Jason Hess took a tour of a nursery by a resaca in Bayview in 2017 and discovered a paradise. It was River’s End Nursery back when Hess first saw it. He works in the healthcare field, with a hobby and passion for growing fruit trees, so the tour was of special interest to him. Hess was in awe of the splendor at River’s End. Ed and Kathy Pechacek took a…
The walls at Skinny Fish are sandy beige with beach blue water tones to make it a chill place. It’s how Mike Mares describes the ceviche restaurant he and his wife Rosa own in Brownsville. Skinny Fish is an alternative to the Mexican-style ceviche restaurants that are common in the Rio Grande Valley. Walk into Skinny Fish – a take-out only restaurant – and you will see options of healthy…
Before there was a University Drive and UTRGV, there was Harriman Drive and Pan American College in Edinburg. Harriman was where Al Martin started Martin Farm & Ranch Supply in 1955. There’s an old photo of Al in a hat looking at his products through a store window with a long sign above him touting “Feed, Seed, Fertilizer, Insecticides.” “Daddy has us working all the time,” said Doug Martin of…
Mariana Linaldi-Rodriguez makes weekly runs to the Valley International Airport in Harlingen to pick up flowers. If she can’t get there, her husband Rodrigo does, or maybe an employee of their Southern Roots Flower Market makes the run for them. Flowers are coming in from Ecuador via Miami. They need to be fresh and ready to fill up the marketplace room at the Rodriguez’s floral business in McAllen. It’s not…
Juan Rosales started out small, buying used books, figurines and old music albums. He called it “Just Trying To Make A Buck” back then in 2012, declining his wife’s suggestion of “Juan’s Junk” for his nascent surplus business. “I bought a few Just Trying To Make A Buck things and I got hooked,” said Rosales, a retired manager of the cigarette distribution business. He then began attending government and school auctions. His…
The usual formula to fuel economic development focuses on manufacturing, transportation and distribution. At South Padre Island, the path to boosting the economy has branched out to also include art and how creative endeavors can lead to growth. The Art Business Incubator South Padre Island seeks to give both new and existing art businesses support to establish a presence in the local economy. Its program director Alexa Ocean Ray is…
The front lines of hospitals and nursing homes are under severe duress – and help isn’t coming just from universities and nursing schools. Employers are in need of nurse assistants, medical assistants and phlebotomists in caring for surging numbers of patients. Career schools with licenses from the Texas Workforce Commission are training and educating these essential workers. Schools such as Careers Unlimited and South Texas Training Center are working to…
Hometown pharmacies in Mercedes mean featuring orange-and-white themes and a community’s love for high school football. At Mid-Valley Pharmacy, a Mercedes Tiger football helmet sits up high on a main counter. Around the corner at Coach’s Pharmacy on Texas Avenue, the pharmacist is a former football coach. He also wears something orange to work every day. The down-home connections are especially pertinent these days. Customers throughout the Mid-Valley depend on…
Karla Ugarte and Juan Palma were coming off nine solid months of new business success when they reached for more in opening their second Keto Sweets & Treats. The husband-and-wife team were building from solid ground with the customer and revenue gains from their Alamo bakery along Expressway 77/83. Moving into the bigger McAllen market with a location near the always busy intersection of 10th Street and Trenton Road was…
Eddy Berges earned medical degrees and training in his native Dominican Republic and then in Puerto Rico. A major goal still lay ahead and Berges pursued it by applying to several medical schools in the United States. Berges’ goal was to be accepted into a residency program. He found one in the Rio Grande Valley, and a program barely getting off the ground. Berges and five other physician residents from…