Category Archives: Industry

Apprenticeship Program Addresses Industry Needs

Education Manufacturing/Industrial News Comments
STC’s construction apprenticeship program such as blueprint reading and management skills. (Courtesy)

The Construction Superintendent Apprenticeship program at South Texas College gives students the opportunity to earn while they learn.  Maribel and Carolina Saenz – two sisters who operate their own utility contracting business – received a certificate of completion from STC’s apprenticeship program. The program is tailored to students already working in an industry. For the Saenz sisters, the STC certifications will help take their Saenz Utility Contractors of Edcouch-Elsa to…

Read More

Robotics Connects RGV Youths To Future

Education News Technology Comments
Heriberto Reynoso plans to use a facility in Mercedes as a space to manufacture products and teach students about robotics. (Courtesy)

Heriberto Reynoso is a high school graduate of the early 2000s and was the type of kid “building robots in my garage” when such technological skills were a bit rare among American youth.  His parents wondered what he was doing, while at school, he recalls teachers that “didn’t understand what I was asking.” Reynoso was perhaps a bit ahead of his time at his high school in Brownsville. His technological…

Read More

Therapist Uses Music To Heal & Treat Patients

Healthcare News Professional Services Comments
Guitars are among the instruments available at the RGV Music Therapy and Wellness Center.

Marisa de Leon was a child of music growing up, playing piano and then the viola in her high school orchestra. Music, she says, was her “safe space.” It was during her high school years when de Leon saw a “60 Minutes” report featuring the recovery of former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords from a gunshot wound to the head. In early 2011, Giffords of Arizona survived an assassination attempt in…

Read More

Young Entrepreneur ‘Ruffin It’ Out

News Professional Services Comments
Cuddles are one key ingredient to great care at the Ruffin’ It Pet Resort in Harlingen. (Courtesy)

At age 21, Holly Hargrove had already earned a licensed vocational nursing degree to go with an associate of applied science degree in business management.  The latter came from Texas State Technical College in Harlingen. The LVN nursing degree was achieved during Hargrove’s high school years at the Harlingen School of Health Professions. Hargrove has an appreciation for the healthcare field and is proud to have earned her nursing degree.…

Read More

Isla Blanca Rated Top Texas Beach

Featured News Recreation & Tourism Comments
Isla Blanca Beach

The road to Isla Blanca Park being named USA Today’s Best Beach in Texas for 2024 began decades before when the South Padre Island park’s old pavilion featured a lean-to metal roof and an open view to the Gulf of Mexico.  Isla Blanca Park for decades was the place for Rio Grande Valley families to gather with homestyle picnics. The venue provided a fun and inexpensive getaway.   The amenities were…

Read More

Entrepreneur Creates BBQ ‘Nation’

Featured Food & Entertainment News Comments
The Jank

The first time Lamar Jones saw his bottles of gourmet barbecue sauce lined up on the shelves of an H-E-B store he felt like a musician hearing one of his songs on the radio for the first time. “It was surreal to see it,” Jones recalled of that 2016 memory. “To see something I started making in my kitchen and then developing it to a brand being sold at H-E-B,…

Read More

McAllen Mechanic Gets ‘Second Chance’

Featured News Professional Services Comments
Joe Rodriguez and Cris Moreno work side by side as foreman and owner of Cris Auto Service in McAllen.

A mid-summer day in 2022 started out like any other for Cris Moreno and was supposed to conclude with a joyful night out with his mother and an uncle and aunt visiting from California. It was during that outing when another vehicle slammed into Moreno’s GMC truck. He was badly injured and rushed to DHR Health hospital in Edinburg. Moreno is a mechanic who has owned and operated an auto…

Read More

SpaceX Expands Boca Chica Footprint

News Technology Transportation & Travel Comments

Kathy Lueders hears the question often in her capacity as general manager of Starbase’s operations at Boca Chica Beach. “When are we going to Mars?” Lueders said to an audience recently in Harlingen on the Texas State College campus. “I don’t know exactly when but I do know that one day out of the Rio Grande Valley there will be a Starship going to Mars.” Lueders’ talk was titled “Space…

Read More

Matt’s Reopens & Looks To New Opportunities

News Retail Comments
Isaac Smith says the design of the new Matt’s in Pharr is built for service with counters staffed by employees to help customers.

Isaac Smith felt more than the loss of business and the diminishment of revenues after a 2022 New Year’s Day fire burned his family’s 120,000-square-foot Matt’s Building Material store to the ground. “I still miss the old store,” Smith said recently, sitting in the new office of a shiny new 45,000-square-foot building where the original building sat for decades in Pharr. “I grew up in that store. It’s like losing…

Read More

VTX1 Works To Close Digital Divide

News Technology Comments

The 900-foot-high KGBT tower just south of La Feria does more than just transmit television signals. The long-standing tower is held upright by high-tensioned guy wires and is visible for several miles in a wide radius around La Feria. At about 200 feet up, the KGBT tower houses a row of tile-looking squares that are providing what executives of VTX1 Companies call “the next generation of fixed wireless” Internet service.…

Read More