Today’s guest is GOED’s strategic project manager Nate Bouvet. Through his work, Nate helps align federal designations, infrastructure readiness, and capital strategies to drive economic resilience across Nevada. We wanted to talk to Nate about the roles infrastructure and strategic alignment play in economic development, as well as some of the big projects he's been involved in over the years -- Campus for Hope, HUBZones and much more!
[Speaker 3]
Welcome, you're listening to Diversify Nevada, a podcast produced by the Governor's Office of Economic Development. Diversify Nevada provides insightful discussions and expert analysis on the driving forces behind our state's economic workforce and community development. I'm Tom Burns, the Executive Director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development.
[Speaker 2]
And we're your hosts, Carli Smith.
[Speaker 1]
And Evan Haddad. Today's guest is GOED's Strategic Project Manager, Nate Bouvet. Through his work, Nate helps align federal designations, infrastructure readiness, and capital strategies to drive economic resilience across Nevada.
Nate leads several key state initiatives, from Opportunity Zones and Rural Development to major infrastructure projects. And beyond GOED, Nate serves in multiple statewide leadership roles, including as Chair of the Nevada Clean Energy Fund and Treasurer of ImpactNV, where he supports initiatives across environmental, social, and economic sustainability. He's also an Air Force veteran and father of four who's really involved in the community, including community-based sports and leadership, coaching t-ball, basketball, baseball, soccer, and probably a whole lot more.
We wanted to talk to Nate about the roles infrastructure and strategic alignment play in economic development. Nate Bouvet, welcome to the show. Well, thanks everybody for having me.
[Speaker 2]
Yeah, welcome, Nate. I'm excited to have this podcast with you.
[Speaker 1]
Absolutely.
[Speaker 2]
So let's get in a little bit about your background and how you ended up here at GOED.
[Speaker 1]
Okay, I'll go ahead and start, kind of give you the cookie cutter version from, say, an interview question, if you will, as far as what my background is, combination education, work-related experience. As you pointed out, I am an Air Force veteran that kind of set the foundation as far as my philosophy on service before self. So getting into the public sector, I do have over 20 years of experience in local government, urban regional planning, redevelopment, infrastructure coordination, and so on.
I came into this field through planning a local government. My first position was with the city of Desert Hot Springs in Southern California, and that was after a couple of internships in the Midwest with the city of Roseville and the city of Chanhassen. And that kind of gave me the backbone, if you will, as far as my entry into economic development and urban regional planning.
Over time, I realized economic development is really more about connecting systems that normally operate independently. So that includes everything in my day-to-day role as far as transportation, utilities, housing, workforce, land use, infrastructure, financing, and on and on. I mean, I can spend hours talking about what a city planner does or is.
Wow. But I'll try not to bore you with the details.
[Speaker 2]
Well, and I also want to highlight, too, that you just won Governor Lombardo's 2026 GSD Award. So congratulations on that, too.
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, congrats.
[Speaker 2]
It touched a lot of different things, and we're very happy to have you here.
[Speaker 1]
Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I was kind of surprised going into that room of 100 people not really knowing what it was about.
And I was pleasantly surprised and couldn't have done it without the staff we have here at GO-ED and throughout the state. So I'm definitely humbled.
[Speaker 2]
Well deserved.
[Speaker 1]
So they didn't tell you you were getting the award? They're just like, come into this room and we got a surprise for you. Or did they give you any prep?
Yeah, it was just a random day. And I got an invite, and it said mandatory from Director Burns' Governor's event. So, of course, you ask the question, what's this about?
And do I need to dress up? I mean, are we actually meeting the governor? And it was kind of hush, hush.
[Speaker 2]
Yeah, you got to smile big.
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, smile big, pretend like I know what I'm doing. But it was pretty intense walking into that room. And you see the awards and certificates.
So then it started coming together. But yeah, I mean, I was definitely surprised. And it was an awesome experience.
That's awesome. So let's kind of dig into a little bit more about what you do here. And I know that statewide infrastructure is something you do a lot of work with.
