SpaceX with its Starbase on Boca Chica Beach is transforming the Brownsville economy and is bringing in a slew of outside investors and companies into the area. 

The buzz of Brownsville becoming a space city has made some local residents wonder when the opportunities others are seeking will come their way.

“We’ve heard it plenty of times from the public,” said Nathan Burkhart, the vice president of entrepreneurship and innovations for the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation. “There’s all of these outsiders taking advantage of the space industry emerging here.”

To address those concerns and tap into local talent and companies the BCIC has launched a Space Accelerator program. It’s an eight-week course that helps local businesses grow in the space economy by providing mentorship, expert instruction and access to funding opportunities. The BCIC is partnering with Cameron County and the Space Foundation of Colorado in establishing the program.

The Space Accelerator recently graduated its first participants who hope to scale up their companies and connect to funding and industry contacts that could bring new opportunities and growth.

“I think people need to be prepared that it’s not going to be business as usual,” said Douglas Best, who owns the Brownsville-based Partnership Institute and was a member of the first class.  “We’re trying to flip the switch on how people think here.”

‘Eye Opening’

Julie Pedraza runs a forward-thinking data and analytics company that can help local governments see satellite imagery of flooding patterns in their communities.

Pedraza calls it “smart urban planning” and her Ava Analytics & Consulting can help make that happen. She was among the inaugural class of the Space Accelerator and it gave her a good look into “the ecosystem of the space industry.”

“It has been eye opening,” Pedraza said. “It’s a whole new market. There’s space-to-space and space-to-Earth goods and services. As an entrepreneur, you can learn how to tap into those sectors and begin to see what’s possible.”

Learning the scope and depth of the space industry can appear daunting for a local business owner, but where there are talented and ambitious entrepreneurs, there is the potential to succeed.

“Bringing space opportunities to regions isn’t just about rockets,” said Kelli Kedis Ogborn, the vice president of the Space Foundation’s entrepreneurship and commerce office. “It’s about unlocking economic potential. When companies see how their capabilities connect to the space industry, they realize they’re not on the outside looking in. They’re already part of the future.”

Best is one of those Brownsville-based entrepreneurs who’s thinking big and being creative. He is a nurse by training and experience, and his company is setting out to design space suits for the physically disabled. Space travel is an equalizer of strength, Best says, in noting astronauts lose muscle mass due to the lack of gravity. The physically handicapped on Earth may be less so in space due to this factor, he said.

“You build a suit based off that ideology,” he said. “You take what they have and optimize it.”

‘Space Adjacent Economy’

From here, Burkhart says BCIC wants the new program to focus on “the space adjacent economy.” 

He describes it as being in the fields of logistics, satellites, analytics, supply chains and space suits. It reinforces Ogborn’s point that a space economy isn’t just about rockets and the companies that build them. The BCIC hopes to do for local space entrepreneurs what it has done in mentoring and helping to develop small businesses in other sectors. They have included aspiring local entrepreneurs in the food, medical and robotics industries. The BCIC has used training programs, seminars and pitch competitions to nurture and grow small business owners in Brownsville.

“We’re trying to use the same model with space,” Burkhart said. “We have long believed that we have great business capital and talent locally. We’re excited to see where it takes us with space.”

There is much to learn and adapt to in embracing the new space age in Brownsville. Best says of the space suit company, “we won’t know more until we try.”

It is time, he says, “to get busy and learn the opportunities that are available.”

“The eyes globally are looking at what is happening here,” Best said.