Two businesses get preliminary approval for plans

QCS Managing Editor

The Tucumcari City Commission Thursday gave preliminary approval to providing assistance for two new businesses with plans to start or expand in Tucumcari.

The assistance comes from the Local Economic Development Act (LEDA), which operates through a city ordinance in accordance with a state statute. The commmission still must hold a public hearing on the ordinances that will release LEDA funds and give them final approval.

On Thursday, the commission gave first-reading approval to using $50,000 in LEDA funds to help establish Rugged, Inc., which will manufacture a multi-function flashlight for emergency first-responders and some outdoor enthusiasts, Pat Vanderpool, executive director of the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation, said.

Adam Nichols, the device’s inventor and Rugged’s owner, said the flashlight will have several functions related to survival but said he could not discuss them in detail. He plans to have an assembly and shipping facility in operation in three to six months.

The commission also gave preliminary approval to providing $10,000 in LEDA assistance to Dale Harapat, a Las Vegas naturopathic doctor, who seeks to establish a naturopathic practice in Tucumcari that will include sales of medicinal herbs and New Mexico gifts.

Harapat said that in Tucumcari, he plans to consult patients in herbs; naturopathy; iridology, measuring health through the iris of the eye; and massage.

“I have quite a few patients from Tucumcari, Logan and Amarillo,” he said, “and I think Tucumcari will be a nice, pleasant place to work.”

Nichols said he plans to hire three or four employees at first to help in assembly, shipping and bookkeeping. LEDA documents said the firm plans to employ up to five persons in its first year, and pay $13.49 per hour to start.

Nichols, who has been a helicopter mechanic for Tri-State Care Flight operations in Tucumcari, is also marketing another of his inventions, a portable canopy that can be suspended over helicopter blades to shelter repair operations.

Vanderpool said the New Mexico Finance Authority has approved the $1 million in LEDA funding the commmission approved last month to help out in the Tucumcari Mountain Cheese Factory’s $4.1 million expansion.