The business of business.

San Antonio is supported by Texas Mutual Workers Compensation Insurance.

Welcome to the Business of Business San Antonio.

I'm your host, Henry Cisneros.

And in this hour, we're going to delve into the top business sectors driving the local economy.

And there are many of them.

Medical research, tourism, the military technology and higher education, just to name a few.

The economy of San Antonio is one of the best in the country at this time.

What are we doing right and what are the areas that need attention?

These are some of the questions we want to delve into.

Let's look into the crystal ball for 2023 and beyond and the right person to start us down this path of delving into the economy of San Antonio is Dennis ACETO Arara, president and CEO of Greater.

As a Texan, you'll remember it as the former San Antonio Economic Development Foundation.

But under Dennis, leadership has been rebranded.

Gina.

Give us a sense of what the idea was in the rebranding and what it implies in terms of a change of strategy or direction.

Sure.

Well, first of all, as you know, Henry, our organization has existed for over 45 years.

And we are extremely proud of that history and our legacy as an organization, but equally as proud of where we're going as an organization.

So today we are greater as a regional economic partnership, but our mission remains the same.

Our mission is about jobs, job creation, and how we go about delivering on that mission has evolved drastically over the years, so we have evolved our portfolio of services.

We continue to be focused on corporate attraction or recruitment, but also focused on business retention and expansion, trade and export development, and probably most importantly, workforce development.

So our portfolio of services has evolved and also our scope and service territory has evolved.

So we represent the broader eight county region.

San Antonio proper, of course, but the broader MSA.

And that's of course not a novel idea in economic development, most top performing metro areas.

Our structure is regional.

Adios.

But we evolved to a regional economic development contractor over a year ago.

Now this change has occurred over time and obviously at some point somebody said, well, we need to focus on trade and we have an export entity at work, but it's sort of spinning around on its own and that ought to be brought in.

And then this, as you say, a major development bringing in workforce.

Tell me just a sense of how that occurred.

Was it some particular leadership that that created that or just circumstances that required it over time?

A little bit of both.

I mean, as we were evolving our strategy, you have to look at the state of play within the San Antonio community.

And we had a few different organizations that had been created over time to fill a void or to fulfill a service.

And as we were thinking about the comprehensive strategy, it made sense to integrate in certain scenarios and then acquire in certain scenarios.

So we pulled the free trade alliance under the umbrella, right?

And we also integrated essay works, which was less of an organization, more of a brand as our workforce development partner.

And by the way, going back to the name change, that was also a part of it.

When you inherit cultures, when you inherit teams of people carry the ETF brand of old didn't necessarily resonate with all these different organizations.

So and I assume the greater asset has meaning.

I think that's my favorite part because for me, the greater denotes progress.

It means that we want greater for ATX, for San Antonio, but it's.

Also greater in a geographic sense.

100%.

So now we have this eight county focus.

So when good things happen in Seguin, for example, with the Caterpillar company, that redounds to the benefit of the region and we function more as a region and I assume that the automotive commitments here, Toyota, Navistar, all the suppliers, etc., suggest a regional effort as well.

That's exactly right.

And when most international or even domestic companies, when they're looking at investments, capital investments, job investments, they're not necessarily looking at city limits.

Right.

They're looking at where their people will come from.

And so manufacturing is a perfect example of the multiplier effect.

When Toyota or Navistar located here, they needed those suppliers within the region to support them.

Tesla is another.

Example.

So how are we doing, Jana?

Tell me.

Tell me about right this minute.

So, Henry, I think we're doing great.

We continue to have regional announcements for manufacturing operations, mariachi and again, Asian a W in Cibolo is expanding and more to come on the Navistar front as well.

How big a blow is the pandemic?

Are we through it?

Do you have a sense for where we stand in the national picture after the pandemic?

The pandemic didn't discriminate, and so it impacted San Antonio and all of our industries, just like it impacted.

We had a slowdown in attraction.

We did.

We did.

In fact, we actually refocused our attention here in San Antonio.

We were trying to stop the bleeding and supporting primarily small businesses.

But we've since recovered from a job perspective.

And if you look actually at our educational attainment in San Antonio, we actually grew by 3% during the pandemic in 2020 as a year, and that was higher than the rest of the country.

How significant is the Austin San Antonio connection?

One has a sense that this could be the beginnings of a major Central Texas metroplex, from Pflugerville to Floresville and points in between like Carmel County and Hays County that are among the fastest growing counties in the country.

Is that a real deal or are we going to be basically separate in our economic development endeavors?

It's a very real deal, and I would actually drag that Southern line down all the way into Monterey.

I think right now, the I-35 corridor, San Antonio to Austin, that's the most dynamic employment corridor in the country.

If we can continue to work together and amplify our efforts, I think we'll be unstoppable.

And.

The collaboration with the workforce.

Tell me a bit about that, because that's that's a real expansion of mission, but clearly a critical ingredient in your economic development efforts.

Today, economic development is workforce development.

So talent or the availability of talent is the number one site selection criteria that CEOs are considering.

So San Antone in the region, we've got to have that readily available workforce to fill their needs.

People are very impressed with your leadership in these early years.

How are you holding out yourself?

