EAST TEXAS UNFILTERED w/J. Chad Parker: Featuring Scott Martinez

Scott Martinez joins East Texas UNFILTERED with J. Chad Parker for a clear look at how jobs, growth, and new business happen in Tyler. Scott explains what economic development really means and why it matters to families across East Texas. He shares how this work helps bring jobs, raise wages, and support the future of the community.

One part of the discussion focuses on Tyler Junior College and workforce training. Scott talks about how local industry needed more forklift drivers, and TJC moved fast to build a program that is now full and getting national attention. It is a strong example of what can happen when schools, business leaders, and the community work together.

Scott shares his own story too, from a blue collar upbringing in Mississippi to becoming one of the few certified economic development leaders in the country. He talks about setbacks, health struggles, and the path that brought him to Tyler. This is an honest East Texas conversation about leadership, problem solving, and building a stronger city.  Be sure to like and subscribe for more East Texas stories.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We've got the best junior college in the state of Texas. And a big enrollment too. Bigger over 12,000 and we've got good leadership there. They are so nimble in how they've been able to able to deliver things. One of the top needs that we found in industry through that survey was forklift droppers. Could you get a certification for for forklift? Yeah, that doesn't sound sexy unless you do forklift droppers. Like I can drive a forklift. Yeah, so we showed us to Talla Junior College. They team up with a local company and they create a forklift driving program. And they get recognized nationally by Toyota. Now they're developing a program where they'll be trying forklift technicians and Toyota dealers from all over the country. And the folks here to get trying to teach a stick. That started with a starbuff of just listening to you know our local company. And now that a forklift driving class is full, every class is pretty much full.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Welcome to another episode of East Texas Unfiltered. I'm your host, J. Chad Parker. Today I've got a guest that we we've heard his name referenced in several podcasts. His name is Scott Martinez. He's kind of uh the Wizard of Oz, if you will, the man behind the curtain, the man that helps this community uh keep retaining the jobs that we have uh and keep looking for additional expansion for not only our tax base, for but for employment uh and salaries for the people that live here. We care about this city on this show. Uh, and here's someone who's very interested who's gonna tell us about what he does for us. Scott, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Thanks so much for having me. What a treat to be here with the J. Chad Parker.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Now I don't know about that, Scott, but what I do know is that uh we used to hear about city managers and these specialties that would develop within the city, but now you seem to be uh a specialty that's developed outside the city government uh in these nonprofits certified economic developer. Tell us what that is.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I am actually I'm a certified one of probably less than 10 percent of economic development practitioners nationally have this designation. So you've got to be a be practicing in economic development for at least five years and set for a two-day exam, the pass rate is under 40 percent. Uh a lower pass rate than the bar exam.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, that's that's for sure. But what I've heard is a lot of times people say, you know, we're lucky to have Scott here in Tyler, and it sounds like uh setting apart what your experience uh and how effective you are, your qualifications say that as well because there's not many of you in the country.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, and I I've been blessed. I went to the University of Southern Mississippi and actually got a master's degree, an academic degree that I spent two years getting in economic development. So I finished that on a Friday. I moved to Conroe, Texas, with everything I had in the back of a the smallest U-Haul trailer I could pull with a 1994 Bronco II that was leaking transmission fluid, making my way to Conroe with$250 in my pocket in the first month's rent paid, making a job that I, you know, Chad, I hit the jackpot. I was making$35,000 a year. What year was that? That was 1999. 1999. And you were doing what? I got a job with the Greater Conroe Economic Development Council, which was part of the chamber in Conroe, and to do economic development. So I did existing industry and research for the organization. So I was kind of at the bottom of the rung, if you will, doing that. So I was there in that community five years. I learned a lot, had a great mentor with a gentleman named Tom Stenson, who um was kind of a legend in economic development in Texas, was there five years, and then I get the opportunity, get a call one day from a group in Round Rock, Texas, wanting me to develop their economic development program. You know, at that time Dell had located there. The Ryan family, Nolan Ryan, and Reed Ryan had located the Round Rock Express, minor league ballmarked there, a lot of positive momentum there, so I went there. So typically in economic development, you see people move with election cycles. Because a lot of these organizations are funded by half-cent cell sets for economic development. So you get a new city council in, you know, seated at government, and then they'll have a different idea. The mayor will have a different idea of what economic development should be, and you know, they're always better than the previous mayor. You know, they'll they have the mindset of the previous city council. Well, that guy was, you know, we can do better, and they'll they'll get rid of the economic development guy and go on about it. But you know, going back to to Conroe, you know, you have a lot of things that happen in your life. You know, my background, you know, they think with a la last name like Martinez, okay, this guy's from Texas. Right. He's bilingual, he's Roman Catholic. I'm none of those things. Right. Your accent does not sound like you're no. I I barely speak English. Well, I almost failed, you know, Spanish at Ole Miss when I was in college. And um and you know, I grew up Baptist. So you're Baptist, but where are you from?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

I'm from Laurel, Mississippi, where tomorrow's yesterday. Right. I mean, I can't believe you're from Laurel, Mississippi. You know that uh one time I was in a lawsuit with uh a guy, and I think he was from Laurel. Uh Chris, he ran for uh Senate against Chris McDaniel. Chris McDaniel. He and I spent two and a half years together on a case. Uh bless your heart. Yeah. And uh he ran against Thad Cochrane, but I'll never forget uh he had an associate, her name was April Ladner, and uh and they were from Laurel, Mississippi. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

