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3 weeks ago
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EDINBURG, Texas – By common consent, the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez-Las Cruces metroplex is further along the regional unity line than the Rio Grande Valley and North Tamaulipas.
The mayors of the three cities go on trade missions together and work in a united fashion to bring economic development to their region.
Hidalgo County Prosperity Task Force co-director Mario Reyna believes Valley leaders can learn a lot from what El Paso-Ciudad Juarez-Las Cruces has achieved through the Borderplex Alliance. So, he invited the person who designed the business plan for the Alliance, Rolando Pablos, to meet with task force leaders via Zoom.
The Task Force, and its CEO Group subcommittee, are working on ways to better market the Rio Grande Valley and North Tamaulipas.
Pablos ran Borderplex, a bi-national economic development organization, for three and a half years before becoming Texas Secretary of State. Around this time the non-profit organization brought in about two million dollars a year, mostly from the private sector. Pablos told the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service at the time that Borderplex had great success in helping reshape the image of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.
Zoom conversation
In the Zoom conversation, Pablos thanked Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez and Task Force co-director Reyna for inviting him. He said he was pleased Valley leaders are working to improve regional unity.
“This is very important work. Coming together as a region is perhaps the most important thing you can do,” Pablos said. “So, I’m here to listen and to see how I might be able to assist you guys. We’ve got a lot of experience in this. It’s not easy. You know, trying to bring people together is probably one of the hardest things even though everybody says they want to accomplish the same thing. It’s not always as easy as it sounds.”
Pablos explained how he crafted the Borderplex Alliance and how it overcame some early challenges.
“It gets more complicated when you start doing the binational thing and you start bringing in our brothers and sisters from the other side of the border. But, you know, with good leadership, a good plan and good vision, it’s not impossible,” Pablos said.
Pablos was asked to explain how the Borderplex Alliance got started. He said he was regulating electricity and telecommunications in Austin at the time but was intrigued by what El Paso leaders had in mind.
“They reached out to me with the idea of creating a bi-national economic development organization, the first of its kind, and they were offering me the opportunity to come start it, build it, design it. It sounded like a good idea,” Pablos said.
“But I also knew that it was very difficult because the proposal was to bring in New Mexico, Texas, and Chihuahua. To bring everybody together for one common purpose.”
Pablos grew up in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. “I thought, you know, I’d love to go hang out with my parents as an adult. I never had that opportunity. So, I took the job and moved down to El Paso.”
Pablos said he was given a lot of latitude on how to structure Borderplex.
“I was given full latitude in designing the business plan. The name had already been assigned, and I liked the name. But putting the vision together was really the most important part. And, creating an environment for attracting investment and promoting trade was really the main goal,” Pablos said.
“And so, I came in, I built my staff, I put together the strategy, my board accepted it, and then we got to work.”
The only reason Pablos left Borderplex, three and a half years after joining the group, was because Gov. Greg Abbott offered him the chance to be Texas Secretary of State.
“I was able to continue my work because as Secretary of State I was also the border commerce coordinator. And I was also the chief adviser to the governor on Mexican affairs. So, I left the Borderplex but then I continued to do the same kind of work at the state level.”
Pablos said that at the time he was there, Borderplex generated 5,000 new jobs on the U.S. side and about 20,000 jobs on the Mexican side. He said the group also brought in about half a billion dollars of investment.
“At the beginning it wasn’t easy to bring the mayors together. They were very reluctant. The county judges were very reluctant. But all it took was some leadership. Creating trust was very important. Setting down a foundation for ensuring that if everybody works together and everybody participates, they enjoy the fruits of that labor.”
Pablos said it took about year for the mayors of El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, and Las Cruces to start traveling together to trade events.
“Before you knew it, we were traveling everywhere together, promoting the region, talking to people in Detroit and San Francisco, New York, telling them about what we were doing. (We were) going down to Mexico City and traveling everywhere to promote the region.”