And, you know, I'm wondering how you can explain to our listeners how all of that fits into the economic development picture, stuff like supplemental airports, freight and passenger rail, other projects, like, kind of take us into that world and tie it together for those who might not know. I think it's kind of getting back to a little bit more discussion of my background in local government. And obviously, that gave me that direct exposure as far as implementation challenges at a community level.
My role here is kind of an extension of what I did at the local level, but more involved, if you will. I consider my relationship with communities over the years have found that they have great ideas, strong visions, you know, but when it comes down to infrastructure, staffing, financing and coordination not being aligned, projects are often going to struggle to move forward. And that's essentially what I do here at the state is really helping jurisdictions, agencies, companies, not just attract them to the state, but really help collaborate and get them to the table, if you will.
So, obviously, over that time, I've been here for about two, just under two and a half years, I became more interested in helping connect that infrastructure funding, redevelopment, long range planning, kind of what I did in the past, and bring that expertise to the state level. So, that kind of bridged my background to what I do now. So, my work here at GO-ED, when I first started, it was kind of up in the air as a combination of me and Dorian, the deputy director, kind of putting together what my role is, what my daily job duties are going to be.
And we kind of built the position from the ground up. Kind of going back to what I do here at GO-ED, it kind of starts with what individuals think economic development is. You can ask that question to 100 people, you know, what is economic development, you're often going to get 100 different answers of what economic development is.
[Speaker 2]
Correct. I agree with you on that one.
[Speaker 1]
So, I think that the biggest hurdle, if you will, and it's not really a hurdle, it's just relaying that information of what we feel at GO-ED economic development is. So, I think first thing to point out is a lot of people do think that economic development is only business recruitment. You know, we're bringing businesses to the state, and that's a huge component of it, but it's much broader than that.
GO-ED is constantly helping position Nevada for long-term economic growth, competitiveness through infrastructure readiness, redevelopment strategy, site competitiveness, federal funding, alignment, implementation, coordination. And that's really kind of a big ball of wax of what I do on a daily basis. So, my role, what we've built the position into is helping bridge that gap between strategy and execution.
I think those two components are hugely important because there's often a strong opportunity and various ideas. But again, going back to projects can stall if infrastructure financing, permitting, staffing, and coordination challenges aren't aligned. So, I think that alignment on a daily basis is one of the foundations of what I do here at GO-ED.
And obviously, we're going to get into further detail of projects I work on and things that I do, but I wanted to throw it out there as far as a starting point.
[Speaker 2]
Well, absolutely. You can touch a lot of different things that are very important things to keep us moving forward. And one of those things is hub zones.
And so, I'm kind of curious if you don't mind walking us through kind of what they are, where they are in Nevada, and what they do to target different industries and how GO-ED is involved and why.
[Speaker 1]
Hub zones and opportunity zones, you'll find are two different economic tools. Let's start with that. A lot of people incorrectly think hub zones are opportunity zones and vice versa.
So, my work with hub zones, think of hub zones as a rural community or a county that might be what's defined as a historically underutilized business zone. So, if you're one of the designated counties or census tracts in this last go-around, last about two or three months ago, the Small Business Administration approved the governor's petition for five designations, and that was Story County, Lyon County, Churchill County, in a census tract here in Clark County. And hub zones essentially help create visibility and attract investment, but they also give priority to low-income areas or historically underutilized business zones, priority when it comes to federal funding, whereas opportunity zones are more of your capital investment as far as development is concerned.
Nate, what is a historically underutilized development? Like, what constitutes that? What are some of the factors involved and what determines that designation?
Going back to a hub zone, it stands for historically underutilized business zone. What a hub zone is, it's a U.S. federal government program run by the U.S. Small Business Administration or SBA. Essentially, the program is to help small businesses in economically distressed areas get access to federal contracting opportunities.
So if you're a designated area or one of those counties that I mentioned previously, Lyon County or Story County, there's four counties and then a census tract, you essentially get priority or access to federal contracting opportunities. So it's essentially getting priority over other entities that might seek the same funding. Gotcha.
