I'm Preston Mitchell, and I'm based in Las Cruces, New Mexico — right at the southern tip of the state, where the Rio Grande carves through the Mesilla Valley and the desert stretches out in every direction. This is where I live, where I work, where I teach, and where all of my businesses are rooted.
If you asked me to describe what I do in one sentence, I'd probably struggle. I'm an entrepreneur, a New Mexico licensed CPA, and a professor at New Mexico State University's College of Business. I run companies across agriculture, e-commerce, fitness and recovery technology, and digital marketing. But the common thread running through all of it is simpler than it sounds: I notice gaps, I understand the numbers behind them, and I do the work to fill them.
Education and Early Career
My foundation is in business and accounting. I graduated from NMSU with triple bachelor's degrees in management, information systems, and accounting, plus a Master of Accountancy. During my time there, I served as president of the NMSU chapter of Beta Alpha Psi — the honors accounting fraternity — and led our case competition team to a national title in business ethics. Those experiences shaped how I think about business: rigorously, ethically, and always with an eye on what the numbers are actually telling you.
After graduation, I spent a couple of years at KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms. I learned a tremendous amount there about how large organizations think about financial structures, risk, and systems. But I also learned that working inside someone else's system wasn't what I wanted to do with my career. Entrepreneurship was the pull I couldn't ignore, and eventually I stopped trying to.
Teaching at NMSU
Even as I've built businesses, I've stayed connected to the university that shaped me. I'm currently a professor at NMSU's College of Business, where I teach financial accounting and accounting information systems. Teaching keeps me sharp — there's no better way to truly understand something than to explain it to a room full of students who aren't going to let you hand-wave through the details. And I like to think that bringing real-world entrepreneurial experience into the classroom gives my students something that a purely academic perspective can't.
Roots in Agriculture
My deepest business connection is to Hatch, New Mexico — a small town about 40 miles north of Las Cruces that's famous for one thing: chile. I operate Hatch Chile Store, an e-commerce business that ships authentic, farm-roasted Hatch green chile and red chile products to customers across the country. The Hatch Chile Store family also includes Amigos Mexican Foods in Deming, New Mexico — a restaurant that brings the same commitment to authentic New Mexico flavors to a sit-down dining experience.
What makes Hatch Chile Store different from the dozens of "Hatch chile" brands you'll find online is the farming behind it. Our chile is grown by Judy Franzoy, a 5th-generation Hatch chile farmer whose family has been cultivating this land for decades. We grow and contract over ten chile varieties, ranging from the mild sweetness of a Giuseppe or an Esmeralda all the way up to the serious heat of a Miss Junie or Lumbre. If you know chile, you know those names mean something.
Building the e-commerce side of a traditional agricultural product taught me more about Shopify development, supply chain logistics, and online marketing than any course or certification ever could. When your product is perishable and seasonal, you learn to move fast, build systems that work, and pay very close attention to what your customers actually want.
Fitness, Recovery, and a Different Kind of Gym
On what might seem like the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I built and operate Bionic Barbell — a gym and recovery center here in Las Cruces. And I'm not just the owner — I'm a member. I'm in there regularly for spin classes, lifting sessions, and recovery. When I'm not at the gym, you can usually find me skiing, hiking in the Organ Mountains, or somewhere outdoors in southern New Mexico.
When I looked at the local fitness market, I saw a sea of big-box gyms and budget chains all competing on the same thing: equipment and price. Nobody was talking about recovery. So I built a facility that takes recovery as seriously as training. Bionic Barbell is the only gym in Las Cruces that offers cryotherapy, red light therapy, PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic field therapy), and oxygen therapy all under one roof. The idea is simple: train hard, recover smarter.
We're locally owned, anti-corporate in spirit, and we serve everyone from competitive athletes to seniors. We partner with programs like SilverSneakers, Silver&Fit, and Renew Active to make sure older adults in our community have access to fitness and recovery resources through their insurance. It's a blue-ocean play in a market that was drowning in sameness, and I'm proud of what we've built.
Digital Marketing and E-Commerce Strategy
Running my own e-commerce businesses gave me a working education in digital marketing that goes well beyond theory. I've built full-stack Shopify stores from scratch, developed SEO strategies that drive real organic traffic, and learned what actually moves the needle for online brands — as opposed to what marketing agencies say moves the needle.
That hands-on experience is something I now bring to other brands as well. I provide digital marketing and SEO consulting for e-commerce companies, including Popsie Fish Company, an e-commerce seafood brand where I lead the marketing and growth strategy. I also built the website and digital presence for Sunspot Medical Group, a local distributor of advanced biologic wound care products — Kerecis fish skin grafts and SYLKE spider silk dressings — that help healthcare providers heal chronic wounds and even prevent amputations. I run Paradise Greens, a mobile home community owner and operator with parks in Plainview TX, New Deal TX, Roswell NM, and Ruidoso NM — we currently manage over 300 spaces with another 65 in development in Roswell. And I operate Mesilla Wireless, a small wireless ISP that brings reliable broadband to the Raasaf Hills community near Mesilla, New Mexico — solving the kind of basic infrastructure gap that bigger providers have overlooked in rural areas.
My approach to digital marketing is the same as my approach to everything else: look at the data, understand what the market is actually doing, and build something that works. Having an accounting background means I don't have patience for vanity metrics. I believe in traffic, conversions, and revenue — things you can measure, tie to a P&L, and improve.
Community and Volunteer Work
Building businesses in southern New Mexico has never been separate from being part of the community here. Two organizations in particular have been a big part of that for me.
I serve on the board of the Hatch Chile Association, a group of Hatch Valley chile growers and producers working to protect the integrity of the "Hatch Chile" name. The Association filed for a federal certification mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to ensure that only chile actually grown in the Hatch Valley can be marketed as Hatch Chile. It's an issue I care about deeply — as I told the press, "Farmers have been growing chile here in the Hatch Valley for five generations and, as everyone knows, Hatch Chile is famous the world over. We are incredibly blessed to be a part of the history and heritage of the valley and think consumers deserve to be able to tell if the chile they are eating is really grown here in the valley." That fight went all the way to a federal appeals court, and we won. Protecting the Hatch name isn't just about business — it's about preserving a legacy that generations of farming families have built.
I also served for six years on the board of the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico, a philanthropic organization that connects donors to community needs and manages endowments supporting nonprofits across twelve southern New Mexico counties. During my tenure on the board, the Foundation grew its assets under management from less than $14 million to over $40 million — supporting scholarships, health initiatives, arts programs, literacy, and education throughout the region. Serving on that board gave me a perspective on community impact that goes well beyond any single business, and it reinforced something I already believed: that the best way to build a lasting enterprise is to invest in the place where you're doing it.
Why Southern New Mexico
People sometimes ask me why I stay in Las Cruces. It's not Austin, it's not Denver, it's not one of those cities with a trendy startup scene and co-working spaces on every block. And that's exactly the point. Southern New Mexico is a place where you can see real opportunities because they haven't already been picked over by a hundred other entrepreneurs. The cost of doing business is reasonable, the community is tight, and the landscape — both literal and economic — rewards people who are willing to do the work.
Between the businesses, the teaching, the skiing, and the hiking, this place gives me everything I need. Every business I've built here is a bet on this community and the people in it. I'm not going anywhere.