December 2012 Published for SEAGO Member Entities and Strategic Partners Vol. 2, No. 12

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OpportunitiesAvailable!

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seago.org

The Opportunity Tourin Greenlee

The skies are just a little bit brighter and blu-er in Greenlee County, in large part due to the high demand for quality employees spurred by the private sector. The fact that Freeport McMo-Ran is expanding output is not a secret. The huge growth of countries like China, India and Brazil have placed a premium on the value of copper, needed for both residential and commercial con-struction.

But as the recent ASU Report “Keep the Green in Greenlee” reveals, there are multiple reasons why Greenlee county is the fastest growing coun-

ty in Arizona. Rivers, valleys, mountains and trails is not just the name of the Greenlee County Tourism Council , it is the way of life in this ma-jestic and tranquil home to everything from Big Horn Sheep on the ground to Golden Eagles and Sand Hill Cranes in the skies.

Recent Opportunity Tours have stirred devel-opers and builders to set their sights on Greenlee County for many reasons.

To take your own Opportunity Tour contact economicdevelopment@seago.org to schedule your tour or to answer your questions.

CLICK HERE for more information about tours.

Nogales/Santa Cruz County working together

The glow from the success of the Nogales International Trade Summit continues to shine brightly. With local, county, state fed-eral and international support the future is bright along the border – at long last.

There is still much to be done, milestones such as new employers, adding new jobs and attracting more commerce are still being pursued. But the big difference is the unified effort on the part of the leadership in Santa Cruz County and the City of Nogales.

The region is standing up for itself and re-scoping the image from negative hype to pos-itive reality. Santa Cruz County & Nogales are not alone support from the private sector has grown as well. Old stereotypes and miscon-ceptions are being erased. How? By bringing new faces to meetings such as the Interna-tional Trade Summit, and upcoming events that will focus on the areas achievements and importance to the econ y of Arizona.

For more information contact economicdevelopment@seago.org

The Turning Point Monthly, December 2012, page 2

Mexican Land Trust Is Not a “Trust” to the IRSStory provided by Fleming & Curti, PLC

Many Arizona residents own vacation property in Mexico. Most Arizonans are at least somewhat familiar with Mexico’s land laws governing property ownership by U.S. citizens.

The Mexican Federal Constitution of 1917 prohibits non-citizens (of Mexico, that is) from owning property within 100 kilometers of the border or 50 kilometers of the coast. That includes all of the most-popular vacation areas, from Puerto Peñas-co (Rocky Point, to the gringos) to Cancun. So how do American citizens manage to buy vacation properties in those restricted zones?

The answer, developed over a number of decades and now quite commonplace, is to put the property in what is often called a “bank trust.” Sometimes the mechanism is called a “Mexican Land Trust,” or by the Spanish word for “trust”: fideicomiso. It

looks very much like the Anglo-American concept of a trust. The non-Mexican nego-tiates the purchase of the property with the seller, but rather than taking title directly pays a Mexican bank to hold title for the benefit of the buyer. The bank trust pro-vides that all taxes, bills and insurance are the responsibility of the individual, and the bank charges an annual fee to hold title in its name.

But here’s an interesting American tax question: is the fideicomiso a “trust” within the meaning of our tax law? Because if it is, that will raise a host of other issues. Is it a “foreign trust” for U.S. tax purposes? That would require additional filings and possi-bly treat the use of the property (i.e.: stay-ing in your Mexican vacation home) as a taxable distribution. It could be much more complicated if the American citizen were to rent out the property for some of the year, for instance.

CLICK HERE to read the full article

Greetings,

Yesterday I attended the NextGen Industry Management Council meeting and was briefed by David Grizzle the FAA COO for the Air Traf-fic Management Organization and Jim Williams the manager of the FAA UAS Integration Of-fice. Moving UAS studies and implementation forward are high on their list of priorities. I am attaching Jim Williams briefing slides that describes FAA's current plans and efforts it has underway. The backup slides contain details that are most helpful in understanding the par-ticulars.

