The business of business.

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Welcome.

I'm Henry Cisneros, and this is business of business.

San Antonio.

Any city in the country, or even the world would love to be in our shoes right now.

San Antonio's economy is booming.

We are a diverse culture, rich with history, growing with technology, medical research and education.

Our tourism continues to drive dollars to our community.

Manufacturing is opening new doors here and along age 35, both to the north and to the south of us.

For the next hour, we'll look at various elements that make up our thriving economy.

By talking with the people on the front lines of those areas.

Let's begin with the man who has led our city for the past seven years.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg, mayor, thank you for joining us for this review of 2024.

And look ahead at 2025 as we focus on the progress of our city, the economy of our city.

What stands out to you in 2024?

I think 2024 was a year of continued progress on the fundamentals of our economy.

Stability and, growth.

You know, San Antonio, again, was named the fastest growing big city in the country.

And with that comes a lot of opportunity.

But when I look at what we're doing and investing in in San Antonio in terms of workforce housing, our building, our transportation system for the future, we're continuing to make solid progress in those fundamentals that are going to be important to sustain that growth over time.

2024 has been a year of many successes.

The the, Ready to Work initiative has really gained traction.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Oh, that's going sure.

Well, that is a job training program that was supported by voters in November 2020, after and through the pandemic, where we were taking a eighth of a penny of sales tax and devoting it to job training with community supports for folks who are underemployed or unemployed, adult workers who need to be retrained to get back into the workforce, and to earn livable wages and solid career mobile.

Jobs.

And what's remarkable about this program is that this is job training for folks who really have this last option, last resort.

And when the average participant in San Antonio who participates in the ready to work program is a single mother of color, raising children in a household making less than $14,000 a year.

So you can imagine the kinds of social supports and programs necessary to keep that family sustained when, that person graduates and is placed into a job.

The average job, is now paying $44,000 a year with benefits.

So you can see the transformational impact it would have for that single household.

What that means for the children and grandchildren.

This is a way that we can bring at scale, into inventions to break cycles of generational poverty, which is something that we drastically need to do, not just here in San Antonio, but throughout this country.

And the truth is, even as it impacts families and individuals, as you say, it also impacts the whole community because we're able to persuade businesses to come here because we have a trained workforce.

We've heard that directly from CEOs of some of the largest corporations in the world.

In fact, JCB, a UK private construction company, the largest in the world, private, heavy equipment manufacturer, made that decision to build their North American plant here in San Antonio because of ready to work, because of our investments and workforce.

This is a huge accomplishment and no doubt something that will be part of your legacy for the long run, because you created something out of your vision that didn't exist before.

As we look ahead to 2025, what do you see out there?

You'll be in office about six months of 20, 25.

There'll be a lot of turmoil and tumult with an election, but the business of the city goes forward.

What do you see?

Things you want to drive to the finish line.

You know, a lot of this work as mayors is iterative.

We take the baton and we pass the baton.

And so, you know, a number of the things I mentioned from workforce to the transportation system, we're rebuilding, redeveloping our airport to be a competitive, world class airport.

We're building our first ever mass transit system in the city of San Antonio.

These efforts are going to need to be sustained.

And so what I'm hoping to accomplish in my last time in office is to make sure that we, we get as many of these projects as far down the path as possible, sustained into the next administration in the white House, and making sure that the next mayor can take the baton with as much momentum as possible.

And we've just come through a contentious election and, the former president now really elected to be our next president is forming his administration.

He set out some policies during the course of the campaign, but they'll take greater form in the transition.

What do you see as the implications for San Antonio?

Obviously, you'll fight hard to get the maximum we can for San Antonio.

No matter what the policies are.

But do you see anything that particularly, requires attention?

I do, and, you know, and I and I would say I'm cautiously optimistic about the future as it relates to our existing priorities.

And that includes housing, transportation, building our airport, etc.. And why I say that is a lot of this work, that we have begun, started, you know, back in 2015, 2016, when we were assembling our comprehensive plan.

It was at that point, for instance, that the Federal Transit Administration in, in the previous administration, recognized that transit oriented development was critically important for communities like ours to build sustainably and in an in an economically healthy way.

So I think, given the strength of our delegation, that we're going to be able to continue to make the case from an economic standpoint, that continuing to build this infrastructure is important for our state, local and federal economy.

You've had a very strong, almost eight years as mayor.

In May, June, you will transition out of the office.

What looking back, do you feel proudest of and what do you feel are your greatest contributions to the long term progress of San Antonio?

You know, I think about this a lot, and what I am most proud of in San Antonio is that we have made a commitment and we've changed the conversation.

Related to economic mobility.

We have aligned public sector, private sector, and certainly our government to deal with the issues related to economic mobility at the intersection of housing, transportation and education workforce.

