The view from Ford Sasser’s sixth-floor office offers a wide expanse view of the expressway traffic running beneath it. Rio Bank’s new office tower looks out over Expressway 77/83 in McAllen since its opening in October. The city’s hospitals and medical district are just across the way. Sasser, Rio Bank’s president and chief executive officer, is a fixture on local television with a signature and folksy line. “Your kind of…
In the social media-driven world where a hobby can turn into a business in a flash, Samantha Cervantes is proof how fast such a thing can happen. The mid-20s-year-old mother of two children was looking for a job last year to help her family’s finances. It was a tough go of it as the employment market contracted with the shutdowns and slowdowns. Cervantes also had the issue of childcare for…
The many historical buildings that dot downtown Brownsville are coming back to life as investments in the city’s heritage. It makes business sense. Youthful investors are transforming old buildings in the city’s core, giving them makeovers, and turning them into restaurants, art studios and cafes. In one case, it’s stylish new lofts. Botica Lofts is gleaming new and on the corner of 11th Street and Adams in downtown Brownsville. It’s…
Miguel Lozano holds a tiny wooden box with a mesh top and points to what’s crawling underneath it. There’s a queen bee in there of European origin. It’s an important distinction, he said, because when she’s put in a hive, this queen will center a cluster of bees with Africanized roots, the ones dubbed “killer bees.” “She will calm the box,” Lozano said, looking out toward several hives in boxes…
Hidalgo County Commissioner Eduardo Cantu had modest expectations when he set out to bring a hike-and-bike trail to Pharr and San Juan. It was early 2015 and Cantu was well aware of the health and fitness improvements made in Brownsville, McAllen and Harlingen as those cities have constructed and opened miles of outdoor trails. The same has occurred in Mission and San Benito as hike-and-bike trails have flourished across the…
Roy Mitte grew up in Brownsville with a favorite spot by one of the city’s many resacas. Ringgold Park lay nestled next to one of Brownsville’s oxbow lakes. In the 1930s and 40s, a young Roy loved being at the park, forming memories of his hometown that would never leave him. He would grow up and go on to success and wealth in the insurance industry. He and his wife,…
Weslaco had one sweet spot going for it during the slowdown and shutdown months in the spring and summer of 2020. Happiness Cupcakes never closed. The city deemed it an essential business and the cupcake shop with an outdoor patio on Texas Boulevard stayed open. The close-to-the-nest residents of Weslaco and adjacent communities found solace in the array of cupcakes, pies, cakes and breads at the shop on Texas. “It was…
Foreign trade zones were sparse in 1965 and those in existence back then had ocean and river connections. There was not a single land port-based foreign trade zone in the mid-1960s. It was 1965 when a group of McAllen business leaders got the idea of establishing a FTZ. These zones allow companies to bring goods onto U.S. soil without paying duty taxes and use parts to manufacture a product that…
Medical residency programs always bring and require what Dr. Timothy Heath calls an “intensity of experience” as young physicians make their way through real-life training. Add the rigors and challenges of dealing with the recent pandemic and coping with situations not seen in a century. The reality of it all is testing 14 physician residents under Heath’s supervision in ways no one imagined. “I’ve spoken to colleagues and I can…
The handshake, lunch meetings and traveling where necessary to meet promising prospects are all part of what makes economic development successful. In 2020, some of those elements have been put to the side. It has been a challenge to deal with for economic development professionals. The same is so for the business world they connect with daily. The trips to a company’s headquarters have been replaced with Zoom calls. Longer…