There were obviously a lot of questions about why the FAA has not issued its notice concern-ing demonstration sites and other congressio-nally mandated actions. The answer is that four civil liberties groups had bills introduced in the congress to stop UASs due to privacy concerns. Many members of congress cosponsored the bills not knowing the facts of the issues involved. This of course was happening prior to the elec-tion. As a result, the White House told FAA to stop moving forward with the release because of the controversy. As a person who worked in the federal government for 33 years, I can say that the White House usually puts out the word to federal agencies to not do anything controver-sial prior to an election. This is what apparently happened with the UAS notice. You can see on Jim Williams slide that White House and DOT approval is required for issuance of the notice. I expect that the notice will be released after the inauguration.

With regard to the privacy issue, I learned that this issue has been addressed for aviation and suits have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. There is no privacy from the air accord-ing to the courts. People can take pictures from aircraft, helicopters, and balloons today. The issue highlighted in the press and congress of the use of UAS to photograph cattle that had crossed into another ranch was actually taken in a Cessna not a UAS. The FAA is staffing up to address this issue at the request of the WH. I am researching the issue and will send out more information in the next couple weeks.

FAA UAS Integration

I know how important the introduction of UASs is to state operations and manufacturing jobs and will continue to keep you informed as things progress.

Charles H. Huettner, Executive DirectorAerospace States Association107 S. West Street, Suite 510Alexandria, VA 22314www.aerostates.orgDirect Ph 202 257-4872Fx 703 548-8784

CLICK HERE for additional information CLICK HERE to see the PowerPoint

URS Corp : URS To Provide Construction

Services for Mine Tailings Project in ArizonaContract Has a Maximum Value of $104 Million to URS

Story by www.4Traders.com

URS Corporation (NYSE:URS) today an-nounced that the Company has been awarded a contract by Freeport-Mc-MoRan Copper & Gold Inc. to provide construc-tion services for a mine tailings facility at the Morenci mine in south-east Arizona. The contract has a maximum value of approximately $104 mil-lion to URS.

Under the terms of the new contract, URS is re-sponsible for the construction of a new tailings facility, including a pumping station, tailings dam and seepage collection system. The project is scheduled to be completed in September 2015.

Commenting on the contract, Robert W. Zaist, President of Energy & Construction for URS, said: "We are pleased to continue our long-term relationship with Freeport-McMoRan and to have the opportunity to support the expansion of the Morenci mine."

URS Corporation (NYSE: URS) is a leading pro-vider of engineering, construction and techni-

cal services for public agencies and private sector companies around the world.

The Company offers a full range of pro-gram management; planning, design and engineering; systems engineering and tech-

nical assistance; construction and construction management; operations and maintenance; in-formation technology; and decommissioning and closure services.

URS provides services for power, infrastructure, industrial, oil and gas, and federal projects and programs. Headquartered in San Francisco, URS Corporation has more than 57,000 employees in a network of offices in nearly 50 countries http://www.urs.com .

The Turning Point Monthly December 2012, page 3

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SouthEastern ArizonaGovernments Organization

Economic Development District.

118 Arizona Street, Bisbee, AZ 85603(520) 432-2622, ext. 210

To subscribe, email:akovach@seago.org

A’kos Kovach, publisher and editorMargaret Dillard, copy/graphics editor

Items for publication are welcomed from SEAGO member entities and strategic partners. Copy must be submitted at

least 7 business days priorto the end of each month. www.facebook.com/SEAGOEconomicDevelopment

Have you created or are you about to cre-ate a product (a book, a CD, a painting, a performance, etc.) and would like to sell it, make your invest-ment back, AND earn a healthy amount of rev

enue from it?

For many the process of creating is the easiest part. However, once the product is finished, most do not know how to move forward. As-suming that you...

Continue article HERE

Do You Need an Agentor a Consultant?

By Klaudia Kovacs

Letter to the EditorScout Solar Provides Job Training

and MoreOur focus is on small companies that are

under 100 employees in the medical, man-ufacturing or renewable energy industries, however we can work with any company that requires training services.

Health Care train-ing is currently in de-mand as continuing education require-ments for nurses are being put in place. Examples of types of classes offered are electronic medical re-cords, clinical skills, billing and coding, CNA in service training, CPR training etc…We are able to fully customize the training program specific to each employers needs and can provide either online or in person training. Examples of potential clients are small hospitals, urgent cares, home health care, nursing homes, assisted living facili-ties, general practitioners or dental offices.