Every single one of those areas, we've had successful public supported initiatives that now have resourced our housing agenda, our workforce ecosystem, as well as, transportation reform.

And so we are finally committed all in on breaking these cycles of poverty that San Antonio has been gripped by for generations.

I have always said that we we needed over the years to build up our economy, create growth, create jobs, create incomes, but that there would be a moment when the focus needed to change to invest in people, invest in our infrastructure, invest in education.

And I would say that you're the first mayor who's made the whole focus of an eight year term to focus on those things that actually make San Antonio better.

So congratulations.

Thank you for that.

And, whoever comes next is going to have a hard job filling your shoes.

We'll keep the momentum going.

And we're we're we're in this together.

Bexar County is home to more than 2 million people.

We're the state's fourth most populous county.

And at the helm of Bexar County is our county judge, Judge Peter Sacchi.

Judge, thank you very much for joining us today.

And congratulations on your tenure.

Now, two plus years in office.

And, by all accounts, a job you really enjoy.

I am enjoying it.

I think sometimes people ask me, is the job fun?

And at first I had to kind of pause.

And I've come to the realization that leadership is not always fun, but it is rewarding.

And this job is rewarding in regards to the challenges and the decisions I have to make as county judge.

What would you, cite as the state of Bexar County?

I don't mean the internal government, but the county at large, its economic prospects in 2024.

Oh, I'm, optimistic.

Obviously.

My predecessor, Nelson Wolf, gave me a court, a county that was in good shape.

And what we're doing is we're taking it to another level.

We just passed a balanced budget.

We actually reduce spending.

We have now put a moratorium, so to speak.

Not a formal one, but on capital projects and orders so that we can start balancing the budget.

We may be anticipating, an economic downturn or an adjustment to the economy.

So county government is primed to where we're in good shape.

Many San Antonio's probably don't fully understand what the county government does, but you have responsibility for law enforcement through the sheriff's operation, the corrections mechanism of the courts, as well as the jail, the jail.

And you have this huge responsibility in the county hospital, university, correct.

Health, which, university hospital, which is regarded by many as the best medical care in this region?

Well, I've got treated there so I can have personal knowledge that it is truly one of the best hospital systems, at least in the city, if not in the state, if not in the country.

And when you think about 2025, do you have particular initiatives?

I know that you're working with Judge Andy Brown in Austin to reopen the question of, transportation between Austin and San Antonio, which is critical.

We're growing into a mega region, and we cannot be a mega region with all the traffic on age 35 and no bypasses effectively are no mass transit, right?

What's your thinking about that?

You know that that's one of the things that I think I brought to the table.

I've made an outreach to Judge Brown on the discussion of the Spurs playing in Austin.

We got all that resolved.

Austin wasn't going to take away the Spurs.

So, you know, we embraced the Spurs playing in Austin in order to expand their market share in return, I had a great conversation of Andy, what can we do in partnering with Travis County?

Obviously, I went to school.

I'm a UT Longhorns undergrad, law school, so you know.

And an orange tie and an.

Orange.

That's right.

And so I'm very partial to make sure, as you have noted in your mega corridor, mega metro that, you know, Austin and San Antonio are tied together.

So in our discussions, we acknowledge that one of the regional aspects was, how do we move people up and down?

So going back to the Spurs, I want to get people from Austin to get to San Antonio for Spurs game and back.

Yeah.

And when Austin has their wonderful events that they have throughout the year, we ought to be able to get up to Austin and back.

And we're not going to be able to build more lanes of traffic on our ice.

35 now on your watch, do you think there's a possibility we could at least get started on building an Austin San Antonio rail connection?

Well, we started it and obviously, you know, there are some obstacles.

The current, provider on the rail is Union Pacific.

They want to make sure that their business model of moving commerce and trade up and down the 35 corridor to get, you know, especially with the automotive industries in South Bexar County.

And so that's the thing that we're trying to do.

We want to start a conversation, a thoughtful conversation that brings experts.

How do we overcome the problems and the obstacles of the past and to propose a path for the future?

I also want to make sure that we also have in this conversation, South Henry.

Right.

We want to make sure that we include all the reach into South Texas, what I call the South Texas Diamond, Corpus Christi, Laredo, Rio Grande Valley into Mexico, more specifically Monterrey and to the automotive corridor down there.

And it's all connected and it's documented.

We did a, t math study that we're bringing, so to speak, off the shelf and to use it as the blueprint foundational piece of these discussions.

How do we bring rail into the conversation?

How do we increase trade?

What are the foundational aspects from a regional perspective of transportation?

How do we get goods off from Mexico to the border?

Laredo be the number one inland port in the United States.

In the world.

In the world to Corpus Christi that is now going through a major expansion on the port of Corpus Christi.

It is we need to be working together as a region makes sense in order to develop that true economic development for our community.

