Rio Grande Guardian's Podcast

The Rio Grande Guardian is running a four-part series titled Connecting the RGV to Europe. This is Part Three and it features Alessia Paolicchi. Houston-based Paolicchi is executive director of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce of Texas. She graduated from University of Pisa Law School, Italy, and later added a Master’s degree in Personnel Administration and Human Resources Management from Uni...

PHARR, RGV - Pharr Economic Development Corporation and UT-Rio Grande Valley’s Small Business Development Center recently held free workshops for aspiring business owners.  At the workshops - one in English, one in Spanish - attendees were provided with information on the steps necessary for a smart start to owning a business. The workshops featured brainstorming a business idea, determining poten...

BROWNSVILLE, RGV - Eddie Campirano, port director for Brownsville Navigation District, gave an in-depth presentation to site selectors from Europe during a familiarization tour organized by Rio South Texas Economic Council.  The site selectors were members of Transatlantic Business & Investment Council and they spent four days in the Rio Grande Valley. Campirano pointed out that the Port of Br...

The Rio Grande Guardian is running a four-part series titled Connecting the RGV to Europe. This is Part Two and it features Werner Beermann from Germany. Beermann is senior manager for European business development with Gray, a design-build company that specializes in engineering, architecture and construction services.  Beermann and other members of Transatlantic Business & Investment Council...

The Rio Grande Guardian is running a four-part series titled Connecting the RGV to Europe. This is Part One and it features Charlotte Nytoft from Denmark. Nytoft is founder and owner of CNR Consulting. She also serves as Transatlantic Business & Investment Council's specialist for the Nordic countries of Europe. Nytoft and other members of TBIC visited the Rio Grande Valley for a four-day...

LE SAUX, RGV - Willacy County leaders believe they have come up with a novel way of enticing manufacturing companies to their county. They plan to offer 100 percent tax abatements to wind farm companies that locate there, provide those companies provide free energy to manufacturers seeking to move into the county. Willacy County Judge Aurelio ‘Keter’ Guerra spoke about the plan at a meeting with s...

LOS FRESNOS, RGV - The Commemorative Air Force Rio Grande Valley Wing has a new home in Los Fresnos, Texas.  Embracing the challenge that a new venue presents, volunteers are preparing to host the first – at this airport – CAF Airshow on June 22 and 23, 2019. In this podcast, Rio Grande Guardian columnist Nydia Tapia-Gonzales discusses the airshow. Tapia-Gonzales is director of Texas Birding, a st...

Every month, Matt Ruszczak, executive director of Rio South Texas Economic Council, takes a look at the latest sales tax revenue reports issued by the Comptroller's Office. In this month's interview with reporter Steve Taylor, Ruszczak looks at sales tax revenues for April, 2019, for March and April, 2019, combined, and for the year-to-date. The reason for discussing March and April toge...

On Sunday, June 9, 2019, Auxiliary Bishop Mario A. Avilès blessed a new location for McAllen's Humanitarian Respite Center. The center, just across the street from the downtown bus station, has been acquired by the City of McAllen. It will host asylum seekers dropped off by Border Patrol. The asylum seekers will be provided free food and clothing and a place to stay overnight, before they hea...

BROWNSVILLE, RGV - Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation has won a statewide award for its new education and workforce pipeline initiative. The “2019 Workforce Excellence Award” is to be presented to GBIC leaders by the Texas Economic Development Council. The GBIC program receiving the statewide accolade is titled “We Grow Our Own.” It was first unveiled to the public at the Brownsville Event...

The Hannover Messe is the world’s largest trade show for industrial technology. In recent years, economic development leaders from the Rio Grande Valley have visited the show to seek out manufacturers that may wish to invest in North America. Torsten Buchwald, managing partner of I-CI Global Services, was born and raised near Hannover and has attended the trade show many times. In this podcast he...

The Hannover Messe is the world’s largest trade show for industrial technology. In recent years, economic development leaders from the Rio Grande Valley have visited the show to seek out manufacturers that may wish to invest in North America. Matt Ruszczak, executive director of Rio South Texas Economic Council, has been to Hannover Messe for the past three years. In this podcast he is interviewed...

