When Entrepreneur Dan Burrell Comes to Town

When Entrepreneur Dan Burrell Comes to Town‌

D

By Emmaly Wiederholt

an Burrell’s name keeps popping up around the state like daisies in the spring; he’s building a new college of osteopathic medicine at New Mexico State University; he owns a garnet mining venture, Orogrande, in Otero County; he’s the chairman of GeminiRosemont Realty in Santa Fe; he and his wife founded a leadership institute to provide scholarship and mentorship to promising high schoolers. Just who is this talented young entrepreneur who is not-so-slowly but surely building an impressive portfolio based out of New Mexico?

Burrell originally hails from upstate New York from a family with a background in business; his father is chief executive of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield in Washington D.C. Burrell first found his way to New Mexico in 2008 when he started a process of acquiring medium-sized real estate portfolios across the United States, one of which was located in Santa Fe – BGK Properties.

“As chairman and CEO of the business, it quickly developed into a situation where it made more sense for me to come out and run it from Santa Fe instead of from New York City, which you can imagine is a challenging commute,” Burrell describes. “Because most of the assets were centered in the Southwest, Santa Fe made more sense as an operational hub than the East Coast did.

My wife and I were ready for a change and to start a family. Santa Fe has much to offer in terms of family life and the great outdoors.

It makes for a wonderful lifestyle.”

Now at age 37, Burrell thinks of himself as an entrepreneur more than anything else. “When I got to New Mexico, I found the need was significant around the state on a variety of different levels, certainly in regard to our health care and health delivery systems,” he explains. “I have a relationship with New Mexico State University through the foundation my wife and I founded three years ago – the New Mexico Leadership Institute. That was the genesis of the medical school opportunity.” It was recently announced that the medical school will house a health policy institute, of which there is currently nothing like in the region.

As for Burrell’s garnet mining venture, Orogrande, the area is historically known for gold and silver, though besides an iron ore operation, there have not been significant operations in the area for the last decade. “Garnet is a mineral that is a clean abrasive, as opposed to dirtier abrasives like coal and copper. It was an obvious opportunity to go after an emerging market,” he says.

Burrell says he gets a lot of enjoyment developing the businesses, building the management teams, coming up with the direction, and then moving onto the next opportunity.

“Frankly, I’ve been incredibly lucky to come to a place like Santa Fe where there’s not a lot of traditional industry or entrepreneurialism, and be able to start a number of viable and sustainable businesses,” he remarks.

He continues: “It’s a conundrum – you want to preserve the small town aspect of Santa Fe, so the introduction of major

industry wouldn’t necessarily be a positive thing here. One of the things I’ve been focused on is attracting more young families and entrepreneurs who want to start small businesses as well as experience all the things we love about Santa Fe without changing its fundamental character. In New Mexico, we’re very under-served from a capital perspective. It’s not a target investment area, which is a negative thing for the state, but a positive thing for a young entrepreneur like myself. There’s a liquidity gap, and if someone like me can come in and be a provider of that capital, it’s a unique opportunity.”

From real estate and mining to medical colleges and philanthropy, the scope of Burrell’s work demonstrates not only the diversification of his portfolio, but perhaps more importantly, the myriad of interests and opportunities the entrepreneur recognizes in the Land of Enchantment.