Well, judge, I think you are clearly into this job and I understand you have said publicly, at the rate that this is going the way it's going, the way you have mastered it, you are ready to go for another term when this one.

Now, I've come to realize that it's going to take another term of office to really implement the goals.

We, thank you for joining us for this.

Look at the year that's been and the year ahead.

Thank you.

Tech and tech startups have been a huge part of the growth of San Antonio over the last decade.

The impact on the economy is strong, both with job creation and investments in startup companies.

Kat Design is chair of geekdom board of directors.

She's also co-founder and partner of Active Capital, a venture capital firm.

Kat, thank you very much for joining us today and giving us a sense of how the startup sector, the entrepreneurial sector, the technology sector is doing in San Antonio.

Let's start with, you're telling us about the state of play at geekdom.

So geekdom is the center for the city where we welcome all entrepreneurs that have an idea of a business or startup they want to start.

We are the first place that we encourage them to go to, to start putting those ideas into play and making them into reality, into a business.

And if you were putting this into numbers so we could get a feel for the magnitude, the scale of what geekdom has been involved in.

Numbers of businesses started, numbers of businesses.

There now.

So we are up to about 363 businesses that we've started in the last few years, and that number continues to grow by the month.

Every time we hold a course, a workshop, of training, those ideas into businesses, we're forming more businesses.

When one thinks of geekdom, we usually think of technology related startups, because obviously Graham Weston and Rackspace were so involved at the beginning.

What what would be your numerics on that?

So we did start out as a tech, hub to start creating those ideas.

But what we found is we were just welcoming all entrepreneurs, which opened up a lot of different sectors outside of the technology sector.

However, because of where we we are, we are at in 2024, every business has some sort of reliance on technology.

Let me ask you, with your background, in entrepreneur in San Antonio, how would you assess the climate of entrepreneurship if you can compare it against other cities?

Have we gotten into the main play now, or are we competing with other cities as places where entrepreneurship can thrive?

We are starting to show very strong signs of being very competitive in the fintech market, in the AI, in in blockchain.

We are seeing more strong technologies coming out of San Antonio that's putting our startups on the map.

When you think of Texas, there are a lot of, cities that are offering this type of, of tech.

Seeing that's becoming very strong in San Antonio is really starting to finally build that momentum to to have that spotlight.

It's long been hoped that because of our bioscience base, we would get life sciences companies growing.

And because of our military and cybersecurity base, we would see companies coming out of that sphere.

Has that played out?

I believe that our cybersecurity footing has strengthened in just the last few years, that, you know, tech port has really, accentuated, accentuated that ability.

And a lot of the startups that are coming out are happened to be former military.

They have the background, they want to start their own journey and their own business.

And they're basically from San Antonio.

So this is where home is.

This is where they start their footing.

So we're seeing a lot more of those security firms emerging, based on the last few years.

And how about the bio sciences?

Bio sciences are, in the city?

I would say we don't see too many of them unless they're starting at the ideation period.

But we have had a few.

We've had three startups come through geekdom this year that are actually in the bioscience, but they come to get them to at least formulate and get those ideas structured into a true company.

The thought, I think, has been over the years that because of the military presence here in medicine and people retiring with ideas that they got related to wound care or burns or something else, or out of the UT Health Science Center, UT health, or UTSA, that there would be this would be a natural breeding ground for, small companies.

I will tell you, the last year and a half we have seen an amazing range in our entrepreneurs from really seasoned experience, executives that come out or from the military.

And then we also see them coming straight out of high school and from college.

So it's amazing that the entrepreneur is not, specific to the market, but it's really just to their experience and what their interest is.

So the interest is quite vast.

Well, Cat, thanks for geekdom.

First and foremost major institution in our city making a big difference.

And thanks to you personally for your leadership of geekdom, but generally being a voice for, entrepreneurship, technology, all of the all of the spinoffs that have come from your work.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for being here.

When the medical center was first established with a single building in the 1960s, San Antonio was just beginning its ramp up to becoming the leader it is today in the bio sciences.

Where that building was, is now home to 45 medically related institutions medical, dental and nursing schools, specialty hospitals, research facilities.

In all, tens of thousands of people are employed there.

UT Health San Antonio is the cornerstone of the medical center, and with us now is Doctor Robert Roma's acting president.

Doctor Ramos, thank you so much for joining us today.

A congratulations on your post as acting president of the UT Health System.

I think it might be helpful to our audience to describe the role of UT health in the larger panoply of the, Texas Medical Center.

Particularly distinguishing between what is UT health and a confusing name.

University health of the county hospital.

Absolutely.

University health is the Bear County Medical system hospital.

It's an outstanding hospital.

My wife and I get our care there.

They just opened to new women and children's, tower.

They have about 900 beds.

About half of our, medical students and two thirds of our residents are there on any given day.

