SO MUCH FOR NON DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS AND "CONFIDENTIALITY"

(Did GBEDC CEO Gilbert Salinas just screw it up revealing confidential information before other Valley EDC competitors? "Por la boca muere el pez" is a popular saying which is used to refer to people who won't shut up and speak more than they should. For a fish to open their mouth is to die (open the mouth to bite a bait).

By Steve Taylor and Daniela Capistran
Rio Grande Guardian

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - For the first time ever, Greater Brownsville Economic Development Corporation is asking its counterparts across the Rio Grande Valley to send them their workers so they can meet demand.

Gilberto Salinas, president of GBEDC, asked for help when speaking to a room full of economic development leaders from across the region. The event was hosted by Hidalgo County and held at UT-Rio Grande Valley’s Center for Innovation & Commercialization in Weslaco.

“I only have one action item. Just to open up those lines of communication,” Salinas said to his fellow economic development leaders.

(In contrast, McAllen's EDC has just announced that after almost two years of behind-the-scenes negotiations, a French automotive technology company is investing $225 million in McAllen to establish an advanced manufacturing facility that’s expected to create hundreds of high-paying jobs at the city’s industrial park.

According to Elizabeth Suarez, president and chief executive officer for the McAllen Economic Development Corp. and McAllen Chamber of Commerce, the EDC had been working on securing this development for McAllen since November 2024, all without saying a word.) https://myrgv.com/alerts-mcm/2026/03/24/transformative-french-auto-company-building-major-manufacturing-center-in-mcallen/

Salinas said suppliers to big manufacturing companies typically need to be located within a two-hour radius.

‘That's what a lot of companies are looking for, just-in-time delivery. So, that puts the Upper Valley in a great position, and they're already doing a lot of business with companies (in the Brownsville area),” Salinas said.

“Yes, we do have companies out of Austin, San Antonio, but I want many of our local companies in the Valley doing business with these large corporations that are coming in to the Valley.”

Salinas said that for the longest time he used to think of local as anything south of Rancho Viejo.

“That was my definition of local. Everything south of Rancho Viejo was Brownsville. Everything we recruited was for Brownsville. But now that I've come back (to the Valley from Central Texas), and now we’re working on just a different caliber of projects, both in scope, size and magnitude…

“It is Economic Development 101, listen to your client, right? What does the prospect want? And one of the things that we caught ourselves hearing when we listened to them was: their definition of local was everything from Brownsville to McAllen, and then the shoulders, which are the areas outside of Brownsville and McAllen. And obviously I would cringe. We kept hearing it over and over again… if that doesn't say that we have to now be regional, I don't know what does.”

The demand for more workers is growing exponentially due to big projects coming in, in and around Brownsville, Salinas said. After discussing the growth of SpaceX and liquefied natural gas export terminals at the Port of Brownsville, Salinas said there is more on the way.

In his power-point presentation, Salinas showed two slides marked “confidential.” The slides contained details of more than a dozen new projects GBEDC is working on. And, by the way, the fact that the slides were marked “confidential” did not stop other economic development leaders from taking photos of the slides.

The names of the new companies GBEDC is working with were not listed on the slides. But the number of new jobs was. And so was the capital investment. It was easily more than ten thousand new bobs and billions of dollars in investment.

GBEDC asked the RGG Business Journal not to post the two slides because they were marked confidential.

To read rest of story, click on link: https://riograndeguardian.com/stories/salinas-asks-valley-edcs-to-help-bring-workers-to-brownsville,60643