What you need to know about Texas A&M’s newest manufacturing hub near the Port of Brownsville

About two and a half years after breaking ground, the Texas A&M Rio Grande Valley Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Hub across from the Port of Brownsville is now slated to open by January 2027, officials told the Brownsville Navigation District Board of Commissioners in early August. 

“They launched the [hub] so that we could have individuals be able to be trained and we could match those workforce skills with our existing industry partners along with those [companies] that are going to be nearshoring and onshoring as we grow here in the port,” said Lisa Mutchler, division director for the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, economic workforce development, and business cyber solutions. 

The new workforce training facility, which sits on a 22-acre site, is a $30 million investment. Construction began in April 2025 and is expected to be completed by December 2026. The 39,000-square-foot building is located at 17955 State Highway 48 and was designed by PBK Architects’ San Antonio office. 

“We will have the hands-on labs, multiple classrooms, we’ll have the outside training areas with the high bays and…as a result, we’re bringing on more personnel for instructors to provide more of those advanced trainings, along with support personnel to support those efforts. And I’m very proud to say we’ve been working feverishly,” Mutchler said. 

Recent job postings through the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service show the Brownsville location is hiring instructors. 

Those include a maintenance manufacturing instructor and a mechatronics manufacturing instructor, which pays $6,250 a month including benefits, though it was unclear whether it’s a 6-month, 9-month, or 12-month job as an educational role. The instructor roles are for both the Brownsville and Corpus Christi Texas A&M facilities. 

The instructor roles prefer individuals with master’s degrees or bachelor’s degrees with five years of hands-on maintenance experience, or an associate’s degree with seven years of experience, or a GED with nine years of field work, according to the job postings. 

Each quarter, the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service connects with businesses in the region to measure how its educational programs are performing. During the past three fiscal quarters, companies told Texas A&M that they saw a 20% aggregate increase in plant productivity and a 26% drop in workplace accidents. Texas A&M has met with at least 38 different companies so far in fiscal year 2026 about workforce training needs, Mutchler said. 

During that same time frame, the university helped 42 trainees secure new jobs, 35 trainees got promotions, 38 saw pay increases, and 98 took on more responsibility at work. Nearly a dozen trainees went on to start their own businesses as entrepreneurs, she said. 

“Welding steel is not the same thing as welding aluminum,” Mutchler said, noting that the incoming Saronic facility is likely going to need aluminum welders as opposed to the longstanding skills of steel, which is used in the shipbuilding and recycling industries. “I know nationwide, there’s a lack of like 400,000 welders. It’s a different beast, if you will; that is an area that we know there’s a gap that exists at least within [the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service], and we’ll be addressing that as well.” 

Texas A&M also plans to expand its LNG, liquefied natural gas, training program in Brownsville across from the port. There are two LNG export terminals under construction at the port, an oil refinery proposed, and even a metal smelting plant pitched. 

“With all the [LNG] trains that are underway with construction, we’re going to be offering scaffolding training along with LNG training,” Mutchler said.