's about, you know, having the capacity to feed that many people. And I'm fascinated by commodity markets and and just the raw inputs of civilization that are under such stress because of those those two curves that I I look at. And I think that those were major contributors to what I'm doing now professionally.

So it's been a journey in the climate, and it's also been a journey to New Mexico. Which came first, New Mexico or? Like, how did those 2 and when did they start to coincide?

I think they probably intersected at about the same time, around 2020. And look, I'm not a you don't look at my background and think, hey, that guy's just made for climate technology. It doesn't really look that way. But I think that you know, having that passion and focus, whatever it is, can sort of get you up a curve pretty quickly. And I've got a long way to go to figure out a lot of these technologies and how they fit together and and what's commercializable and what's not. But to to get here to to New Mexico was a route through, you know, Western North Carolina, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles as a lawyer than entrepreneur and teacher along the way and now, you know, investor. I've been here for for 4 years, and I'd say it it really feels like 2 years given where we were with COVID from the first couple years. And that was just hard to really build community.

But I'm just I'm really blown away by the the openness of this community. And it doesn't it doesn't logically suggest that it would be given that we have these 4 very distinct cultures all converging in one place with a lot of history, and and not all of history is good history. So I I've really tried to dig into the history of this place and understand, you know, going back to the, you know, Anasazi. So just understanding what's happened with these different civilizations and cultures and how how we found ourselves at this point in time where we really have, I think, the most unique set of cultures in one place in the entire country. It's really quite remarkable.

It's a fascinating I love this place. I've been here since 1993, and I've got some climate brands. I'm thinking of a leading climate PC that I'm blessed to be scout for. I got a call from them not too long ago. They were like, what's going on in New Mexico? Or, like, we keep hearing about New Mexico in the climate world. Right? And then people like you pop up and, like, we you know, last night, I was at an event for it's called a news a company called Enchanted Mushrooms. Shout out to Amanda Powers doing sustainable ag and very low use of water to get incredibly nutritious mushrooms grown, and it's grown like a at the West Economic Development Center. It's like a mile down the road from my house.

Like, the the opening at West, there were, like, hundreds of people. The room was, like, buzzing, and we got this awesome entrepreneur talking about growing mushrooms in the desert and the high nutrition for low water usage. And that's, like, every day now, something like that is happening. So if you haven't if you're a listener, you're like, didn't have New Mexico on your radar, Put New Mexico on your radar because there's awesome things happening here. So give us a little sense, like, what is Dangerous Ventures, Ward, and, like, what was the thesis of getting it started?

The Dangerous Ventures, I'd say it's a it's a pretty familiar from a structural standpoint venture capital firm. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel in how we, you know, run our business, but we're we're trying to take a specific view on climate change and how we can bring technologies and business model innovations to help mitigate the worst effects of that of climate change consequences and build more resilience and help us adapt to not not what's to come, what's what's here. Right? I mean, there it's it's upon us, and we have to deal with it. And I you know, my my partners and I think that technology is one tool in the toolbox. It's not the only one. We're not tech maximalists. We we view technology as part of an ecosystem of solutions and and stakeholders. I I I didn't realize just how interrelated and complicated these climate change problems are.

They're they're systemic, very complicated problems. And, you know, in New Mexico, we we sort of stumbled into an opportunity. We started our firm outside of New Mexico, or rather our strategy was sort of North American. I was here, one partner in Los Angeles, one partner in San Francisco. But as I got more familiar with New Mexico and what was going on here, I looked around and thought, my goodness. This is an amazing place to build companies. And why haven't there been more companies built here historically? You know, we have the Microsoft example of Bill Gates and Paul Allen pulling up stakes at some point and going, you know, to Seattle after starting their business in Albuquerque. But we just we don't have those stories about entrepreneurship that I was familiar with when I moved here.

So I didn't I expected not to be doing much business here. But I've been absolutely blown away by what's here and and specifically what's in our thesis around climate change. And, you know, I look around and I see probably the most diverse and abundant source of energy resources in the country right here. I see these world class factories of intellectual property in Sandia, Los Alamos, and and some of the academic institutions. I see the sovereign wealth of the state as, you know, top 5% in the country, maybe top 20% in the world, which is a function of of the, you know, oil and gas revenues and I think good management to build that kind of wealth as a state. I see, you know, a history of solving really hard energy problems. We've done it here before. Right? And then back to this very unique and diverse culture.

