Brownsville’s economic development playbook is evolving — and GBIC President and CEO Gilberto Salinas is helping write the next chapter.
In the latest RGV Business Journal podcast, Salinas breaks down why the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation changed its name, how a potential new LNG project fits into the region’s long-term strategy, and why Brownsville is starting to reverse decades of brain drain.
It’s a candid conversation about where the city has been — and where it’s headed.
The following is a rough, AI generated transcript of the interview between Gilberto Salina and our host, Naxiely Lopez-Puente. Please be aware that there might be slight spelling errors for proper nouns and other “misheard” sentences. For the full experience, click the link, or listen on your favorite podcast provider.
Gilberto Salinas
Brownsville has gone on some major rankings. A we’re number ten as far as, people moving into the city. For every one person that leaves Brownsville.
Naxi Lopez
Gilberto Salinas
Three are moving in and that’s never happened, has never happened. Our main export has always been talent. You know, our young ones. So we’ve always suffered from brain drain. So we can officially now say that we have reversed that.
Naxi Lopez
Hi. And thank you for joining us on this week’s episode of the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal. I’m Naxi Lopez Puente, and today we’re going to be unpacking all of the growth happening in Cameron County, specifically in Brownsville. Joining us today is Gilberto Salinas, the president and CEO of the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation. Gilberto, thank you so much for joining us.
Gilberto Salinas
Thank you for having us on your show. My name is Gilberto Salinas, and I’m with the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation. And I’m happy to actually to announce that as of today, we’ve changed our name. So it’s the greater Brownsville EDC.
Naxi Lopez
Oh, wow.
Gilberto Salinas
And that’s because, Brownsville, greater Brownsville, Incentives Corporation. I mean, we’ve had that name for almost 30 years. But it’s outdated. You know, a lot of people think that we’re in the business of, like, community development or like a or like a bank or something like that. Right. But, but now we’re we’re the EDC, we’re the economic development arm for the city, Brownsville.
Gilberto Salinas
And really for the region. And when I say region, it’s, Brownsville proper, the port of Brownsville, our newest corporate citizen star base and that whole surrounding area. So, now moving forward is a greater Brownsville EDC.
Naxi Lopez
Wow. Well, congratulations on that name change. You know, and you’re right. Having the EDC, everybody really kind of knows what that is, right? So that’s great. That’s good to hear. I heard you mentioned the port of Brownsville and Starbase, right? Those are the two biggest things. The hot commodities happening here. Talk to us about what’s happening, the growth there.
Naxi Lopez
Okay.
Gilberto Salinas
You know what’s interesting? In the last year, what we’ve seen is, Brownsville has gone on some, major rankings, and we were, ranked in the top five as far as growth in the United States by area development magazine. We’re number ten as far as, people moving into the city. That just came out, at the beginning of the year.
Gilberto Salinas
So that’s a U-Haul ranking. So U-Haul ranks, all the communities, at the beginning of the year, as far as how many one way trucks, you know.
Naxi Lopez
Where they go.
Gilberto Salinas
In the city. And obviously Austin, Houston, Dallas, they were like in the top five. But Brownsville, for that matter, the Rio Grande Valley was in the top ten, number ten. So that signaled to us that, okay, there’s there’s something happening, our data or, shows that for the first time in modern history since I can remember, we have more people moving into Brownsville than leaving.
Gilberto Salinas
So the number that we have is for every one person that leaves Brownsville, three are moving in, and that’s never happened, has never happened. One thing I’ve always said about this area, and really the Rio Grande Valley, is that, our main export has always been talent. You know, our young ones. We’ve always suffered from brain drain.
Gilberto Salinas
So we can officially now say that we have reversed that and that just, I just get goosebumps thinking about that. That it’s it’s it’s happening, you know, all that hard work that this area had put in, you know, dating back to ten, almost 15 years ago. And recruiting this small little project by the name of space.
Naxi Lopez
Right. Which you had a big role in is my understanding.
Gilberto Salinas
Is well I was involved with the. Yeah. And now we’re really starting to see the fruits of that labor because that is going to be the company and the project, as I like to say, the gift that continues to give for this area.
Naxi Lopez
And you’re not wrong. You know, in our newsroom, we’ve talked about the perception of Brownsville, you know, going from a sleepy border town, high poverty, low education to now, you know, like you said, these rankings people are moving in. You guys have been ranked the second most affordable place for manufacturing. I’m assuming all of those rankings are attracting attention, right?
