SpaceX has more than gained a foothold in southern Cameron County with its imposing rockets looming over Boca Chica Beach.

More than 2,000 employees work at Starbase, a production and launch site just across the Laguna Madre from South Padre Island. Keeping such a large operation going as it pursues audacious goals related to space travel requires vast amounts of skill and know-how from its teams of employees. South Texas College administrators recently sought insights on how Starbase’s leadership thinks and what they value in the employees they hire. 

“We sat down and talked to them and met with their engineers,” said Kim Moore, the interim director for institutional advancement and economic development at STC. “They described how they like their employees to expand their creative side for problem solving and applying that to real world work environments.”

With that information in hand, STC administrators can reshape curriculum and training to fit a particular industry’s needs.

“We can create it,” Moore said of his school’s ability to adapt. “We will find instructors that have experience and credentials to teach what industries are requesting.”

Moore calls it “the upskilling” of students, making them aware of the intangibles and analytical skills they need beyond core classes and training.

‘Lots Of Opportunities’

At Texas State Technical College, it’s much the same story on the system’s Harlingen campus. 

Cledia Hernandez, a TSTC vice chancellor, said her school and instructors are “constantly collaborating” with industries and companies in the area and beyond the South Texas region. 

“We work to build capacity in providing a continuous flow of workers to our industrial partners,” Hernandez said. 

Community colleges and technical schools have long played an integral role in providing industries with essential workers whom they can hire, train and develop. The connection in the Rio Grande Valley between community and technical schools to industry has never been more important than it is today with the rise of Starbase and the construction of the Rio Grande LNG plant. 

Sara Lozano, a dean of technology at STC, spoke of “lots of opportunities coming in multiple directions.” Welding classes are filling up and in demand at STC’s technology campus south of McAllen, near the city’s industrial parks and foreign trade zone. In Harlingen, Hernandez said there are more than 300 students in TSTC’s welding programs, with job placement after graduation exceeding a 90 percent success rate.

“Electricians, plumbers, welders, technicians,” Hernandez said in listing some of the fields in high demand by employers. “We’re able to align with the timelines and needs of industries.”

The surge in the region’s industrial activity is leading to tips from many sources. Lozano spoke of the text messages administrators receive from STC President Ricardo Solis after he hears from business and industrial executives on plans for expansions or locating new facilities in the Valley.

“We take it from there,” Lozano said. “We are out there, promoting the college and letting people know what we have.”

Being Flexible

STC’s discussions with SpaceX led to the school looking at a new aspect of the welding field.

Robotic welding is used at Starbase in the production of the rockets assembled at the site. It’s a highly advanced version of automated welding but still requires welders to control and supervise the robotic technology. The discussion piqued the interest of college administrators to begin examining adding that branch of welding to what STC offers.

“What does it require?” Moore recalled asking when he returned to the McAllen campus after the Starbase visit. 

It’s an example of how area colleges begin exploring the possibilities of adding a program when an industry expresses a need for a skill in an emerging technological field. Customizing training to suit an industry as it adapts to market changes is something TSTC and STC commonly do. It’s an advantage college have when they offer a wide array of associate degrees in technical fields to go with yearlong programs that produce graduates with the necessary credentials to get started in a particular industry.

“The beauty of it is that we can be flexible in our curriculum based on the needs of an industry,” Moore said. “It can be molded to fit the needs of an organization.”