How are you?

How are you doing in terms of grabbing the job and moving it?

It's been a lot of fun.

I think we've got so much opportunity ahead.

Every day is different, so it keeps me energized, it keeps me engaged and I think I've got the best job in the country.

And I think the community is fortunate to have you in that job and you pull together some very good people.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Henry.

Let's take a look at the biomedical sector in San Antonio.

It has a massive impact on our economy.

The South Texas Medical Center alone produce more than $42 billion in regional economic impact in 2019 and the number continues to grow.

Dr. Bill Hendrick joins us.

He's the president and CEO of Uthealth, which is the combination of all of the U.T.

medical assets in San Antonio, the medical school, dental school, nursing school.

And a lot of research.

Dr. Hinrich, congratulations on your excellent work as leadership of the of the Uthealth, but truly the biomedical sector in our community leading spokesmen for it.

Give us a sense of the scale of the biomedical sector in San Antonio and significance in our economy.

Scale is impressive.

Now a $44 billion contributor to the san antonio economy.

One in six employed.

San Antonians are employed in either health care or bioscience.

Something related to the to.

I understand that's about 160,000 jobs or people.

60,000 jobs.

And at the UT health end of the spectrum.

The major research engine for bioscience in the city.

For example, we have a portfolio that touches $400 million annually in sponsored programs of research, of research.

It's divided into two main sectors.

One is the clinical research.

We have 700 trials, 740 trials open, about a third of them in cancer, and another 100 in dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

But across the whole spectrum of medical illnesses that you'd expect, including long COVID and cardiovascular disease, and then an array of funded biomedical scientists who have competed well for NAIA funding.

National Institutes of Health, basic research.

Basic research at the bit, at the bench.

Right.

And then you have the medical school.

The nursing school and the dental school, which has been ranked number one in the country from time to time.

And what other educate medical education.

We have a school of health profe absolutely critical health professional training, including things like respiratory therapists, physician assistants, physical therapists and so on.

We have a graduate school of biomedical sciences, which trains people for Masters and degrees in the bench sciences.

So in the hard sciences and then the new school, which we're very proud that we just started, is the New School of Public Health.

Now, you've also created a hospital setting.

Can you describe that?

It's brand new.

Right.

It is.

We focused on an element that we judged to be a need area in San Antonio.

And that was sophisticated cancer care.

I think you're aware of the fact that cancer is the most difficult disease to diagnose precisely and the most difficult disease to treat accurately.

And every week, every month, there are new clinical trials which advance the ball in cancer science and cancer clinical care.

So to be able to deliver all the new immunotherapies which are on the shelf now for cancer care and lead to long survivals and cures, the fact is we decided to focus on that.

So this new hospital we are building, which we will wholly own and operate, is a cancer focused hospital.

It will be faculty members who have a major role.

So people of the medical school faculty.

It will in fact, it's connected to our maze are our National Cancer Institute designated cancer center and the Maze Cancer Campus.

That's right.

The part of the campus.

And so so this will be a major a major advance, I think.

And, you know, the idea here was to make certain that we that nobody had to leave San Antonio.

I mean, they could, but they don't have to.

So putting on your larger hat of a leader of the bioscience is generally beyond uthealth major breakthroughs in recent years at the County Hospital University Health in that at Texas biomed infectious diseases.

Give us a just a sense of the larger picture of the bioscience just beyond Uthealth.

And beyond Uthealth.

Our primary partner is university health system, along with a veterans hospital county hospital, guess the county hospital and it's an excellent hospital.

And constantly building new facility.

Constantly just a new women and children's facility to open next year and 2024.

And we're very proud of the fact that it's home to so many of our faculty.

We staff that hospital.

And I think the viewers should know that our students, our residents, interns and fellows are all in that hospital.

And I think it's the reason for the great care that surrendered there.

So that's very important in the in the larger sense across the city.

I'm very proud of the partnerships we have with Texas Biomed, with Southwest Research, with UTSA.

Texas, Oklahoma.

Texas Biomed, and with our with ourselves to form a partnership called San Antonio Partnership for Precision Therapeutics.

And they're we're trying to capture what I think is unique about our system, our ecosystem and research here in San Antonio.

And and it goes to the area of drug development.

So to do drug development, you have to have biochemists who can identify a target.

Then you've got to be able to test the target at the bench, and then you've got to be able to develop a drug which has medicinal chemistry, and then you've got to be able to test it in primates.

With the combination of Texas Biomed, with Southwest Research, with us and our our element and also with UTSA, we have the whole pipeline in one place.

So that's an example of the kind of progress San Antonio is making as a medical complex.

Are you generally optimistic that we're on a pathway to even more significant biomedical growth?

Yes.

In fact, there are a number of drugs, not only in that pipeline, but there are now drugs which are being tested in clinical trials.

So this is home to a burgeoning area which I think is absolutely essential and one of San Antonio's major calling cards in the future.

Dr., thank you very much for joining us today and giving us a sense for the tremendous progress at UT health, but generally across our economy in the biosciences.

Thank you for your leadership.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks, Henry.

The new kid on the block in terms of economic growth in our city is technology, according to tech, blocked.