Another demand is manufacturing training that includes full OSHA certifica-tion classes, electrical training, equipment training among other types of classes. As an example we are training AZ Metal

Works employees in forklift operation, and are providing all of their employees with 30 hour OSHA certifications.

We also have a great program for electricians, roof-ers or solar install-ers that want to go through solar instal-lation training.

I was looking at the list of companies that have received grant awards and noticed that not a single company south or east of Tucson received any funding at all! I think the Arizona Commerce Authority would be thrilled if we could bring them grant recipients.

Let me know if you have any questions. If you have any companies in mind you can have them contact me directly and I can start with an analysis of their business to discuss their training needs and grant eli-gibility.

CLICK HERE for more info.

By Andrew Day • Scout Solar LLC • 480-272-154 • aday@scoutsolar.com

Get Funded: Business Credit & Access to Capital:

Tuesday December 11, 2012 from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM MST

Cochise College901 N Colombo AvenueSierra Vista, AZ 85635

Join the Cochise College Small Business Development Center, Compound Profit of Arizona and Your Assurance Team for a FREE program on funding to include a re-view of business vs. personal credit.

We’ll then take a look at what is needed to qualify for traditional financing plus some alternative financing options. Issues to be addressed include:

•Why is business credit important?•Differences between business and per-

sonal credit.•Key elements in developing business

credit.•Criteria to qualify for traditional busi-

ness loans.•Review of several alternative lending

sources.

This FREE workshop will take place on Tuesday, 12/11/12, from 9am-11:30am at the Cochise College Sierra Vista campus in Room 702.

Leading this workshop will be Christy Giroux, Owner/Regional Director of Com-pound Profit of Arizona and Brent Kemp-ton, Owner/Operator of Your Assurance Team.

Seating is limited and you MUST register to attend. Email Rachel at nortonr@cochi-se.edu to register.

Regional Events

The Turning Point Monthly, December 2012, page 4

Dec. 4-5 - Quickbooks 2010: A Cochise College SBDC Class, 9 am to 3 pm, Cochise College Sierra Vista Campus, Room 703, $139 per person. Register: (520) 515-5492.

Dec 6 - Douglas Chamber Luncheon, 11;45 am - 1:00 pm, DUSD Patio, Guest Speaker: Larry Catten, Corporate Training Coordinator, CCLAC

Dec. 6 - Bisbee Economic Outlook Lun-cheon, 11 am to 1:30 pm. Turquoise Valley in Naco. Registration: $45.

Dec. 7 - Tombstone Courhouse Museum Annual Luminaries & Open House, 6-8 pm

Electric Light Parade followed by bon fire and fireworks, Medigovich Sports Field, end of North 7th Street, 7 pm, Parade Info: no entry fee, call Tombstone Chamber of Commerce Toll Free at (888) 457-3929.

Dec. 7 - Multi-Agency Christmas Posa-da. 3 to 7 pm. Douglas Church of God, 458 5th St. Info: ntdouglas@gmail.com

Dec. 8 - Benefit Silent Auction, Tang Gallerylocated at 32 Main St. in Bisbee. All proceeds obtained above the opening bid price will be used for art supplies. The show will be hung Dec. 3 and the gallery will be open from 11 to 5 all that week for bidding. Bid-ding will close at 6pm Dec 8. Closing recep-tion 3pm to 6pm. Any questions call us at 520.432.5824.

Dec. 11 - National association of De-velopment Organization Free Webinar, re fiscal cliff and the impact on development organizations and local governments. 2 pm EST. Join NADO for a free webinar.

PSA ARTAWAKENINGS is a group whose vision is to provide empowerment and recovery through the power of creative expression with adults who face behavioral health challenges. Our studios in Bisbee and Douglas provide therapeutic art groups that use visual art, po-etry, music, storytelling, movement and drama to enhance self-esteem, social skills and well-ness management. The studios also offer pre-job training and education. Our participants gain

ART AWAKENINGSpersonal awareness and professional skills by creating artwork for exhibit and sale. Our gal-lery at 50 Main Street in Bisbee helps to promote for our participants respect for self and others, personal accountability, and pride in accom-plishments.

