WESLACO, Texas - Javier Guerra, Channel 5 News morning co-anchor, gave the introductory remarks at the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council’s first ever State of the COG.

COG stands for Council of Government. LRGVDC represents Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy counties.

Guerra pointed out that the gathering represents an evolution of the LRGVDC’s annual report, a meeting traditionally held during the second week of January.

“Historically, the LRGVDC would convene its board members in this very room to review the outcomes of the current year and outline performance goals for the year ahead,” Guerra said.

He said it would also present the group’s fiscal budget as a testament to the sound stewardship of the finance department.

“This new format elevates that tradition, fostering greater transparency and offering a platform to showcase how the LRGVDC continues to thrive, innovate and serve the Rio Grande Valley through its various programs and collaborative efforts,” Guerra said.

“The LRGVDC remains steadfast in its mission to act as a conduit - a conduit between our communities and the state and federal agencies working within our region.”

Guerra added: “Today marks a significant step in the strengthening of our commitment to improving the lives of Valley residents and regional development as well. This event is the first of its kind, and it serves as a springboard for the broader community engagement, not only with municipalities, but also directly with the residents of the Rio Grande Valley.”

Editor’s Note: Here is an audio recording of Guerra’s introductory remarks:

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BROWNSVILLE, Texas – Area residents Daniel Garcia and Joel Tijerina have been thinking about doing business with the state government for some time.

In particular, they would to sell their services and/or products to one of the Lone Star State’s biggest buyers of goods and services but don’t know how to go about.

But this week, the two are among a group of 20 people attending a Business in Development Academy hosted by the Prairie View A&M University Cooperative Extension Service, held at the eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization in downtown Brownsville.

The academy is an eight-day course to prepare the participants to be certified in what is known as Historically Underutilized Businesses to do contracts with the government.

A HUB applies to person who owns at least 51 percent of a businesses and is economically disadvantaged and/or is a member of minority group, including Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American.

Women and service-disabled veterans with a service-related disability of 20 percent also fall in this category.

But to do business with the government each and every one of them must be HUB certified.

“Anybody with a product or a service to sell to the state qualifies,” Megan Rodriguez, the academy instructor and extension agent for Willacy and Cameron Counties, said. “The State of Texas wants you to be certified by offering this free program.”

But in order to that, each participant is required to miss no more than one class and pass a sort of test to graduate.

The academy covers an array of topics such as procurement threshold, tips for completing a HUB application, and an applicant requirement and checklist review, among other things.

In Texas and for HUB purposes, all the counties are divided into 25 geographical highway districts.

This region of South Texas falls in District 21, which includes Brooks, Cameron, Jim Hogg, Kenedy, Starr, Willacy, and Zapata.

Rodriguez said no one should include a county outside District 21 if he or she is not ready to take up a bigger responsibility.

For Garcia, the academy could provide him a better understanding on how to do business with the state.

“I am interested in the starting a drone-type of operation,” he said, “to work in agriculture.”

Tijerina, founder of Brown Rock Builders LLC, would like to do likewise.

After all, there is a lot of money to be made out there.

According to data provided during the academy introductory session held Tuesday, Jan. 7, of the $25 billion the government spent on goods and services in 2024, $2.9 billion was spent with HUBs.

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MCALLEN, Texas - Kathryn Lueders, general manager of Starbase says the local community means a big deal to SpaceX.

Lueders gave the keynote speech at the Vistas from Texas seminar co-hosted by UT-Rio Grande Valley’s Center for Border Economic Studies and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Her presentation was titled: “SpaceX’s presence and impact on the RGV economy.” The event was held at Rio Bank’s headquarters in McAllen.

“We're vested, right? We are here to stay, and we will be looking forward to many, many launches off of Boca Chica and really understanding and being part of this community,” Lueders said.

In a power-point presentation, Lueders showed what she said was one of her favorite pictures, taken from the harbor.

“If you go to Starbase, none of that hardware happens without the people that are there. When I started a little bit over a year ago, less than 2,000 SpaceXers were there. We're now up to about twenty-five, twenty-six hundred.”

Depending on how the company’s construction and maintenance contracts go, another 700 to 800 workers could be added, she said.