The local technology industry generates an annual economic impact of nearly $11 billion.

That's up 27% over the last decade.

The number of I.T.

companies in San Antonio jumped 36% just in the last five years.

That's a third increase from the number five years ago.

One of the leaders of the tech scene here is Charles Wooden.

He's CEO of Geekdom.

And let me begin by asking you, Charles, to describe geekdom to people who may not know about it.

You've had great success.

But give me the underlying strategy of geekdom.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you for having me.

So geekdom is a place that helps create startups.

That's our whole goal.

And so we've been around for about 12 years now, and in that 12 years, we've helped launch hundreds of companies.

Our goal is to build San Antonio one startup at a time, and our goal over the next ten years is to launch 500 startups with 75% of them calling San Antonio home.

How does that compare with what's happening in other cities in your understanding of the field?

I would say that we're still kind of in the early stages of growing the startup ecosystem here in San Antonio, but there's a lot of good groundwork that's been laid over the past ten years just with some of the factors that you were talking about in the intro.

And so for us, it's now capitalizing on that and utilizing other innovation hubs across the city, being able to combine all those and to help launch these next 500 startups, giving them a new place.

Charles, I want to thank you personally because I've watched your work and I know this wouldn't be happening without your personal vision and engagement.

Describe for our audience the process.

How do you identify companies that are worth your time and investing?

And then the dynamic of what occurs to give them the support and create a successful exit, if you will, from from from the startup?

Of course, yes.

So if we get to try to focus as early as we possibly can to find a founder who just has an idea but is a little bit too hesitant to talk about it.

We have programs like Startup Weekend to help them get those ideas out into the open.

We get them into an incubator program where we help shape that idea, create a business plan, and help them do some market research, get them into a pretty stellarator program.

These are all housed within geekdom, where they're able to then pitch that idea, get ready for funders, or get ready to go out into the market.

And then we also have a community fund where we inject $25,000 into those early stage startups to be able to get them a little bit of funding, get them over a little hump and get them out into the open.

And we also help launch cyber Security Accelerator this year, injecting $100,000 into six separate companies and then helping them get connections locally to be able to get the next workforce and continue to grow that company.

Thank you.

Because that's the only effort that I know of, of that significance and that level of organization in our city.

So the successes we will have in tech will be largely attributable to the dynamic that you've created.

Tell us as laypeople kind of what it feels like.

What do you what do you see when you see a business that has potential?

What do you hear about an idea?

Maybe using an example.

Yeah, I mean, I'll give you a great example.

So there's a company based out of geekdom that started out of geekdom called Float Me.

I was there when they pitched that idea back in Startup Weekend in 2017.

And what was the idea?

The idea was that they were going to be able to help people avoid the predatory loan systems that are out there and help float them really small amounts of money to be able to get them over an emergency need.

And what they do now is they're able to do that to help you avoid the costs of overdraft fees and things like that.

And it's been amazing their their exponential growing every month, it seems they've raised nearly $50 million in capital and have over 60 employees across three cities and are continuing to grow here in San Antonio.

And it's all led by a Latino founder based out of the Rio Grande Valley by the name of Josh Sanchez.

He's doing what was.

Then a technology.

Idea because of the way that they use it.

They use it through an app to be able to connect people and to get those loans out to them really quick at rapid speeds so that they avoid those emergency fees.

So this was a this is a successful company.

Now functioning in the economy at large.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Well, congratulations.

And thank you for the work.

Keep it up, Charles.

We need that sector to grow.

Are you optimistic?

I'm very optimistic.

We're currently tracking 104 startups that are a part of our ecosystem in some way, shape or form.

That's 100 out of that 500 we're aiming for.

And the other promising thing is 68 of those 104 are led by minority or women founders, which is just really great to see the diversity of this city kind of coming out through that startup ecosystem.

But we need you on the job.

Keep going.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for joining us today.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

In any city, small business is at the heart and soul of the local economy, of almost all businesses we're talking about today.

Small businesses may have faced the hardest of times in the last few years with the pandemic and now with inflation and wage increases.

Our next guest covers small business on a regular basis as editor in chief of the San Antonio Business Journal, Ed Arnold.

Welcome to the show.

First of all, congratulations on the role.

Thank you.

The Business Journal plays in our community.

I remember when it was basically just a recorder.

Of.

Courthouse information and it's grown into a very serious business journal.

Very proud.

And you're part.

Of a network of business journals across the country.

I find it most reading.

Thank you.

So tell tell me about your personal kind of experience and sense of small business and its role in local economy.

Truly, the heartbeat of any economy, regardless of the size.

Small towns.

Big cities.

The small business community really drives the economy.

The success of the small business community really does define whether a city is doing well or not.

Some cities may have large corporate presences, but without the backbone of small businesses to support it.

That economy is going to founder it.

I always thought I thought of it as sort of a foundation on the economy.

And you may have good luck or bad luck with respect to large businesses that come to town.

Some of them leave.

They lay off massive numbers of people or something.

But the small business economy keeps the jobs going.

And we make a big thing about a company coming to town and bringing 500 jobs.

But we can probably create 500 jobs in small business on a almost a monthly basis.

Absolutely.