So my history and the history of my last name is my father was a migrant farm worker from Carnes City, Texas, who met my mother in the late 1950s on a potato farm in South Alabama. They get married, have seven kids. I'm the seventh of that litter. He dies when I'm 18 months old in a in a truck trucking accident as a truck driver. My mom remarried us, has three more kids. So I never was exposed to any of that culture, language, or anything related to that side of my family.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

None of the Hispanic culture at all. No. I mean I didn't realize I was a minority until I moved to Texas. I mean, that's funny. People come up to you, hey Scott, would you like to get some Mexican food or something?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

You're like, well, I mean, I like Mexican food, but but you know, it's just a different speak Spanish, they'd probably ask you that all the time. Absolutely. And you know, what's interesting is you get, you know, telemarketers in Spanish, and I don't know which button to push to opt out.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess that's and that's great that you do speak Spanish, but Mississippi is a Baptist state, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

It's a very Baptist state, very Protestant. Um but you know, I grew up very blue-collar, no one in my family had ever gone to college. So after high school, um I ended up in junior college for a year, dropped out. I go to work in a factory, making masonite fiber board. Doing sound like asbestos or something to me. Yeah, you know, I worked a shift, you know. At twenty two years old, I'm sitting there sorting boards, and I'm like, you know, I think there's probably a better way. So I went back to college. Yeah, I thought back and I was like, okay, let's think about, you know, I did well on my ACT and hope to get a scholarship to the local junior college, and I I look at a map. No one in my family had ever gone to college. Some of them thought I was crazy, quitting this great job and this, you know, preferred employer in Laurel, Mississippi, and going to college. So I I did some research and I looked at a map. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just wanted to get out of Laurel, Mississippi. So there are three universities in the state of Mississippi. Hattiesburg. I lived in Laurel. Hattiesburg was 30 minutes away. Mississippi State was about two and a half hours away, and the furthest away was Ole Miss. I knew nothing about the football team, I knew nothing about the history of the university, knew nothing about anything because that's just not something that was topical in my family growing up because the college just wasn't part of the discussion. So I ended up going up there as a freshman at 22 years old and um getting a fraternity because I could buy beer. Right. And have fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Old Miss You're part of the old miss.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah. The Grove? Yeah, the Grove. Four years there, had a great time. It really changed the trajectory of my life. And I was teed up to go to law school and didn't go to law school, obviously. And, you know, next thing I know, I always want to go to law school. You're in Conroe, Texas. And then I I get uh uh I take a an elective class, my last semester at Ole Miss, and I discovered this thing called economic development. I took a trip to Tupelo, Mississippi with my professor and saw how Tupelo had been successful. I was like, you know, that's really what I want to want to do. That's where Elvis is from. Elvis, yeah, the king. Tupelo? The king.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah, he left the building before I got there. Um I mean you had no interest in economic development before. Till then. Last semester at Ole Miss. And is that what led to some application to get the job in Conroe?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

No, I that led to an application because you know, I had a degree in print journalism. And you know, think about that, you know, the job market for that today had I stuck with it. So I um I started looking at a map again. At that time, there was two graduate programs in economic development in the country. One was at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, which was out of you know, out of my means. And the other, think about that map again, was at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the University of Southern Mississippi. So I went there for two years. The first time I got on an airplane was to go to Boston to a conference that I got volunteered to work at so I could go to it for free. And then that kind of opened a different world because I got to study abroad between my first and second year in Australia, New Zealand. I got four hours graduate credit, and then I went to Cuba for spring break, and then I went to Conroe.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

You know, it's funny.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

And then by the way, year three in Conroe, I ended up in the emergency room at Conroe Regional Medical Center with what they thought was pneumonia, and they do blood work on me and they tell me I'm in full-blown kidney failure. Really? So a year and a half uh on dialysis, I did it four hours, three times a week after work, I get a kidney transplant. Did you get a uh a live donor or a deceased donor? It was a deceased donor. It was an 18-year-old that had been in a car accident in the Houston area.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

You know, I just did a show on a woman um last week. Her name is Sandra Bailey Crow, and the show was about uh she she's on dialysis and she went to high school with me. She's my age. And you know, we were trying to get her a live donor. It's funny you say that. Um what what caused, you know, your kidney failure to the point that you needed a kidney transplant?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

They really don't know. You know, it could have been a self infection as a kid, it could have been a genetic anomaly, it could have been a lot of things, but they never were able to pinpoint it. But I got a cadaver donor from an 18-year-old who's in a car acid, as I referenced earlier, and um I had a good antigen match, which is important. And um so I get a kidney transplant, I get it on a Sunday morning, walk out on a Thursday. I guess um And it'll be twenty-four years in May. I was about to ask you that.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

How old is that kidney that's been with you?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Uh it'll be twenty-four years in May. I fed this kidney longer than the person that that was born with it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

And do they anticipate this kidney uh from a deceased donor since he he was a young person that this would last you your entire life? Well, the way it's going now is you know, it's still performing very well. Don't you have to take some kind of anti-rejection medication? I I do. Just uh I've read it twice a day. Yeah, I've read about that. You have to do that so your body doesn't detect this foreign entity or organ in itself and start to reject it.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, but I've taken it without any problems. The only problem I had was they gave me high doses of prednisone after the transplant, and with about ten percent of the population that take prednisone, it causes something called um avascular necrosis, which is a breakdown of the blood circulation in major joints. So I've had both my hips replaced.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

