Water, Growth, & The RGV’s Future with Brian Godinez and Jim Darling
In this episode of “Business Without Borders,” the RGV Business Journal Podcast, we sit down with regional development expert Brian Godinez and water-industry veteran Jim Darling to examine how the Rio Grande Valley is responding to growth and the critical role water infrastructure plays in shaping its future.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Below is a rough, AI generated transcript of this interview. Refer to the YouTube video/audio for accuracy.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Hi and thank you for joining us on this episode of the Rio Grande Valley Business Journals podcast. Today we have two guests with us, Jim Darling and Brian Godinez. And so before I introduce them, I’m going to let them introduce themselves actually because they are very busy in our area and they have so many titles.
So Brian, we’ll start with you.
Brian Godinez
Well, I’m CEO of EO Architects and when I’m not running EO Architects, I serve on multiple boards. The one that we want to focus on today is the Institute for Leadership in Capital Projects. We call iLinkUp and we recently set up the RGP chapter and I’m president of the board of the local chapter for iLinkUp.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
All right.
Jim Darling
And Jim? I think my most important title is I’m Sandra Darling’s husband. Yeah, that definitely is.
Brian Godinez
No, actually you’re more involved in that.
Jim Darling
Well, actually I’m Region M chairperson and Region M is a water planning group and we just finished our fifth or fourth five-year plan, which goes to the state. And so all the cities and people that purchase water through the Texas system have to have their strategies in our plan.
Brian Godinez
I just got a text from Sandra, by the way, you’ve been demoted.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
But, you know, Jim, you are also a longtime leader here, served as former mayor of McAllen, have been, you know, with the university as well. Tell us about your experience.
Jim Darling
Well, I moved to the Valley in 1978 and my first job out of law school was assistant city attorney. So I’ve seen the Valley grow and I think my early career as a lawyer, I was city attorney in McAllen, but I also had a law practice. So I represented Idaho County, so a lot of school districts, cities.
And so I’ve been able to, I was a lawyer for Rio Grande City when they reincorporated. It was exciting to see that. So I feel kind of connected to a lot of the cities in the Valley and watch the valleys grow over the last 45 years.
It’s a fantastic place to live, a little hot in the summertime, but we really have it all here. I just, it’s a great place to live.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Awesome. And so today we are here to talk about infrastructure needs for the Rio Grande Valley and an upcoming event that will highlight some of those projects and initiatives that the Valley is moving forward. So, Brian, can you tell us a little bit more about that event?
Brian Godinez
I certainly can. So the I-Link-Up and the local chapter, which started last January, has been doing a series of events focusing on economic development. We’ve been creating these events as a method of awareness of what we’re doing as an institute and as a chapter.
What the chapter’s ultimate mission is, is to take all our professional services companies, which represent close to 2,000 in our region, from about $20 billion industry in the Rio Grande Valley, and because they all have individual trade and organizations that they participate in, this is the first time that an organization has been created where all of the professional services and construction industries can come together with decision makers, owners, and share best practices, ideas, all with the same mission is to improve and be successful in the capital projects that grows our industry, grows our economy. And that’s what we’re doing. This coming Wednesday, a week from today, well, next week on November 19th, at 1130 to 130 at the Embassy Suites at the McAllen Convention Center, we’re having a network luncheon, and the title of the event is Foundations for Tomorrow, Addressing the Infrastructure Challenges, Opportunities, and Solutions to Grow Our Economy.
And the focus is going to be with that. We’ve invited Valerie Segovia, who heads Investor Relations for the Texas Economic Development Corporation. She’s going to be our keynote speaker, and she’s going to talk about how the Valley positions itself in terms of investment and marketing, and how it compares either to the rest of the state and or the country, and with its focus on infrastructure, and some of the challenges and opportunities that exist that we may need to be focusing on to become more investable, more marketable.
And after that, we have a great panel that’s going to be moderated by Desecio Sanchez from KURB, and Jim is one of the four panelists. We have Mark Drombowski, the COO of the Brownsville PUB, who’s going to focus on power and energy. We’re going to have Raul Sassin, who’s the general manager of Hidalgo Drainage District No.
- His focus will be on regional drainage. And we have Pete Alvarez, the Pharr District engineer with TxDOT on roadways.