I think having the multitude of stakeholders at the table, as complicated as that is, as nerve racking as that can be, it just produces better decisions. And so I see these things sort of in acting in this kind of stew of opportunity, and I'm just trying to make sense of it. I'm seeing all these incredible things about New Mexico that are highly unique that I think if we can knit them together and and create a common vision for, you know, New Mexico as a or the center for energy transition in the country, I think we've got an incredible future out of us.

I absolutely agree. And I hear what you're saying. I'm gonna push back a little bit more today. You're just trying to make sense of it. The there was a recent announcement. It's actually how we got to doing this episode. I saw a post on LinkedIn that that New Mexico funds that you were referencing. New Mexico decided to there's something interesting happening at dangerous ventures, and we wanna play.

Is that fair to say?

It is. And and, you know, that we've built up a

team But somebody didn't know what that was. Tell us a little bit about that.

Sure. So we were funded initially by the State Investment Council, and we've worked over the past, you know, two and a half years with that team to build a relationship and and create a vision for climate tech in New Mexico. And it's been an incredible journey to figure out, you know, what will work here and to structure something and and to begin the hard work of, sort of the first couple of cranks on the flywheel for for a new firm here to build relationships and to just, again, try to understand what's where, what's been done before, what's worked, what hasn't worked. So I feel like we're in the first couple of cranks of the flywheel, which is the hardest. But I'm already beginning to see the fruits of our efforts. Not it's not just Dangerous Ventures efforts. It's this it's the community around us that has been really incredible to work with. And we can I'm sure we're gonna dip into what that community looks like and and how we're how we think we can build that even more strongly, but that's been that's been incredible.

So back to your original question, we started our fund in partnership with the State Investment Council. And since then, we've partnered with the New Mexico Finance Authority and that team to continue building the first climate fund on the ground here in New Mexico. And we're just feel like we've got a really strong start and hopefully a long runway to continue funding companies here. But we're just getting out of the gate with you know, funding announcements. We've announced a handful of investments, and we'll have a few more here pretty soon. So that's that's kinda how we how we got started. It wasn't one phone call, and that was it. It was a 2, 2 and a half year relationship building process.

And the state the total amount that the state invested in my understanding is a $100,000,000 in kinda 2 buckets. 1 of them being client, not just an Endanger Center, but total $100,000,000, one of them being about 50.50. I don't know the exact numbers, but about $50,000,000 in climate focused ventures at about $50,000,000, some of that going to a former Awarepreneurs guest, the awesome folks at Raven Indigenous Capital. They were one of the folks that were announced to work with underrepresented founders to stay with our tradition of valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion here in New Mexico and really trying to get capital in the hands of folks doing awesome work in some communities that haven't always had access to capital. So that gives you an idea, listeners, like, there is not just and and keep in mind, we're historically we're a small state, 2,200,000 people in the entire state. And, historically, we've had a rel we've had a lot of human capital, but a relatively anemic economy. We oftentimes have historically competed with states like Mississippi and Alabama. Who's gonna be the bottom of is it 50 or 51 or 52, you know, players in the United States? We've historically been towards the bottom.

We have been moving up. I've seen numbers that now we're up and around 40, 41 the con you know, 41st economy, definitely movement. But in a state like that, for the state to say, okay. We made a bunch of money due to oil and gas. New Mexico has a lot of oil and gas resources, and and that brings in a lot of money. We're gonna take some of that and proactively invest at that scale in these two buckets. It gives you a little sense of, like, this is not just talk. People are really doing things here and trying things here at a scale, given our population and our economy that is unprecedented in anything I've seen.

And, you know, there's still a lot of data. How well is it gonna work? But the willingness to try to get that flywheel moving like you're talking about, Ward, I feel like I'm just really in awe of all the good work that's trying to happen and the way people are moving into action and moving into investing at a scale for our size economy that's unprecedented. Do you feel like I'm telling a story that has no basis in reality?

It it it's my reality.

You're describing me. Yeah.