I was about to say they call that uh AVN. Um it's associated with that, but also, you know, alcoholics and people where their circulation is poor, it'll cause it their hips to go kaput, so to speak. Well now, hey, new kidney, two hips. I mean, you're ready to go. You're good as new.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah, and Charlie Heaton implanted lens in my eyes last year, so now I can see.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Well, um, we need you healthy and uh clear-minded and with clear vision to do a good job for us here at the TED COVID.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

No, it's been good. So I follow Tom Mullins, who I'd known professionally over 20 years, and come in to to the organization and you know, great opportunity in Tyler. But one of the first things I recognized was we didn't have real estate product that really aligned with the marketplace. We were seeing, you know, prospects that needed at least 40 acres of property with utilities to be able to to locate to come and build a facility that would then have people there to be employed. If you don't have product, you don't have a project. It's that simple. What year did you come? Came in 2000. Okay. And and you left Round Rock to come here? I left I led a 14 parish regional group in North Louisiana. So I had for eight years prior to coming here, I led that group and we covered eleven thousand square miles. I had an office and a staff in Monroe, Louisiana, and Shreeport, Louisiana, and went as far south as Nacadish. And um population of about 835,000. I led that group, which is a large regional group, for eight years, and then I knew before I turned 50 I wanted to come back to Texas and do local economic development. So um I get a call one day from a search firm asking me if I'm interested in Tyler, and here I am.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

You think that was uh Tyler and maybe Tom Mullins and them trying to prepare for the future when he might retire or not be in the job?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, uh you know, Tom w uh was retiring and they were looking for Tom's retirement, and Tom was very much engaged with with, you know, getting a search firm and through that process of finding his replacement.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

All right. So that's good. That's what leads you there, is uh we all know Tom Mullins if we've lived here most of our life, and uh we remember his contributions and kind of he laid the groundwork for for what you and the um economic development council have done since. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Absolutely. We have a you know, there's a group of people in 1988, Witt Rider, excuse excuse me, Dub Rider, Wits Witt's dad, um Herb Bowie, um Taylor Burns was real involved with it, that you know, they they just realized that the Tyler needed to be more insulated from the ups and downs of the oil and gas business.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right, because everybody's affected. Like if you rely on someone to buy a product or a service, and all the money, all the air comes out of the balloon, then it doesn't matter what you're in, your your business is down, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:38

I think every bank failed in the 80s in Tyler with the exception of one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Southside is the only one. I mean, all of the savings and loans way back when went away. I remember that as a kid. I knew people that worked, friends of my dad that worked there, some of which got in trouble, some of which went to the penitentiary. I mean, you know, it's a a lot of things going on back then.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

So, you know, they they put together the Tyler Economic Development Council. 1989. 1989 is when they hired Tom from Rochester, Minnesota. And Tom thought he would be here two or three years and was here 30 while he's still here. He told me, you know, when he retired, he I asked if he was going back to Minnesota. He said no, he was just now thawed out. So um, of course, he's still active and has a consulting business and see him everywhere in the community still, which is good to see.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Well, so you get here in 2000, and and uh what role do you assume? Do you assume the CEO position that you have today when you get here?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah, I'm president CEO. You know, Tom retired. I take over that position, and then they restructure the relationship with the Chamber of Commerce. So Tom spent 70% of his time with the Economic Development Council and 30% with the Chamber of Commerce. I spend 90% of my time with the Economic Development Council and 10% with the Chamber, and Henry Bell is the president of the Chamber.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Right. And I realize, or at least I think I do, the Chamber and uh the Econom Economic Development Council, both of those are meant to train, improve conditions for employment and and right? I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

You know, does a lot of business to business, and you know, we we have a very healthy, perhaps one of the strongest chambers in the state with 2,500 members, which is kind of hard to fathom. Is that a lot? That that puts us probably in the top five of all chambers in the state of Texas as far as membership.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And so what would you tell the listeners that um your organization does differently, say, than the work of the chamber? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Of course I work for both.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Right. I mean, you've got a little 10 percent. Pretend like you're not in it. What are they doing?

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. So I'm doing um I'm doing business growth. You know, I'm trying to recruit companies in here, I'm trying to help I'm working with companies to help them expand.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

No, I'm you as TEDC is doing that.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

What are they doing? The Chamber is doing a lot of business to business, a lot of advocacy with the government relations and some of those things. And they're doing uh it's more I would say it's more internally com community focused with a business community that's already here.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

All right, and what? And are do they interact with the community that's already here in a way that provides them resources, training or something to make them better, expand? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

We're we have a the cha we have putting my chamber hat on. Okay. Um but you know, yeah, uh a lot of things they do trainings, they do a lot of workshops. Um got a very strong uh technology committee. I mean, just looks at everything, provides symposiums on everything from in IT to we have a big energy summit that's coming up.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Well, that'll be interesting. But you know, the let me ask you about this because I had Nancy Rangell on the oranghel, if I pronounced it correctly. Uh she'll probably get it right. Get she'll probably watch this and text me. But you know, she leads the Hispanic Business Alliance, which also has a close relationship with the Chamber. Absolutely. Um and internally, representing business, I would assume that, you know, uh the Hispanic community might need help with regulations, laws, forming uh LLCs or corporations. Those are the kind of things I guess that the Chamber would probably help make people, you know, better companies, safer workers, and and and and that's their contribution as I've kind of tried to understand it. Am I close? You are.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

