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www.negociosnow.com 4 October 2019 SPECIAL EDITION Business owner found his purpose in his old neighborhood By David Steinkraus U .S. immigration may be a hot issue, but the United Sta- tes didn't exist when three Miera brothers came from Spain and settled in New Mexico in the 1600s. "So that makes me a local," descendent Bill Miera said with a smile in his voice. Mie- ra is CEO and owner of Fiore Industries Inc., an enginee- ring company based in Albu- querque. He grew up in a poor neighborhood in the city, and that influenced what he has done with his life. He went to the University of New Mexico and earned a bachelor's degree, with distinction, in mechani- cal engineering, and then earned a master's degree while working at Rockwell International. At Rockwell he rose into management, built up a technical busi- ness area and found he liked doing that. He wan- ted to do more commercial work, he said, and although his Albuquerque managers supported the idea, Roc- kwell headquarters did not. Local managers encouraged him to start his own busi- ness and bid on a contract. "I never thought I'd be in business at all," Miera said. "Because of how I grew up, I never wanted to risk any of my own money." Miera won but lost the bid when a competitor protes- ted the award. He had left Rockwell, and with no job and no income other than the Rockwell retirement he had cashed out, he appealed the denial of the contract. It was unusual for appeals to succeed, he said, but he won and got the contract back. From that beginning with four employees, the company grew to its present 130. The company took a hit when the first Iraq war sucked money away from research and development. But Miera and his team rebuilt and along the way diversified its work. Among the research and development projects that Fiore is working on now is a robotic arm with touch and temperature sensors built into its fingers. "When you lift a glass of water to pick it up and take a drink, you don't realize it, but it's a very complex motion to lift it first without spilling it," he said. "That's a very complex motion if you look at it mathematically," When they're learning to do this, babies have to think, but later the motion is stored in muscle memory and conscious thought is not necessary. "That's what I want to build into a robot arm," he said. Such an arm could help a wounded sol- dier or a victim of disease. He and his team have achieved some success with their latest arm. "The fingers can lift a hammer without letting it slip, but it can also lift a Styrofoam cup without crushing it," he said. This impulse to help goes back to his childhood. "I grew up in a poor neighbor- hood, and I saw so much loss of potential whether it's because of access to educa- tion or people literally get- ting killed," Miera said. He raises money for scho- larships and mentors busi- ness owners. His company does charitable work direc- ted by an employee commit- tee. Miera said the best way to elevate people is to provi- de a good belief system. "Where I grew up, none of us believed we would be professionals," he said. "We were going to be laborers, and that's the way it was." " When you lift a glass of water to pick it up and take a drink, you don't realize it, but it's a very complex motion to lift it first without spilling it. That's a very complex motion if you look at it mathematically." BILL MIERA, CEO of Fiore Industries Inc.

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