In addition, about 500 of our faculty are also, employed there.

And, they are our major teaching hospital partner.

There are something like 47 medical institutions on the Texas Medical Center.

That's correct.

But you are certainly one of the larger and and obviously the highly distinguished University of Texas system.

So tell us about UT health.

That's the that's the new phrase UT health, not the UT Health Science Center.

Right.

But UT health.

That's correct.

So we are, very large, health Science Center University within the University of Texas system.

And we have about 8000 employees, about 4000 students, and about 2000 faculty.

We have a $1.5 billion budget.

And that will, grow as we open our new multi-specialty research hospital to close to 2 billion.

In addition, we train about half of all health care providers in this region.

The new hospital.

Tell us about that.

That's our new 144 bed multi-specialty and research hospital that will focus on cancer in orthopedics and neurologic disease, also the surgical subspecialties.

We all admired the tenure of Doctor Hendrix.

And, he was just a stellar human being, but also a great administrator, manager, doctor and leader.

He passed this last year.

Tell us just a quick word about him.

Bill Hendrix was my friend, close friend and mentor, and I still miss him.

I mean, it's office, and sometimes I expect him to come through the door and say, why are you sitting in my chair and and, he was a lovely human being.

You knew him well, Henry.

He loved you.

And, he exemplified the highest values of a, health care provider in every sense.

Humility, innovation, compassion, intense effort towards making lives better.

Now, the reason you have the title acting president is because the a merger has occurred between UTSA, the general academic institution that's got undergraduate and graduate and PhD programs in all kinds of fields, and the medical school.

We're not officially merged yet.

That will happen next fall.

So we have to first get accreditation approval and then we can legally merge.

UTSA has outstanding programs in engineering, computer science, fine arts.

We have none of those things, and yet we have outstanding programs.

In fact, the latest US News and World Report ranking Patty's 51st medical school in the world, not the US in the world.

So we have outstanding programs in, health, education.

So 90% of what we do, they don't do in 90% of what they do, we don't do.

But think of the power of bringing together artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, computer science into health care so that we can predict who's going to get sick as fast as who's going to get better.

Get out of the hospital.

So many of.

You believe that's one of the best uses of AI, of artificial intelligence to do diagnostic work, because it can see literally hundreds of thousands of cases, even millions, that even the smartest doctor in the world can remember.

Remember what he has seen, but not a million cases.

That's exactly right.

Tell me a little bit about your role as leader of UT Health in San Antonio's overall, bioscience is thrust.

It is our largest employment base.

We have something like 160,000 people in this community working in some form of the bio sciences, whether it's military or whether it's clinical or whether it's research or whether it is, biomedical companies.

But that's a big, big well, it is the largest sector of our economy.

How do you see yourself as a player in that encouraging, pushing, directing?

How do you see it?

So we feel like we perform three key roles.

First, we educate all of the workers in that industry, not just the hospitals providing nurses and doctors, but also the PhDs doing research in these companies, the laboratory technicians working for a quest or other pathology programs in the city.

We also, perform a really crucial role in, inventing new discoveries ourselves.

And we and then the third role we play is translating these discoveries into clinical trials.

And so we feel like, we have currently eight spin offs of discoveries from our science that are in clinical trials right now.

And if just one of these hits, it transforms San Antonio.

We talk about the bio sciences as the largest employer and the biggest industry in the city.

That that that's bigger than tourism and bigger than cybersecurity and bigger than, back office operations in finance.

It's big, bigger than real estate.

And yet when you think of the major medical, complexes or clusters around the country, people don't think of San Antonio that way yet.

Yet.

Tell me about what you know about some of those others and where we stand in your mind.

Nature journal, the one of the most famous biomedical research journals, ranks as the sixth fastest growing research program in the nation.

So our discovery is outstanding where we fail and where we really need to grow.

San Antonio is into venture capital so that we take a discovery of ours and then spin it off, test it here, and then the company gets big enough and they go somewhere else.

Yeah, because there's not the capital to develop it right here.

Right.

So that that's a major commitment that we have to make.

So the future looks good, right.

For the bio sciences in San Antonio as a major employer, we coined the phrase some years ago, a city that heals to describe our 11 leading industry.

Would you call that a correct moniker?

I love that.

I love the concept of healing not just from physical healing, but emotional and spiritual healing as well that come to us all those who have lost hope, all those who are suffering.

We will help you on your journey to getting better.

And Henry, you've helped start this.

You had the vision for creating biotech industry in San Antonio long before anyone else.

And, many of us have taken on your mantle and tried to spin off companies of great discoveries in order to build that industry right here in San Antonio.

We thank you for your leadership.

Thank you, Henry, I appreciate.

Yes, sir.

There was a time when Kelly Field was the economic star of the South Side, and when it closed in 1995, the impact was severe.