Naxi Lopez
Where is this attention coming from? Is it local? Is it from Mexico? Is it the US? Is it international? Who is paying attention to Brownsville and and the greater community here?
Gilberto Salinas
Yeah, it’s actually all of the above. Locally. It’s interesting because when we started working the space project back in 2011, you know, they said we’re going to have X amount of launches, you know, per, per year, so on and so forth. And we’re just super excited. And this was a much, much smaller rocket that, that we’re talking about back then.
Gilberto Salinas
And they said at some point the people in Brownsville, or in the Valley, they’re going to take the rocket launches for granted. They’re going to be like, they’ll hear something. They’re like, oh, there’s a rocket launch today. And I’m like, like, that’s that’s impossible. Right? It’s like like we’re going to be super excited. We’re going to be stoked whenever there’s a rocket launch.
Gilberto Salinas
So yeah, we’re not going to take it for granted. Well guess what happened. Now we’re like, oh yeah, there’s a rocket launch happening today. You know.
Naxi Lopez
So so yeah, we know we’re.
Gilberto Salinas
We’re now getting, you know, was the starship land or sea. It’s kind of like we’re taking it for granted now. So. But there’s still a lot of attention locally. And I’ll get into what all space-x the LNG plants and some of these other companies that are coming in, the economic impact that’s happening in the area. But big names, big brands, draws, other big brands.
Gilberto Salinas
And we’re seeing it, you know, SpaceX came in, at the hands of, you know, one of the most serial entrepreneurs of our time, which is Elon Musk and those people running those same circles. Right? They all know each other. So, the LNG plants, what was interesting back in the day, we’re working the space project, and then not one, but three LNG plants started coming in.
Gilberto Salinas
And also at the hands of, you know, these, you know, billion dollar corporations. And we’re like, wow, did you know that this is for real? Is this I mean, what’s going on? Right? Fast forward to today. Those projects are helping pull in other companies. So now we’ve got Linda, which is an industrial gas company, a global company headquartered in Europe, a huge name in the European market.
Gilberto Salinas
You mentioned their name. People are like, wow, you have a land in your backyard. So they came in with, 100 plus million dollar capital investment. They’re getting ready to expand. They just got here. They’re getting ready to expand.
Naxi Lopez
Yeah, we went out there. Your team was nice enough to take us out there. We did a story on it. I mean, the the just the construction happening. Very sophisticated operation happening over there.
Gilberto Salinas
And that and, you know, that’s a tier one supplier for Space-x. They’re here because of SpaceX. And, and what they’re manufacturing is, hydrogen. Believe nitrogen, argon as well.
Naxi Lopez
You know, they take the.
Gilberto Salinas
Oxygen, right? They grab our local air, break it down, and then that’s part of the fuel that goes that they use for the actual Starship rockets. So, so we’re seeing it as far as, SpaceX now, Starbase. Rocket manufacturing and launch facility. How now it’s helping drawing these other big names. The LG’s not one, but two of them.
Gilberto Salinas
Right. You go out there. It’s interesting because myself, you know, I like to go fishing. So, you know, I head out at five, six in the morning and I’m going down highway 48 on my way to Port Isabel in top by trying to go fish, and you start seeing all these lights, and, you know, the closer you get this LNG plane just starts to get bigger and bigger.
Gilberto Salinas
Kind of feel like it’s like a scene out of Star Wars where it’s like, like, is that a is that a moon? No, that’s a that’s that’s a desktop. Right. It looks like so that’s star out there. And so it’s just it’s literally they’re building a city out there and you see it when it’s at night.
Gilberto Salinas
And that’s just the first one there. There’s.
Naxi Lopez
Interest. Right? Texas LNG is considering whether to make that final investment here in the area. Talk to us about that.
Gilberto Salinas
So there, so everything is moving in the direction that they’ll be breaking ground in 2026. So, and that’ll be.
Naxi Lopez
The Texas LNG.
Gilberto Salinas
Yeah. Is that geology from what we’ve gathered? Yeah, they’re, they’re they’re coming in as well. So it they’re I mean, I can just imagine what it’s going to look like once you pair up the next one. So again, and those are pulling in different companies as well. And we’re sitting on a potential announcement for another supplier, major supplier for SpaceX.