And lastly, my good friend here, who’s going to be focusing on water, Jim, will be on that panel. And then we have a few other speakers that’ll be there as well. But it’s Wednesday, November 19th.
You can register for the event. There’s a feed to be able to attend for members and non-members at i-lincp, i-lincp.org. Go there, and there’s a method on how you can register for the event to attend.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
So you’re going to have basically everything covered from energy to water to roadways. And so tell us how that fits into economic development, right? Because we can’t grow without the infrastructure.
Talk to us about that relationship.
Brian Godinez
Well, we’ve been focusing on what we call the different legs of economic development. So the first two events was how economic development institutions, organizations regionally work together to be able to attract investment and to attract companies to come down here to ultimately create jobs, and how Mexico and the U.S. work together in harmony to be able to do that. The second one we did back in June was on education.
We called it classroom to commerce, and how high schools all the way through high school higher education work together to create a stronger, more advanced, and well-trained and talented workforce. And it’s important. So now we’re focusing on infrastructure.
We believe that roadways, we believe that drainage, we believe that every aspect of infrastructure is important for the economy to be able to grow because it connects communities, connects commerce, connects our binational trade, and it all has to be flowing in harmony. But we have lots of challenges. We have to have everybody working collaboratively, everybody needs to be communicating, and there has to be consensus.
Without that, we can’t be working together on addressing our region-wide infrastructure issues, like water, like roadways. Jim, it’s a perfect segue to you to come in here.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
You know, what is our biggest challenge here in the Rio Grande Valley? And I think, you know, we might agree on it.
Jim Darling
Things pop into my head when I was listening to you, and so I thought, let me say one thing that’s kind of different, and we won’t leave anybody behind, but I’m the board lead for what they call Border 2025. And as I was talking, listen, Border 2025 is an EPA program, and it’s a five-year program, and we deal with colonial issues, and we do both sides of the border, 50 miles on both sides of the border, and very modest things. You know, I thought about McAllen when Wi-Fi and all that came out, and we were able to come up with a thing where we use our telephone lines and our street lights and provide Wi-Fi to our communities that weren’t going to have Wi-Fi, but we couldn’t do it out north because they don’t even have street lights in the colonias.
And drainage, when you talk about drainage, I’m thinking drainage projects have never reached those areas either, and we’re still building, approving subdivisions with septic tanks in the rural area. So the reason we’re wrapping up Border 2025 because it’s 2025, it’s got one month left, and we’re having our meeting of what we accomplished. The shutdown of the government kind of hurt some things and all that, but I want to say that this is all very exciting in an economic, with the university, what it is, I mean, 10 years, it’s amazing what they’ve done, opportunities, SpaceX and all that, but we still have a great part of our population that is not as excited as we are about what the future is from that standpoint, and we can’t leave that behind. So hopefully we touch on that a little bit, that when we do infrastructure, we think about basic infrastructure, that we’re talking about advanced infrastructure and things like that.
Brian Godinez
What happens when advanced manufacturing and data centers want to be here? What’s the number two infrastructure requirements they need, and what is it that we’re challenged with?
Jim Darling
Electricity.
Brian Godinez
And? Huh? And water.
Jim Darling
And water.
Brian Godinez
Yeah.
Jim Darling
Yeah, water, you know, water’s an issue. If you take a look at it, agriculture’s been destroyed, I mean, almost destroyed. I mean, they had enough water to keep the citrus trees alive, but not to have any marketable fruit this year.
And you can’t make your living on soybran and corn, feed corn and all that, and they just got a little bit of water in third counts this last month, first time in over two years. Nothing to really plant your next year’s planting on. And so agriculture was so huge an area, I don’t know, somebody’s going to have to tell me the statistics, what it went to, what it was and what it is now, is pretty bad.
The, you know, from an employment standpoint, probably less impact because it was lower wages and et cetera, when you have the agricultural.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
But still very important industry here in the Rio Grande Valley.
Brian Godinez
But the challenge of that is we went from soil to concrete. And that’s where our drainage issues and that’s where our flooding started.
Jim Darling
Where does the water go now? Exactly. And a lot of those were, you know, a lot of our drainage were borrow ditches when they made the canals, they had to dig the water up to make a canal and it was a borrow ditch, especially in the western part of the county.
