TSTC bets on advanced manufacturing to meet RGV’s industrial boom

HARLINGEN — As billions of dollars in industrial investment take shape across the Rio Grande Valley, Texas State Technical College is overhauling its program lineup to keep pace with the workforce those projects will demand.

Dr. Gina Cano-Monreal, provost of TSTC’s Harlingen campus, discussed the college’s approach in an interview on the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal podcast with host Naxiely Lopez-Puente. Cano-Monreal, who has spent 18 years at TSTC, said the college was created to respond directly to shifting local labor needs — and that mandate sometimes means retiring programs that no longer serve the region.

“If we’re offering a particular program that’s no longer what our region needs, then sometimes we have to take a step back,” Cano-Monreal said. “It’s had to adapt over the last couple of years from saying, ‘This is what we’re offering,’ to saying, even though it’s going to be hard, maybe these are some programs we need to sunset because we’ve got to be ready for what’s coming next.”

TSTC was established in 1965 as part of the Texas A&M System, first as Texas State Technical Institute before becoming Texas State Technical College. The Harlingen campus is one of the system’s original locations, alongside Waco, Arlington and a West Texas campus, and remains among the largest of TSTC’s 11 statewide campuses.