I also think about as sort of as candy versus eating your vegetables.

Right.

Like these big corporations coming in, who wouldn't want those jobs?

I mean, you know, T.J., Mac's opened a huge distribution facility down in the south.

So they gave a lot of life to a part of town that needed more development.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

But that's a candy injection.

That's a sugar high.

What you really want is your vegetables every day, which is what small businesses are to a level economy.

So how do you think we're doing as a city in supporting small businesses?

I find there are very few cities in the country that can actually say we have a functioning small business strategy.

And part of that is because there's so many.

How do you devise services for such a broad base?

And also they're so different.

Exactly.

So tell me about how you think San Antonio is doing.

I would say that there are several really wonderful success stories that I'd like to point to.

So Sage, for example, Robert Lidell has a program called Back Office over at Sage, that San Antonio growth on the East Side, where essentially he mentors businesses.

Small business comes to him and says, I'd like to expand, but I don't really know where to go for capital.

I'm having a hard time with my accounting on the back office.

He reaches and helps him and sort of mentors the small businesses.

Those are the kind of programs that are personal, that are connective, that are 1 to 1, that the city needs to figure out ways to scale Southside first, for example, another wonderful economic development organization here in town.

They have a wonderful series of workshops for small businesses about helping them get access to SBA loans, about access to, you know, how to do their own social media marketing.

Really strong workshops at small businesses need to have how do we figure out how to scale those beyond these smaller shops and smaller organizations and make it a cohesive group?

That's what's missing to me.

In a city like San Antonio with its particular demographics, large minority population of Latinos and African-Americans.

How do you think we're doing with respect to punching up the capacity of minority owned small businesses?

The statistics show a pretty good gap.

Yes.

And not only in numbers, but in size, many, many high percentage of the minority businesses are single person.

That's right.

Entities.

That's right.

What strikes you is the arena for action.

I think that one of the most important things is a lesson that I learned in the wake of the pandemic or in the early days of the pandemic, with the PPE program.

Right.

Which was a lifeblood, saving tons and tons of businesses.

Very important.

But what we found in the aftermath was the people that found themselves out of the small businesses that found themselves on the outside looking in were the ones that didn't have the connection with the local banker.

They didn't have those interconnections.

And that is where more often minority women owned businesses that didn't have that inside connection.

That's what's lacking.

It's not just that the city does a pretty good job of encouraging minority business doing its its due diligence when it comes to its contracting.

And those it does an excellent job with that.

But what we don't have is an opportunity for many of these minority owned businesses to connect with the broader economic framework where they can get resources that's been tried.

And what about procurement on the part of our larger enterprises, sometimes public?

I think we have something like 14 major public organizations like the power company CPS, Water Systems SA's Port San Antonio, UTSA.

A.

Yes.

The Community College, the Central River Authority, the Health Science Center, etc..

There's about 14 of them.

Absolutely.

Are they is it important that they engage with small business and particularly minority businesses?

Is that a viable and important strategy?

It's an incredibly important strategy.

Public money being properly guided in the allocation and procurement phases.

It can give a whole range of services and expansion to those small businesses they never saw before.

And thereby strengthened the base, the foundation of the local economy.

So how does a business journal cover small business?

Sure, in a lot of different ways.

You know, we have awards programs in honor, our small businesses.

But also one of the things we want to do in the new year, in fact, is encourage more connections between small businesses and those resources that we talked about.

Give more attention to that Southside First Workshop program, more attention to the West Side Economic Development Council and what they're doing, and try to create a more cohesive view so that a small business owner can pick up our paper and find resources.

It's what I think.

Well, I think the Business Journal in that respect could become a major asset, I hope, to small business and thereby to our larger economic future.

Thank you very much for identifying that role.

Not at all.

And good luck carrying it out.

Thank you very much.

Honored to be with you.

Thank you.

San Antonio is Military City USA and we benefit every day from the impact that local bases have on our economy.

A recent study from the Texas Comptroller's Office estimates Joint Base San Antonio made up of Fort Sam Houston, Lackland Air Force Base and Randolph Air Force Base, generate an estimated economic impact of $39 billion in 2021.

Major General Juan Ayala is the director of military and veteran affairs for the city.

And I'd like to start the conversation, General, by asking you how our military missions came through the pandemic, whether they were impacted in any appreciable way, and where we stand going forward.

Well, the military missions were not really impacted.

The military missions continued throughout the pandemic, as a matter of fact.

We cooperated and partnered very strongly and with the military, because about 85% of those that are in uniform don't live on base.

They live off base.

So COVID, the you know, the virus does not have a fence line.

And so we cooperated.

We talked every day with them, as a matter of fact.

And we cooperated on protocols because the protocols for the Department of Defense were different than the ones in the city.

So we cooperated with them.

And when the vaccines came around and when the testing was being done, we did it in conjunction with the military.

So we spoke every day.

And as far as the military missions, they continued and which I think.

Is important, critical missions that can't afford to be on the back burner for any appreciable time.

Yeah, we have missions that are essential to national defense here.

As you well know, we have some unique missions here that are only done here in San Antonio.

Let's talk about those missions and going forward.