The gallery shows paintings, drawings, sculp-ture and jewelry created by our artists and is open Fri, and Sat from 11-5 and also participates

Effort to Secure Border Crimps Commerce Along ItBy Fernanda Santos

When the copper smelters closed, the jobs dried up and the people who used to sustain the small shops along this border city’s commercial strips left to find work elsewhere, the Ortega family looked toward the neighbor to the south, Agua Prieta, Mexico, for a new clientele.

For decades, catering to Mexicans had been a reliable business plan for the Orte-gas and many other store owners here, a CLICK HERE to read the full article.

in Bisbee After Five event with special opening receptions for well know local community art-ists who share their skills with our program participants. The gallery stays open ‘till 8pm on the second Saturday of the month. Please stop by the gallery and lend your support by pur-chasing a unique and wonderful work of art.

More info available at www.azpsa.org

Dec. 11, - Get Funded: Business Credit & Access to Capital: A Cochise College SBDC Event, 9-11:30 am, Cochise College Sierra Vista Campus, Rm. 702. Register Now! To register, contact Rachel Norton at 520-515-5478 or nortonr@cochise.edu.

Dec 11 NAMI Southeast Arizona’s 10th Annual Winter Holiday Open House. 3 to 6 pm. NAMI REsource Center, 4755 Campus Drive, Sierra Vista. CLICK HERE or info.

Dec. 12 - Building Trust, Commitment and Enthusiasm at Work. 5:30 to 9:30. Si-erra Vista Campus, Rm. 702. To register: 520-515-5492.

Dec. 13 - Douglas Chamber board Meet-ing, 7:30 am, El Chef Restaurant.

Dec. 14 - Meet with Small Business De-velopment Center. Make appointment for one-on-one counseling in Benson. Benson Economic & Business Center, 168 E. 4th St., Benson. Contact George Scott at (520) 265-6058.

Dec. 15 - December, Tuba Band Christ-mas Concert, City Park, 1-3 pm. call Tomb-stone Chamber of Commerce Toll Free at (888) 457-3929.

Dec. 15 - Southeast AZ Medical Center Open House. 1 to 4 pm. SAMC Dora Ter-an Conference Room. Light refreshments. http://tiny.cc/samc_open_house for info.

Dec. 16 - Food & Toy Drive at 1 pm and Douglas on Ice at 10 pm. Sponsored by the Douglas Recreation Department & DFD http://tiny.cc/toydrive_douglasonice for info.

multigenerational band of believers who have been around too long to give up. But the tight border enforcement prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks — and amplified by the harsh realities and language of drug vio-lence and illegal immigration — gradually made it harder to get across the border le-gally, then too much of a bother, and finally a discomfiting waste of time.

Like the copper smelter workers, the Mexicans, little by little, also began to dis-appear.

An unforgiving blow came about two years ago, when the American government

The Turning Point Monthly, December 2012, page 5

Brewer NamesNew Executive for

Arizona-Mexico CommissionThe Associated Press

Gov. Jan Brewer has named Ignacio “Nacho” Escalante as the director of trade and investment for the Arizona-Mexico

Commission’s office in Hermosillo, Mexico.

Brewer says Escalante will serve as a liaison and conduit for Mexican business owners seeking investment opportunities in Arizona and vice versa.

His mission will be to help facilitate business growth and relocation in both Arizona and So-nora.

Arizona first opened a trade office in Hermosil-lo in 1992. Budget cuts and the economic reces-sion forced state officials to eliminate the Direc-tor of Trade and Investment position in 2008.

Brewer says Escalante has more than three de-cades of experience in business and finance, in-cluding 10 years as general director of the Eco-nomic Development Council of Sonora.

In that role, he focused upon attracting foreign capital investment.

Panama Canal Expansion has U.S. Ports Scrambling

(Panama) -- Huge yellow dump trucks resem-ble Tonka toys in a sand pile as they haul tons of rust-colored dirt and basalt rock from a 56-foot gash in the earth that will become a new access channel in the $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal.

The trucks keep rumbling up muddy terraced slopes as a quick-moving storm blurs the horizon. The rain chases away workers pouring concrete for a mam-moth set of locks that will lift super-size ships for their transit across the narrow Isthmus of Panama, but the crews are back in the pit as soon as the sun returns.