I mean, am I close to the what the I mean we've got several committees at the chamber that cover topical things like health care, um, government relations, you know, we look at things related to transportation mobility, obviously. The regulatory environment, which you know, in Texas, our regulatory environment is pretty business friendly.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Right, it is that way. We do, and that's why, you know, I saw where Exxon I thought was trying to leave Connecticut or something and bring their home office here or Chevron, I'm not sure which one it was, because the business friendly policies up there were not near like they are in Texas. Well, and you saw it with Tesla. Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

You know, they're they're Texas now, they're seeing with lots of people.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

I mean, we're glad to have them. That's what uh what I was saying earlier is that you know, even as a lawyer, even as a personal injury lawyer, um, if you love your city and you care about your state, I mean you want the best for us because it benefits so many other people for us to be prosperous.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Absolutely. When people ask me, ask me what I do with the Economic Development Council, I tell them I'm in the paycheck business. And they look at me, they're like, You're in the paycheck business. What payday loan is that? What are you talking about? You're in the paycheck business. If we're successful in meeting our mission as an organization, companies are gonna hire people or they're gonna keep people employed here, and those people are gonna get a paycheck where they can put food on their table, clothe their kids, and tie them at their church.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

And which one of those are you against?

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Well, right, none. I mean, people can um do whatever they want with their money, but most of the time they have to do something with it, and that benefits other companies or businesses, small business or large that are here working.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Absolutely. Think about our our organization and the companies we work with, Highland Dairy on April 1st will have a ribbon cutting for a hundred and ten million dollar milk processing facility on East Irwin in a part of town that needs investment.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Right. That's kind of like the old dairy uh you know, that's right in front of the original Don Wise. Right. And then that's where oh Her Bowie and the butcher and the uh what was that? Uh remember there was a packing plant back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

It was Tyler Packing, which Her Bowie had. Right. The tip top hams. Yeah. Yeah. Um but they spent$110 million here. They'll process a million gallons of milk a week.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Did we that is now I'm with TED C. Did we help them at all? Absolutely. We help them with their tax abatement. All right. And we'll get to that because that's one of the tools I understand to be in the toolbox of the TED C and or the city and partners. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Uh we you know, Highland Dairy is, you know, they could have really gone to s closer to Sulfur Springs. That's where the mi that's where the cows are. Most of the dairy farms are around Sulfur Springs. But they've got s they've, you know, they're so community focused, they're so Tyler centric now, and um they made that investment here. And they certainly had a choice because this wasn't an addition to their current dairy. It wasn't this was ground up, new, right beside it. But make no mistake, that is a new facility that could have gone anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

And y you know, I guess they if if there weren't certain incentives available to them, they could just make a business decision to say, well, we're just gonna build this someplace else. Absolutely. And and isn't that one of the things uh not to cut you off, but retention is a word used in some of your literature.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Absolutely. I think it's the most important thing we do. We created a we created a position that does nothing but work with our local companies. To try to retain and make sure that we're not gonna be able Our companies are getting serviced well. If there's an issue with a local company, we want to make sure we're there to help, answer questions, connect them to the right person, whether they're in government, maybe another business they need a connection with. So I hired a young lady named Tara Ellis. Is she on staff? She's on staff. She's our director of workforce and industry initiatives. We were very intentional when we brought her on board. I needed someone with the relationships with local industry and companies. She worked with Rocky Gill, who we know. Right. She was one of his top performers. So she had the Rolodex, if people remember what a Rolodex is. Well, because she's she was uh placing people in employment all over the city. Absolutely, all over the region. And so she had all the relationships. She knew if someone asked, okay, how can I get this particular occupation? She has background because she's placed people.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So how does she help you?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

It's not so much her helping me. That, but not not so much her helping me, it's helping companies here be successful and remain successful. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

How does that um I know that's part of the mission, of course, right? I mean, and that's why this nonprofit is formed, in case people don't know. This is a nonprofit as opposed to connected to the city. Am I right? Correct.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

We get funding from the city, we get funding from Smith County. Less than I think eleven percent of our total budget comes from public sources.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

All right. But so you are private in the sense that you're not a government entity, but your funding comes primarily from the city of Tyler?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

No. Less than eleven percent of our total funding comes from the city and the county and all governmental entities.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

All right. And so your budget is private donors, members, things.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Investments by investments, I mean real estate. You know, because we don't have free land. We have to buy the land, you know, the and we've got to buy the land. We've got debt on the land, you know, commercial paper. Um we've got a you know, we've got debt to service. And sometimes when we sell land, we we try to get a margin to put back into it. And we're able to get that margin because I've got public sector partners that can fund things that a developer would typically do. For instance, we bought 270 acres from the Weisenbecker family north of town. The city's funding a sewer line to that property that's a million-dollar project, you know, that enhances the value of that property, but it also is going to generate tax base and utility customers for the city. So it's a very symbiotic relationship. It's kind of like the John Souls water line, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, and that'll actually service that property I just referenced. You know, that's a 16-inch water line to John Soul's Foods, but that was funded through ARPA money. American Rescue Plan Act money that was money the the county. The county and the city got uh tranches of that money to help mitigate with co uh from the effects of COVID.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

And they they built it or paid for it, I guess. The city did. Right. And but I mean, as I understand it, uh you know, the water cost outside the city limits where John Souls is is more than it is within the city.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Well, it it will be because they're not in the city, so there's a premium if you get city utilities and you don't live in the city and pay that property tax in the city. But for John Souls, they needed reliable water to sustain those thousand jobs or whatever they have up there. But it also seems to be a revenue source for the city of Tyler in the future. Absolutely, not just to that to that because customer at John Souls Foods.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

To the people that add on along the way.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