[Speaker 2]
So, Nate, tell us a little more about hub zones versus opportunity zones and what do they mean for the state of Nevada? Because I'm sure you get asked that a lot.
[Speaker 1]
Although hub zones and opportunity zones are often discussed together, they're fundamentally different programs. Hub zones are administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration or SBA and focus on helping small businesses grow through federal contracting opportunities, whereas opportunity zones are administered by the U.S. Treasury. The opportunity zones focus on attracting long-term private investment, capital into economically distressed communities through tax incentives.
So essentially, in simple terms, hub zones focus on where businesses operate and hire employees, while opportunity zones focus on where investment capital flows. To give you a better breakdown of hub zones, some of the eligibility requirements associated with hub zones include qualified census tracts first and foremost. They have to be in rural areas, areas with elevated unemployment, on Native American lands, and other designated economically distressed communities.
So essentially, businesses seeking hub zone certification must also meet additional requirements. Some of these include maintaining a principal office in the hub zone and also ensuring that at least 35 percent of employees reside in a hub zone designated area. So an example of a hub zone could be a small manufacturing company, engineering firm, logistics provider, or a professional services company may use those hub zone certifications to compete for federally contracting opportunities that support business expansion and job creation.
On the flip side, opportunity zones operate essentially differently. So the Treasury first designates an eligible low-income or LIC tract using federal census data. So for most urban and suburban communities, a census tract generally qualifies if it has a poverty rate of 20 percent or greater or the median family income does not exceed 80 percent of area median income or AMI.
So in rural areas, the evaluation is a little bit different. So for rural communities, the tract must be located within a rural area, and then the median family income cannot exceed 80 percent of statewide family income. Once the Treasury establishes eligibility, the State of Nevada must determine which tracts demonstrate the strongest combination of economic distress, community benefit, infrastructure readiness, housing and workforce alignment, redevelopment potential, realistic project pipeline, investor interest, and then long-term economic impact.
So an opportunity zone project can involve workforce housing, industrial development, mixed-use redevelopment, revitalization of underutilized property, investment into operating businesses, and infrastructure-related development. A little bit earlier, you were talking about all the different things that need to align and just all the different factors involved there. What are some of the challenges and solutions involved with that?
I mean, it seems like it's kind of a small miracle to get all of these entities and organizations and permitting and regulations all aligned. I mean, it seems like it's a small miracle that things actually happen. I mean, but if you could walk us through some of the challenges and solutions that you see and sort of how economic development efforts can get stuck between strategy and implementation and how do you overcome some of those quagmires and logjams?
That's a good question. It's also a difficult one to respond to. But I think in my role, I think the biggest risk that I come across as far as a challenge or even ultimately that will lead to a solution is fragmentation.
So obviously when funding, infrastructure, decision-making are not aligned early enough in the process. So you'll have people that have a potential development out in Lincoln County, for example, but they lack the infrastructure, they lack the ability to fund the project, whether it's utilities or street surface infrastructure, schools, health care, things of that sort. So not having that alignment early enough is going to be one of the biggest challenges that I run into because I'll ask that question.
OK, you want a data center in Lincoln County. Well, how are you going to get electricity to the site? Are you going to get running water to the site?
So infrastructure is always going to be a key component. But that's also one of the biggest challenges is infrastructure. In my world, in my opinion, I think infrastructure is a huge component of economic development.
So I think a lot of projects that don't necessarily fail because people lack the vision or developers lack the vision, I'd consider it more as a stall because implementation systems are fragmented in themselves. So responsibilities, timelines, funding streams, compliance requirements, approvals are often spread across multiple agencies and organizations. Those as well are some challenges that we run into.
Then that's especially true for redevelopment infrastructure or federally funded programs similar to HUBZones. There's often uncertainty at a federal level. What funding the state's going to get and how that trickles down to the local agencies and organizations.
So that's also a challenge. Communities might identify a need and even secure funding, but then they might face procurement, environmental review, reporting issues, reimbursement issues, legal underwriting, administrative requirements that can be overwhelming and have limited staff. So those are just a few challenges that are out there.
