Business View Magazine - July 2016 15
sign the Texas Competes pledge,” said Steve Pas-
tor, President Operations, Petroleum, BHP Billiton.
“Our business depends on our ability to attract and
retain the best talent, and that includes being a wel-
coming and inclusive workplace in a state that treats
everyone with fairness.”
“It is absolutely critical to the long-term economic
success of Houston and Texas that we continue to
be viewed as a welcoming place to build a career or
company,” said Bob Harvey, President and CEO of
the Greater Houston Partnership, also a pledge sig-
natory. “We applaud BHP Billiton for taking a leader-
ship role in the energy community by committing to
ensure Texas remains open to all who want to make
a life here.”
Texas Competes launched in April 2015, with 79
Texas employers and chambers of commerce as
signatories to its pledge. Texas Competes cites data
pointing to a link between a negative state brand on
LGBT issues and competitive threats in talent, tour-
ism, and corporate investment and relocation.
“Millennials will make up 75 percent of the Ameri-
can workforce by 2030. This generation has over-
whelmingly decided that discrimination and rhetoric
against LGBT people should be a thing of the past,”
said Jessica Shortall, Managing Director of Texas
Competes. “The brand of our state on LGBT issues
matters a great deal when big and small companies
fight for the best workers and it matters in securing
and keeping tourism dollars and in incentivizing on-
going corporate investment in our state.”
Texas Competes’ membership includes almost 900
small businesses, 34 Fortune 500 companies, 18
chambers of commerce, several industry associa-
tions, and large and small employers from every part
of the state, urban and rural.