And in my reality, I do not have, you know, a long history in New Mexico. So I I come sort of come into this with a very optimistic non jaded view. So that's that's a little unique. It's it's a luxury I have. It's also, you know, can be a liability because I just sometimes I feel like I am operating a little bit blindly in the way things are done here. But I'm just well, I'm going to talk a little bit in a second about community and community building and how I think about that. But I think that it feels to me like New Mexico is at a very special moment in time where we can do big things and put some big stakes in the ground to build these new institutions to help us transition our economy to a renewable one, and one that's not reliant on oil and gas. And I'm a pragmatist.

I'm an optimist. I'm a pragmatist. And I feel like you had to live in New Mexico, you have to be a pragmatist and realize that we have this incredibly long history, and that means things. And that impacts how things are done here. You have to acknowledge the oil and gas industry here, which is incredibly important. And it's it's enabled this this state to do great things and have a sovereign wealth fund of, you know, 50 +1000000000 and create all these jobs and and value for the state. And we had to acknowledge that that has consequences, and we're feeling those globally and locally. So so this point in time feels very special.

And and that means we've got to take this capital and build new institutions that set us up for being not at the bottom of those state league tables, but get you we can it will help us accelerate to, you know, a place that's not at or near the bottom and be sort of a punching bag for states. And I think we can do that. And I feel incredibly privileged to have capital from the state and the responsibility of stewarding that responsibly for the people of New Mexico, that really that is incredibly inspiring to me. And and at this moment in time, you know, there's there's some legislators out there who are working very hard to help think through what are some moonshot ideas for the state that we could put some bets on. We've done a great job in the entertainment industry. We've proven we can build an economy kind of from scratch. And I think that there are other smaller economies around things like wind, solar, geothermal, bioenergy that we can begin to build that will help us transition and become the economy for the future for New Mexico.

Absolutely. So if anybody doesn't know what Ward's referring to in terms of the, like, creative economy, the state has some of the best tax credits in the world for people who are shooting movies here and doing those kind of creative projects. Netflix moves their base of operations. NBC Studios has a big presence here, and other associated industries have moved here or have big presences here. And we've seen that part of our economy just explode over the past 5 years because of those tax credits and the reputation of, like, wow. You can actually shoot a movie in New Mexico, get a great job, and because the cost of living is here, oftentimes production costs less than other places in North America. So let's do this. In a moment, I wanna come back and hear some of the granular things that you're working on, Ward.

I think we got the top level. Let's start to get a little more granular and get some coming attractions and also some opportunities for those who live here or wanna travel here to get involved and meet some of the great climate entrepreneurs and investors we have. Before we do that, I just wanna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Are you passionate about making a difference but feeling stuck on how to take your mission driven business to the next level? You don't need a lengthy coaching program. You need targeted advice from someone who understands the unique challenges that social entrepreneurs face. With my strategy session package, we'll focus on your most pressing decisions, whether it's clarifying your value proposition, optimizing your marketing strategy, launching a new product or service, or adjusting your pricing to align with your mission. These sessions are perfect when you know the direction you wanna go, but you need someone with the experience to help you get there. If you're ready to unlock your potential and amplify your impact, book your strategy session now.

The link is in the show notes. So welcome back, everybody. I'm here with Ward Hennen, and we are talking about building a community of climate entrepreneurs in New Mexico. And in the first part of the show, Ward, we kinda got a top level, like your journey and then, like, New Mexico's journey into climate. Give us a little bit of sense. So as we're recording this, it's early August in 2024. Give us a little sense of, like, what's on the ground right now. And if you look ahead, as you're starting to be part of actually deploying capital and seeing things being built, what are some of the things that you're deploying into, and what are some of the things that are being built that you're excited about when you look at the New Mexico climate ecosystem?

Yeah. It's, it's it's pretty vast, and it's also pretty sparse. And that's sort of reflective of New Mexico being such a massive state from a square miles perspective and very sparsely populated. We have under 3,000,000 people, I think. So it's it's an interesting set of dynamics. And the way that impacts my world is because we're standing up an entrepreneurial ecosystem here, there just aren't as many entrepreneurs building businesses. So we're doing a couple of things to to help that. We are actively, you know, recruiting companies into the state, and I hope we can make a couple of announcements pretty soon of companies that we've helped to get here to build some companies in what I refer to as the circular economy.

