Brownsville’s boom brings jobs — and competition— as employers from SpaceX to LNG ramp up hiring

Brownsville native Gilbert Garcia already has a job working for a call center, but he’s hoping to leverage his college education this year. 

“There’s a lot of people that are hiring and there’s a lot of applicants inside,” Garcia said about employers from SpaceX to Rio Grande LNG, Bechtel Construction, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, the city of Brownsville, and several law enforcement agencies from state to local authorities.  

That’s why Garcia was among the hundreds of hopeful job seekers inside the Brownsville Events Center on Thursday morning — he even skipped breakfast to get there early — but craft coffee was provided. 

Garcia holds a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Texas at the Rio Grande Valley and aspires to work at the intersection of sports medicine and business.