And that became the drainage system for everybody. It was a borrow ditch for dirt and it became your developing city drainage system. And so, you know, thank God Hidalgo County, I think in the last 10, 12 years has made huge strides in drainage.
And the cities, you know, we gather our water in McAllen, but we can’t take it out to the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, could, but it’d be silly to have 20 cities providing. So the county’s really stepped up.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Working on the Raymondville drain.
Jim Darling
Working on the Raymondville drain. That’s a great project, the Delta project. All the water goes out there.
On the south side, it goes through the floodway system to the Roya Colorado. I think there’s probably, if you look at maybe business 83, a little bit south, as that’s where all that water goes. Anything north goes out the Raymondville drain.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And for those that don’t know, though, the Raymondville drain basically is an express way for water, right? I’ve heard it.
Jim Darling
A big ditch.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Basically, yeah, a big ditch.
Jim Darling
It’s a ditch. It’s a man-made ditch where it takes all, all this is, you know, in the valley sheet throws and we’re in the Oasis Rio Grande Basin. And so everything kind of express way, north flows, sheet flows north, northeast.
And so you’ve got to gather it, range in your neighborhood, you’ve got to gather it and take it up there. It doesn’t go by itself.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And it goes all the way, 70 miles, I believe, right to the, what is it? The Laguna Madre out there?
Jim Darling
To the bay. In the bay. And so that’s, and then on the south side, it goes out to the Colorado through, it goes actually into the, into the thing too, into the bay too.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And so this, this project though, has been in the books since the seventies, I believe. It’s like 50 years in the making.
Jim Darling
It strictly was a drainage project and they had a lake out there and sometimes had water and sometimes doesn’t, the quality, you know, cause it’s farmland lake, which is not good. And Sun City sewer lake and all that kind of different stuff. And so they decided they collected it and can treat it.
And so they said, you know, there’s a water need. So let’s try that. It’s a great, great idea.
And what, and water reuse is one of the tools in the toolbox of dealing with drought. And the county is working on that, right?
Naxi Lopez-Puente
The Delta Reclamation Project.
Jim Darling
And then, you know, McAllen reuses a lot of their water. Their sewer water in the north side. Many days it doesn’t go any place.
It goes to the plant to cool the plants out there, the electrical plants. It goes on for outside use and trace logos. And so it’s, it’s, it’s treated water.
You could actually reuse it. And it’s a lot of people reuse it again for drinking water. This was used for other purposes.
South McAllen plant gets used on golf course and some from coolant. And so you almost, you know, what water is available. There’s even things we haven’t done.
Reuse of your sewer water is one. I think the big one we miss out on is conservation. You know, we went through the drought of record, but people didn’t realize it.
When had the drought of record, it ruined agriculture. Cities were allocated a hundred percent of the water.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
But not agriculture.
Jim Darling
Yeah. And the big thing was, okay, city’s got a hundred percent. There’s no sewer reservoirs.
How does it get to the cities in an inefficient delivery system? And they did a study in 1998 with the previous drought of record. It was called the Brandis study.
It said the average city would get 63% of its water because there’s no ag in the system pushing it. And so the river does it much more inefficient that way. No much, not much Mexican water.
And like Brownsville would get a lot less than Laredo because it’s further. Well, we had a worse drought of record two years ago, a year and a half ago now. And it was much worse, much longer than the original drought of record.
And the city’s got all the water. Now getting it from the river to that city is another story. And that’s one of the infrastructure needs we want to talk about.
And that’s where the cities and irrigation districts need to improve that system. You have districts, they have a hundred year old pumps and canals, some even dirt canals out there. And that’s where the cities need to say, you know, we’re partners in this deal and try to get together and improve some of that.
It doesn’t mean everybody needs it. Some districts have done better than others, but just an overall look at the agriculture system, where do we go from here?
Brian Godinez
And that’s a challenge.
Jim Darling
We can’t count on that.
Brian Godinez
And that’s a challenge. There’s a, there’s, we need so much improvement in mobility, so much improvement in drainage, so much improvement in access to water, access to fiber. We’re growing, we’re the fastest growing population in the state.
And that means as a professional services entity, our architectural firm, like all the brothers and sisters of the industry here, we all want our economy to prosper because that means there’s going to be more horizontal work and more vertical work. And so one of the things that we, this organization is trying to do is to bring the decision makers together with professional services, because as much as we know we need to improve, there’s just a fundamental human thing that’s still missing that we need to improve on even more. And that’s communications.
