There’s a term that has been circulating in economic development circles for years — mostly in policy papers and academic reports. But it has moved from prediction to reality. And for Santa Fe, the Los Alamos corridor, and the communities that make up northern New Mexico, it’s no longer an abstraction.
It’s called the Silver Tsunami. Understanding it — and doing something about it — is central to why GUiA exists.
What We’re Talking About
The Silver Tsunami describes the wave of Baby Boomer business owners who are reaching retirement age, in many cases without a clear plan for what happens to the businesses they’ve spent their lives building.
The numbers are staggering. Nearly half of all U.S. small business owners are 55 or older. According to a 2025 U.S. Bank report, only about 54% of them have any succession plan in place. A study by the Exit Planning Institute found that 75% of business owners want to exit within the next decade — and a 2025 national survey found that nearly half want out within three years, not five. By 2030, the entire Baby Boomer generation will be at or beyond retirement age. Ten thousand Boomers are turning 65 every single day.
Approximately 2.3 to 3 million boomer-owned small businesses are expected to change hands — or close — over the next decade. Boomers own roughly 40% of all small businesses in the country. The total value of business assets in transition is estimated between $10 and $14 trillion. One in three Americans relies on income tied to a boomer-owned business. As a whole, small businesses employ more than 62 million people and generate roughly 43% of U.S. GDP.
When these businesses close — not because they failed, but because no one was ready to carry them forward — the damage is immediate and lasting. Jobs disappear. Tax revenue shrinks. Institutional knowledge built over decades is gone. The supply chains that other local businesses depend on fracture quietly. And the businesses that have defined the character of a community for thirty years simply stop existing.
Here’s the hard truth: only about 20 to 30% of businesses that go to market actually sell. A third of owners over 50 report they can’t find a buyer at all. Family succession, once the default path, has become increasingly rare — only 4% of small businesses survive to the fourth generation. Without intervention, many of these businesses won’t be acquired. They’ll close.
Why This Hits Differently Here
Every region in the country is facing a version of this challenge. But Santa Fe, the Los Alamos corridor, and the communities of northern New Mexico have a particular relationship to it — one that makes the stakes both higher and the opportunity more concrete.
The small businesses woven into the fabric of this region aren’t interchangeable with what you’d find in a suburban strip mall or a generic downtown. They carry cultural history. They are embedded in neighborhoods and relationships that took generations to build. The restaurant that has been a family gathering place for thirty years. The contractor who has been part of this community’s infrastructure for two decades. The specialty retailer or service provider that reflects the identity of a place like Santa Fe in ways that a national chain never could.
When those businesses close because their owners had no succession plan and no buyer, what’s lost is not just a job or a storefront. It’s a piece of what makes this place what it is.
Northern New Mexico also sits within one of the most concentrated research and innovation corridors in the country. Los Alamos National Laboratory, just 35 miles from Santa Fe, is one of the world’s most advanced scientific institutions, employing roughly 13,000 people and actively supporting small business development through programs like the Feynman Center for Innovation and the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program. Sandia National Laboratories, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and three research universities round out an ecosystem with extraordinary depth. New Mexico outperforms the U.S. average in overall R&D intensity — a fact that rarely makes it into the story people tell about this state.
That infrastructure creates a particular kind of entrepreneurial opportunity in this corridor: the convergence of deep technical capability, established Main Street businesses, and a community with strong values around local ownership and long-term stewardship. It’s a rare combination. But it requires entrepreneurs who are prepared to step into it.
The Readiness Gap Is the Real Problem
The opportunity is not the issue. The problem — the one that will determine whether this wave of business transitions strengthens northern New Mexico or diminishes it — is readiness.
Most emerging entrepreneurs, especially first-generation entrepreneurs and those from underrepresented communities, have not been prepared for the kind of moves that the Silver Tsunami makes possible. They haven’t been shown how to evaluate an existing business, structure an acquisition, build a leadership team, or design for scalability from the day they take the helm. The startup world talks almost exclusively about building from scratch. But in communities like ours, the better path is often to build on what already exists — to step into a business that has customers, cash flow, and community roots, and to lead it into its next chapter.
The businesses that are coming to market right now are, by and large, profitable. Roughly 78% of boomer-owned businesses are generating positive cash flow at the time they come to market. They have operating systems, existing customers, employees who know the work, and reputations earned over years. For an entrepreneur who is prepared — who knows how to modernize, how to lead, and how to scale — these are not distressed situations. They are extraordinary entry points.
But most entrepreneurs in this region haven’t been prepared for that path. And that’s the gap GUiA is closing.
What GUiA Is Building
GUiA was designed with the full picture of entrepreneurship in northern New Mexico in mind — not just the glamorous startup story, but the full ecosystem of what it means to build and sustain a business in this community.
Our program develops entrepreneurs who can lead businesses, not just launch them. We go deep on the fundamentals that succession and acquisition require: financial structure, scalable operations, investor readiness, leadership development, and the ability to articulate a clear and compelling vision to the people who control capital. Our mentors and expert network include people who have been through transitions like these — on both sides of them. Our community-driven model means that participants leave not just with a stronger business, but with genuine relationships to the investors, stakeholders, and fellow entrepreneurs who are shaping this region’s economic future.
We are also explicit about the kind of businesses we are trying to build: ones that create wealth beyond the founder, that build lasting value for teams and communities, and that treat succession not as an exit but as a continuation of something worth continuing.
The window for action is real, and it is finite. The retirements are happening. The businesses are coming to market. The communities that step up with prepared, committed entrepreneurs will retain their character, their economic vitality, and their identity. The ones that don’t will watch their business fabric quietly unravel.
GUiA is one answer — built in Santa Fe, for northern New Mexico, with a clear-eyed view of what this moment demands.
If you are a business owner thinking about what your transition looks like — or an entrepreneur who sees the opportunity this moment presents — we want to be part of that conversation. Contact us!