“You can be a rocket scientist, an engineer from the Rio Grande Valley and stay in the Rio Grande Valley. But this is a community endeavor. We're not doing this without huge investment from the community and creating places where our people want to stay and live and continue to live… this is going to take all of us to really be able to grow this enterprise, to be able to conduct all the missions that we want to do.”

Lueders continued: “So community is like a big deal for us. Sometimes you can be so focused on work. But I tell people, wear your SpaceX shirt out in the community. Now, behave yourself when you're wearing your SpaceX shirt out in the community. If you're going to go out to parties, maybe leave your shirt home for that day. But I am proud of the fact of how many people are out there and living in the community, and that we actually do a lot of things to be able to get the community to understand that we do care about the community.”

Lueders ran through some of things SpaceX does to integrate its workers in the community.

“We have a third Saturday, where employees… there’s a new area where we go. Marisela (Cortez) finds this place, across the whole Valley, spreads it out, because it is important for us to be able to show up and show that we do care and want to help,” Lueders said.

Marisela Cortez is external affairs manager at Starbase. She was present for Lueders’ presentation at the Vistas from Texas seminar.

“We also do this thing once a month where we invite employees to work with a local restaurant, and we kind of we pick their day off and so that all their revenues on that day off are from SpaceXers. And we kind of then allow the folks to be able to go experience a new restaurant, like in Harlingen or Brownsville,” Lueders said.

“Sometimes when we have people from out of state… it's just getting them to that first place and feeling comfortable, and then they can start exploring the community themselves. We specifically do that type of event with our Starbasers at least once a month.”

Lueders added: “We also look at, what are the other community and support organizations (we can help)? Obviously, Marisela doesn't have an unlimited budget for support, but she looks around. What are the key things that most impact communities, and how do we make sure that we are showing a presence there? Because obviously, we want people to understand we do feel like part of this community.”

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BROWNSVILLE, Texas - In our latest episode on how to avoid the next coronavirus, through the lens of Dr. Madhavan A. Pisharodi, we discuss bats and rats.

Pisharodi is a neurosurgeon who has been practicing in Brownsville, Texas for the last 31 years. Although a medical physician, some people might mistake him for an engineer, given the number of patents he has been issued.

Outside of the medical field, he has been issued four patents for solar panels, nine for designing an energy saving and device-protecting battery charger, and two for a sub-mechanical vibration device for pain management. He has several patents pending for renewable energy systems such as wind turbine and hydroelectric projects.

Dr. Pisharodi’s current focus is defeating the next coronavirus pandemic. He says this will not be done by sticking to “band aid” solutions such testing, counting, forcing lockdown, social distancing and wearing masks. He has penned a book on the subject, titled “Corona: Be Not Proud.” He has given the Rio Grande Guardian a series of in-depth interview about the book and his four and half years of research.

In the latest episode, via an audio podcast, Pisharodi discusses bats and rats.

“One of the chapters (in my book) is the revenge of the bats, how we invaded their housing,” Pisharodi said.

“Bats and rats together form about 50 percent of the mammalians on this planet, rats and bats. And the rats are more than the bats.

“But anyway, bats have the unique quality of being very resistant to the viruses, and 30 percent of their viral load is coronavirus. And so we went and irritated them by doing things, experimenting with them, and they are having a revenge on us now. So that's what one of the chapters is all about.”

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MCALLEN, Texas - Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association (TIPA), worries that some of the smaller RGV cities will have their water supply rationed just like it was in Monterrey and Reynosa.

And it will be for the same reason - because water that should be coming to South Texas and Tamaulipas under a 1944 international water sharing treaty is being held back by the state of Chihuahua.

Galeazzi spoke in depth about the Valley’s current water supply crisis when he appeared on panel at UT-Rio Grande Valley’s Vistas from Texas seminar in October. It was held at UTRGV’s corporate headquarters inside the Rio Bank HQ in McAllen.

“The water shortage is not only impacting the Rio Grande Valley, but also dramatically impacting our friends in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon,” Galeazzi. “Look at what happened in Monterrey, Mexico, and Reynosa, Mexico, just these last two summers. They have been on severe water restrictions. It has been so bad that Reynosa this year shut off water to 260 different communities, and they basically put them on water schedules. I think was every third day that you got water, or every second day, something like that.”