One's a bioenergy company, and one is more broadly circular economy. And this is one of the levers that we've got to really pull as a state to create the environment that's hospitable and attractive to startups. I think we do a good job of you know, recruiting the larger fully scaled manufacturing companies like Maxeon Solar and a few others. And Intel's here, obviously, has been a huge huge contributor to the economy here. But I think we have some work to do to build a package and a narrative that makes us attractive to start ups. And I have to acknowledge the work of the EDD and Nora Sackett's team. Great partners, forward thinking, open minded, willing to experiment. So I I see a real strong relationship with her team going forward for not just my firm, but the the ecosystem we're building here.

And that's a critical piece is to have a state do what they do best, which is create these packages like we've done in entertainment for the start up community, not just, you know, my role of climate tech, but any new new venture that just has specific requirements. And the tax credits that work for a scaled manufacturing company might not work for a brand new startup of 1 or 2 employees. So we're spending a lot of time thinking about how do we recruit companies in. We're spending a lot of time just on the ground meeting as many entrepreneurs as we can, building relationships, staying in touch, helping solve problems whether we're investors or not, making connections. And that's sort of the that's the real nitty gritty of of building a community is it would be absolutely impossible for me to do that if I was still living in California trying to build something. It's just not possible. So, you know, we are very glad to be on the ground here building what we're building and and working with the other venture capital allocators, state stakeholders, academic institutions. As I mentioned earlier, we DOE Labs.

I'm spending a lot of time developing relationships at Los Alamos and Sandia. I think those are incredible vaults of intellectual property that we can help in appropriate areas commercialize that. I think there's a real appetite for that. But it does get back to the sort of sparsely populated nature of our state. We just have few, what I call, venture ready entrepreneurs. There are a lot of great entrepreneurs in the state building great businesses. But for the kind of businesses that we invest in, venture scalable businesses that could become very large businesses with 100 of employees and contributing significant dollars into the economy. There are fewer entrepreneurs here to do that.

And so we're thinking hard about how do we build more infrastructure, create more training and learning around what it what it means it takes to be a venture ready entrepreneur. Awesome.

And you're mentioning, the Sandia Labs and Los Alamos Labs and some of the associated organizations that go with them. Because of that sort of history, New Mexico has the highest proportion of people with PhDs of anywhere in the country and one of the highest in the world. And not not a lot of people know this, but there's a program. I'll put a link to it. I just shared it with a climate founder day before yesterday. If you are any sort of tech start up, but particularly for climate, Sandia has a program where you can tap into their knowledge base. And, again, this is one of the biggest pools of PhDs on the planet for free. There's a program where you could tap into the scientists at Sandia if you are a New Mexico start up, and I'll put a link to that program where they will hey.

For the scientists from Sandia, if it's in one of their critical mission buckets, and climate is one of them, where you can get Sandia level support and it costs you nothing. So if you're a New Mexico entrepreneur, didn't know that program, I don't have the name of it top of mind, but I will put a link in the show notes to the Sandia Lab. Do you do you have a do you know the name of that program offhand?

Is that the LEAP program?

I think that is the LEAP program. Yes. I think that is. So I will put

It goes to show, like, there's so many things that they're just sitting there on the shelf that we need to create more awareness around that are highly, highly unique to to New Mexico.

Yeah. Because the New Mexico climate entrepreneur had no idea that that was available to him. And and I told him, he said, what? Why did nobody tell me this? And all I want, I'm telling you now. Here's the link. Go apply. Right? So these are the kinds of things that have been real sleepers here, but, you know, if anybody's not familiar with Sandia National Labs, go look it up, and the quality of people and the quality of the science that's happening there in Los Alamos is among the best in the world. And to tap into that as an asset for free, for a climate entrepreneur, you get a little bit of sense of ABY Ward and I are a little bit excited about what's happening in Mexico.

Well and and if you're if you're at all a history geek, the history of those two institutions is just

Remarkable. Right? Totally remarkable. I think more people know about it now because of the movie, Oppenheimer. Right? Like, it got a little sense of Los Alamos, but they put it out here in the middle of nowhere because they thought, you know, maybe rightfully so. It'd be a little easier from a national security perspective. But you take all these super incredible brains on the planet and stick them in the New Mexico desert, and there's a disproportionate impact here because we're relatively tiny population. And, you know, to harness that for climate is just an incredible opportunity. Just amazing opportunity.