But thanks to leadership of the Greater Kelly Development Authority, the vacant base developed into what we now know as Port San Antonio.

A driver in aerospace, cybersecurity, robotics and manufacturing.

At the helm of the port is CEO Jim Spock.

Jim, congratulations on the continued progress.

Support San Antonio.

As we look to the year ahead, we start with a look backward to kind of understand what are the main things, the main accomplishments in your view, related to Port San Antonio?

Well, we've had an awful lot of great things happen this year.

We've had a lot of companies continue to grow and expand a lot of new companies.

But the thing that I'm most excited about has been the growth of the student programs.

I think we ran 42 summer programs this year for students.

We've had well over six figures of students come through both the Boeing Center, the David Monroe Educational Center, and the different programs and that creating opportunities, letting people know it doesn't matter where you start or something you can do, is really what keeps us the happiest.

And the companies tell us about the companies that have come in.

We have had a host of new companies come in just this year.

I think we've, welcomed six new cyber companies largely, and some really cutting edge innovation and laboratory work.

Just within this past year, we've had some growth within the aerospace sector.

And the physical plant looks different even in the last year.

Even with the new.

Class, only new buildings.

Yeah.

Yeah, we continue to grow.

Hopefully starting next year, we'll get started on that new office tower we've been talking about.

We're having the continuing conversations with the DoD and some others about building up the campus.

But in 7 to 10 years, it's not going to look like the port anymore.

We're going to have grocery stores.

We're going to have health care clinics, we're going to have hotels.

It is truly going to be that connection between San Antonio and the port.

It's generally an engine of economic development.

I mean, it's a generator of new activity jobs, etc..

So you've accomplished, the mission in a great way.

The innovation Center continues to draw people.

Tell us about how that building has met your expectations, the food, the museum, all the elements of it.

We have had a problem not just at Port San Antonio, but within the defense industry of not really intersecting with the population.

So what the Boeing Center has done is it's created a gathering place, and we have brought in hundreds of thousands of people that normally would never have set foot on a cyber aerospace industrial complex.

And many of those folks have realized there are opportunities here in San Antonio.

We don't hear as much.

The people say there isn't high tech in San Antonio.

For years we had the largest concentration of cyber professionals in San Antonio at Port San Antonio, and we were never in the conversation.

Now people know it's there.

So the most attractive piece is the big room that's used for all kinds of purposes.

Sure.

Just tick off some of the things that have occurred there.

So rock concerts to graduations to.

Yeah.

So the the big room in the arena has hosted, ESPN's Professional Fight League, concerts ranging from Judas Priest, to a band called Cannibal Corpse.

Becky G has come in there.

You're an impresario.

We are creating an entertainment environment.

There have been student run events that have gone on there.

So there was a gaming competition that was for and put on by students.

Are you still on that plan?

The design plan?

We're absolutely still on that plan.

If all goes according to plan, will be finishing up the construction design phase in the new year.

Obviously, you can't talk about every prospect that you're dealing with, but I assume for 2025, it's fair to say there will be a continuing litany of announcements and such.

We are, our challenge now.

We've added over 8000 jobs in the past six, seven years.

Yeah.

We're out of space.

We have virtually a 0% vacancy rate on the campus.

So building that up, but finding some ways to continue to renovate these spaces to allow the companies to grow.

But in the meantime, the one thing you know, people say that Kelly built the middle class in San Antonio, and it really did.

Yeah, but it was always people working for the government, right?

What we are trying to do is to create it where people can have the ownership of the technologies and the futures that are being built.

So it is really, really gratifying to see not just the growth of big businesses, but locally owned, locally started.

It is a true economic generator that didn't exist in that form.

Now private sector, heavy investment, cutting edge, forward looking technologies.

Thank you for your leadership and thank you for being here.

You're too kind.

I'm just the not very pretty face.

There was a time in the not too distant past when the San Antonio International Airport consisted of just one terminal.

Today, it's booming with multiple terminals and a new one on the way.

Passenger traffic is setting records, new flights are being added, and the airport has been tentatively approved for a nonstop flight to Washington.

Reagan National Airport has two signs.

San Antonio's director of airports has overseen many of these developments.

And so thank you very much for joining us.

And congratulations on four years now of managing San Antonio's airport.

You came from a tremendous background running the hobby airport system and then the larger Houston airport complex cities.

Now, it used to be it was convenient for the city to have a quality airport.

Now, if you don't have the air connectedness, if you don't have the amenities on the ground, you're just missing one of the instruments by which you took up with the rest of the world.

So airports are much more than conveniences.

They are essential to the economic development of a city.

You've seen that with your own eyes.

It's a absolute must to be able to connect.

What is today?

San Antonio?

Right.

Domestically, inside the United States.

And then taking that internationally, whether you stay in North America, Central America, South America and.