But also think about all the people working there and what they add into the city. When you look at the city of Tyler's budget, it's very sales tax centric. You know, the majority of its funding, the revenue from the city of Tyler comes from sales tax because our property tax rate is so low. You're talking about like the 1% general fund plus the 0.5 half cent. Yeah, if you look at the total city budget, you know, it's a sales tax dominant revenue uh side of the ledger from a revenue perspective. So you think about all those people working at John Souls Foods, they're probably coming into Tyler and those cash registers are going to the city of Tyler, providing sales tax to the city. So it's not just that utility customer, it's all those ancillary benefits from those those employees at these companies.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Plus, once the water line is constructed, as I understood it, John Souls, whatever water they use, they would continue to pay the city for the rest of the time that that was open out there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And also that water line is not it's not a single user water line.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Right. It's going to be anything that develops up between John Souls and back into the city. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

It will allow the city to grow north, you know, has that utility piece.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Now, were you guys, that is the uh Economic Development Council, were y'all in any way involved in that project to get the water line out there?

SPEAKER_00 26:51

We knew all about it, but that was a city driven initiative. And this, you know, kudos to the city for for doing that.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Is there consultation sometimes with the city, the mayor, the city council in your office, like, hey, you know, somebody wants us to do this, we're thinking about what do you think? Do you have a project going adjacent? Do you have any consultations with the club?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

We talk all the time. I mean, the city and the county, Tyler Junior College, UT Tyler, we're all joint at the hip. I mean, we we we talk all the time about what's going on. You know, I I can say this with all honesty, there's no real silos between those entities. Yeah, I mean I'll take Valencia Hotel Group.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah, and that that's one of my things that I was wanted to talk to you about because uh I knew that to be a project that you guys were kind of involved in. The city wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yeah. So Valencia Hotel Group is a well-known hotel year. If you've been to Ryan College Station, you've seen the George Successful. The George, very successful. Valencia Riverwalk. They've got a great property on Santana Road out in San Jose.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

They're gonna make it if they build here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

They're they're a known entity, so this isn't a startup. These guys know how to run hotels. So this started, uh, the whole dialogue with the Valencia Hotel Group started with basically communication that Don Warren made to them. I don't remember if it was an email or a phone call. He Don reached out to him.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

He he was on this podcast and he said it was a big part of his mission for his mayorship to have a four-star hotel downtown Tyler. And it he just called him up, he said, and said, Hey, this is the mayor and Tyler. And that he ended up talking to somebody and it kind of got going from there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

That's true. It snowballed from there. And we were looking at they were looking at several different things. We looked at the conference center, we looked at a different type of product that they do called a court project. You've seen there's one up in Lubbock, there's one in Las Colinas that's more of a retro type, motel type feel product that they do that's very successful, and we couldn't put together the real estate couldn't be put together for that, that would work for them downtown. So ultimately they ended up tearing down the Regents Hotel, uh excuse me, Regents Lobby, putting the hotel there, and you know, Russell Patterson and that group are involved with it. So how is that project coming along? You know, it's that that's been I mean, we we collaboration's a word that's used a lot, and a lot of times it's just I think not authentically used. Right. People just kind of give each other credit.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, it was a great collaboration. Sounds great. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Good good thing we got good health care people patting themselves on the back on a lot of these things. So y you know, with that one, it was er all hands on deck. So you talked about tax abatements earlier. Right. With chapter 312 of local government code dictates how how counties can use and cities can use tax abatements, abate taxes, property taxes. So our local policy at Tyler, Smith County, and Tyler Junior College really geared it toward manufacturing facilities. It didn't open it up to projects like a hotel. So the local policy was changed with the city of Tyler, Smith County, and Tyler Junior College to allow a hotel as one of the acceptable uses of our local tax abatement policy. So all three policies were changed for us to do a tax abatement with Valencia Hotel Group.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And and did that have to happen for this to be possible? It did. I mean it's just a natural evolution. That sales tax uh thing was there was a A and now there's a B, and there was an expansion there on what the money could be used for, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

But this is just related to the property tax, but every unanimous on city council, unanimous with the the TJC board, had one person vote against it among all three entities.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And was there a reason put forth for the no vote?

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Um Yeah, uh it was that it wouldn't impact rural residents. I thought it was a rural it was kind of a rural versus urban thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Kind of like, hey, it's no benefit to my constituents out in the rural area.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Which is totally flawed, by the way. You know, that's not based in reality.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

I mean reality. Think about this. You've got fifty million dollars. Some people living out there might work and get some of it.$50 million. That's the spend down private money going into this hotel project. So at the end of the day, at the appraisal district, when all the dust settles, it'll probably be as of an assessed valuation of around$20 million. That's what we're thinking. Right, just the value of the property. Yeah, that they'll get taxed on. So the tax abatement is 50% of that for 10 years. So year one, even with the tax abatement, you're adding$10 million of value to the tax rolls. Now if I'm living That you would not have. That you would not have$10 million added even with the tax abatement. And if you're living out there in rural Smith County. Your property taxes are lower? Think about this. You're adding$10 million to the pot, you know, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

I mean, it's an argument over money for some reason. That why can't we just take free money and say this is a good idea? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. And for me it's not even a political argument, it's a mathematical argument.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

I mean that to me I've never understood even with my Mississippi public school education, I can put that together.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

We just forego a project that they only agree to do because we'll forego and abate the taxes and they build it and we benefit from the minute it's finished.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah.

unknown 32:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

I mean, I'd love to have someone on the show or even hear somebody argue how that is not beneficial to a city or a county.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Aaron Powell We've seen this whole you know, people are with the whole downtown, you know, all the work downtown. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