Yeah. Awesome. So I'll put a link to that. I have some other resources I'll announce a little bit later, but take a look at that one. So so this is all, like, starting to happen. And give us a sense, like, Dangerous Ventures isn't that old. Right? And then your journey with New Mexico climate ecosystem, which is not that old, give us a sense of, like, how is Dangerous, like, progressing and what are you actually doing day to day now? And what does it look like 4 years ago? And what do you think it might look like a couple of years from now?

Yeah. Yeah. Great. I appreciate the opportunity to sort of reflect on that. I don't take enough time to think about the the context of where we are right now and what's ahead. But, you know, we we launched our our New Mexico strategy really at the end of of last year. So so December, January. So it's it's very, very new.

So, like, 7 this August, so the 8th month. So it's, like, 8 months old. Right?

Yeah. So it's it's, you know, we we are in sort of that crawl, walk, run paradigm. We're we are really crawling and and trying to learn. Just just being a sponge and and learning about what's possible and also pushing ourselves to try to think big. And but, yeah, not not be reckless and grandiose, but really try to put a vision out there for what we think is possible and how we can bring the resources of my firm, which are which are great. You know, we've got a we've got an awesome little firm, 3 partners. That's really it. We get we have academic interns from both Stanford, where my partner, Mike Lin, teaches, and UCLA, where I teach.

So we have a rotating cast of interns getting academic credit, and they're just incredibly bright and ambitious in all the right ways. They're great to work with.

Wait. Can we plug you into UNM? Because UNM Anderson has an awesome intern program too, and they have a whole social entrepreneur focus. So I wanna I wanna, like, get you plugged more into New Mexico, Ward.

Under that for sure.

Okay. I'm making myself a note. I'm gonna make some intros. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm kinda tired of the carbon foot footprint of getting on a plane and going to law

school. No. No. No. No. We'll plug you into the UNM Anderson, their, social entrepreneur program because they're they got these awesome entrepreneurs. I mean, MBA students in New Mexico would love to, you know, be a part, and UNM actually pays them. So you don't have to pay them anything.

UNM pays them. Yeah. So

So it's it's really just, you know, it's just the most grassroots ground up thing I've ever been a part of. And I was a part of building an entrepreneurial venture for 18 years, and it it feels very much like that where I ask for a lot of favors. I try to be helpful. I say yes a lot. I'm probably way overextended. But I, you know, I don't know. I just try to be helpful. And even at this point in my career, just being helpful.

And I think that, you know, I just a little personal reflection for a second. I I really think that, you know, the way to live a happy, successful life personally and professionally is to help others live happy, successful lives. And and I I say the words pay it forward all the time. So I'm really you know, I don't pay it forward so that I can cash in later on based on some invisible favor bank. It's really, you know, I I guess I'd pay it forward because I wanna live in a a world of givers and not takers. I think that just that that's to me the essence of the kind of community I'm trying to build here and be a part of.

Awesome. So jump in a time machine with us. Right? Take our listeners 2, 3 years down the road. What do you think Dangerous Ventures looks like 3 years from now?

Yeah. So I think Dangerous Ventures continues to be a leader in the climate tech ecosystem. My hope is that we're successful, and we're able to raise other funds to do things like series a and series b investing. We are small check precede seed. And I think that, you know, as we stand these early companies up, we're gonna need to have later stage larger checks available to them. And I think that the SIC team, Chris Cassidy, Bruce Brown, specifically have done a great job of thinking about how do we build that capital stack here in in New Mexico with some of the best firms in venture who aren't based here, but who have incentives to really look here and and have larger checks to write for companies who are series b, series c, c. There aren't that many of them here. But if we do our jobs right at this moment in time with planting a lot of seeds, that a handful of those will bloom into series a, series b, series c companies.

And we would like to be in a position to fund those. So I'd like to not be the only climate tech firm in the state, but to have other capital allocators join forces with us and for for dangers to be able to participate in later rounds as we grow. And look, as we prove that we can be successful here, we've got a lot of hard work to do to prove that. And I don't take that lightly.

Awesome. So any suggestions for 2 buckets of entrepreneurs, Ward? Number 1, the homegrown climate entrepreneurs who either from New Mexico, multigenerational family, but or they've been here for decades, and they're starting some, and they're pretty early. They're 1 or 2, 3 team size, homegrown. What's your suggestion for somebody who's in that part of the climate entrepreneur ecosystem in New Mexico?

