IS GBIC NOW THE GREATER BROWNSVILLE EGO DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (GBEDC)?

Rio Grande Guardian article, March 22, 2026

Special to El Run-Rrun

Greater Brownsville Economic Development Corporation CEO Gilbert Salinas apparently couldn’t resist the opportunity to show everyone how much he knew. 

On March 22, while negotiations were under way and months before the official announcement, he did a presentation where he showed everyone there the confidential information of Saronic as the company planning to bring its operations to Brownsville, breaking the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

(Governor Greg Abbott would make the official announcement much later – on July 16 – that Saronic Technologies, Inc. had chosen Brownsville to construct a next-generation shipyard. Salinas and GBEDC beat the governor to the punch, and the office of the governor noticed. Only the timely intervention by the lieutenant governor's office and D-27 Senator Adam Hinojosa with Saronic co-founder Dino Mavrookas mitigated the damage.)

Salinas' premature announcement caused other Valley mayors, other  EDCs, and our California competitors to know who it was. Because of that, Saronic upped the bidding war and asked for another $7 million more in incentives. 

Originally GBIC was only supposed to commit to $1 million and after his article and presentation they were forced to commit to $10 million of our tax payers money. 

Insiders say that after they learned that the negotiations information got out, Saronic cut all communications with GBEDC and dealt directly with the State of Texas and The Port of Brownsville. As a result, we almost lost everything because GBEDC' board and CEO wanted to brag and be credited with snagging the deal.

He was displaying slides marked "confidential" while our competitors from across the Valley and other people in the room were taking pictures. Instead of economic development sophistication and expertise, it turned out to be reckless showboating. When you are trusted with a major prospect like Saronic, your job is to protect the deal, not use confidential information as a prop to make yourself look important.

And that is the real problem. Someone handling sensitive economic-development negotiations should inspire confidence and exercise discretion. Instead, Gilbert made himself look like the guy you have to worry about when something is supposed to stay confidential.

Nothing says “trust me with your multimillion-dollar project” quite like putting the confidential slides up for the whole room to photograph. No one was impressed by Gilbert, not even the reporter.

During the official groundbreaking for the project at the port Thursday, no one asked the GBEDC or any of its officers to take the podium or acknowledged that they were even there. So it was left up to Salinas' overpaid lambiscon cheerleader (Ruben O'Bell, $140,000 plus bennies with no one else allowed to apply) to praise his bosses. Acomodense!