Beyond and domestically, with direct flights were possible and nonstop flights were possible.

Right.

It is a constant chase for airports to be working on what we consider air service development, working hand-in-hand with the airlines to focus on what are the most important and specific routes that are necessary to help build and grow the economy in the specific city that we're in.

Now, let's look back at 2024 and you tell us what kind of progress you've made on that air service.

I know you've had some big accomplishments in 24.

I'll take it a little bit behind.

So post the Covid pandemic, we immediately began to work on what we called the 36 month strategy for air service development.

And it takes a long time.

It takes a long time.

People think an airline just makes a decision, but they have to plan their routes and integration into their system and have the equipment available.

And of the gates, it's a big deal.

And then focusing on the strategies as we look at the major components of what are the the largest businesses in San Antonio and how do we align the airport to those businesses?

Whether we talk about cyber security.

Automotive, military.

Military.

USAA.

USAA, H-e-b.

H-e-b.

That now.

Vendors coming in from everywhere.

85 stores in Mexico.

H-e-b.

So there's a lot of connectivity between San Antonio and all of Mexico.

So going back 24 you land.

You've landed international routes.

We are now at eight international destinations okay.

Whereas historically it was 2 or 3.

So including that major European destination.

That being able to go transit Kalinic to.

Frankfurt.

To Frankfurt and connecting Frankfurt to 120 plus different destinations.

That's the importance of Frankfurt, isn't it?

It's a it's a major hub for Europe.

We are connecting San Antonio to the globe.

Yeah.

In one stop.

Now, that was a summertime initiative which they will they will continue.

We will continue our service with Condor Airlines.

We're very excited about the relationship at a very, very respectable price.

And Mexico, a lot of people think of Mexico as touristic flights, but with the automotive sector in Monterrey and get it that oh, and they own in such places.

And then of course, all the business in Mexico City, you've gotten more international flights to Mexico, correct?

We have.

And that's been a partnership with us and the Mexico carriers, whether that is, I don't Mexico, Volaris or Viva Autobus, which is our largest carrier to date in Mexico.

And they continue to grow.

Now our 36 month street strategy was very focused on the growth in the business sector of, of Mexico with San Antonio.

And that has proven itself as we are 200% above what we did before the pandemic.

Going into Mexico.

Many San Antonio may not realize.

I mean, they know we have some kind of a relationship with Mexico historically, but this automotive cluster that we're now part of, including suppliers in northern Mexico and plants in northern Mexico, has a lot of goods and people coming back and forth and we're now part of a big region.

So you have more flights to Monterrey.

I think you now have a direct to Conectado, right?

We do.

And Queretaro people don't even know what Conectado is.

It's a city of 1.5 million people.

An enormity.

When you look at Queretaro, you look at Monterrey, you look at Mexico City, the growth of the central region of Mexico is is probably one of the fastest growing areas in the entire globe.

So for.

The near shoring being a big part of that, people bringing businesses back from China and distant places.

And the ability to connect into Mexico is critical because of the China complex that has reduced its amount of service.

If you go to the West coast of the United States and look at the amount of service that's going into Southeast Asia, it has reduced.

It has not rebounded as people would think it would have.

Yeah.

So the entry point now and the exit point for goods services, trades is all happening.

And coming out of Mexico.

Now, San Antonio to the U.S. to the rest of the nation, you've got new flights, including the anticipation surrounding the direct Washington flight, direct San Antonio to DCA to Reagan Airport.

That is correct.

That's great.

Says, tell me about tell the audience about, the new terminal and it's now under construction.

So we have a number of enabling projects that we've already started out on.

The airfield to prepare for the development of an 800,000 plus square foot facility that is twice the size.

It's larger than terminal A and terminal B together.

Where does it go with respect to A and B?

It will be on the northern portion.

So, you know.

When we're round it around the side.

North side of existing terminal B got.

A total of.

17 gate.

17 gates.

That will put us up to close to 40 gates total.

We've already got plans in place to be prepared to get to 60, 70, 80 gates in its existing footprint.

So we're excited about the true planning work that we have done to prepare the airport.

And your experience.

This is always a sore point in San Antonio.

Your experience with a major, major city airport like a Houston, three airports there, tells you that we'll be able to utilize this field, this, these runways, this system with the increase in terminals into the long term future.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

We've got the airfield capacity for 150,000 plus operations a year.

Today we're at 100,000.

So we've got almost a double of the footprint that we could do.

Well, thank you for your great work with this community is entrusted to you, literally to you, a good part of its future, because airports are just that important to cities these days.

Your experience showing, showing fruit.

And so thank you very much.

It has been my pleasure.

Thank you sir.

As we finish this hour, let's talk jobs.

Greater city is at the forefront of marrying the city's economic efforts to job creation.

Sara Caribbean's rush is greater.

Sam is chief economic development officer.