Gilberto Salinas
Just we just can’t wait to announce it. Right. But that one that it looks like it’s going to happen as well. So, you know, SpaceX, their 4000 plus employees, they’re probably they’re probably adding another couple of thousand employees here. By the end of the year, the LNG plant that’s out there right now, they’re getting ready to peak at about 7000 employees.
Gilberto Salinas
They’re going to be adding another 10,000 employees. Then the next, LNG plant, if they come in, that’s another 4 to 5000 employees. And then we’ve got the smaller businesses and I, I hate to, you know, use that phrase smaller businesses. Right. But.
Naxi Lopez
Yeah, I mean, they’re not like, global, you know.
Gilberto Salinas
The lean, they’re, you know, coming in, you know, 100 plus million dollars in CapEx, 100 plus jobs, which is a great project. But we’re also working some of these other billion dollar deals. And then with this new space supplier, that’s another 4 to 500 jobs, 300 square foot facility where they’re going to be manufacturing components for the Starship rocket.
Gilberto Salinas
And following suit will be a couple of smaller suppliers that will be following that supplier. And so you can see how it’s a little chain.
Naxi Lopez
Reaction.
Gilberto Salinas
And so and then the port of Brownsville, there’s, there’s a couple other projects with jobs in the thousands that the port is with our support. The port is is leading the effort and working. And when that happens, we just can’t. Yeah. It’s just going to be super exciting.
Naxi Lopez
You know, it’s changing, right? Because the port, at least in my perspective, was kind of more, like building ships. Right? The industry is changing. It’s now more focused on energy. Do you see that? So the Karpowership right, coming in and taking over the the shipyard. Yeah. Talk to us about that change happening at the port.
Gilberto Salinas
It’s, Yeah. So the port has always been you know, the steel is one of the main commodities that comes in, tied to the hip to Monterrey. You’ve got, you know, shipbuilding, and then you’ve got the ship breaking as well, amongst many other things. But now, you know, you’ve got the LNG plants coming in.
Gilberto Salinas
So now they’re kind of, you know, looking at energy and especially with this new project as well, we’ve got space and aerospace, which we did not have. Right. So, you know, we’ve always been a center for like, manufacturing, steel as far as ship break in, and then logistics. But now you’re adding space and aerospace, and then energy to it.
Gilberto Salinas
So, I mean, we are in a position that, that any city our size or bigger which they were in. But I’ll be the first one to tell you that it was no accident. I mean, this is there’s been a lot of work by a lot of different the people in leadership positions then. Have you know, worked on these for the last 12, 13 years.
Gilberto Salinas
And here we are today. I remember back then I used to tell myself, work in the space projects, helping the port where the LNG is like, wow, I can’t wait with this place. Is going to look like ten years from now. But we are living that future now, ten years later. We’re live in that future. And it’s it’s it is all that we thought it would be.
Gilberto Salinas
And actually more because of the new projects that are coming online as a result of that work that was put in and these guys that are here now, I’m saying the same thing. What’s this place going to look like in 5 to 10 years from now is so I can’t wait for those announcements to come out. Between, you know, what, that they’re doing at SpaceX and Starbase.
Gilberto Salinas
And remember, Starlink also has a footprint out there as well. And then, with a port with the project that they have us helping them as well. And what we’re doing at our industrial park, you know, no pun intended, but it’s a, landing pad for some of these spaces. Go to one.
Naxi Lopez
Right? Yeah. That is that.
Gilberto Salinas
I like that, for some of the SpaceX suppliers are coming in, so we’ve, we’re it’s a nice little triangle between what we’re doing on the north side, the North Brownsville industrial corridor, the port of Brownsville and what starbase, you know, city has going on this little triangle is, is, just bustling with activity. And I just mentioned, I mean, we’ve got, you know, several thousand jobs that are coming online just in the next few months.
Gilberto Salinas
And in our pipeline of projects, we’ve got. I was just talking about this yesterday, at our board meeting, our top ten projects we’re looking at about, $20 billion in capital investment, 25,000 jobs over the next ten years.
Naxi Lopez
Wow. Amazing. Now, having said that, there are a lot of challenges right when it comes to growth. And if if we’re not ready as a community for that growth when it comes to workforce infrastructure, right, there are a lot of things that you have to think about. Talk to us about those challenges. How is Brownsville and the greater area preparing for an influx?
