Art Pollard is a Renaissance man. He grew up in Los Alamos near the Jemez Mountains, where he spent much of his early youth hiking and climbing in the foothills. Art spent much of the money he earned growing up at Zia Salvage, the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s official salvage company, which allowed him to build an impressive laboratory in his parents’ basement.
Art started working on graduate research projects (nuclear fusion) at BYU and the University of Washington as a freshman in high school. While in college, he studied Computer Science, English, Photography, and Near Eastern Archaeology while working in the physics department designing and building equipment. After college, Art started Lextek International, a software development company and early leader in search engine technology. Art’s search technology has been integrated into major website and software projects such as Adobe Acrobat.
While running Lextek, Art started designing and building machines to make chocolate, which eventually morphed into a new venture: Amano Artisan Chocolate, one of the first three small artisanal chocolate makers in the United States. Amano made numerous advances in the artisanal chocolate world and heavily influenced this fledgling industry. Today, Amano has attained over 200 first-place international and domestic awards for its chocolate, making Amano the most highly awarded chocolate company in the United States. Through Amano, Art has had the privilege of working with some of world’s top chefs.
A true entrepreneur, Art lives in Provo, Utah with his wife, two children, and two dogs (whippets). After the passing of his father, Art decided to spend time focusing on the cuisine that he grew up with, which inspired Enchantment: a New Mexican Cookbook, the largest, most complete New Mexican cookbook ever compiled.
Other interests, include traveling around the Southwest making fine art landscape photography, and building two airplanes.
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Enchantment: A New Mexican Cookbook