Sara, thank you very much for joining us today and giving us a chance to have your outlook for 2025, the year ahead in San Antonio's economic development.

But I think we should begin with laying the foundation of what we accomplished in 2024.

Well, this year has been really remarkable.

I've been here now about two years, two and a half years and have been thrilled to be able to lean in and really redefine the way we look at economic development from an operational perspective.

We have an incredible vision that our board at greater SHC has laid out.

That is one of a comprehensive economic development strategy.

So we need to move the needle on workforce development.

We need an educated workforce that is driving opportunity for all San Antonians here.

Right.

That's a core pillar of our work on the economic development side.

We needed to get super proactive, and we needed in my opinion, to stop selling ourselves short as the cheap market for cheap talent.

Right?

Because I don't believe that's our strength.

We have incredible people here.

And so over the last couple of years, we have modified the kinds of companies that we're chasing after proactively.

And they are.

Our target industries are advanced manufacturing, life sciences, cybersecurity and technology, financial and professional services.

And then, of course, we want to recruit headquarters as well.

So is this a strategy of building on our strengths.

So advanced manufacturing.

It's our talent.

It's our land opportunities.

It's our ability to rally around a company to help them succeed and get their project off the ground.

Toyota's recent expansion this past year is an example of four.

Hundred jobs in that.

That's right, 400 jobs, $500 million in capital investment, JCB, $500 million in capital investment, about 1600 jobs coming in with that project.

On the lifesciences side, we are so uniquely positioned because of, everything that the military medical Corps brings here to San Antonio.

And what we're finding is that as a result of that, companies like Gem Cure and others, Scorpius Biologics, others are able to, dive into bio manufacturing and other tech personnel are here.

They're trained.

And then we have a tremendous workforce ecosystem here to help people upskill into these jobs.

If they don't have that background.

I understand we have about 160,000 jobs in the bio sciences.

That's right.

And health care.

And so that's a lot of people to a lot of a base to hire from.

And and it gives truth to the moniker that we created a few years ago, a city that heals.

Others have said it a city of science.

That's right.

And both are very real.

Now, the other two you mentioned were cybersecurity.

Yeah.

And then a finance and that's back office.

That's right.

So on the on the cybersecurity tech, side of things, we are again, this ties back to our military strengths here.

And all that's happening in San Antonio to protect, our country from a defense standpoint and cybersecurity.

Is that next?

You know, the cyber digital dynamic and space, those are the two next areas that we need to be protecting.

So it produces people expertise in cyber who then go into what consulting firms or product producers or.

Yeah, or Department of Defense type jobs.

Right.

So there there are a lot of, companies that supply, that industry that are working here, developing that talent.

And then there's the private side, too.

Once upon a time, we had a whole lot of, call centers.

More recently it's been data centers, which is huge.

A lot of investment, a lot of power usage.

But we've become, I suspect, one of the data center clusters just with the number.

Do you have any idea how many data centers we have now?

Actually, I do, we just did a bunch of research on this.

We've got about 25 data centers here within the region as of today.

I had no idea that we're aware of.

Yeah.

And growing, we've got probably another 6 or 10 in the pipeline that I know are in.

Part thanks to the power reserves that we have, because they're massive users of power.

I read the other day that the Microsoft data Center here uses more power than the Toyota plant that manufactures 240,000 tundras and sequoias.

Three times the.

Power, three times the power usage.

Yeah, 2025 without tipping off any secrets about firms that are negotiating with us, what can you say about what's on the horizon?

Yeah, well, I'll tell you from an economic development, perspective today, Henry, we are on fire, which is exciting.

We have seen over the last 3 to 4 months, A3X increase in the number of requests for information we received from companies looking to make a deal.

We're nearby where they want to be.

Yes, it's the mega region.

So it's Austin, but it's also Mexico, northern Mexico and that entire corridor.

So from an industrial perspective, we're seeing that, really strengthen and solidify.

Well, thank goodness we've got a great team in place.

You're the quarterbacks that deal with CPS, the city, the water system, the county, private sector, real estate operators, etc.

that's the team.

That's right.

That has to be in sync for these new businesses to come.

That's correct.

Yes, sir.

Well, thank you for being a great quarterback.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Forecasting economic factors is what the Perryman Group does.

Ray Perryman is the founder and CEO of the group, and through research in econometrics, economic theory, statistical methods, policy issues and behavioral patterns, his company is able to project what the San Antonio metro economy will look like in 2025.

He's been working with us since the 1980s, and so he knows us well.

He joins us now.

Ray, thank you so much for joining us for this broadcast.

Give us just a sense of how you see Texas in 2024 and what kind of highlights jump off the page for you for the year ahead.

Well, as we look ahead, there are a lot of very positive things going on in Texas.

We certainly have challenges and we all know about those in terms of long term infrastructure, education to accommodate all the growth we're seeing.