I mean it's painful for some businesses, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:45

It's painful for some. And I, you know, I I sympathize. But growth has to happen and it hurts sometimes. Absolutely. It's like a friend of mine used to tell me, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. You know. That's a good one. But I don't mean that way. I know you don't, but I mean it it is it is true. There's some pain involved with it. And but you know, Smith County voters voted on that courthouse. Yeah, they didn't. It took a long time to get them there. And if you you know, if you you may have voted against it, but guess what? The majority of the people that showed up to the polls voted for it. You know, it's like, you know, elected officials. Oh, I didn't vote for them, I don't like them. Well, guess what? They're still elected. Same thing with the courthouse. You know, you you deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

People just complain sometimes and they don't even really have uh they're not educated or haven't educated themselves on it.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

And then you look at the downtown infrastructure, and some of that infrastructure downtown was almost a century old. Right. It reached the end of its useful cycle.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Water.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Right. I mean, in our city, it looks like they kind of got caught trying to catch up on maintenance and then forced into certain remediation.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Look, I'll just call the baby ugly. That downtown square had w hadn't been taken care of, with the exception of that one side that Garnet and his and Tim Brooks Tim Brooks and and Andy and those guys were involved with, the rest and what Rick Eltife was kind of the pioneer down there. I mean, you look at the other side and the rest of it, it it wasn't what we wanted people to see.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Yeah, no, and it's gonna be really nice and it's gonna make downtown a um, you know, a destination for people in and outside the city.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

And I'll contend it's that's gonna permeate way beyond downtown. Right. Because, you know, when I bring people to town, they want to see your whole community. Downtown's part of the community. And think about if I'm bringing a company, let's just say they're from Plano Frisco, and and they want to tour the community, they want to see the downtown, they want to see where little uh Johnny and Jane are gonna go to public schools. Think about how Tyler Independent School District looks now with their facilities. Compared to when I went? Yeah, 10 or 15 years ago. You know, I bring people here now, they see our schools specifically, specifically that Career Technology Center on Old Campbell Parkway, uh-huh, and it benchmarks better than anywhere they'll go. And for me, it's easy to set to show them that this community is committed to public education because those improvements and those fiscal plans were done with bond elections.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

And that and that means, you know, approval of the population. Yeah, there's a public commitment there. Right. Because otherwise, if they said, hey, we don't really care or we we think they're good enough, they would fail. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

And we've got Tyler Jr. College with a bond election in May, and I support it by the way, because workforce training is is the one of the biggest things I deal with. Even beyond incentives, people want to know what their workforce is going to look like. Are they gonna be trained? Are there are there training facilities to get their employees, you know, um up to speed with what's happening?

SPEAKER_01 35:55

You mentioned this, and I want to I want to put an emphasis on it. You said uh when I bring people to town, what people need to realize is the people you bring to town are the people that potentially could relocate a company here, right? Absolutely. I mean, not just people looking around Tyler to say that's a nice community.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

They could hire your kid one day, they could hire someone in your Sunday school class or someone you coach little league baseball with.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah, and and it goes back to what we said earlier. Look, the more jobs here, the more prosperity uh the better it is should you would think it's for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Um, you know, we've got, like I said, 160 members. You know, why do people join? Because they wanted their community to grow. And uh part of it is having people with money in their pocket. You know, getting back to what I said about, you know, being in the paycheck business. If Yellowwood, Amazon, Train, John Souls Foods, Tyler Pipe, you know, when they hire someone, guess what the option is? They probably have health uh you know, health insurance. They've got a lot of things that they wouldn't have. They've got health insurance. If you're a hospital, you want people in that emergency room and getting admitted with health insurance.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Yeah, I mean, unless they're after me, because I recover more for them than they do get for health insurance because of the uh That's a different conversation. Yeah. That's a statute. Uh property tax uh hospital lien. Hey, Chris, put up that uh uh statistic that shows how little money we actually get here and how much private uh versus other places. This uh this slide we're looking at, it's gonna be a lot better in the show. But you know, it looks like Tyler has so little money to work with with the TED C. Why is that?

SPEAKER_00 37:32

That's because we're funded uh uh by private dollars predominantly. You know, less than I think eleven or twelve percent of our money comes from public sources. And with that comes, you know, with uh basically contract for services. So for the city, we'll manage their tax abatements and help them with incentives. There's specific things we do for the city of Tyler and for Smith County. It's not just okay, we're gonna write you a check and g and go away. So the tax abatements that are active, we'll make a report every year to the taxing entities to see how they perform. Because I tell people in God we trust and others we audit. Yeah. So when someone says they they want a tax abatement, they say, okay, we're gonna put this much money, we're gonna spend this much money and hire this many people, we verify that over the life of that contract.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

If they fall short, I've seen things where y'all maybe reduce the abatement or look at it and make sure there weren't circumstances like COVID. You know, you can't just it can't be black and white. It can't be draconian, you've got to understand the situation and the environment. Longview gets a lot of money. Where do they get that money from? From the half-cent sales tax. Okay. And and it goes directly to their own Longview Economic Development Council. Corporation.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

They're set up as economic development corporations, and their boards are most often appointed by the city council of those communities. Same thing with the others you see there. You know, and that you know, that's allowed them over time to do things like build industrial parks. You know, Kilgore has one of the finest industrial parks in this part of the world in Synergy Park over there. You know, but they funded that through that hasn't sales tax. You know, Tyler didn't have that. And, you know, again, one of the things I saw here was we weren't going to be successful unless we had real estate product that aligned with the marketplace. We were going to be a great business retention program because the property we had on Earl Campbell Parkway, and we're happy to have it, it was not conducive to industrial projects. And our community hasn't hasn't grown that way in that part of town. You look at the nicer things that are happening. That's the nicest roadway in the city of Tyler. You're not going to put a a heavy manufacturing facility over there. It doesn't work. The development costs are too much with the topography. The rest of the community around it has has grown differently than an industrial user would need.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

I mean, why is it? Uh is it fair to say that uh, you know, Longview and these other cities are supporting economic development more than we are by the structures that fund these organizations?