If we really want to achieve true regionalism for us to address these infrastructure challenges, we need to be communicating better, we need to be collaborating better, and we need to build more consensus so that we’re all working together under one common direction. And that’s to improve our regional mobility, our regional drainage, our regional infrastructure, et cetera. And so we as professional services would like to be at the table helping as much as we can in that collaboration, in those communications.
And that nests what the mission of this organization, what we’re trying to do.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Yeah. And you know, we have so many cities, right? It’s not like there’s just one entity that can focus on the region, right?
You’ve got to work with all of the municipalities, you know. So it’s, it’s, it’s a challenge.
Brian Godinez
So everybody has to park, everybody has to check their ego at the door in order to work together.
Jim Darling
It was pretty hard with the city, got a good relationship with the mayor, and next day the mayor’s not there anymore, there’s a new mayor, and so they start all over again, building those relationships. And sometimes there’s a little harder than that, you know, that’s why you got to be careful who you support in elections and say, well, can I get in this? I don’t know if I want to, you know, I don’t, I think you’re going to win, but I can’t, you know, you don’t want to be involved in that.
But that’s interesting. We’re talking about like electricity. Let me ask you a question.
Who do you get your electricity from?
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Uh, well, AEP Texas, and then through, uh, what is it? Magic Valley Electric Co-op.
Jim Darling
Okay. So you just mentioned two. You don’t get your electricity from, from either of those.
No. Mine’s Magic Valley. I have stream energy.
What you get is that’s how your, what electricity is delivered to you. Okay. You buy your electricity from somebody else.
Brian Godinez
Oh, I buy it from stream.
Jim Darling
When they deregulate it, of course, they, Magic Valley is a monopoly, uh, for, for the, but they also have manufacturer owner. They probably buy more of their power than they produce. But yeah, so that’s one of the issues, you know, when people say, I got a manufacturing plan, it’s going to take X amount of power and all those lines and say, okay, we got to go talk to AEP and AEP is the one that provides the line that gets your, your power from wherever you’re buying it from.
They don’t produce power. And so you’re competing with everybody from AEP. It’s north of Corpus and it comes like a horseshoe.
We’re on the Valley and goes way up West Texas. So they have a budget and they got to support West Texas, Corpus here in the Valley, uh, they’re ready to all, uh, not Brownsville cause they have their own company, uh, they wield it from someplace else, but so people understand the complexity of even getting electricity. We just, we’re so used to turning electricity on and it works, who cares?
I like the water faucet too. I want to build a plant that’s a 20 meg demand. And so how do I do that?
And it’s not so much the getting gender power generated. That’s an issue, but that’s really a bigger issue we can’t control because it’s most of it’s generated out of our area, but getting it to you and your plan is, is an issue because they only have so many, so a budget for this year and they got people all over their system asking for service.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And our energy needs have really, uh, skyrocketed. I think we had an article earlier, um, that said that I think in the past three years, and I forget the actual statistic, but it’s like the past three years, uh, demand grew the same that it did over a 30 year period previously. And it’s, I mean, it was mind boggling just to hear that from AEP Texas.
Brian Godinez
That was, it’s a lot of things that they say, but now you can’t spill everything out here today, man. Cause then they’re not going to want to come to the event because you’re telling them everything. Can I, can I remind them?
Oh, they want to hear more about Jim Wednesday, November 19th at the embassy suites, the McAllen convention center, 1130 to 130 I-LINCP.org to see this man and three others talk more about our infrastructure challenges. Okay. Now you can talk some more.
I forgot what I was going to say.
Jim Darling
Yeah. I mean, electricity is interesting. Um, yeah, I worked at DHR and one side of the street was AEP and the other side was Magic Valley.
And so you had to deal with two different, uh, entities or you had AEP was a, uh, stockholder owned and Magic Valley is people own it. The customers own it, their board is elected by them and et cetera. And so you’re dealing with different, um, entities and different needs and different, uh, ability to serve.
And so you have to be a little, electricity is not as simple as you think, but a lot of people, it’s, it’s, well, how much did I pay for it? And I go on the power to choose and say, okay, five cents and whatever it is, but it’s much more complicated than that for economic development purposes.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And so some of the solutions, uh, that have been proposed for some of these big infrastructure needs, uh, talk to us about the biggest ones that, you know, are currently either, you know, being developed or, you know, worked through here in the Valley.
