by Elaine Stachera Simon

When Nolan Ojeda ’14 took a civilian contractor job with the U.S. Army at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) working on Patriot missile launch systems for the Integrated Air and Missile Defense program, he certainly didn’t anticipate becoming a top civic and economic leader in nearby Alamogordo, New Mexico.

But work at WSMR was taking a toll. His hours on the missile range were long and isolating: “You work in remote sites when you test missiles. I’d be out the door by 6 a.m. and home just in time to kiss the kids goodnight. There came a point when I was just done.”

Serendipity struck.

Nolan’s wife, Taylor ’16 (née Reed), had opened a popular “indoor farmers market” called The Local Bodega in Alamogordo’s historic district. An Alamogordo MainStreet board member fortuitously mentioned to Taylor that the organization was looking for an executive director. (Local MainStreet organizations operate under the umbrella of New Mexico MainStreet, a program of the New Mexico Economic Development Department, to “create an economically viable business environment while preserving cultural and historic resources.”)

The time was right to make a move, and Nolan got the executive director position. “It was a huge lifestyle change,” says Nolan. “But I was excited for the opportunity and ready to work hard.”

From NMSU to the military to Alamogordo MainStreet

Up to this point, Nolan’s education and experience had been in engineering and as a civilian contractor for the military — after a bit of a rocky start.

After graduating from Mayfield High School, Nolan wanted a career in which he “built things,” noting, “I had a knack for math, and the more complex, the better I was at it.”

But things didn’t go as planned. Nolan had an unsuccessful launch at NMSU and transferred to the University of Colorado-Boulder. “I partied my way to failure there,” Nolan laughs, “but I came back to NMSU and made a fresh start.”

And what a fresh start it was. Nolan received the Intel Freshman Minority and the Mechanical Engineering Departmental scholarships and graduated with a 3.8 GPA in mechanical engineering.

Straight out of NMSU, the U.S. Department of Defense hired Nolan to work on nuclear naval craft in Bremerton, Washington. In three short years, he was a program developer for the U.S. Navy, specializing in heat exchangers on aircraft and submarines, and three years after that, he was promoted to lead engineer, tasked with implementing those programs for the Pacific fleet. The time commitment was enormous, with overseas travel and calls from around the world at all hours of the day — not leaving Nolan much time for his wife and their two kids. It was then he moved back to New Mexico for the job at WSMR before taking the helm at Alamogordo MainStreet.

Bringing a unique perspective

Nolan’s hard work at Alamogordo MainStreet has transformed the town. Since becoming executive director in 2022, one of Nolan’s biggest achievements was securing $2.9 million in state capital outlay funding for MainStreet Makeover, the renovation and accessibility upgrade for historic New York Avenue, a project under New Mexico MainStreet’s Great Blocks Project. His engineering background allows him to uniquely understand and contribute to the details of the construction, which finishes this fall.

However, Nolan also turned the inconvenience of a two-year road closure into something special. He enlisted Taylor to bring professional artists and artists from the middle and high schools, NMSU-Alamogordo, and Otero Artspace together to create and install a total of 13 public murals in the car-free space, as well as adding a pergola and a community garden that provides fresh tomatoes that anyone can harvest.

“We made it a beautiful, creative space where people hang out,” Nolan says. “Students take senior photos there! And we made sure that the community chose the subject matter for six of the murals: pioneer women, the history of Holloman Air Force Base, and the discovery of woolly mammoth footprints at White Sands National Park.” Another of Nolan’s ongoing economic revitalization projects is working with an investor to renovate the onion-domed Avis Building into a brewery and bistro with lodging on the top floor.

Claudia Loya has served on the Alamogordo MainStreet board for 10 years and has been president for the past three years. The owner of Elite Memories Boutique formalwear shop, she says: “It sounds dramatic, but Nolan saved our organization thanks to his project management and communication skills. He has guided us through the massive MainStreet Makeover construction project, giving peace of mind to business owners while at the same time helping our board understand how we should be working as an organization.”

Alamogordo’s Acting City Manager Stephanie Hernandez, Ph.D. (who has five degrees from NMSU) credits Nolan with bringing several new businesses to Alamogordo. “He has been the key to downtown development, both process and results. He fostered the relationships between businesses and the City and really bridged a longtime gap in communication. Alamo has a lot of strong personalities, and Nolan brings everyone to the table. Plus, he’s a good guy; he’s humble, and both he and his wife volunteer a lot of their time.”

The value of relationships and teamwork

According to Nolan, as beautiful as the area is, the real reason to visit Alamogordo is the people. “If you go to a local shop, the owner will ask about you and make you feel welcome. We are a military town, and military people are here for a few years at most. This is a transitional space, and we take seriously the limited gift of time we have with each other. Come to Alamo and you’ll have unique, authentic experiences — places and people.”

Nolan says his role with Alamogordo MainStreet has been a natural extension of the many other leadership roles he has held, and he credits his NMSU mentors with instilling the value of teamwork: “If your team is strong and you communicate and take care of each other, your success is way more likely. I see the potential in Alamogordo — and our team is making it a reality.”

Learn more about Alamogordo MainStreet here and New Mexico MainStreet here.