I think to believe that you can do it here, to have the belief, and to pull in mentors and resources, develop relationships with all the people we've talked about. You know, Nora Sackett's team at the EDD, Rob Del Campo at UNM. Go to things at Los Alamos that are open to the public. Go to things at Sandia. Just get, you know, get plugged in and go to New Mexico Angel events. And that team, you know, they put on a lot of great stuff. Kevin McDonald is is an amazing connector in Albuquerque. And I just I wanna thank him publicly for just he was one of the first guys I met when I moved here, and he could not have been more gracious in opening his Rolodex and making connections.

And so I've I've really tried to follow that that example. And we need a lot of people like that opening their Rolodexes, and I think we have that. And the other thing about the ecosystem that's worth mentioning, and this goes for homegrown entrepreneurs too, you can you can fill a room in a day with all the decision makers and influencers you need to in New Mexico. It's amazing how the proximity here to influential people who can help you, you know, achieve certain things or remove obstacles. It's just incredible. I I I find that as a huge feature and differentiated aspect to to business in New Mexico.

100%, Mark. I couldn't agree more. And let me bring 2 resources, climate specific resources for New Mexico folks or folks who wanna connect more with the New Mexico climate ecosystem. Big shout out to Chuck Hall and the team at Integrated Off Grid, which is a climate start up here. They're now leaning into the battery side of integrated off grid, which is known as grid flow. And Chuck and his team started Batteries and Beer. The 3rd Wednesday of every month is now a meetup here in Albuquerque called Batteries and Beer. You don't have to be a battery tech company.

Anything climate related is welcome, but awesome people reach out to me or to Chuck at integrated off grid and get on the list for that 3rd Wednesday. I think it's 5:30, and that's a recurring meetup now. I think we've just had the third one. Awesome people. Great way to network with other climate entrepreneurs. Doesn't cost anything. So that's one. And then the New Mexico Startup Forum, September 4th 5th in Albuquerque is the New Mexico Startup Forum, and there is a climate tech track to that.

Because, again, this is the high priority in New Mexico. It doesn't cost anything for entrepreneurs to attend 2 days of a whole startup ecosystem event, but there is a climate specific track, and I highly recommend anybody who's interested in climate, even if you're not from New Mexico, come play with us. Right? Again, it's free for entrepreneurs. Go I'll put a link in the show notes to both how you get a hold of Chuck and the team to get signed up for the beer and batteries newsletter and also for a link to sign up for the startup forum on September 4th 5th here in Albuquerque. And I'm signed up for that climate tech track as are many of our other players. If you're not signed up for that, come play with us. Come be in community. Come get in the room.

Because like you're saying, Ward, pretty much everybody you might wanna need to talk to is all gonna be in one place, and it literally is free. So it'd be kinda silly not to take advantage of some of those opportunities to gather here. So I will put links to all of that in the show notes. What what about that company who's, like, a little further along, maybe they're c, maybe series a, maybe even series b, and they're listening to this and they're saying, that sounds kinda interesting. There's some things going on in New Mexico. I wanna find out more. Maybe this would be an interesting place to, you know, bring bring my team to bring my startup. What would you say to somebody who's outside New Mexico and interested in what's going on there? What are some of the things they might want to know?

Well, I'd start out by saying it has to be you've gotta create a business case for it. And as as an investor, you know, we're we're interested in building successful durable businesses, and you have to be able to do that here. And and there I think there are more resource resources than there have ever been as you've you've sort of talked about a few of those. And I think the spirit of the place and that openness and energy around building things is just feels, you know, it's it's it's alive. It's it's energetic. It's it's real. And not that you don't get that other places, but I think if you combine it with the second thing I'm gonna mention, it becomes a really powerful thing, which is just the the quality of life here is off the charts. And I come from a a town I mentioned earlier, Asheville, North Carolina in the Great Smokies.

It's about the same size and shape as Santa Fe where I live. And, you know, the quality of life there is just off the charts. And and here, you just have proximity to the most incredible natural resources. And and that cultural diversity we talked about a couple of times just creates the most amazing things like food and art and music that I think is unparalleled. So if you and I think more and more people are looking for a quality of life that they can't find in, you know, the familiar sort of start up havens, and I've lived in a couple of them, that this this is you know, New Mexico is is worth putting on your shortlist for sure.

