Task Force selects top five industries Hidalgo County should focus its recruitment efforts on

4 months ago 129

Why is it that the Rio Grande Valley can graduate 85,000 college students with certificates and above over the past five years and yet still be a region grappling with high levels of poverty?

This was one of the questions under discussion at a recent meeting of Hidalgo County Prosperity Task Force’s economic development subcommittee. The task force was set up by Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez to address poverty.

The subcommittee met to hear a skills gap analysis report produced by South Texas College and to select the top five industries the county should be looking to recruit from. Those industries must provide high paying wages and salaries, the task force agrees.

The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service secured an in-depth interview with one of the co-leaders of the task force, Mario Reyna, at the end of the meeting.

“Today was an important meeting because we brought in economists from UTRGV and South Texas College to discuss what the region looks like with the current workforce and also to discuss the degree production that we have had for the last five years,” Reyna said.

“And then we ended with a look at the type of industries that are moving into Texas. So, the main point of today’s meeting was, what industries can we attract to the region? With all the economic entities involved, what is it that we can agree on? And that is what we did today. We focused on five industries that we can all collectively agree to pursue and let’s see where it goes from here.”

Reyna said STC provided the task force with 86 pages of information related to the region’s skills gaps. For the purposes of the subcommittee’s meeting, the information was reduced to a few slides.

“Based on the data that they (STC) have, they made recommendations on where new progress might be developed. And UTRGV, Dr. (Salvador) Contreras, concentrated on all the colleges in the region and the type of degrees that they’re producing,” Reyna said.

“And when you think about that, in the last five years, we have had 85,000 graduates with a certificate and above. It makes you wonder, why are where we are? Why do we have such high poverty levels, when we have this wealth of people with a lot of skills? So that’s where we’re trying to move, because we need to recruit an industry that pays high wages, so we can help people get out of poverty.”

Asked if the Valley has a “brain drain,” with many of those 85,000 graduates leaving the region in order to find high-paying jobs, Reyna said: “Well, there is information that we do lose people to other areas. And I think it’s very clear to see why. We have this number of people graduating and the options here are not that great for them.”

Reyna said he has seen other data showing that six percent of the people that live in poverty in the Valley have a college degree. “That gives you an indication of why we’re having this kind of discussion,” he said.

Reyna said he was pleased with the caliber of the people that attended the subcommittee meeting.

“We had McAllen Economic Development Corporation here. Weslaco (EDC) was here. Pharr (EDC) was here. Edinburg (EDC). We had folks with the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council (LRGVDC), and COSTEP. Lots and lots of great individuals that are very interested in moving our region forward.”

COSTEP stands for the Council for South Texas Economic Progress. This group, along with LRGVDC, will likely be the repository for the task force’s ultimate report.

Asked if the task force’s economic development committee has settled on which five industries to focus on, Reyna said:

“I think we have. We talked about primary metals. We talked about manufacturing. We talked about utilities. We talked about information technology, including artificial intelligence and automation. And then we talked about the scientific area, scientific technical areas. This is going to be what we call an outlier, because it’s going to require probably more preparation in infrastructure. But this is an area where we have a lot of graduates. We have a lot of folks that are graduating with information technology degrees. We have a lot of individuals that have engineering degrees, a lot of individuals in the business professions and the sciences. So, we need to obviously get industries that support that kind of knowledge.”

Asked what happens next, Reyna said:

“So, I think what’s going to happen after today is, we’re going to present this information to the CEO group. And I think most of you probably have heard of Mr. Joaquin Spamer. We have about 15 or 20 CEOs that belong in his (CEO) group. We’re going to present the information and if they agree, then we’re going to start marketing the region for those categories.

“Also, I think you’re aware that we have a marketing group that’s looking at rebranding the region because the CEOs want to rebrand the area. We will see what comes out of it. We’re not done yet. When it’s done, we’ll present it to the CEOs, they will agree on whatever it is that they want to call the region and they are going to pay to market the region or whatever name it is selected.”

Reyna said Hidalgo County also needs to concentrate on new industries, particularly those that align with the skill sets of today’s graduates.

“We did an analysis of all the industries that are coming into Texas. And where do they go to? They go to Houston, they go to Dallas, they go to San Antonio, they go to Austin. Why not here? We have people with the knowledge and skills for those industries. Why are they going there? I don’t know. I don’t know why they’re going there. But we’re going to make an effort to recruit those five areas that we talked about, and then things will begin to change.”

Asked if he had any wrap-up remarks, Reyna said:

“We are very pleased, Judge Richard Cortez is very pleased, with the level of involvement from all the community. As you know, we have 14 different groups. Today it was the economic development group. Tomorrow, we meet with the market in group. We met with the policy group, which includes some of the mayors and other elected officials. We (the policy group) had a great discussion similar to what we did today. We want them to know what’s going on so they’re aware. We want everybody to be aware. The more information we have out there, the easier it is for people to understand what we’re trying to do.”

Reyna added: “So, after this meeting, we will present to the CEO group and then we have to put this in writing. We had a general discussion that we might put all this information (we gather) inside COSTEP because COSTEP is an organization in charge of recruiting industry to our area. And then there’s the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council. They also have a strategic plan that we need to place this information with. So, we need those discussions. But we do need to write things down, so people are aware of it. It then becomes something permanent, that can be updated whenever it needs to be updated.”

Editor’s Note: Here is a video recording of the Guardian’s in-depth interview with Mario Reyna: