The Rio Grande Valley Partnership has a new president and chief executive officer, and the new leader is a familiar face in the region’s economic development circles. Daniel Silva started as the Partnership’s new chief executive last week after an over three-year stint in the same role with the Mission Economic Development Corporation. Silva had a 15-years-plus stay with the Mission EDC, working his way up to the top spot.…
Hidalgo County Commissioner David Fuentes pointed to red and blue lines and arrows running through his precinct. Fuentes explained where $80 million of drainage improvements are occurring or are in plans in his Precinct 1. The crisscrossing of drains, laterals, canals and ditches form a patchwork of connected corridors to store and move water. It’s a network that isn’t always streamlined, but it’s vital in getting floodwaters out of towns…
At 40, Ricardo Solis knew he needed a change. Solis was over 15 years into a successful career in the public and private sectors in the fields of business and finance. He enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin to refresh and find a new career path. The predictable thing to do was to seek a doctorate in business administration with a master’s degree in international management earned years…
The years had passed for Fito since his last fishing trip. A steady decline in health resulted in limits of his physical abilities. Once active in the outdoor life, the Brownsville resident had gone 15 years without fishing. Fito’s mother, Meg Beumel, thought those days were over for her son. Then via Facebook she heard of Fishing’s Future. The nonprofit organization is based in South Padre Island and has chapters…
Mateo Leal saw the burgeoning growth of Rio Grande Valley cities in the early 2000s and noted a gap in how some markets were served. “How about the communities on the fringes of the Valley?” It’s a question Edward Leal recalled his father asking when the family first envisioned the hardware stores that today dot Hidalgo County. Rural areas on the outskirts of city limits were poised for growth but…
Hansheng Lei came to the United States from China in 2001 with no idea the endless frontier would lead him to Brownsville. Lei is a professor in the computer science department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His academic office on University Boulevard in Brownsville is a handful of blocks away from his business office at a warehouse that’s adjacent to the Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates.…
Mohamed Sharaf found kindred spirits in Mercedes that he said reminded him of his father’s farming and agricultural homeland in Syria. The vice president for development of the Waxahachie-based Victron Energy Inc. examined various South Texas markets for a site to build a high-end travel center that would be reminiscent of a Buc-ee’s, with a look reflecting a community’s history and heritage. In visiting the Rio Grande Valley, Sharaf was…
Brownsville native and longtime educator Dr. Juliet Garcia will receive the nation’s highest civilian honor today in Washington D.C. President Joe Biden will award The Presidential Medal of Freedom to the former longtime president of the University of Texas at Brownsville at the White House. For Garcia, it is the culmination of both a life in education and as a local, regional and national leader in the field of higher…
Peggy Harris offers a full-catering menu from her rural Cameron County on a farm-to-market road that still looks like the Rio Grande Valley of citrus groves and sorghum fields. A mother cow with its young calf munch in a pasture near the garage space-turned-commercial kitchen where Harris has set up her Peggy’s Cakes & More. She said her business has outgrown the compact and efficient kitchen from which she caters…
South Padre Island Police Chief Claudine O’Carroll didn’t know what to fully expect heading into March’s spring break 2022 and the following Easter holiday week in April. Both 2020 and 2021 were peculiar ones. Spring break traffic in 2020 was light to at times non-existent. A bit of a rebound occurred in 2021, with more families on the Island over the usual college-aged spring breakers who had their routines thrown…