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Aaron Powell You know, I would I would I would probably communicate it differently. Well, and you know, I've got 160 people that volun groups, companies, individuals that voluntarily write us a check every year. They don't have to do it. There's no multi-year commitments or anything like that. And that shows buy-in for someone to write a minimum of three thousand dollars every year to keep our lights on. Where with them it's mailbox money.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Right. But I mean, I'm assuming with that additional funding that they can get involved in other projects that further economic development that we don't we can't do.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Well, on some things, you know, they're able to they've got the capital to do things like do industrial parks, cash grants, and some of those things. But also look at it like um I look at it through the lens of what we're selling compared to what what they're selling. And I don't want to sound arrogant, but you know, uh it's different. Our product's different. I I think our product quite they're nice communities, but our product's better.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Right. And our product is, you know, the more metropolitan, you know, area that that's been created here in the city of Tyler, and they call it Tyler, what, MSA? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

I mean, I've we've got a four-year university here, public universities. Um there's one in Longview that's private. Cost of attendance is much different. We've got the best junior college in the state of Texas. Right. One with the largest endowment of any junior college in the state of Texas. And a big enrollment, too. A big enrollment, 12,000. Yeah, that's a huge enrollment for a junior college, I would think. It is, and we've got good leadership there. They are so nimble in how they've been able to deliver things. I'll give you an example. Four years ago, we just went through a strategic planning process, and one of the elements of that strategic plan was an industry survey. One of the top needs that we found in industry through that survey was forklift drivers. Because you can get a certification for forklift. You know, that doesn't sound sense unless you need a forklifter. No, I was like, I can drive a forklift, don't I? Yeah, so we show this to Tyler Junior College, they team up with a local company, what's called lift truck services now, it's LTS material handling, and they create a forklift driving program to do the certification. They go to Indianapolis a few months ago and they get recognized nationally by Toyota during Toyota Week. Now they're developing a program where they'll be able to train forklift technicians and Toyota dealers from all over the country can send their folks here to get trained at TJC. That started with a survey of just listening to, you know, our local companies, and now that forklift driving class is full, every class is pretty much full.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

I mean, I'm thinking, you know, Brooksers warehouse and things like that were all. Target. All these where right these forklift drivers were, you know, people have never driven uh even an ATV in their life. You know, they can't just jump on a forklift, I would assume. That's something people I'd never thought about it. Yeah, no, that's but it's good that the communication is so uh, you know, is so open and free between, you know, the school, the council, industry, so that like you said, that they're very nimble. Very nimble.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Same thing with UT Tyler. I I've got great confidence in Julie Phillies. She's just remarkable. Um, she's from Oberton and just a remarkable story in herself, but just her leadership is just she's just a doer.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

They've got a business law program out there now. Yeah, she's just a doer. I mean, come on, man. I mean, let don't get hurt twice, go out there and say something to the kids. I mean, they do have a business law program, you know, a pre law, I guess you call it. Yeah. Um but you know, you guys I mean But you are funding, but here's where's the money coming?

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Here's the untold here's the untold story with that funding model. If you're to do a challenge. Chart and show those communities and their their property tax rate, you would see Tyler again be the lowest. If you look at our property tax in the city of Tyler, the municipal portion is less than 25 cents per$100 evaluation. You look at Longview, they're over twice that. They're like 57 cents. Really? Because you think about how they use the half-sit sell stats here in Tyler, they use it to do things like Earl Campbell Parkway. They use it to do things like Grande. They use it for all these other things that would typically be paid for are property taxes or funded indebtedness to service through property taxes. So to say, when you look at our funding, there's an offset when you think about the low property tax within the city of Tyler. You know, that's the other part of the story. But looking, you know, myopically at the EDC and our funding, where do we get the money? So back in, I guess, the early 90s, I think it was 1992, there was a group that had been around since the 50s called the Tyler Industrial Development Corporation. Herb buoy, way back, was even part of that. Um, and they bought land on what's now the West Loop. And in 1992, three years after our founding, they gave all those assets, which was like a million and a half dollars in cash in the bank, and all the property on what's now the West Loop to the Economic Development Council. Over time, the Economic Development Council here in Tyler sold that property to users like Juicy Samburger, Hollywood Movie Theater, Austin Bank, and you know, we're able to sell a lot of that real estate and put money in the bank and and live off that and those investments over time. And that sustained us for 30 years. But what was happening is all of our good real estate was pretty much gone, and most of the stuff we got was done for commercial uses, so we had to get more real estate. So you have you gotten more real estate? We bought almost 700 acres in the last three years.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Okay, so and that would be You don't know how we did it? Yeah, that's what I was about to say. How how do you how do you get more real estate with what money do you ha spend?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

