New Mexico State’s College of Business Administration and Economics inducted John Papen III, ’68, of Las Cruces and Andres Gutierrez, ’80, ’83, of Fremont, Calif., into its Business Hall of Fame April 27.

Papen is executive vice president of Wells Fargo Bank in Las Cruces. A lifelong Las Crucen, he graduated from New Mexico State in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He also is a 1973 graduate of the Colorado School of Banking at the University of Colorado and a 1976 graduate of the National Commercial Lending School at the University of Oklahoma.

Papen was the 1997 Distinguished Alumnus of New Mexico State’s College of Business Administration and Economics. He is a member and past president of the NMSU President’s Associates and is a member emeritus and past president of the NMSU Aggie Scholarship Association.

Gutierrez is a native of Alamogordo, N.M., where he began his college education at New Mexico State’s Alamogordo campus. He earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1980 and a master’s degree in business administration in 1983 at New Mexico State in Las Cruces.

In 1999, he founded NewCo Productions in Fremont, Calif. In March 2002, NewCo Productions formed Commendo Software Inc., a joint venture with the founder and former chief executive of WorldChain, an Internet-based materials management company. The company will have operations in Fremont and Shanghai, China. Gutierrez will be its president and chief operating officer, responsible for overseeing global operations.

Jack King

New Mexico State University’s 93- year-old YMCA building came back to life March 22 when it was dedicated as the William B. Conroy Honors Center.

“This is a dream come true for the Honors Program,” said William Eamon, director of the program. “The renovation of this building as an Honors Center signifies the high value the university places on excellence.”

The cornerstone for the Henry C. Trostdesigned building was laid Jan. 7, 1907, by the Young Men’s Christian Association. The building has housed many university departments in the last century, but it had stood vacant since 1982.

The dedication ceremony included remarks by President Emeritus Conroy and University President G. Jay Gogue.

“This is a great day in the life of New Mexico State University and there is no one more deserving than Bill Conroy,” Gogue said.

“It is one of the greatest thrills of my life to have my name on this historic building at this university that will always be so close to my heart,” Conroy said.

Conroy came to the university as executive vice president in 1985 and served in that position until 1997. During 1994 and 1995 he also served as interim president and in May 1997 he became the 19th president of the university. Conroy, who retired in 2000, was a strong supporter of the Honors Program including the renovation of the historic building, Eamon said. In December 1999, the university’s Board of Regents unanimously voted to name the Honors Center for Conroy.

The honors center renovation cost $1.8 million. The building now has 9,468 square feet and is accessible to people with disabilities. The center includes offices, a commons area, seminar rooms and an art exhibit area.

Julie M. Hughes

Four researchers honored with new award

Four New Mexico State University researchers received the first University Research Council Awards for Exceptional Achievements in Creative Scholarly Activity at a special ceremony March 19.

The honorees were Paul Bosland of the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Anatoly Klypin of Astronomy, Jaime Ramirez-Angulo of the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Alberto Rodriguez of Curriculum and Instruction.

Interim Vice Provost for Research Miley Gonzalez presented a $2,000 award to each.

The URC Awards, to be presented annually to early career and senior faculty and staff, are designed to increase recognition for exceptional research and other creative scholarly efforts at New Mexico State.

Bosland, an internationally known chile researcher, is director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State, leads the university’s chile breeding program and serves as co-chairman of the annual New Mexico Chile Conference.

Klypin is a renowned astrophysicist with a reputation as one of the world’s leading theoretical cosmologists. His research entails creating computer simulations of the formation and evolution of the universe, in particular the formation of large-scale structures such as galaxy clusters.

Ramirez has an international reputation in analog Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuit design. His contributions to the field have been especially valuable in the area of miniature, low-power electronics for portable, hand-held devices.

Rodriguez’s research achievements have been in three major areas: science education reform, the use of video as a tool for research and teacher professional development, and learning to teach science in more culturally responsive ways.

Karl Hill