Jim Darling
Well, I think with the merger, the MPO, you know, transportation was a huge issue for us. And I think we still don’t have the loop.
Brian Godinez
I was going to say MPO. That’s probably the biggest issue that’s been going on.
Jim Darling
What we did is we have an RMA and an MPO and we complicated our own process. We have two entities that are controlling those main, well, and then mixing text out.
Brian Godinez
Yeah. And then you got a good soup of a lot of stuff going on, but the loop is the biggest, the biggest infrastructure project that’s been going on for years and will go on for at least another 20, 25 years.
Jim Darling
They ought to, they ought to merge that. That’s when it probably, I know people don’t like it, but that’s when it needs to be merged into one to get it done. That’s a good solution to get it merged to get it done.
Merged in one to get it done. There you go.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
That’s sketchy.
Jim Darling
I’m sure. Yeah. But yeah, that’s, that’s been, you know, that’s a change too.
I mean, it’s significant when we merged the MPOs, the money came in. Uh, when we created the new university, the money came in.
Brian Godinez
But you see what happened? Collaboration, communication, working together. Then the funds start coming in as opposed to individual small pies trying to get the same dollars, but bigger dollars when you’re together, that’s what we need to be doing more of.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Right. And so the different MSAs too, right? Like, is there a way to combine our two MSAs?
Brian Godinez
That discussion has been going on for quite some time. McAllen Brownsville MSA.
Jim Darling
We really are a huge region. Yeah. Just some of the numbers look, population number looks a lot better.
Um, some of the other numbers don’t look so good when you mix them, you know, and so I think.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Educational attainment or something like that.
Jim Darling
Yeah. Um, poverty numbers and some of those things. And so, you know, I think we bite the bullet and mix it and say, okay, you know what, let’s lift everybody up.
Brian Godinez
But it might happen. I mean, UTRGV was the first big trigger that actually legitimized and validated our region as one. Then the MPO merger was another big validation point, a big, big milestone for us.
It seems to me that the MSAs combining together might be the next big one.
Jim Darling
Yeah. And that’s really political. It’s just because they’re different names and we don’t want to lose our autonomy.
Brian Godinez
Well, like DFW.
Jim Darling
The smaller one doesn’t want to lose their autonomy by going, you know, how you name it. That’s where you sit down and compromise.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
MacBrown.
Jim Darling
MacBrown.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
You would think that the name is MacBrown.
Jim Darling
MacBrown. But yeah, I mean, that’s the issue is, you know, getting everybody to say, okay, it’s really pride.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Right.
Jim Darling
Check the ego at the door. But Dallas and Fort Worth did it.
Brian Godinez
Yeah. They finally did it. They finally did it.
Jim Darling
And, and, and ultimately the, that number of population is what’s the bigger driver than poverty level or whatever. I mean, we’re looking to draw people, say, here’s how many you have in this, this area. And I think that’s an important part.
And everything else will go up anyways, you know, when you do the merger.
Brian Godinez
But a battle cry is infrastructure for all and nobody’s left behind. The, you know, Jim mentioned earlier about the colonias. There’s almost 2000 just in Idaho County alone.
Cameron County may have half that number. And then you’ve got the urban sprawl of population growth that’s been going on in the metro areas between McAllen and Brownsville. But the battle cry is no one is left without infrastructure.
And that is hard to do when you have so much rural areas in this region to be able to accomplish that. The loop will accomplish the mobility side of it once it’s eventually built. We hope that’ll happen.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And you know, what’s the relationship there between the loop and trade, right? International trade. How important is that for our region?
Brian Godinez
Well, it connects to all 14 of our bridges.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
14.
Brian Godinez
Yeah. To eventually get them all connected. It’s what we’re hoping on to be able to do that and have commerce be able to travel across much easier, more efficiently.
I mean, the federal government is trying to make crossings easier as much as we hear about the immigration issues and what they’re doing in terms of border. But the technology that they’re installing in all of our ports here is really, really amazing to get trucks to move quicker, to get vehicular traffic to move quicker, to get pedestrians to be able to cross faster. That technology is getting better and better to be able to do that.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And the expansions, you know, there’s a lot of investments in our bridge. FAR is about to double its capacity.