Randolph Air Force Base, headquarters of Air Training Command.

In good shape, in your opinion?

Yeah, they are.

They're in great shape.

Education and training command there.

The Air Force's personnel office.

We have some training wings there.

And they they are the Air Force's training wing for fighter pilots, for new pilots.

And as a matter of fact, they're in very good shape.

And I think we're going to keep them for a while.

There are some of their aged aircraft for training are being replaced by new aircraft here pretty soon.

And Lackland Air Force Base is the headquarters of all basic training, every basic training coming into the Air Force, unlike the other services that have multiple basic training facilities.

Air Force has one.

It's electronic, it's basic.

Military training is there at Lackland.

And during the pandemic, they had to take some folks out.

But to Mississippi for training.

And that was the only pause.

But they're back here.

And not only did they train all our Air Force recruits, but they also train our new Space Force recruits.

And our officer training as well.

There is some officer training there.

We have several schools there that are Department of Defense schools, the canines, the working, working dogs are there and our security police also train there.

And also we have a special warfare wing, which we advocated for very hard for security.

It's not it's not cybersecurity.

But they train the warfare wing is for special missions.

Oh, I see.

Do we also have cyber?

We have yes, we have.

The Air Force here has their main base here or their main headquarters for cybersecurity.

And they're part of Lackland.

Yes.

Got it.

And then, of course, there's Fort Sam Houston, which is headquarters of.

Yes, it's Army South in Army North, which are both the land components to the combatant commander for the defense of the Western Hemisphere.

So if you look at the Western Hemisphere and the army's participation in it, the Army's role is the it's here.

And then they have a massive role at Fort Sam.

Houston is medicine, which used to be Army medicine.

Right.

But it's moving more and more toward all of the services, having their primary training for doctors and medics.

Yes.

Here.

Yes.

So we have a dual here.

And the dual is Brooke Army Medical Center, which is the only level one trauma center, which is for the most complex types of traumas, gunshots, car wrecks, which are battlefield type of wounds.

And so we train those medical professionals, medical teams here and.

Also serve people who've been wounded, servicemen who've been wounded in combat in other parts of the world are brought.

Here.

Yes.

Burn victims.

And we have a 40 bed burn victim burn unit here that does that.

And we have to also remember the cooperation with the community that we have here, 85% of those level one trauma patients are not Department of Defense, are not military.

They're civilians from the community that have nothing to do with the military.

Now, in your job, are you also working with the people who decide to retire here?

So we have a reputation for being a great place to retire, and many do.

And they find their way into our economy, including the medical personnel who are helping create our bioscience sector here.

Do you work with that dynamic?

Yes, we work and support very much our transitioning veterans.

And what we do here is we have a couple of programs.

The city of San Antonio has invested four years worth of funding for spouses, employment, spouses, families, make decisions on whether they retire, whether they re-enlist or not.

And so we work with that.

We also have pre-K for essay, which has a priority for military members.

We are we have several programs.

We also have a Commission on Veterans Affairs, which we have every member of our council has a veteran representative that advises that council and the mayor on issues of common concern.

And of course, we have a large vet train sector and a veterans sector with the veterans hospital here.

Yes.

Talk about that for just a minute.

Their contribution in the community.

Well, besides the the the impact, their economic impact, we have several about 100,000 or more retirees, which are that's a paycheck.

And we also have many of them are working not only throughout the community, but I'll give you an example.

The city of San Antonio has 1300 veterans that work for the city of San Antonio.

So not only that they contribute and give back to their country, now they're giving back to their community.

And they bring leadership training and they bring experience a can do experience much like you have.

Thank you for your service to our country.

General Officer.

And in all of the functions you've fulfilled in San Antonio since your retirement, this is a unique job that you hold.

Not every city has a person in this position, but it's appropriate for San Antonio to do it.

We're fortunate to have someone of your background and skill.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just we've heard for years about the importance of tourism to the San Antonio economy, tourism and the hospitality industries generated a total of $16 billion in revenue for our economy in 2021.

And while tourism brings in support for area businesses, it also supports the city itself.

With funds from the hotel tax business paid around $229 million in taxes and fees to the city of San Antonio in 2021.

Mark Anderson is president and CEO of Visit San Antonio and he joins us today to talk about tourism and hospitality.

Mark, first and foremost, the obvious question, how are we doing as the pandemic begins to wind down in practical fact?

How how where do we stand at this point?

We stand compared to many other major cities, United States, in a very positive fashion.

We're going to end this year 2022, about 0.5 percentage point behind 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

But next year, we're going to reach.

Measure is that.

It's about we're going to add about 66.4%.

This is occupancy.

Occupancy for our hotels.

But our hotels are seeing historic average daily rates, ADR and how they measure their revenue for their hotels, a rent bar, which is revenue per available room.

And for San Antonio, we're seeing historic highs.

What what is the dynamic at work there?

Conventions are starting back up.

Tourists are moving around family groups to to our amusement amenities.

What's what's the dynamic?

Our leisure has been incredibly strong throughout the the recovery of the pandemic.

Our conventions are coming back.

Our local Texas conventions are seeing historic highs.

The Texas high school coaches was with us this summer.