Naxi Lopez
Right. Because it affects everything. I mean, from housing, we’ve seen affordability for homes kind of go up. And. Yeah, so what are those challenges when it comes to growth and attracting all of these big names?
Gilberto Salinas
That’s somebody else’s problem that that was a joke, by the way. That’s a joke. It’s there’s so no ehm let me take a few steps back. So.
Gilberto Salinas
There’s one major project that has several thousand jobs that I put in the category of game changer. Okay. Space was a game changer. Still is a game changers. Transformative. The Yankees, game changers transformative. This other project that’s you know, if we’re able to get it, we’re just this close. Okay. Is going to be it’ll be their trifecta of transformative projects, doing something totally different in the thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in capital investment.
Gilberto Salinas
And, it’s it’s it’s one of those where we can do it alone. So I was knocking on doors just in the last few weeks, knocking on doors, in Harlingen, knocking on doors in the upper valley. It’s like, guys, we we’ve we’ve got this massive project. And now more than ever, we need everybody to, to come in and help us with it.
Gilberto Salinas
So so we’re working with other entities, with some of our neighbors because this, this project, in addition to the other ones that we have, their economic impact is far reaching. It goes beyond the Rio Grande Valley. Their economic impact is statewide.
Gilberto Salinas
Space-x hires 83% local. Now their definition on their definition of local is from here to my account. Right.
Naxi Lopez
Gilberto Salinas
My definition of local is like south of you know 511 just. Yeah. On the north side of Grandville.
Naxi Lopez
Right. Exactly.
Gilberto Salinas
So we’re, we’re, you know, you know customer service one on one. What does a client want. And they said we need to hire local. That’s from here to McAllen you know.
Naxi Lopez
Yeah. And there’s so many people I took a tour to the Brownsville port last year and and I can’t remember the number that they threw out, but it was astonishing how many people commute every day. I mean, I came today from, you know, San Juan, and the traffic. Right. And then you kind of noticed it. I was paying attention as I got off on where I was.
Naxi Lopez
I was driving on the expressway. A lot of the traffic went towards the port, you know, and, tapered off a little bit. And so that kind of told me, like, yeah, those are the people that are going this morning to work from, you know, it’s all county, start county. I mean, and that’s.
Gilberto Salinas
And that’s the same road you would take essentially to space. So they’re going to the.
Naxi Lopez
Port and to Texas.
Gilberto Salinas
Well, you know, our industrial park is along the way too. So, the economic impact is very far reaching. And I’ve been with you, you know, I was, you know, the Mid Valley, I was when I interviewed channel four and a couple months ago in a it was like a six in the morning. And I was done by like six, 15, 620 and start driving back, but it’s still dark.
Gilberto Salinas
Yeah. And I could just see the lights of cars behind me and in front of me all coming in to Brownsville, for a very, very good paying job. So that’s like an unscientific, you know.
Naxi Lopez
And the guy just said.
Gilberto Salinas
That there’s there’s people coming in for these jobs. So what does that mean? Coming back to your original question about housing and workforce, that means that, people across the valley are now making more money. They’re upgrading as far as their housing. We’re seeing this with some of the smaller communities in Cameron County, you know, even, like in this area and like, like, premed in Santa Rosa where, you know, we’re tracking some of the sales tax dollars, sales tax dollars and property tax values.
Gilberto Salinas
And we’re seeing some an uptick. I’m speaking to my counterparts in orange in the city. Like, yeah, we’ve got people a lot of people here that work at a SpaceX or at an LNG plant or some of the suppliers. So when it comes to to the housing, right now, we have 27 subdivisions under construction within the Brownsville segments.
Gilberto Salinas
Wow. We’ve never seen that kind of construction activity. Never. And is that stopping? So we can’t build it fast enough right now. Oh, and then, as far as and I just mentioned, you know, for every person that leaves, we’ve got three people moving in. So we’re, we’re, we’re seeing the population growth. We’re feeding it in our roads.
Gilberto Salinas
So matter of fact later today, we’ve got a, leadership meeting where the mayor and some other entities, local utility, to discuss. Okay, you know, what are the, as far as community challenges, you know, some of the infrastructure that we have in place, the housing, how can we expedite some of those permits? We’ve got developers from, you know, different parts of the state coming in for this.
Gilberto Salinas
There’s even one from California is coming, you know, like, boy or you lost the rebuilding.
