Business/Economy

Cruiser’s Custom Embroidery may have just opened up a shop on Trinity Drive in August, but the store’s owner has been embroidering for much longer than that.
Mike Luna actually started his business about 10 years ago, working from home. At the time, Luna sold his restaurant, Home Run Pizza, and was looking for something else to do. As the president of the Atomic City Corvettes car club, Luna realized that the companies that did the embroidering on their jackets and clothing weren’t quite cutting it.
The rest is history.
“I’ll buy my own doggone machine and I’m just going to play,” he said, thinking it was just going to be a hobby to help out his fellow club members and nothing more. But his friends kept calling for him to do more work and his business grew.
Luna has grown proficient with his sewing machine, he can take any idea and make a logo or a design out of it and put it on anything, whether it’s cloth, leather, or anything in between.
Luna still works by himself, and loves to work with customers one-on-one. A lot of amazing ideas have passed through the needle of his machine through the years, and he can wait to see what’s next.

Los Alamos National Bank CEO John Gulas said the 26 layoffs announced last week were part of the bank’s overall plan for continued financial stability.
“The biggest goal was to make sure we have a sustainable organization,” Gulas said.
The layoffs extended throughout the organization, with customer service being the least affected, and all six of LANB’s branches remain open.
Gulas could not provide an exact figure of how many of those workers worked at the White Rock branch and the main headquarters in Los Alamos, but said due to the fact that the bank’s headquarters were in Los Alamos County, “It would probably be more in Los Alamos County because this is our biggest office.”
Each worker received severance payment and aid in finding employment.
Earlier this year, Gulas also eliminated may positions through attrition. Those included the chief operating officer position and the chief wealth officer position.
“We were very cautious when we were hiring to make sure we were taking this target into consideration. We used a lot of attrition to get where we needed to be,” Gulas said.

Los Alamos MainStreet was selected as a winner of the 2016 Great American Main Street Awards, chosen by the National Main Street Center, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
 Los Alamos MainStreet was picked as “One to Watch,” for being a neighborhood making progress toward revitalizing its downtown district.
Suzette Fox, Los Alamos MainStreet executive director stated, “I am so honored and delighted to receive the national designation.”
“I would like to thank to the National MainStreet Center, New Mexico MainStreet, Los Alamos County and the Los Alamos Commerce & Development Corporation for their support and encouragement. This award would not have been possible without the help of the Los Alamos MainStreet Board, the Los Alamos Historical Society and countless people in our community. ”
A statement issued by Patrice Frey, president and CEO of the National Main Street Center, reads, “The 2016 GAMSA winners have succeeded in making their towns an exciting place to live, work, play and visit through implementing our historic preservation-based methodology for downtown revitalization.

Since its inception in 2007, the Los Alamos Co-op Market has been part of the community.
However, 2015 has been a tough year, which is the consensus from several board members and some employees.
A slew of administrative changes has plagued the co-op in recent months, including the unexpected death of the newly appointed general manager Scott Brelsford in November. A decline in revenue is evident due to the Smith’s Marketplace moving into town.
“We knew would see a decline, but it didn’t help having all the internal issues,” said Board President Tracy McFarland.
She expressed her feelings about Brelsford’s death.
“He was so young and had such great ideas,” McFarland said.
The decline in the co-op’s business was brought to the attention of the Los Alamos Monitor from concerned citizen Steve Snapp. In his letter to the editor, Snapp wanted to make the community aware of the issues the co-op has had and how the public can help.
“People have other choices,” Snapp said. “Please consider eating at the co-op more often and shifting some of your grocery dollars to the co-op,” Snapp wrote. “In our family we’ve tried to double our visits to the co-op vs. shopping Smith’s, or Santa Fe.”