They saw more than 17,000 attendees.

We just had a major technology radiology convention called Astro.

They had nearly 10,000 attendees.

Now that's an international convention.

So as we kind of work through the visa problems that we're having with the United States and getting people to our country, they were about 2000 people down from international attendees, but they fared very well when you look at their pre-pandemic numbers.

I was I was impressed with the role of the Texas conventions because they move around the major cities of Texas, maybe four cities or so.

But the librarians and the lawyers and the firefighters and, you know, every possible occupational group eventually has a convention.

And we've always been a big hit with them.

They enjoy coming to San Antonio.

They bring the family and stay an extra day, it seems.

Do something.

Is that dynamic rising?

Can you tell?

It is.

And we're being very competitive in offering these local Texas associations great packages for San Antonio to keep them here on a little bit more regular of a basis.

We you know, I'm very competitive, so we don't want them to necessarily go to Austin or Houston and Dallas.

We want to keep them here.

And we're and we're doing it and we definitely we're doing our due diligence, but we're also focusing now on international conventions for our city that will you know, we're we're positioning ourselves as a global brand.

We just opened offices two weeks ago in London, and we have plans to open in China and South America in the coming year.

So we are really positioning ourselves for the first time ever as a global brand.

So bringing international conventions and that have those global audiences is very important for our city's growth.

Say a word about visit San Antonio itself.

We used to have the visitors and convention bureau.

We privatized it.

Yes, it's now supported by the industry.

And you work not for the city, but for the entity as that.

Were actually under contract with the city.

And we are basically the easiest way to put it is we are the official sales and marketing arm domestically and globally for the city of San Antonio.

So tell Tilson Antonians what you do.

How do you market?

Sasha We are the brand.

We build the brand of San Antonio.

We talk to leisure customers domestically and internationals internationally so that they can come here and come on vacation.

How do you do that?

Is it television ads or.

We run television ads, but mostly it's digital now through and also through social media.

We also have really ramped up our public relations and media efforts.

We've hired a global PR agency last year for the first time in our history.

So we're telling the story not only locally and people that can drive the 41 million people that can drive into San Antonio, but we're talking to key markets throughout the United States.

And now, of course, Mexico is very important to San Antonio.

We love our Mexican visitors.

Canada is important, but now we're taking our message global to starting in Europe as well.

There was a time when it felt to me like the convention in business and visitor industry was just so massive, so profound here that you could almost count on the downtown streets being full and the Riverwalk being crowded because of the visitors.

Are we going to get back to that day, do you think, or is there something fundamentally different in the business that that sets it at a different level now?

I think we're going to see those levels come back next year in stronger numbers than at any time in the history of the city.

And I think that's going to continue to grow.

By 2026, Henry San Antonio will be within the top 15 international destinations for the United States, surpassing cities like Dallas and Chicago.

So we are doing all the right things to position this city globally and domestically.

And what that means for our residents is that we're driving more tax revenue for our city where jobs and jobs I mean, we employ more than 150,000 local San Antonians in the hospitality industry.

We're the third largest industry in this city.

Right.

And that means hundreds of million dollars of tax revenue for our city and our state.

So we it's a public safety with our police department, our fire department, infrastructure, and so much more.

Well, it sounds like we have the right person on the job.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

And thank you for joining us today.

We'll follow all of this with interest.

It's always been an essential part of our economic future.

And it sounds like you're putting us back on a track where it will be into the future.

Thank you very much.

Pleasure to be with you.

Few factors impact the local economy as much as higher education.

An educated workforce brings higher paying jobs, which translates into residents having more money to spend in local businesses.

It's the base of the economy.

Human capital San Antonio has many excellent colleges and universities all growing together, working toward the goal of a more educated community.

Doctor Abel Chavez, President of Our Lady of the Lake University, and Priscilla Camacho, chief legislative officer of the Alamo Community Colleges, are our guests today.

Let me begin with Priscilla, whom I've known for a long time, when you were the education expert at the Chamber of Commerce, and then you've done the same in the Dallas Chamber, so you're deeply steeped in how works in the community.

And we know that the community colleges are one of the most important educational assets in a community, and that's true in virtually every major market in the country.

Ours has how many students now?

We have 66,000 students strong this semester, but annually we have about 100,000 that will matriculate.

That's high school program students and our adult students.

So our.

Community is the largest educational.

Absolutely.

Engine in the community.

And it's particularly important because of its role bringing students in who might not otherwise go to college.

Sometimes people later in life, and sometimes giving people the confidence that they should stay in education and go forward.

Talk a little bit about the special role of a community college.

You know, we allow everyone into our campuses.

We are we are community college.

And by that very name, we welcome high school program students.

And as you mentioned, those adults who maybe got left behind decades ago and have felt empowered to come back even further.

High school diploma.

That's the kind of opportunities we provide to our students because we say this time and time again, our chancellor Mike Flores says, is often that we're not competing against other institutions of higher learning.

We're competing against poverty.

So we need every student to feel welcome on our campus, to have those opportunities, to get that high school diploma, to get that associate's degree or that certificate or credential that they're needing for whatever career pathway they've got.

Under Dr. Flores and the supportive board he has the community colleges over the last couple of years really innovated in a couple of areas.