By April 2015, it will all be under water -- ready for the ever-bigger vessels revolutionizing in-ternational trade. The expansion is expected to double the canal's capacity.

The 2015 target is about six months behind schedule, but U.S. ports are still scrambling to ready their channels for so-called post-Panamax ships and some say they welcome the reprieve.

At this point, Baltimore and Norfolk, Va. are the only ports along the Eastern Seaboard with channels deep enough to handle the vessels when they're fully load-ed.

Call it the race for deep water as ports up and down the East Coast,

including Port Miami and Port Everglades, and along the Gulf of Mexico make plans to dredge their channels, shore up their docks or rustle up funding for renovations to receive the big ships. Many won't be ready by the time water floods the new locks.

CLICK HERE to read the full article.

www.aggregateresearch.com

What’s in a Name - Is It UAS’s or UAV’s?

25 years ago, they were called Remotely Piloted Vehicles or RPV’s. It was a step up from Drone which was the term used dur-ing the Viet Nam war and before. There were variations of course. NASA called them Remotely Operated Aircraft (ROA) for a while. The good thing is that there was not much confusion. DoD named the tech-nology, and we all jumped on the bandwag-on. Even later when RPV was changed to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to indi-cate a higher level of autonomy, the termi-nology was never confused. The acronym was defined and everyone knew what it meant. There were some variations during the 1990’s too. I like the attempt at political correctness with the Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicle. It didn’t catch on. Later it be-came the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV).

A few years ago, the terminology changed again to UAS. Somehow the change from UAV to UAS was confusing to people, es-pecially the media. Only one letter changed in the acronym, but two words changed. As defined by DoD in JCS Pub 1-02, and the FAA, UAS stands for Unmanned Aircraft System. The word Aerial was changed to Aircraft to indicate a shift in the thinking of what these systems are and should be. For the FAA it meant that the regulations by which we fly these systems apply as they do with any aircraft. For many years there was a sort of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” men-tality in the FAA about theRPV’s and UAV’s that were being flown around the country. Companies that are well known today were taking their unmanned aircraft to the near-est open space and testing their systems. The FAA had not declared that the “Vehi-cles” were aircraft and that the rules of Title 14 CFR apply. That all changed in 2005. DoD wanted to stress the System aspect of the UAS as well. Its not just the airframe, but the ground station and datalink too.

CLICK HERE to read full article

By Mark BallingerMark Ballinger has been an unmanned aircraft pilot for 25 years and still refuses to be called

the operator.Mark Ballinger, Major USMC Retired

Chief Unmanned Aircraft PilotRaytheon Missile Systems

www.raytheon.com

Mexico and the United StatesThe rise of Mexico

America needs to look again at its increasingly important neighbour

NEXT week the leaders of North Amer-ica’s two most populous countries are due to meet for a neighbourly chat in Wash-ington, DC. The re-elected Barack Obama and Mexico’s president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, have plenty to talk about: Mexico is changing in ways that will profoundly af-fect its big northern neighbour, and unless America rethinks its outdated picture of life across the border, both countries risk forgo-ing the benefits promised by Mexico’s rise.CLICK HERE to read the full article

Story courtesy of The Economists

The Turning Point Monthly, December 2012, page 6

Nogales Councilapproves $50,000 for port authority

By Curt Prendergast, Nogales International The local business community got a boost on Nov. 7 as the city council renewed a $50,000 agreement with the Nogales Greater Santa Cruz County Port Authority to promote economic development in No-gales.

The funds are dedicated for lobbying ef-forts, community outreach, promoting in-vestments in ports of entry and roads, and mutual support for economic development projects.

The funds will be doled out in monthly payments and the port authority agreed to make semiannual reports to the council about how they spend the money.

During the discussion at the council meeting, Councilman Nubar Hanessian asked how much the city’s monthly pay-ment would be, noting that in the past it was $3,500, which adds up to $42,000 in-stead of $50,000.

“At least over the last two years, the al-location to the port authority has been $50,000 in the budget,” City Manager Shane Dille said. “It’s based off of invoices from the port authority and had those invoices for whatever reason fluxed up to $50,000, we would have paid $50,000.”

In the past, invoices from the port au-thority have not exceeded $50,000, said Deputy City Manager John Kissinger.

