Timothy Chapman
Center for Education and Economic Development (CEED) building with UTRGV office in Mission, Texas
UTRGV has partnered with the City of Mission and Harlingen to bring UTRGV’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development’s services closer to neighboring residents.
According to Associate Vice President for Workforce and Economic Development Ron Garza, the university is setting up offices and full-time staff to help small business owners and entrepreneurs be more successful in starting up.
He explained what individuals should expect when they walk in the offices located in Mission or Harlingen, which include assistance with business startups, creation, resilience, training and technical assistance.
“Bottom line, we are leveraging and the university has all this portfolio of services to help create better job opportunities here in the Rio Grande Valley, and particularly long-range, high-wage job opportunities for our students,” Garza said.
He said the office in Mission is significant because it is the first kind of UTRGV infrastructure to be put in the city. The offices will also allow UTRGV to have teaching sites throughout the Valley.
“Historically, if somebody wanted to, for example, say they wanted to take a real estate program, they would have to drive to Edinburg to take that,”Garza said. “Now what we’re doing is integrating. So once in a while, we’ll offer that in Mission or in Harlingen or in Brownsville, so there’s more equity in access.”
Program Manager for the Office of Workforce and Economic Development Jake Gonzalez said the City of Pharr is already set to have a UTRGV office toward the beginning of 2024 and hopes to expand more across the Valley
“The dream is to have a presence everywhere slowly but surely, hopefully, within time that cities will see the growth that’s happening,” Gonzalez said. “They’ll be able to, want to connect with us and see more or less how more we can help them localwise. But always, we’re available to the entire Valley regionwide.”
For more information about the UTRGV Office of Workforce and Economic Development, visit utrgv.edu/economicdevelopment.
This is Timothy Chapman for Vaquero Radio.