But the prospects for the state are excellent, but we're seeing a lot of things happening in terms of the semiconductor industry, having a rebirth.

We're seeing the, the financial services industry, the life sciences industry coming into its own.

Just a lot of things that we didn't talk about a number of years ago when you and I first started talking.

But, that are pretty important right now.

Well, I want San Antonio us to know that you've been part of our economic story for the last 30 and 40 years.

You were early on an observer of the Texas economy as a coherent whole, one of the first to almost see us as a national economy.

One of the things that's happened during that time is Austin has blossomed into the juggernaut that it is.

And as you say, a $45 billion, Samsung, a semiconductor plant in Taylor just east of Austin, and the Tesla plant just east of Austin.

We in San Antonio see our destiny pretty well linked to Austin.

Can you describe whether this Texas mega region is indeed the phenomenon we think it is?

How do you see it?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, the area's been growing together for quite some time, and I think you're going to see things really come together in a significant way.

It's very hard when you drive down, 35 right now to see a place where there's not a lot of development happening and taking place.

Do you see any barriers to that growth?

I mean, some would say water shortages.

We need to think through our water future.

I think power is probably adequate.

Congestion on the roadways, clearly an issue.

What are the maybe even workforce issues?

Training.

What do you see as the things we should be watching out for?

Well, all of those are issues.

There's no question.

You can't grow without water.

We need to be able to move people efficiently back and forth around the entire triangle, and particularly between Austin and San Antonio.

And obviously, we need an excellent education system that provides the workforce that we need.

We're blessed in that this region and the other regions you mentioned in Texas do have high population growth.

Much in contrast to the rest of the country.

That puts us in a very, good strong situation.

29% of all the population growth in the country last year was in Texas.

Most of it in the triangle.

And so that gives that gives us a competitive advantage, but only if we educate folks.

We have plenty of power or the capacity at least to generate the power.

We're also going to need to make some investments to, to transmit the power to move it from, from where it is to where it's needed.

Obviously the congestion is something we need to deal with right now.

We're barely keeping pace with the with the growth, just keeping things as congested as they already are.

And we need to make improvements.

So there's always challenges that come with growth.

But if you have your choice of growth with challenges or no growth, no challenges, I think, you know, not having growth brings much worse, much a much worse situation.

Ray, as the economic, observer and historian that you are, I have taken to describing the places in America that once had their moment, like the northeast with textiles and heavy industry.

And then, of course, the automotive cluster in Detroit.

And then we saw Silicon Valley grow and, and one might even say peak.

Do you see the Texas Triangle and the Texas urban areas in that light, as this is our moment?

Is that is that an exaggeration?

Oh, I think that's very fair.

I think it's been a it's been a pretty long moment.

I mean, I think we we've had a lot of very positive things happening for a long time in Houston's been a leader in the traditional industries.

They're becoming an energy and they're now becoming a leader in the in the new wave of different types of energy.

The, the the technology industries have come into their own.

San Antonio with with the financial services, with the with the bioscience industry is a really strong situation.

Dallas, with its financial services.

But they're all coming together in one time, in one place.

I just returned from a meeting about a month ago in in Mexico City.

I haven't been there in a very long time.

It appears that perhaps a moment has arrived because of near shoring, factories coming back from China.

And new, investments that the northern Mexican region linked to Texas.

And really, all of Texas has become not just an automotive corridor and cluster, but also pharma.

Biotech, other industrial areas, from the GM plant, the traditional GM plant in Arlington through Tesla and Austin, through Toyota and International Harvester in San Antonio.

On to the suppliers throughout the borderlands and into Monterrey, Queretaro, Leone.

There is, on the map at least, a pretty definable economic and security zone.

Have you looked at that?

And can you tell us whether you think that's a valid proposition?

I think it's indeed a valid proposition.

We're seeing not only the industries.

You mentioned that the automobile industry, which has been there for quite some time.

The farming industry that's emerging, but also the electronics industry is beginning to have a significant role in northern Mexico.

And it really is, something that that, is critical to how we how we make things, how we do things and how how we achieve the efficiencies that both countries bring, because both have competitive advantages in different ways.

I think you're absolutely right.

I think the, the, linkage with Mexico has always been significant.

And it's going to be it's going to become even more so as we go forward.

Ray, let me thank you for your time.

Your expertise, your experience.

And you've always been helpful to our efforts in San Antonio.

And here you are once again in 2024.

Thank you very much.

My pleasure.

2024 is yet another year.

We can raise a toast to San Antonio.

We see success and growth all around us, and we're indeed the envy of many cities.

Thank you for joining us.

And here's to a fantastic 2025 for the business of business.

San Antonio I'm Henry Cisneros.

The business of Business San Antonio is supported by Texas Mutual Workers compensation Insurance.