Upper Valley Urgent Care Center

While relaxing and enjoying a backyard barbeque dinner on Labor Day 2004, the Carpenters dreams of owning and operating their own urgent care medical facility were conceived. Urgent Care Centers are the fastest growing segment of the medical market. "Our idea was born out of a perceived need." says Dr. Carpenter. “We could see there was a need for a fast, convenient, and cost effective walk-in minor emergency clinic in the Upper Valley, so we got the ball rolling,” he said.
 
Dr. Alan Carpenter is double board-certified and for the past 16 years has worked as an Emergency Medicine Physician here in El Paso “racking-up” well over 120,000 patient-visits during those years.  His wife, Norma Carpenter has worked as a registered Emergency Department Nurse and presently holds her Certified Emergency Nursing (CEN) designation.
 
From that time on, the Carpenters set their sights on designing a clean, modern, upscale, yet modest and appealing facility where people would feel comfortable and could receive quality services. The facility would be safe, located away from the busier sectors, and closer to the neighborhoods. The Carpenters also recognized that they would be spending a lot of time at the facility, so they planned for a special family room for their children to "hang-out."
 
They knew their idea had good potential so they began a 4-month ordeal of writing their own business plan in which they mapped out their business venture. They studied the demographics of their target area and calculated their financial needs required to buy the land, construct the building, and to begin operations. Then, they contacted their home mortgage lender in San Antonio who referred them to a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) lender called CIT Small Business Lending. CIT is one of the "top" SBA lenders in the country and specializes in real estate financing.
 
It was about that time, as fate would have it, while Norma Carpenter was picking-up her children from school that she met another mother waiting for her children and their conversation led to "where do you work?" Norma Carpenter had just met Elizabeth Pulido who is the local representative for CIT and they both discovered they had more in common than their children being at the same school. The Carpenters later presented their business plan to Mrs. Pulido who enthusiastically received it but the Carpenter's learned they would require additional broader-based lending for working capital.
 
This is when the Carpenters turned to the Texas Mezzanine Fund (TMF), a state wide community development financial institution established to promote economic growth, where they were able to secure the working capital that allowed CIT to make the SBA construction loan. TMF focuses on low or moderate income areas and so they are able to help Texas businesses with loans for expansion, equipment, business acquisition, or owner-occupied real estate.
 
Now, some two years later, the Upper Valley Urgent Care Center is nearing completion.  As you might expect, the Carpenters are anxious to move into their new facility and are in the final stages of preparing for their opening which is scheduled for late September or early October 2006.  They welcome all of El Paso to come out and visit with them and take them up on their hospitality.