Cameron County Commissioner David Garza does not give interviews to the media very often. He said he wanted to make an exception on this occasion because of the importance of the topic - securing federal disaster relief funds for the Rio Grande Valley. Garza was part of a delegation from the Valley that visited with officials from the Department of Housing & Urban Development in Washington, D....

On Thursday, May 30, 2019, UT-Rio Grande Valley President Guy Bailey gave his State of the University Address. The event was hosted by the Edinburg Chamber of Commerce and held at the Edinburg Conference Center at Renaissance. Dr. Bailey spoke about how the university and its school of medicine started, their trajectory and the recognition now coming their way. In this podcast, Rio Grande Guardian...

Stalwart GOP operative Hollis Rutledge helped campaign for George Herbert Walker Bush when he ran unsuccessfully for the open U.S. Senate in Texas in 1970. The Houston-based Republican was challenging Democrat Lloyd Bentsen, who, like Rutledge, was from Mission, Texas. During Ronald Reagan's presidency, Rutledge served in the Department of Housing & Urban Development. When Bush succeeded...

The Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council is the official council of government for Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy counties. Its executive director, Ron Garza, recently sat down for a conversation with Steve Taylor, editor of the Rio Grande Guardian, to discuss two new programs the agency is championing: Explore RGV and bike-sharing. Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border ne...

The 25th Pathways For Trade - North American Logistics & Manufacturing Symposium was held at Texas A&M International University in Laredo on Sept. 19 & 20, 2018. The Rio Grande Guardian and RGV Public Radio 88 FM interviewed three speakers at the event: Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz, Dr. Frederico Schaffler, director of the Texas Center for Border Economic & Enterprise Development, and d...

MCALLEN, RGV - Yolanda Saldaña Woods, the new director of Alamo area for FIRST in Texas, has been in the Rio Grande Valley for the past few days. Woods, a native of San Benito, was in the Valley to attend FIRST RGV’s 2018-19 robotics competition season kickoff, which was held at Nikki Rowe High School in McAllen on Saturday. She told the Rio Grande Guardian was very impressed.“It was really refres...

El Candidato Demócrata para el Senado de Estados Unidos de America, Beto O’Rouke doy una entrevista al Río Grande Guardian sobre su visita al Sur de Texas. Las preguntas para el Congresista Beto O’Rourke de El Paso fueron que si el recibe el apoyo de los votantes de las colonias. Siendo que los Candidatos estales y federales olvidan al las colonias. Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the late...

State Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr., dubbed Aug. 6, 2018, International Bridge Day in the Rio Grande Valley. That was because there were two major events involving land ports of entry. At the Veterans Bridge in Brownsville, Customs & Border Protection and Cameron County held a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate a project that will see sophisticated new x-ray equipment introduced to inspect northboun...

The new DHR Health Transplant Institute - a comprehensive, multidisciplinary disease management center specializing in kidney, liver and pancreatic disorders - has just been opened. It is home to the Kidney Transplant Center, the Liver Specialty Center and the Hepatobiliary, Pancreas and Organ Transplant Surgery Center. At a recent news conference, doctors at the institute said a multidisciplinary...

An in-depth discussion on training a skilled workforce for Brownsville took place at the offices of Workforce Solutions Cameron on Friday, July 27, 2018. As well as a check presentation being made, a workshop was held on apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs. Stakeholders included contractor organizations, Brownsville ISD, Texas Southmost College, and Texas State Technical College. Among...

Andrés Manuel López Obrador's presidential election victory was the topic of conversation for a recent LIVE at Bob's show. Specifically, experts were asked what the likely impact of an AMLO presidency would be on the Texas-Mexico border region. Our guests were: Arturo Lopez-Levy, politics professor at UT-Rio Grande Valley, author and journalist Blanca Gomez, who wrote a biography of AMLO...

By now, there should have been a news conference to announce Mario Lozoya as executive director of the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation. However, a member of the GBIC board of directors, Nurith Galonsky, succeeded in obtaining a Temporary Restraining Order to stop the appointment. A court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, June 18, 2018. GBIC Chairman César De León is a big supporter of...

Scott Nicol of the Sierra Club RGV's Borderlands Team discusses the use of almost $80 million in Hidalgo County drainage system repair funds to reinforce federal levees. Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.