Business View Magazine | July 2019

350 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 www.vulcanmaterials.com Coastal Texas 281-276-4900 North Texas 469-904-4540 South Texas 210-524-3500 established by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCI) and Brownsville Independent School District (BISD) as seed money to support New Space efforts. Since our airport was in need of a major reinvestment, being 40 years plus old, we’re also pursuing a Spaceport designation through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is a horizontal port that would complement Space X’s vertical commercial port as part of the airport expansion. A spaceport designation would allow us to advance our space market cluster. We believe Brownsville will be at the forefront and we want to be a leader in that industry.” Currently, the university, the city, and the school district are the top employers, but the city wants to get to the point where industries supersede them. Throughout the years, labor costs have pushed a lot of manufacturing into Mexico. With that in mind, Brownsville wants to take advantage of new technologies in the advanced manufacturing side of things – robotics, R&D, artificial intelligence – that require a higher level of skill. The manual