What is the Alamo Promise?

And Alamo Promise is a opportunity for students eligible high school student graduates in Bear County to be able to come to our campuses, our colleges, tuition and, you know, debt free.

So what do you have to do to get to that status where you can get debt?

You have to save your seat.

So you go.

If you Google Alamo promise you'll go on to our website.

You'll be able to see the students that are at our eligible high schools.

They will be able to go through the process of saving their seat.

Right now, we have about 10,000 students in Bear County who have saved their seat for next year.

Are they going to school tuition free?

Is that when they when they save their seat and they go through the application process once they've committed to come to our colleges?

That is absolutely the promise that we make.

We use Pell and all the other.

We go through the federal aid process first and anything that's left over, we cover through Alamo Promise funds.

I'll come back to you in a second to Dr. Chavez, welcome to San Antonio.

You are the newest president among the San Antonio institutions and you have a distinguished background in science and and technology.

And we're very happy that you're in the city.

You have a different role as the president of a private Catholic school on the west side.

Tell us a little bit about what drew you here and how you see the role of Our Lady of the Lake in the larger picture of San Antonio's higher education.

Thank you for the invitation, Henry.

Greatly appreciate you and the leadership that you provide, especially in these matters of higher education and economic development, which, as you stated earlier, education is a key part of that.

And Our Lady of the Lake University, we are in the West Side for for for for some folks who might not know the west side.

We are one of the most impoverished communities, neighborhoods.

Yes, of course, in San Antonio, of course, in Texas, but also in the US and education is a key pathway to alleviating some of that poverty.

And Our Lady of the Lake University, we serve about 2500 students as a private faith based institution.

We provide an excellent experience of about 12 students per every teacher.

And for many students that works very, very well and incredibly productive to have that that small classroom ratio to be able to truly engage in the complex issues of our time and as as a private institution in the West Side and as an myself, I take personal obligation and responsibility to continue to think like an engineer holistically across the community, to make sure that we are not not only be continue to serve as a as a key economic driver for the community, but that we're also inserting our students back into their into their home neighborhoods to take on leadership roles, to provide voice to those communities and drive some of that economic development back into the same communities out there.

That that education, higher education is an act of faith in the future.

Just give me a sentence on your sense of the future in these troubled times in our country and the role of education.

Both of you, we'll start with you, Dr. Jobs, and end with you.

Share it.

Well, and today, like at no, any other time in history, society is questioning the value of higher education.

I believe that that is an unfair questioning.

The three of us are a great example of what higher education can do.

Myself, parents of immigrants from Mexico that did not complete high school.

Mom did not finish middle school.

But but.

But.

Through hard work and diligence and persistence, we are we are serving our communities because of what higher education did for us.

And that is and that's that's what we have to continue to do.

Provide access, retain our students persistence and graduate our students.

Very hopeful.

You're actually choosing this profession is an act of hope and faith in and of itself.

Brazil, how do you see this?

You know, and you mentioned, you know, my experience in chambers, I believe education, whether it's K through 12 or higher ed, is absolutely at the center of economic development in any region.

We are the centers of research and development of human development.

Right.

And that's the kind of message we need to send to our community members.

Thank you very much for joining us today in this program that deals with the future of our economy.

And clearly, you've made the case education is an integral part of our economic future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We know the San Antonio area is growing.

That's a given and it's going to be growing for some time.

But what we don't know as much about is why or we growing.

What are the sources of that growth we're fortunate to have?

With us today, Professor Lloyd Potter of the University of Texas at San Antonio Demography Department, but also the state demographer.

He has that appointment as the state demographer.

Dr. Potter, what does it mean to be the state demographer for?

Well, the state demographer is a position that was created by the legislature, and it's a position that's appointed by the governor.

And the responsibility of the state demographer is to produce population estimates and population projections for the state, but then also to advise the legislature, the governor's office, state agencies and so on, on demographic related issues.

And then we also serve as a resource for communities, cities, counties and so on.

What what about the growth we're experiencing?

First of all, is it a sustainable growth?

Is this continue growth we're likely to continue to see or not?

Yeah, I.

Think in the not too distant future, yes, it's definitely sustainable.

You know, at some point it gets to far beyond what even I can predict.

But but when we look at the trends, yes, it's been pretty sustaining and sustainable.

When we look at the growth that we've experienced last year between or between 2020 and 2021, San Antonio added 14,000.

New.

Residents.

And so that's significant growth.

So this is a substantial I mean, this is a significant fact because some people would like to wish it away and say, you know, we don't need to make improvements in transportation, etc..

The growth is is either not that great or not going to continue, but it's a kind of a mathematical problem.

If the growth continues, we will have congestion unless we take steps to address it.

So it's important to know why that growth is coming.

Yeah, when we look at the growth that we've experienced in the Bear County area, the bulk of it is from what we refer to as natural increase, more births and deaths.

And so that's just people here in San Antonio having children.

And demographics lend themselves to larger families and more births.

Yeah, there's a younger population, meaning we have more people in the childbearing years and not that many people dying.

So that's kind of the driver of that now.

But in migration.