Naxi Lopez
There, you know?
Gilberto Salinas
So, but yeah, it’s it’s they’re coming in. Right. So, and then, the county has done a good job, so far, as well as the crema, the MPO, as far as looking in how to best handle some of these infrastructure, growth pains that were endured because, again, of the job, the companies that are coming in, the very good paying jobs, and the people that are moving in.
Gilberto Salinas
And what I’d like to see an economic development is because of this impact, you know, these people that are driving in for these good paying jobs now they have an opportunity at making money and having a career where they can upskill themselves and move up within within a company. And when they have money in their pockets, then they have disposable income.
Gilberto Salinas
And then that disposable income is what helps drive small business. So you’ve got the small businesses and Main Street USA. Well, that’s when people have that disposable income which is now being created because of these opportunities. Then that’s helping fuel small business. And then it’s it’s that ecosystem really starts. You start really connecting the dots. And that’s when you see economic development, which is what the greater Brownsville EDC does in full display.
Naxi Lopez
So, switching gears a little bit, we talked about the aerospace industry. We talked about energy. I know that, in Cameron County recently, there’s been a lot of talk about the attraction of data centers, infrastructure. Have you guys gone any sort of, interest or call from data centers?
Gilberto Salinas
Yes, we have, we just have to be careful because energy, now more than ever has becomes, you know, a not that it never was a commodity, but now it’s it’s a lot more valuable. Right. So, we have been in discussions with several, but again, we’re, we do have one that might be coming online, but it’s on a much smaller scale, and that’s what we had been looking for.
Gilberto Salinas
We we can accommodate one that is not going to require that much energy, or water and is going to create some of the jobs and create the tax base that we’re looking for. And we can check the box of, yeah, we do have a data center for some of these other companies that are coming in, companies coming in.
Gilberto Salinas
They do need to tap into data centers, really. So that’s why we said, okay, we do. We need one. But it’s let’s not go after the gargantuan. Right. So hopefully will be making an announcement on a smaller one.
Naxi Lopez
And I know for example, we recently ran a story about data centers in Willacy County, a new one that is kind of instead of tapping into the grid per se, it’s, it’s looking at the wind energy. Right? The wind farms that are already established. Is that something that, and I think the, in our story, we also mentioned that they are looking at two wind farms in Cameron County to also kind of establish that type of data center using that energy.
Naxi Lopez
Is that something that you’re seeing a trend to.
Gilberto Salinas
Or not too sure, but that we work with our, local utility utility, which Brownsville PV, a municipally owned utility, and they do have a diversified portfolio. So they’re the ones that would work on that.
Naxi Lopez
And so you mentioned water, right? Water is a big thing. Brownsville. You’re at the end of the line when it comes to getting water from the Rio Grande River. How is Brownsville addressing those challenges when it comes to water?
Gilberto Salinas
And so, we’re in a better position. Not geographically per se, but yes, because the flip side of that is that a this community was very forward thinking 20 plus years ago, back, with, then Governor Rick Perry, he had a pilot program of desal plants.
Naxi Lopez
Okay.
Gilberto Salinas
And, Brownsville had one ended up, you know, being one of those candidates, and it’s, our local utility is involved as well as some of the other local, water, suppliers. And we do have a, a brackish water desal plant. So it uses reverse osmosis. So it pulls water underground water, which is brackish, which is basically salt water.
Gilberto Salinas
Right. And is replenished by the Gulf of Mexico. So it provides 20% of our water needs right now in Brownsville. They’re looking at, the plans to expand it, to be able to supply up to 40% of the water needs in the Brownsville area. So, water is still a challenge throughout the state of Texas.
Naxi Lopez
Right.
Gilberto Salinas
But we’re in much better position because we have that plant already, and there’s plans underway to expand it, which, again, is going to help us, as, citizens, the residents of Brownsville, but also for industry.
Naxi Lopez
Sure. Okay. Let me see. We talked about aerospace. We talked about let’s talk about Mexico. Right. I had a conversation recently, and I’ve had a couple of conversations with, businesspeople in the Matamoros area, right, that have kind of told me the same thing that, you know, as of and I don’t want to give a date, but there seemed to be a disconnect when it came to Matamoros and Brownsville for a little while.