After a short debate, the council agreed to amend the agreement to include a 60-day termination clause that would take effect if the city and port authority cannot resolve a disagreement about the port au-thority’s invoices.

The specifics

The council approved a similar agree-ment with the Nogales-Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce at its Oct. 10 meet-

CLICK HERE to read full article

Letter to the Editor

“Reviving Arizona’s Safety Net System”

A DES demonstration project

“Reinventing Arizona’s Safety Net Sys-tem” and the human services system trans-formation is a demonstration project that Director Carter has been discussing for DES. The Director has also has a video which is a little more descriptive, in which he discusses the high impact demonstration project. The video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgrEmI3s91k.

The DES Demonstration Project will ex-plore:

· The development and implementa-tion of a new person-centric customer ser-vice model.

· The development of a cross-au-thority governance structure that brings to-gether different authorities around a shared vision of growing the capacity of socially and economically challenged Arizonans.

· Reformulating the existing safety net and related programs that allows them to work together to achieve the shared vi-sion.

· The development of new and vital linkages between the state’s job generation mechanism (Arizona Commerce Author-ity) and the safety net system, represented principally by DES.

· The development of both individual and organizational incentives to grow con-sumers beyond their need for the safety net.

· The development and implemen-tation of new metrics that measure the growth and development of safety net con-sumers.

· The development of a new Federal/State partnership to support the objectives of the Demonstration.

CLICK HERE to see the e-case study.CLICK HERE to see the concept paper.

Cindy SaverinoIndependent Living Supports Adminis-

trator, DES/Division of Aging and Adult Services, Office Phone # 602-542-6446

Do You Need To Pivot?

* Is my orig i nal busi ness plan going the way I had hoped? If not, how can we fix it?

* Are we tar get ing the right mar ket? What other audi ence could we con sider? And what would we have to do to tap into that market?

* The last time I met with prospects, what did they say that was sur pris ing and could be fod der for a change in my busi ness plan?

* If we couldn’t sell to our tar get mar ket, how could we reshape the com pany to be profitable?

* Is there a way to change our prod uct or ser vice rad i cally? What are the pos si ble ways to do that and what is the poten tial of each alternative?

* Is there some thing that could be done with respect to finance that could change our model for the bet ter? What about our prod uct mix? Pric ing? Mar ket ing? Sales channel?

* Would some one ever want to buy us? Is there another direc tion we could take that might increase our value?

* What could we do to stop a com peti-tor from copy ing our busi ness model and cap tur ing mar ket share? How could we stop that from happening?

Answer the ses ques tions to find out:From an article titled“Evolve or Die”at Immpreneur.com.

CLICK HERE to read the full article.

The Turning Point Monthly, December 2012, page 7

“Apache-Sitgreaves’ Clifton RD Cleans Backcountry Airstrip”

The Clifton Ranger District, Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF), Arizona Pilot’s Association (APA), Aircraft Owners and Pi-lots Association (AOPA), and local ranchers recently teamed up to clean debris and trash in and around the Double Circle back-country airstrip and historical area near Upper Eagle Creek. The event was held as a part of National Public Lands Day and lasted a total of three Satur-days. Pilots from 29 aircraft visited the site over the three days, including one who op-erated an antique Cessna 195 that was sim-ply flying across the country and wondered what was going on. In all, over 50 people attended the event at one point or another, including 14 local residents and 4 Apache tribal members from the neighboring San Carlos Reservation.

For the first part of the event, taking place on September 21st and 29th, the team mowed a quarter mile of airstrip edges that

were overgrown with mesquite and thigh-high grass, trimmed nearly a half mile of walkways, and cleared over two acres of safety corridors for campers. In addition, the team removed over 1,000 pounds of modern garbage in and around the histori-cal structures, as a first step to preserve the site. Then, during the second part of the event, taking place on October 6th, 21 pi-lots flew into the airstrip for a weekend of camping, food, and fun and as an effort to raise awareness and interest in the Upper Eagle Creek area as a potential historical interpretive site.

