No. 1. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas
A strong recovery in jobs is one reason this housing market is looking good right now.
BSN Medical, a German medical equipment manufacturer with plants in the McAllen MSA and the Reynosa, Mexico industrial market, uses continuing education and training in Six Sigma to increase its efficiency and position itself as a world-class manufacturer.
Over the past year, the McAllen MSA has become the fastest growing region in the country, according to the monthly ranking of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas compiled by The Fiscal Times. McAllen and its neighboring towns added nearly 8,000 jobs or 4 percent to its total in the past year and reduced its unemployment rate by a full 1.1 percentage points, to 11 percent.
FORBES:
The revival of Great Lakes manufacturing is one of the heartening stories of the past year, but the biggest beneficiaries of American manufacturing’s revival will likely be in the Southeast and along the Texas corridor connected to Mexico.
McALLEN — UPS plans to shift the package-delivery company’s Rio Grande Valley air operations from Harlingen to McAllen starting Feb. 6.
UPS intends to lease a cargo bay at McAllen-Miller International Airport, where a Boeing 757 jet would drop off and pick up packages five days a week, according to a Dec. 7 letter from Peter Levermore, who manages airport properties for UPS, to Matthew Van Valkenburgh, the city’s assistant director of aviation. UPS informed Valley International Airport of the impending change on Tuesday.
As the saying goes, “Good help is hard to find.” Such was the case for KARLEE, a certified woman-owned Contract Manufacturer providing customized integrated manufacturing services such as sheet metal fabrication, precision 5-axis machining, cabling, and electromechanical assembly. KARLEE found itself in need of a consistent and reliable powder coater for much of their metal processing. After searching within a 250 mile radius of their Sharyland Business Park location in Mission, Texas, they were unsuccessful in finding such a company.
After realizing that a reliable powder coater could not be found to fulfil their processing needs, they were forced to provide such service themselves. They also realized that a need existed to provide same service to other manufacturers in the area. Kazam Powder Coating, Inc. was then created to provide this service.
In 2011, Kazam leased 25,000 square feet of industrial space in the same building as their sister company, KARLEE, in Sharyland Business Park. As their state-of-the-art equipment began to arrive, they began looking for potential clients. Kazam’s Chief Operational Officer, Rick Cherry pointed out, although Karlee’s powder coating needs are being addressed, Kazam continues to have extensive open capacity and is pursuing potential customers on both sides of the border.
The ultimate goal is to sell manufacturers on the advantages of powder coating versus traditional ‘wet’ spray paint. Kazam’s process not only provides a finished product with a tougher paint coat, but the life of the coat is much more durable, colorful, economical, and scratch and oxidation resistant. However, one of the most important qualities in this process is that it is much more environmentally friendly than wet spray paint. Powder coating contains no solvents, creating little to no Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) emissions and reducing air pollution. In addition, powder is not considered a hazardous waste, thus elimitaning toxic waste water that could potentially contaminate the environment.
With operations such as Kazam introducing new environmentally conscious processes into our industrial market, McAllen continues to add partners to its ‘green’ efforts. Already rated the “Least Toxic City In America” by Forbes in 2011, McAllen will continue to support companies with innovative processes and employment opportunities. Rick Cherry went on to say, “Other than helping us locate incentives and showing us real estate options throughout the McAllen MSA to establish our powder coating venture, McAllen Economic Development has really acted as a partner in putting us in contact with other manufacturers to grow Kazam and Karlee. They truly want operations to succeed and offer their support to make sure they do.”
An idea inspired by a cotton candy machine turned into the world’s first high-speed nanofiber manufacturing facility Tuesday at the grand opening of the University of Texas-Pan American’s first technology startup company.
The pattern was even more pronounced among the 100 biggest markets. Ninety-seven major metros lost businesses in 2009. The only gainers were three Texas markets — Austin, McAllen-Edinburg and Houston.
“Spillover” is a term all too familiar to many Deep South Texas officials.
But when McAllen City Manager Mike Perez used it, he referred not to border violence but to data that reveal his city’s residents are more educated than those in nearby cities and even the state and nation.
With an unemployment rate of (7.7), McAllen was a bit below the state and national rates and lower than cities such as Houston (7.9), Fort Worth (8.2), Waco (8.4), Tyler (8.4), Dallas (8.7), El Paso (9.4) and Beaumont (10.5).
It also displayed the lowest unemployment rate in the RGV, and had the second lowest rate among all Texas border cities.