So one of the complex nature of our project is requiring or having shared ownership. So no single agency or organization can independently solve many of today's infrastructure and redevelopment challenges, if that makes sense. Yeah.
So communication is extremely important and it matters because each partner often controls a different piece of the project. So one entity might handle infrastructure, another might handle permitting, another may manage funding, another may oversee operations, another may handle community engagement. So again, my role is that coordination, putting all the necessary agencies and individuals together to make a project successful.
So that's in response to what some of the challenges are, but that's a solution, collaborating and working well in a group.
[Speaker 2]
Well, and I know energy, not just here, but everywhere is a topic of concern and you were just appointed the chair of the Nevada Clean Energy. I'm curious as what does that do? Why is it beneficial?
Why is it needed? And kind of go into detail about what your role is over there.
[Speaker 1]
I've been on the Nevada Clean Energy Fund board for I think about a year now. The Nevada Clean Energy Fund or NCEPT is essentially Nevada's green bank. So that was created through state legislation back in 2017.
And in a short breakdown of what it is, it essentially helps finance clean energy and energy efficiency projects across the state. So many don't know that it operates as a nonprofit organization focused on reducing energy costs, expanding access to clean energy, supporting economic development, and most importantly, in my opinion, is leveraging public and private investment. So being on the board itself, it's a mix of state officials, gubernatorial appointees representing everything from construction, labor, finance and local governments.
And that's kind of a real brief breakdown of what NCEPT is. So when I first got involved, relatively soon, I was asked to consider being the vice chair and the chair at that time asked if I'd be interested in it. I honestly didn't think I was the most qualified to do it.
And I agreed. I said, I'll help, you know, get us down the line. And one thing led to another and the previous chair stepped down and I was asked and ultimately nominated by other board members to be the best fit as the new chair.
So that's how I kind of fell into the chair role, if you will. That's cool. Well, as we move along in 2026 and we look towards the future, there are a lot of changes.
There's a lot of things happening right now in this moment. And I'm curious from your perspective, what are some trends coming along that we should be on the lookout for? And what is your insight into everything we're seeing right now and how that affects what you do and especially as it pertains to economic development and GOED?
Well, how much time do we have?
[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I feel like we need like five of you across the state.
[Speaker 1]
Right. Right. To answer your question, I think we're moving into an era where communities that are organized, aligned, and implementation ready are going to just by default outperform communities that are simply reactive.
So that's a trend to look for. Interesting. Other things to look for is resiliency and emergency preparedness, domestic supply chains and reshoring, federal funding alignment, infrastructure readiness, site readiness, energy reliability and clean energy financing, public-private partnerships, redevelopment adaptive reuse, rural development capacity building.
Those are just bullet points of things that are trending or to look for. Just quick follow up on that. I'm curious if someone's listening who maybe is in a community that you would describe as more reactive, what are some steps they can take to kind of get more on their front foot and stop being so reactive?
I mean, from your perspective, like what does that look like? That's a complicated question. Yeah.
I guess the way I can best describe it is one thing that's becoming increasingly clear is that economic resiliency, energy reliability, supply chains, workforce development, and infrastructure readiness, they're all interconnected. So I think if somebody is listening to the call, they need to understand that there's a lot of moving pieces on any particular project, whether it's an infrastructure project, Campus for Hope, for example, there's a lot of moving parts. So I think others just being well-informed, reaching out, getting some more information, what types of projects are going on in your community to be involved as much as possible.
I think I do that overseeing the T-ball team and a rookie's baseball team, but also basketball and soccer. And that also helps me get involved more in my community to see what else is going on. So it's not just driving to and from work and seeing all the construction cones.
It's actually getting out there. What are these construction cones for? Oh, we're widening the streets, or we're putting some new traffic signals up, or there might be a new commercial development going on, or an industrial development, or some new residential homes.
It's really putting the boots to the ground and getting out there and seeing what is moving forward. So I think to respond to somebody that might be listening in, give us a call. What types of trends?
What types of projects? What's on the forefront at a state level? And what have you heard in Clark County, or city of Reno, or in Elko, or city of Henderson?
