When a brisk wind blew through Santa Fe the morning after Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, Susie Brown of Santa Fe interpreted it as a "wind of change."

"Everybody feels refreshed this morning," she said. And not only because of the radical change in the weather.

But her euphoria was tempered by reality. "Now we have to roll up our sleeves," Brown said. "The hard work is beginning."

All over the city, voters in a community that overwhelmingly supported Obama reported a similar lightness of being. Satisfaction, hope and elevated expectations reverberated. But, like the president-elect's speech at Chicago's Grant Park on Tuesday night, there was sobriety, too, about the challenges ahead.

Weldon Fulton, owner of the new coffee shop called Station at the Railyard, said, "I think we all feel much better today about what we are doing and where we are going to go." He said he was looking forward to talking to friends in Singapore on Wednesday night. "I think the world is looking at us with a gleam in their eyes, thinking, 'Wow. They did it. They elected an African American. How fabulous is that?"

Looking ahead, Fulton said Obama's job is to "keep us motivated and inspired so we can move forward."

U.S. needs to 'get back to living'

Business owner Cecil Hueffmeier said he's looking for the new president to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, give some tax breaks to businesses and recover the $700 million dollars in bailout money approved by Congress.

Hueffmeier, whose dry-cleaning business revenues are off by more than $2,000 a week, thinks the economic situation is "scary. But I feel really good about this guy."

"There was a definite sense of relief on my part that things are going to get better," said William Rodriguez, a teacher at Nava Elementary School, adding, "It might take a little time, but there's not going to be that continuous downward spiral of the last few years."

Rodriguez and his wife, Laura, parents of two children, are buying their first house and are looking for a break in the cost of groceries and gasoline. They would like to see the U.S. "become a producing country again." But Rodriguez isn't expecting that to happen overnight. "People are going to need to buckle down and face reality," he acknowledged.

A one-time McCain supporter, Realtor Bob Chernock, said he has no expectations of the next president, only wishes. "I have a wish that all this chaos calms down and people have the ability to get back to living a life instead of being scared," he said, adding, "What we see and hear in the trenches is unbelievable."

Renewable energy's future looks brighter

Renewable energy advocates are feeling considerably optimistic about America's energy future with Obama headed to the White House.

"I think Barack Obama is really going to create the leadership to push renewable energy forward," Gail Ryba, a chemist and executive director of New Mexico Coalition for Clean, Affordable Energy.

She believes the new administration and Congress could take a few steps in the next few years to ramp up the move away from a hydrocarbon-dependent energy grid. One is to increase tax credits for large-scale renewable energy projects and make those credits permanent. Another is to place a national moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. Finally, a scaling back of incentives for oil and gas development. "Shift the playing field," Ryba said. "Don't make it painful immediately, but indicate that's where things are headed."

The president will also need to sit with his new secretary of energy and figure out how to handle the need for new electricity transmission lines for both renewable energy and increased demand.

Systems engineer Jack Horner, a Pojoaque Valley resident who just retired from the Science Applications International Corp., has a specific energy suggestion for the new president and Congress. He envisions a national, federally funded program to offer low-cost loans for residential photovoltaic systems. It would need to be funded on the scale of other large entitlement programs such as Social Security or Medicare, he said. The loans would be similar to 15- and 30-year mortgages. "It can be done in such a way that it costs no more than the monthly electrical bill," Horner said Wednesday.

Money paid back on the loans would fund more photovoltaic systems, and the program could be self-sustaining after 15 years, Horner said, explaining that putting a photovoltaic system on most homes would reduce the amount of electricity needed from coal-fired power plants by more than a third.

Horner is preparing letters to Congress suggesting the program now.

Bringing the country together

Robert Castellano, a Vietnam veteran, an officer of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Santa Fe and an Obama voter, said he was moved as he watched the Democrat's acceptance speech on TV. "It was something else," he said.

Now comes the hard part for Obama, he said, from pushing economic recovery to pulling troops out of Iraq. "His biggest challenge is trying to get us out of this recession," he said. "I think the rest of this will follow. I think the country is tired of being divided, and I think everybody's going to do their best to cooperate with each other."

Obama has a record of being a "middle of the road" politician, going back to his days at Harvard Law School, he said. "I don't think extreme liberals are going to be happy with him, just like the conservatives at the other end."

Asked how he's going to chip in, in response to Obama's call for everyone to get involved with helping the country, Castellano replied, "I'm going to practice what I preach. I've always been that sort of person, where I try to get both sides together; whether it's at the VFW or whatever, I try to get everybody together to try and reach a common ground."

Ensuring everyone gets health care

Now that Obama has been elected, Maryjane Long, a contract technical writer for the Indian Health Service in Albuquerque, said she's hopeful that all Americans will be covered by health insurance within the next 10 years.

"I'm relieved that, hopefully, we're not going to leave it to the free market," Long said. "Right now, everything — even a hangnail — can be included as a pre-existing condition and exclude people from getting health care."

She doesn't expect change to come overnight but hopes the administration will put the United States on the path toward a more universal type of health care plan.

"It's a transition I would guess will take us eight to 10 years to complete," Long said. "In other countries, health insurance companies have to be nonprofit, and I think that's something we should think about. Health care has become a corporation, a business, and it shouldn't be. I'm hoping this time we can really get the process right."

An exciting, more promising future

Carlene Carey said her government students at Pojoaque High School — including some who voted for the first time in their lives — were thrilled by the outcome. "I think they are just caught up in excitement that now anybody can be president," she said. "That message is the most abiding emotional impact of the moment."

There was a lot of discussion about the economy in her class, Carey said. Students, including many Hispanics and Native Americans, are worried about the job situation now and when they graduate from college four years or so from now. She said they hoped that they — and New Mexico — would be the beneficiaries of Obama's promised support of alternative-energy technologies.

Kelly Pacheco, 18, who voted for the first time this year — on her birthday — and saw Obama in person in Española last month, said the most important thing for her, other than the economy, is education. She's planning to go to New Mexico State University next year and believes that Obama "is going to make it easier to get loans and pay for college."

Her friend, Kathreen Balabas, said she thought that increasing access to higher education will lead to a better economy. And in honor of the Obama victory, Balabas said she and her friend were going to bake a cake for their government class after school Wednesday because, "We're that happy."

Staff writers Anne Constable, Staci Matlock, Sue Vorenberg and Doug Mattson contributed to this report.