And migration accounts, domestic migration accounts for about 30% of the population change in San Antonio.

And so that's a significant thing because migration is the element of population change that creates demand for infrastructure.

The bottom line is we can count on this growth continuing, which is a good thing, but we must also prepare for growth as a as a absolutely fundamental reality.

Yes.

When you have people, you have.

To have infrastructure to.

Support them.

And the more people we have, the more infrastructure we need.

Glad you're on the job, doing that job as a state demographer, but we have the state demographer here to address our own information needs.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Ask almost anyone who lives and works in San Antonio what they see from all the economic growth we have.

And the first thing many people will say is traffic jams.

Mobility and traffic issues are the downside of a robust economy, and they will have to be dealt with.

We're fortunate today to have Diane RATH, who's the executive director of the Illinois Council of Governments, and she's one of the most knowledgeable people on the growth of our region.

She has responsibility for this broad Multi-County region and has a perspective that deals with central Texas as well.

Diane, thank you for coming today.

What is your sense of the growth that we have or is this a sustainable rate of growth for the long haul?

And what kind of issues does it pose?

We are very lucky to be living in a time of tremendous growth, which has advantages and also challenges that we must deal with.

When you look at San Antonio last year, the fastest growing city in the country, seventh largest city in the country, some of us find that hard to believe.

We also have New Braunfels, fastest growing small city.

Their growth has been exponential.

And if you look at our region, that starts with the Southern Bear County counties and going up to the northern Travis County counties, that whole region is exploding.

It's estimated to be about 7 million people by 2040.

Tell me about growth in the San Antonio area.

We are so fortunate because we have two things that companies look for.

We have a labor supply.

Our challenge is making sure we have an educated and skilled workforce, but we have that basic ingredient of workers.

And then we also have affordable land.

They can make an investment.

They can go to see in the industrial park and make that major investment.

They can go to land in Atascosa, which is really just on the verge of exploding and it's very affordable.

You look at all the companies from southern San Antonio, New Braunfels, San Marcus, tremendous development.

Invest ment and jobs being created.

When you combined a spreading geography of growth with population that automatically address raises the question of mobility.

How do we get people to these places?

Now we have a reputation for having a pretty good freeway system here, but it is becoming increasingly congested.

And we need to find other alternatives related to mass transit and so forth.

But what's a COGS outlook for the transportation challenge?

We have to realize that transportation is not just people and moving people, but also goods and supplies.

One of the reasons that we have such congestion is because of the trade.

40% of all US-Mexico Mexico trade comes in at Laredo, which means it comes right up 35.

Which is why there's all those 18 wheelers and 34.

18 wheelers.

In fact, if you look at Laredo, 2.3 million trucks cross Laredo into our country.

The busiest land port in the world.

Yes, land crossing point between two nations of the world.

And we're just up the road from that and.

It comes right through San Antonio.

So tell me about your efforts to enhance transit between San Antonio and Austin.

You've been a pioneer in that effort.

We're working really hard to give alternatives to people because we have 2.3 million trucks coming right up that road.

But we have the wonderful luxury of having San Antonio, New Braunfels, San Marcos and Austin with thriving economies, new businesses every day.

And the universities we have five universities in San Antonio.

You've got Texas State and San Marcos.

And then, of course, University of Texas and other higher ed institutions in Austin.

And the mobility between them is extensive.

Yet the only way to get between any of those cities is get in your car and drive.

We have no public transportation at all.

So from your vantage point, your perspective, you would have to be one of the primary observers of whether or not this central Texas metroplex is actually coming together.

What do you think?

Are we looking at the development of such a metroplex?

And if so, are we doing the things we need to be doing to be ready?

We're working very hard to be ready and to give people options.

When you think of San Antonio, seventh largest city, Austin, nearly the 10th largest city, the two largest cities in the country that close together.

Right.

And yet you have to have a car if you're going to go between them.

So it's mobility, but it's also water and it's also adequacy of power and it's also educational collaboration and housing prices in a rapidly growing area.

There's a lot to be done.

There's a tremendous amount to be done.

I have to salute size because they've been looking and working very hard on diversifying our water source for over 25 years, and they've made great strides in that.

But the transportation and I-35 continues to be a challenge.

We have to solutions.

Tech State is addressing it.

But, you know, roads take 20 to 30 years.

So we've been working hard to develop a public transit system both in our Alamo region and in the capital region.

We have rural transit systems that operate in the outlying area.

So we've partnered and I think it's a great story with six public agencies.

So we have our Council of Governments, we have VR, we have our MPO in the Alamo area, we have the MPO in the capital area.

Their version of via their public transit system and their rural transit have all collaborated to develop a schedule that can start operating in just a couple of months, having public transportation available.

Well, let's hope we can make that happen.

Thank you for the leadership that you're providing at a critical that we have regional thinking and regional planning with the growth that's before us.

Thank you so much for coming over today.

Thank you very much for being allowing us to be here.

We want to thank you for being here for this in-depth look at the San Antonio economy.

And we want to thank all of our guests who shared their knowledge and expertize with us.

You can see this show online at Kayla in dot org.

I'm Henry Cisneros, and I thank you personally for being part of the San Antonio economy.