Because we do have a lot of contacts with those jurisdictions, and we can help put you in contact with individuals in your local community as far as reach out to the community development director at Clark County. They can help facilitate a breakdown of all projects going on through the county, or even the city of Las Vegas, or city of Reno, or smaller communities in central Nevada or northern Nevada.
[Speaker 2]
Right. And I think you clean up a lot of the misconceptions that way as well. If someone just picks up the phone and says, hey, what's going on in this district?
Or what's going on down my street? And we're able to kind of connect them with the right people and get the right information out there in a timely manner, I think is important too.
[Speaker 1]
Absolutely. So let's talk about the growing role of public-private partnerships in delivering projects such as Campus for Hope. Sure.
Campus for Hope is a transformational public-private partnership designed to address homelessness, housing instability, behavioral health needs, workforce development, and supportive services delivered in southern Nevada. The project is located near the intersection of Charleston and Jones on the northwest side of town. Essentially, the project brings together housing, healthcare services, behavioral health support, workforce training, case management, and other supportive resources through a coordinated campus model.
So kind of the conversation we had previous in the podcast, the coordination aspects of my role. So in this case, it involves state agencies, local governments, nonprofit organizations, healthcare providers, philanthropic organizations, private sector partners, and so on. My role specific to Campus for Hope or my involvement was included by assisting with development of the trust agreement between the state and Campus for Hope and supporting implementation-related discussions, including certifying payroll reviews and prevailing wage-compliant considerations.
I wanted to get into further detail about the Campus for Hope project because it's a perfect example of how many of today's most complex community challenges require coordinated public-private partnerships. So projects succeed when financing, operations, governance, infrastructure, compliance, community support, and implementation capacity are aligned. Awesome.
[Speaker 2]
So final thoughts, what drives your passion for economic development? I know that you mentioned a lot of things that you're involved in, and again, you're only one person, so it's pretty amazing all the things that you're touching and doing and connecting. But what motivates you to work at GOAD, be at GOAD, be involved in the things going on in Nevada?
[Speaker 1]
First and foremost, like you had mentioned, I'm a father of four, so every day starts and ends with my kids in mind. Also, my military service that set my foundation as far as the three creeds that we live off is excellence in all that we do, service before self, and a sense of integrity, doing the right thing when nobody else is looking. So my background, my military service to my country, but my family, they really help keep me in line on a daily basis.
And when I do go to work, I have that comfort in my mind as far as I've done well at home, let's do well at work. So I guess my final thoughts is, at the end of the day, everything that I strive to do is involving this work, is about whether a community has the roads, housing, jobs, and infrastructure, because those are the components of what I do on a daily basis, and have those things in place so families can actually live and succeed there. Now, if you've ever lived in the Midwest where there's dilapidated streets, it's more of a rural type of feel, they don't have the same type of infrastructure that we might have here in Las Vegas.
So not just focusing on the urban areas, but also making sure that the rural communities have those roads, have that housing, have the jobs, infrastructure in place, so programs like the hub zones or opportunity zones can help fund future developments in those areas. So again, whether through infrastructure, redevelopment, workforce investment, resiliency planning, or public-private partnerships, the goal is to help create places where people can succeed long term. And that's one of my primary goals, is to do what I can to help others do that as well.
So a lot of my personal motivation has historically come from helping communities move ideas into action and helping position Nevada for a long-term success. And that's something that I've been working on since the 90s as far as my career is concerned.
[Speaker 2]
Great answer, Nate. We're very lucky to have you here at GO-ED.
[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Thank you so much for your time, Nate. It was great talking to you.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
[Speaker 2]
And that's all for this episode of Diversify Nevada. This podcast was created by the Governor's Office of Economic Development with the help of our sound editor, Michelle Rebeletti. If you'd like to learn more about our agency, you can visit our website at goed.nv.gov. And if you'd like to share feedback about the show or suggest a topic you'd like us to cover, send us an email to goed at goed.nv.gov. Thanks for joining us, and we'll be back soon.
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