By Oma E-Nunu / NM News Port /
If you were to ask Lisa Adkins, director and COO of FatPipe ABQ and director of The Bioscience Center if this was where she imagined being after her previous success, the answer might surprise you.
“No way. I had no idea this was a fluke,” Adkins said about being COO of Albuquerque’s premiere small business accelerator, FatPipe ABQ.
Adkins, a New Mexico native, got her bachelor’s degree in management information systems from the University of New Mexico.
After getting her master’s degree in business administration from Webster University, she started multiple companies. One was a consulting firm where she specialized in Microsoft Sharepoint. Another was an IT company called Q-mulus IT which she sold in 2010. She also help create Food Sentry LLC, a food research company that helped consumers understand how safe it is to eat food imported into the United States.
With multiple business ventures under her belt, she met Stuart Rose, who would become the Founder of FatPipe ABQ. Adkins says before she met Rose she had no idea what to expect.
“Stuart Rose was fairly new to town and he licensed in technologies out of UNM and he needed to find somewhere he could start up his business,” Adkins recalled. “Stuart also has a background in biotechnology, PH.D and a biologist and chemist by training and is a serial entrepreneur.”
Adkins says she met with Rose over coffee to discuss whether she would be a good fit for this upcoming start-up. She says it was definitely something new for her.
“I’m not a scientist and I don’t know the first thing about biotech or business incubation, but I’ll try it out,” she said. “After meeting Stuart we really clicked and he asked me to put together a proposal to start a business incubator.”
After joining the National Business Incubation Association and doing research on incubators, Rose and Adkins became partners and created the Albuquerque Bioscience Center, where she became the director.
Name:
Lisa Adkins
Age:
49
Title:
COO and director of FatPipe ABQ and The Bioscience Center
Background:
Owner of Food Sentry LLC, Q-mulus IT
What do you think is the most interesting part of the innovation economy in ABQ?
The diversity and the excitement around small businesses and starts and everyone seems to be getting involved and supporting efforts.
If you weren’t doing this job what would you be doing?
I started two companies before I started working at FatPipe so I would probably have focused more on expanding those businesses.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coC8JxMtDEI&list=PL0QUHGaLftJhmJE7P33I7nEo9oT33lO8J”][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]With the Bioscience Center up and running, and FatPipe ABQ drawing new tenants, Adkins decided to hire an assistant to spread the workload.
Megan George became the assistant director of the Bioscience Center and FatPipe ABQ.
“It’s funny because Lisa’s mom and my mom are really good friends,” George said. “So I’ve known Lisa for quite a while.”
“I like working with Lisa. It’s a lot of fun. She’s very strong, talented and she knows what she wants and make sure it gets done,” George said. “If there was one word I could use to describe Lisa, it would be ‘strong’ because does whatever it takes to get her job completed.”
Some of the tenants at FatPipe ABQ also had high praise for Adkins. Kristelle Siarza, CEO of Siarza Social Digital expressed her respect for Adkins.
“I met Lisa through different various networking circles,” Siarza said. “After that Lisa became a trusted colleague, a great client, as well as a great partner and supporter of our business.”
Auri Vigil, an online account executive for Siarza Social Digital also talked about her interactions with Adkins.
“Me and Lisa have more of a professional relationship… where I have learned to work with her as a client,” Vigil said. “She is also a really great mentor and a really great person to look up to.”
Adkins sees a strong future for the innovation economy in New Mexico, especially if it sticks to its unique character. “I don’t think there is any limit to what this economy can be” Adkins said. “Too many people focus on ‘let’s me more like Austin or Denver,’ but Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico is unique.”
“We don’t have to be like them to be successful. We can be creative and make different types of successes and get to where we need to be in different ways,” she said. “Who knows what that entails, but I think people are starting to get it now.
“Sure we could be like San Francisco, but we don’t want their traffic or their high price real estate.”
“I think the first step for us to succeed is by working together,” Adkins said.
“All these collaborative efforts will help pave the way for our city to become what we know it can be.”
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