Aracely Salinas’ start in business was born of grief as well as inspiration from her late husband. Michael Bryant Salinas was a longtime Rio Grande Valley paramedic and CPR instructor. For years, Aracely accompanied her husband to classroom and training sessions. Here, her husband taught the essentials of emergency medical care. When he died in August 2018, Aracely had life-changing decisions to make. One came fairly quickly when she decided…
In his days as a business school professor in Brownsville, John Martin had a key piece of advice for his students. “If you want to be a high salaried employee, leave the Valley, but if you want to be an entrepreneur, stay here,” Martin said. Martin is a member of the Rio Grande Valley Angel Network. The investor group provides seed money for aspiring entrepreneurs in return for equity in their…
Chad Nunnery was a high school state champion in distance running in his native Massachusetts. Seeing the long road and keeping at it are traits that would serve him in a future career. Nunnery would go on to start a business and guide it to early success in the challenging industrial manufacturing field. The New Englander-turned-South Texan now owns a manufacturing facility wedged between 23rd and 29th streets in McAllen. …
Mario Mendiola is an energetic, man-on-the-go entrepreneur and realtor who has a passion for both his hometown and its downtown. In early 2020, he saw through a lengthy restoration of a historic two-story building on the corner of Texas Avenue and Sixth Street in downtown Weslaco. A formerly abandoned building is now a stylishly restored building for offices and upstairs apartments. Mendiola had another downtown project brewing. He wanted to…
Michelle Quiroz is an engineer by training and had a fascination for a topic beyond her work for a large corporation with manufacturing operations along the border. The science and craft of coffee roasting fascinated her and got Quiroz wondering how to apply her disciplined thinking to a dream of owning and running a small business. It would lead to the beginnings of Reserva Coffee Roasters in McAllen. It opened…
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…