Naxi Lopez
Right. Working together to attract industry, sort of like McAllen and Reynosa to have, you know, kind of gotten together to attract big industry. But, what I’m hearing now is that there is, a resurgence of this partnership between the the business happening in Matamoros, the maquinas, and what’s happening here. Would you agree with that characterization?
Gilberto Salinas
1,000% is so back in the days and the predecessor, the predecessor of this organization, the Brownsville EDC, when I was there, and we had the Brownsville, Matamoros United Partnership, which is, you know, us as EDC and then working with, with go them and with index and Matamoros, we go on recruitment missions and recruit.
Gilberto Salinas
I’m you were saying selector specifically for both, you know, for this region, which is Brownsville. Matamoros. Then, you know, I, I was in central Texas for about seven years, so I’ve been back about a year. So I was one of the things that we said, hey, we need to reintroduce it. So we’ve been, working with them now.
Gilberto Salinas
Not as close as we wanted to, but. Yeah, we’re we’re that’s back. You know, so, we have those lines of communication and now looking an ad like, hey, you know, there’s there’s stuff on this side that will complement Matamoros and Vice versa. The model 20 years ago used to be, you know, and because I was here was the EDC model was recruit companies for the Mexican side.
Gilberto Salinas
They would get the manufacturing over there and then we would get the logistics on this side, which was for every ten jobs created on the Mexican side, one job would be created on the US side. Back at the Brownsville EDC days or EDC days, we started switching that model around is like we’ll continue recruiting for the Mexican side, but we are now really focusing on developing industrial parks in the US side for manufacturing and came in the North Brownsville, industrial park, on the city’s north side, which has already sold out.
Gilberto Salinas
And there’s a lot of manufacturers in there. That’s where Linda is, that they were the last ones to buy the last lot there. And, so once we started doing that, we started gaining some success, hitting on some success and let the models, you know, also had, you know, their, their companies growing their own, companies. And, you know, that’s right around the time we started working on space projects, the LNG is helping the port.
Gilberto Salinas
So then now looking at that strategy back then, we continue to do that today helping with the models. But now, I mean, it’s it’s got a whole different level as far as what we’re seeing here because companies here now, the new ones, new ones coming into the browser side are contracting with companies on the Mexican side for certain parts.
Gilberto Salinas
So it’s interesting how that model has kind of changed.
Naxi Lopez
And, you know, we had a visit by, the auto cluster of I was client calientes not too long ago. They were in Brownsville, what, 2 or 3 days ago?
Gilberto Salinas
Yeah, they were here.
Naxi Lopez
And we spoke. I reporters spoke to, some of the attendees, and you know, these it seems like these auto companies, right, are now looking at other industries like aerospace, and trying to get their footing in there. Is that something that you got a sense of where you in these meetings?
Gilberto Salinas
Yeah. So, my team has been, involved in a lot of these meetings and, hosting these delegations. You know, you we’re hosting people almost on a daily basis, where there’s us, support, working with Harlingen or Cameron County. We all have a lot of activity. Goes back to what you were saying is like, like who’s looking at, you know, Brownsville, who’s looking at, you know, Cameron County, where everybody is right now.
Gilberto Salinas
So, when they were here. Yeah, they’re they’re kind of, you know, they’re probing. They’re just kind of, you know, looking to see if they’re what kind of opportunities are here. We have a delegation from Japan coming in, next week, actually, and working with them as well, and vice versa will be visiting with several companies in Japan later this year.
Naxi Lopez
So. And what are they interested in?
Gilberto Salinas
Is it said best manufacturing in tech? Okay. So which is very much in alignment with what we’re landing over here at the Greater Brownsville Tech Park, which is our new industrial park. Yeah. So a you know, Brownsville has done a good job of being on the map. You know, having that dot on the map, what we’re doing now is making sure that dot gets bigger.
Gilberto Salinas
And that’s why we’re getting a lot of that attention, hosting a lot of these delegations, these investors slash manufacturers from, what’s going into that came in. That’s what they’re looking for, you know, do we have real estate? Do you have the workforce? What’s the cost? Electricity, especially, global companies coming in. And that’s the first thing they ask for for a tricity.
Gilberto Salinas
We complain that it’s expensive. Like, no, you don’t know what expensive is until manufacturers come in and say, no, we pay three times more in other countries. So, so it’s just working with all of these to, and after you’ve gone through all these different ambassadors and manufacturers, you’ll end up landing some of them.