Pablos said that unity paid off.
“The fact that we worked together really made a difference for a lot of these investors, mostly investors that were already in the region. We were able to get them to expand, to stay to grow,” Pablos said.
“We also worked with all the local organizations, making ourselves more attractive. Workforce development, infrastructure development, we worked with El Paso Electric to ensure we had the proper electricity capacity available, with our water utilities, with the military, with UTEP, the university in the Ciudad Juárez and New Mexico State.
“And so, it was a collaborative effort of the community to make us more attractive, to show off the skill set that we would offer as a community and then also to bring in the private sector and government to collaborate.”
Pablos said Borderplex created a “very successful model.” He pointed out that it is now in its 12th year.
“It’s created maybe $1.5 billion in investment in El Paso, but it took private sector leadership to do it. And, on the public sector side it took leadership from the mayors and the county judges. So, I am very proud of that effort. I was sorry to have to leave because I was really getting into a good groove.”
Pablos reiterated that he was pleased Valley leaders are looking at having a regional entity similar to the Borderplex Alliance.
“It’s great to hear that you guys are doing this. It’s going to be easy if you have the right leadership in place. That’s really what it takes. It is (about) leadership and developing trust. Not only with your counterparts, Judge (Cortez), but also on the private sector, Mario (Reyna), getting the private sector to buy in and getting everybody to understand that it’s for the greater good.”
Overcoming obstacles
Pablos acknowledged that he and his team “ran into some attitudes” that prevented the early expansion of Borderplex. He said this was particularly true in the public sector.
“The mayors were very protective of their turf. They wanted to see the tax base grow within their communities. But once they knew that everybody was playing fair, and being transparent, then it just took off,” Pablos said.
“And that’s really what needs to happen there. I know the RGV extremely well. I know that there are many, many communities there. And so, you, Judge (Cortez), your leadership and the private sectors leadership is going to be very important, because you have to develop that trust, given that you’re spearheading this in a way. People need to understand that it’s not just about what you’re trying to do, but it’s about what everybody can do together.”
Pablos said that from his experience the biggest obstacle was convince people that their community was not going to lose out.
“And so, what we did is we created a contract, and we created some very specific provisions in that contract that showed the community that there was going to be trust. That there wasn’t going to be rivalries,” Pablos said.
“We had to put it in writing, and everybody had to sign off to it and it worked. So, I know it can work for you guys. And like I said, I stand by to facilitate whatever it is that you want to do from the beginning. But seeing this large crowd here today is already very exciting. And I hope it grows quickly. And I hope that you can bring in more folks from the public sector to participate.”
The challenge in Mexico
Pablos continued: “And then on the Mexican side, the most difficult part was that those communities over there don’t have the funds to facilitate a lot of these trips and the promotion and so it’s really the U.S. side that kind of had to pick up that slack.”
“But, at the same time, they’re very excited on the Mexican side to also see that promotion. So, they participated as well. They had board seats. It was a truly binational board where everybody had a voice in the conversation, a seat at the table.”
Pablos added: “Being able to also coalesce the Mexican side is going to be very important. In Mexico, the economic development is run very differently than it is on the U.S. side. Mostly (it is) the governors (that) control that. The mayors have little say. So, it’s really the governor. So having relationships with, in your case, the three governors or the two governors is going to be very important because they handle the economic development piece.
“When it comes to incentivizing maquiladoras or whoever it is coming on the Mexican side, that ultimately benefits the U.S. side, is going to be very important.
“So, I hope that your coalition is already including some of the Mexican private sector leaders and is already having conversations with those elected officials that are going to make a big difference.
“So, kudos to you. It’s great. We’ve been talking about this for a long time and now here it is. So, I’m excited about it. And, like I said, I stand ready to facilitate and help you with anything you need.”
The post Regional unity for RGV & Tamaulipas? Pablos explains how El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, and Las Cruces achieved it. appeared first on Rio Grande Guardian.
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