The APA- and RAF-sponsored campout and dinner attracted guests from all over,

including some from the local com-munity. “One guest even flew all the way from Alaska! This first Double Circle fly-in camp could be called nothing but a tremendous success!” said Mark Spencer, Arizona Liaison for the RAF. “A very heart felt thank you from the pilot community to you and the wonderful team you (Carol Telles, District Ranger) have put together in the Clifton Dis-trict!...As I was sitting there eating

dinner Saturday night, I could not help but think the icing on the cake was the visit of four Apache men. After over 140 years, the white eyes and Apache are still meeting at Eagle Creek!”

National Public Lands Day Event: Double Circle Backcountry Airstrip Site Clean-up

By Micah Miller, Recreation Technician, Clifton Ranger District msmiller@fs.fed.us

CLICK HERE to read more.

Salazar Announces Fee Free Days at National Parks, Other Public Lands for 2013

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar this week announced dates in 2013 ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day to Vet-erans Day when more than 2,000 national parks, national forests, national wildlife ref-uges, and other federal lands will offer free admittance to everyone.

“Our national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests and other public lands offer every American a place to enjoy outdoor recreation, learn about our nation’s history and culture, and restore our souls and spirits by connecting with the natural

beauty and wildness of our land,” Salazar said. “By providing free admission, we are putting out an invitation to all Americans to visit and enjoy these extraordinary trea-sures that belong to all our people.”

The National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will waive their entrance fees and the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation will waive their standard ame-nity fees on September 28 for National Pub-lic Lands Day and from November 9 to 11 for Veterans Day weekend.

CLICK HERE to read more and see chart of free days at National Parks for 2013.

As a result of the Douglas Agua Prieta Port of Entry Stakeholder Group meeting held on November 15, 2012 U.S. Customs and Border Protection have established 2 southbound travel lanes at the Douglas Port of Entry during peak hours!

On behalf of the Douglas International Port Authority, we want to thank the men and women of Customs and Border Pro-tection for facilitating the cross border tourist/shopper/commuter by providing the additional lane of travel.

Thank you all for taking part in the Stakeholder Group meeting, much can be accomplish together!

Victor Gonzalez, Douglas International Port Authority, Direct: (520) 289-4091

Two southbound lanes established at Douglas Border Crossing

The Turning Point Monthly, December 2012, page 8

Browning is VP of Western Bank’s Arizona operations

Western Bank an-nounced the hiring of Eddie Browning as Vice President of its Arizona operations. Browning, originally from Willcox, has been in Phoenix for the last 11 years where he was the State Director for

USDA Rural Development and Executive Director for the Arizona Rural Develop-ment Council.

Browning has extensive experience in economic development and oversaw the USDA’s Rural Development lending pro-gram for eight years. A graduate of the University of Arizona, Browning was the former director of the Willcox Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture and was instru-mental in bringing the greenhouse business to the Willcox area.

Western Bank is a local com-munity bank with offices in Lordsburg, Silver City, Will-cox, and Bisbee. Richard Searle, Western’s Senior VP for its Ari-zona operations made the an-nouncement last week and will be working with Browning as he transitions into managing the day-to-day operations of the Arizona branches.

Searle, who also serves on the Cochise County Board of Su-pervisors, will continue on the Western Bank Board of Direc-tors and will assist Browning as needed. After being away for the last several years, Eddie and his wife, Barbara, are looking for-ward to getting back to the Will-cox area.

Willcox Range News

Nogales native picked to lead en-vironmental com-mission

Nogales Native to LeadEnvironmental Commission

N o -g a l e s n a t i v e Irasema C o r o -n a d o has been tapped to lead the secretar-iat of the

Commission for Environ-

mental Cooperation of North America, an organization of NAFTA partners that ad-dresses environmental issues of continen-tal concern, including those presented by continent-wide free trade.

In an announcement issued Thursday, the commission known as the CEC said its council had appointed Coronado as the seventh executive director of the CEC sec-

retariat. The council is the com-mission’s governing body and the secretariat provides techni-cal, administrative and opera-tional support to the council.

The CEC called Coronado “a noted expert on transboundary environmental issues” who has recently served as a member of its public advisory committee.

Juan R. Elvira-Quesada, as Chair of the CEC Council, wel-comed Coronado, a noted ex-pert on transboundary environ-mental issues and a member of the CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), to the posi-tion of CEC Secretariat execu-tive director.

Irasema Coronado

Nogales International

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