Galeazzi continued: “And so what was happening was, people had scheduled days they could get water. Both in Monterrey and Reynosa. You had to be ready on time, on your day, with buckets, or both days, to fill your bathtub and fill up enough water for three days for your family. That's what could happen here in the U.S. That's what's going to happen in those little cities if we don't invest in what's happening in water.”

Galeazzi said there are a lot of water projects in the works in the Valley but many of them are focused on conservation.

“We need to be looking at new water development. This is important. A lot of our smaller communities in our irrigation districts, specifically small towns, etc., are unable to access federal monies for water projects because it requires a 50 percent cost share,” Galeazzi said. “Our communities are not holding on to stockpiles of millions of dollars for projects.”


Editor's Note: Go to the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service website to read the full story.

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HARLINGEN, Texas - The Port of Harlingen will try again to expand its overweight corridor route in the 89th Legislature starting in January.

As in the 88th session, the legislation will be carried by state Rep. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito.

The legislation failed to make it into law in 2023, in part because of opposition from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

But, says Port of Harlingen Executive Director Walker Smith, the legislation has merit because it would improve safety on the road.

In an exclusive interview with Ron Whitlock Reports, Smith explained that three entities in the Rio Grande Valley have the authority to issue permits for shippers to use overweight corridors in the Rio Grande Valley - Hidalgo County Regional Mobility Authority, the Port of Brownsville, and the Port of Harlingen.

He said trucks weighing no more than the Mexican Legal Weight Limit or 125,000 pounds can use an overweight corridor. On a regular corridor they can only carry 80,000 pounds.

“If we're able to connect these corridors, it provides flexibility to the transportation system and dedicates those overweight trucks to these dedicated routes,” Smith said.

“So, we’re going to be looking to extend our overweight corridor from FM 509 to the Hidalgo County-Cameron County line, a 13-mile strip.

“The legislation would essentially designate this route, FM, 509, US Highway 281, to the Hidalgo County and Cameron County lines. And at that point, the Hidalgo County RMA corridor would pick up and carry the cargo into the Pharr Bridge, or vice versa.”

Editor's Note: Go to the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service website to read the full story.

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RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas – The Rio Grande Valley Partnership held its latest Commercial & Investment Tour in Rio Grande City. It was hosted by the Rio Grande City Economic Development Corporation.

One of the sponsors was McAllen-based ERO Architects. The CEO of ERO, Brian Godinez spoke about the work of ERO, plus a new company he has co-launched, South Texas Facility Partnership.

Here is an audio recording of his presentation.

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Dr. Mostafa Malki is a professor at UT-Rio Grande Valley and executive director for business development at America’s Additive Foundry Center for Advanced Manufacturing Innovation and Cyber Systems. He is also the founder of Aaron Economic Consulting.

Dr. Malki recently gave a presentation about business opportunities tied to additive manufacturing at the eBridge Center for Business & Commercialization in downtown Brownsville. During the presentation he said there is a great opportunity for the Rio Grande Valley to forge partnerships with manufacturing and technology companies from Sweden.

The Rio Grande Guardian interviewed Professor Malki at the conclusion of his presentation.

Asked to tell Guardian readers and viewers about Sweden, Malki said: “Where should I begin? There’s so much to say about Sweden.”

Malki said Sweden is a relatively small country, population wise, but area wise, is very big. It has a population of about ten million.

“It has very low population density, but it has also very big presence in terms of industries and innovation and so on. It's one of the top countries in the world in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship and so on,” Malki said.

“If we can calculate a ratio of multi-billion-dollar corporations per capita, they are probably the number one country. There are a lot of very big companies that are household names, Volvo, IKEA and Ericsson and so on that are Swedish companies. There are some that are also very big multinational companies, but they're not very well known because they do business to business type of work.”

Malki visits Sweden a lot. “It’s a very fascinating country, for a very small country to be able to be a major player in manufacturing industry and innovation,” he said.


Editor's Note: Go to the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service website to read the full story.

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