Absolutely. I've lived here since 1993, and I said there's nowhere else in America I could there's lots of cool cities. There's nowhere else in America I could live because New Mexico spoiled me. I I just I feel so blessed for exactly the reasons. I'm a trail runner and an outdoors person and live in downtown Albuquerque and can be at the base of a 10,200 foot mountain 15 minutes from my house. And I can go up Santa Fe or Taos in a couple hours and be in some of the best mountains in the country. And I have access to these cultural resources that's unparalleled in the US. The richness and the depth and the history of what's here, everything from art and music to, you know, writing and movies and oh, my gosh.

And also, we just don't have that many people. So there's not that much traffic. It's there's a lot of good things. All right. Have you ever have you been in San Francisco lately? Have you been to LA lately? That's New York lately? Yeah. So, anyway

This is the last place I lived in, and and that's

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, just the the day to day stress of living in those cities is real. And coming here, it's just you can't even believe how the quality of life improves. And, look, it's not it's not perfect. We have we have challenges like any state or region, but I think that the the benefits outweigh those, and there's a lot of focus on how how we solve those, you know, those challenges, crime, education, health care. And I'll just say one more thing that I am involved in that I'm super excited about, which is new, is I'm on the board of New Mexico's first green bank, which is called the Climate Investment Center. And this is something that I feel very passionate about. And for those who don't know what the Climate Investment Center is, it is a brand new thing for New Mexico. Green banks are there are a handful of green banks around the country.

It's a new one, the first one for New Mexico, where we're essentially a public private fund that takes federal dollars and state dollars and invests that in communities, particularly underserved communities, to help them take advantage of resources to help facilitate energy transition and things like electrification, EVs, solar. There's a whole list of things that we're beginning to look at. And I just think it's gonna be hugely important for the state and to to not leave behind people and something we call the just transition, making sure that everybody could take advantage of that transition to a renewable economy.

Very cool. So, again, listeners, I'll put a link to the show notes. So, Ward, I could hang out with you all day, and I know you're busy. I know our listeners are busy. As we start to wind down, if there's something we haven't talked about yet that you wanna make sure that we touch on, or or there's something you wanna leave our listeners with as we start to say goodbye, what would that be?

You know, I think that I think that point I made earlier about paying it forward, And maybe this isn't the the point you thought I would end on, but and and and maybe I didn't either, actually. But it just feels important, particularly in a in an environment where there's just a tone and a mean spiritedness to a lot of the news that we see and a lot of the, you know, the main story of our country heading into November. And I just feel like the the more we can do to tamp that down and put more kindness in the world, I feel like that's who we are as as a country. And and I try to do that, you know, in my life day to day and just encourage more people to, you know, ask the question, how can I help? And I think what you're doing, Paul, with your podcast and the things you care about, it sort of ladders up to to that. And sort of the bigger picture for me is, yes, I'm a venture capitalist. I'm a committed capitalist. I think capitalism is an incredible thing. And I think we have some work to do to sand the edges of this incredible machine and to make it more accessible and fair to more and more people.

And I think the green bank is a part of that. I think impact investing and impact capitalism, where we do seek a financial return and some measurable societal or environmental benefit. That's what I do. And I think that that there's a movement of more capital in that direction, which is really exciting, and I'm proud to be part of that.

Awesome. Or if somebody wants to reach out to you, find out more about dangerous vendors, maybe talk to you about something that you've got going on. What's the best way to get ahold of you?

I think LinkedIn is probably the best way.

That's all I got ahold of you. Yeah. I saw an announcement about the state of that when I reached out on LinkedIn. It's like, hey, Ward, would you be on my podcast? No. Anyway.

It works.

So I'll put a link to your LinkedIn profile. And, Ward, just thank you so much for being on the show today, and also just thank you for the incredible work that you're doing.

Thank you, Paul. It's it's been great to get to know you. I look forward to collaborating and and seeing you at Batteries and Beers pretty soon.

Yeah. Please do come. Yeah. So, listeners, you know what we do here. Please go tell your friend, help get the word out about climate entrepreneurship, and also tell people who either from New Mexico or might be considering a place to bring their awesome climate startup. We'd like to be on the short list of places that you're considering. There's a lot happening here. If you need some help finding out might it be a good fit, feel free to reach out to me through the Awarepreneurs website or on LinkedIn.

As always, please share with your friends and tell people about the Awarepreneurs podcast. Finally, I just wanna say I really appreciate you listening. Please take really good care. These are intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.