Naxi Lopez
So, what about tariffs? Right. When when we’re talking about Mexico, obviously the United States, implemented its own set of tariffs last year. But just on January 1st, Mexico said, hey, you know what? We also want a piece of the manufacturing pie of our domestic manufacturing. So we’re going to put, tariffs on countries that we don’t have free trade agreements with.
Naxi Lopez
Have have you seen and I guess it’s too early right now to, to measure what the impact of the Mexican tariffs are. But when it comes to U.S. tariffs, have you seen any sort of hiccup, any pause in investment because of these tariffs.
Gilberto Salinas
So what’s interesting is we won’t know what the impact of this is until like ten years down the road. You know, the immediate thing that we’re seeing is that both reshoring and near shoring that that is a thing. You know, the reason we’re seeing a lot of delegations coming in is because, you know, companies that are doing that are from the US or doing business with U.S. companies, but that are, you know, international.
Gilberto Salinas
And they’re saying, okay, now we need to get as close as possible to the U.S. or be in the U.S. so when it’s, near shoring, that means the Mexican side is this is, going to get that business. So we see a little bit of that. And reshoring is they’re actually moving into the US. So we’re seeing a little bit of both right now.
Gilberto Salinas
And I think probably hopefully in a few months, if we do make an announcement on an automotive manufacturer, it would be a result of of reshoring where you would just we’re just not there yet. But yeah, that’s a that’s a reason why we’re seeing a lot of activity because of, reshoring in your short interest.
Naxi Lopez
Interesting. Very big buzzwords right now.
Gilberto Salinas
Yeah. You got to be careful, to write them.
Naxi Lopez
All right.
Gilberto Salinas
Then you just don’t know who you’re talking to in a good spark. Then go one way or the other. That conversation? Yeah, like everything else.
Naxi Lopez
Oh, yeah? Yeah. Politics. All right. Gilberto, anything else that you’d like to add that maybe we haven’t talked about that, you know. Do you think our readers, our viewers should know about.
Gilberto Salinas
No, because that’s how I get in trouble.
Naxi Lopez
There are no major announcements for us. I mean, aside from the name change, of course.
Gilberto Salinas
That’s big enough. All right.
Gilberto Salinas
You. There is. We’re we’re we’re sitting on an announcement.
Naxi Lopez
Okay.
Gilberto Salinas
And it’s it’s looking.
Naxi Lopez
At it a little bit.
Gilberto Salinas
Where they come, if they come in. Yeah, it would be a, supplier to Space-x, major advanced manufacturer, along the lines of tech, will be employing some high level people, providing the training to upskill a lot of people. And it would potentially be our first, tenant at the Greater Brownsville Tech Park. And after that, we expect others to follow suit as well.
Gilberto Salinas
A company that, does business with with several big brands in the US and obviously them coming in here, it just is going to provide more opportunity. And yeah, it’s it’s yeah, it’s just exciting.
Naxi Lopez
Amazing. All right. Well, congratulations and congratulations for you for being named one of the top influential professionals you know, to be looking out for. So congratulations on that too. I mean.
Gilberto Salinas
I don’t care about those things, but thank you, Matt I don’t know I don’t know how I got on that list, but, just got to know, like, hey, you winning your photo. You’ve been nominated and, like what? And, but no, it’s quite the honor. It’s quite the honor. Is it? I think it just kind of helps validate some of the things that we’re doing.
Gilberto Salinas
But I’ll be the first one to tell you that it’s it’s it’s not about me. It’s it’s about the team that we have in place here at the Greater Brownsville EDC. And then the leadership that we have in the community. And at the end of the day, also the community itself that is supporting what we do and allowing us, to go out there and recruit companies.
Gilberto Salinas
Yeah. This is a community and a region that had been, you know, starved as far as economic development opportunities. And now that they’ve seen what success looks like, they want more of that success. We want more of that success. So it goes back to to everything that’s happening. And I just happen to be a product of that.
Naxi Lopez
All right. Well you heard it here folks. Economic development is a team sport. So thank you so much for playing.
Gilberto Salinas
Thank you. We like to win all right.
Naxi Lopez
Yeah.
Gilberto Salinas
Well winning is fun.
Naxi Lopez
Wonderful. Well thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to to air some of these issues out. We really appreciate it. And to our subscribers and our readers, you know what to do. Check this out next week and, keep subscribing.
Gilberto Salinas
All right. Thank you.