Brian Godinez
McAllen, Anzalduas. Donna’s about to spend $70 million for their bridge.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Well, talk to us about it then.
Brian Godinez
Well, Donna’s about to spend $70 million for their commercial import lot as well as on the Mexican side so they can have trucks there in about two and a half years to kind of follow the success of what McAllen and FAR are doing.
Jim Darling
The federal government’s done a good job of spreading the money out, you know, and so none of us have been able to get a competitive advantage over each other as opposed to everybody getting better. And I think that’s been important. I think, I don’t know if the federal government did it on purpose or whatever.
Brian Godinez
It’s unusual. But it’s happening.
Jim Darling
You know, Brownsville got their, and Hidalgo, we got our money for Anzalduas and FAR and everybody, so.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And there’s plenty of, you know.
Jim Darling
To go around, right? Yes.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
Look at Laredo, you know, how crowded it is and how much it, you know, brings in. And, you know.
Jim Darling
I think, I think us spreading it has helped though too, because it’s helped on the Mexican side itself. And Laredo’s been, just Laredo, so if you’ve ever been to Laredo lately, it’s pretty busy with truck traffic and all those kinds of things.
Brian Godinez
But it’s all part of connecting the dots. I mean, commerce connects to quality of life, connects to more population, connects to more public service, connects to more expansion, connects to more homes. It just all connects.
When commerce is flowing, populations grow, which means everything else grows, public service grows. When these property taxes go up, sales taxes go up, it all connects.
Jim Darling
One thing I think that’s very important, and we’re talking about colonialists and all those kind of things, is a state that doesn’t allow cities to annex anymore involuntarily. So cities are able to control what happened in their areas. City regulations are much stricter than the county’s, don’t allow septic tanks, etc.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
And that’s an issue, right? Because the county can’t impose those regulations and therefore, you know, people can build…
Jim Darling
That’s right. They don’t have the tools to do it. And cities do, and the cities can’t annex.
So you have developers out there say, I don’t want to be annexed, you can’t annex me, I’m going to go to the county, get mine. And so instead of making progress on eliminating colonialists, we’ve now increased the number that are happening. And, you know, I’d love to get the state down there and say it’s not, we’re not, cities aren’t land grabbing, we’re trying to survive for survival.
And also look at the quality of life that you’re, people can’t afford, certain people can’t afford this or that, and they’re moving into those areas and don’t realize, I got my home now and I don’t have a septic tank, I don’t have fire protection.
Brian Godinez
Infrastructure for all.
Jim Darling
You know, and who’s benefiting by that except the developer that doesn’t want to meet the standards that people should have when they’re buying their house. They’re putting their money into their dream house and it’s too bad. But, you know, that’s politics in Austin.
I’m going to talk about it.
Brian Godinez
It’s going to be real fascinating to hear the perspective of the other gentlemen that are going to be on that panel, the head of operations for the Brownsville PUB. They’re not only involved in power, but they’re involved in other aspects of infrastructure in Cameron County, connected to the port, connected to their bridges, connected to all of that over there. So with the Cameron County perspective, we’ll be on the panel along with Jim and then the TxDOT perspective with Pete Alvarez and what’s going on with our roadways connected to the MPO, connected to the RMA.
And then finally with Raul Sistine on drainage. So all of those infrastructure aspects to have a 45 minute to an hour dialogue like we’re having now is what’s going to happen a week from tomorrow on Wednesday the 19th at the Embassy Suites, the McAllen Convention Center, 1130 to 130. Did I mention how to register?
Go ahead. I-L-I-N-C-P, ilinkup.org, right there on the homepage. Scroll down about a little bit and you’ll see the link to the event that we’re having here in McAllen.
It’s an important event. It’s a good conversation. And Jim is just one aspect and perspective of five other speakers that are going to be there.
Jim Darling
No, I’m better prepared than me.
Brian Godinez
No, no, I don’t think they’re going to get near you, but that’s OK. We’ll catch up with you.
Naxi Lopez-Puente
All right, gentlemen. Well, you heard it here. Make sure to register.
Be part of the conversation. Be part of the solution. And so I want to thank you both for joining us today.
And, you know, stick around. Make sure you watch our episode next week.
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