It's called debt. It's called You can borrow? It's called debt. If you know the right banker, I guess everything's regulated. So here's how we here's how we bought that first four hundred and what's the what do you call that? The the Interstate Interstate Commerce Park. 428 acres? 412. 412. So we don't own it. We have a company. Uh one of my friends and support longtime supporter of the EDC, Mark Watley, calls me and says, I've got a company, considering he's Texas. Um They got nowhere to go. Got nowhere to go. You put together a list of sites, what would be the best site for this company? And I sent him three or four, and he he knew it. Mark knows every, I think, grain of dirt here in Smith County. He's probably sold it three times. But I sent him to a piece of property, um, 412 acres on the interstate, and they liked it. The only issue was, Chad, it didn't have a road, and it didn't have water, it didn't have sanitary sewer. Other than that, it was a great piece of property. And by the way, the county road that went to it, County Road 336, had more potholes and pavement.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

So this was going to take help from the county.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Yeah. Nathaniel Moran was then county judge, and he and I talked ad nauseum from the time I got here until he he went to Congress about the need for industrial property. And so Mark and I were at my office and we called Nathaniel. Nathaniel walks over from the Courthouse NX and we kind of lay out what we need. He's like, Well, if y'all can get this property and this project done, we'll commit ARPA money to build a county road through it to make this project work. Keep in mind we didn't own the property. So then we negotiate for the property and realized we need four point two million dollars to buy this property. Chad, over thirty years we built up five million dollars in a wealth management account at Southside Bank. That's all the money we had, and it was going to take over six million, you know, for the whole thing to buy it. So what do you do? So we convened my our board and just started trying to solve the problem. So we had a a client, Great Southern Wood Preserve in Yellowwood. We were working with them and we're and had generated a good relationship with them. We get them to commit to buying 150 acres and do a concurrent closing of that 412 acres. That leaves us with 4.2 million dollars to show up with a closing to get this property done and trigger the county to build the road. So 'cause they agreed to if you bought the property. Yeah. And Nathaniel was on our board, so he knew our financial situation. So had Nathaniel got the county commissioners on board ahead of time? Yeah, I mean Commissioner, I mean, Terry Phillips is precinct. I mean, he was supportive. I mean, he was he was actually a really good ally on the court when he was on there. And so Scott Harrod now. But you know,$4.2 million, so we had$5 million. So we liquidate$2.1 million from the wealth management account. We take an interest-only loan with a 36-month term at prime minus a point with the with the remainder of the wealth management account and the real estate as collateral as an abundance of costume because there's no comps on property like this, and we're off to the races. And then about the same time I start working with a company based in Seattle, Amazon, to put them up there in a new property. Yeah. And then they don't uh they don't like it for some reason. TDC had bought 119 acres in 1999 for$100,000 on County Road 334. So I move them down there and I sell them property at that site. Enough I had to get enough money for that to pay off that loan. So is that where the Amazon um Yeah, we sold them that property. That distribution or what last mile center. And then the two roads that were so bad I was telling you about, the county's bond package had those roads in it, but it was far down the queue. So the county, being good partners, moved it up the queue and redid those roads with bond money. Yeah, I mean, that's you That's how we did it. We just solved the problem, I mean, we just went to work.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Yeah, I mean, that doesn't sound like what people think of as government. You always hear people complain like, you know, government needs to run like a business, you know, but it sounds like the what you just described. It's running like a business.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Business and government are inherently different. That that's such a misstatement. You want government to be fiscally responsible and solvent and good stewards of your money, but government is just exists to provide a service. That service could be running a jail, building roads, educating your kids, or making sure you have safe water to drink. Business is in business strictly to make profit and return to shareholder. Those two are two totally in they have two totally inherently different missions.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

But y'all found a way for both of those to work together.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

By the way, Yellowwood didn't get an incentive, didn't get a tax abatement? They got nothing. Amazon didn't get a tax abatement, and Amazon paid for a traffic signal.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Did they ask for it? No. I mean, uh there's this notion that if we help someone with a tax abatement, then everybody's gonna ask for a tax abatement. Is that happening?

SPEAKER_00 51:18

No. I mean You know, you don't lead with it if someone Hey, would you like a tax abatement? You know, it's like giving out chiclets in Mexico. You don't do that, you know? Yeah. It's a horrible example. Uh but you know, you just don't do that. You don't lead with it. You you know, you determine what's gonna make the deal work. You know, how can you make the deal work that's gonna be amenable to the to the taxpayer, to the company, and try to create that fair balance. But don't lead with it.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Where's the Tyler Industrial Park and Business Park, the hundred acres? Where is that?

SPEAKER_00 51:49

The hundred acres? That is now along our old Campbell. And we changed the name of that. You'll see some new signs going up. It's gonna be called Champions Commons, I think. We've got new signage, and that we switched that. That's not an industrial park anymore. That's gonna be mixed use, and you'll see multifamily of those type things go there. For the reasons you said a minute ago. What about the bioscience park, 120 acres? Bioscience park. Um that is now called the Catalyst Industrial Park. Um, and that is where we put Amazon. All right.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

So that just kind of gives me some bearings. Okay, we've got Yellowwood over at the Tyler Interstate Park. We've got Amazon at the Bioscience Park, right?

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Yeah, and then we've got a new business park we bought from the Weisenbecker family. We bought 280 plus acres from the Weisenbecker family. That's called Prosperity Park. And where is that? That's just north of Lou 323. The western boundary is Highway 14, the eastern boundary is Highway 271, has set straddle with that.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Now, this is all acreage owned by the TED. By the Economic Development Council. And we didn't have any of this 700 acres how many years ago? Three. All right. So just so the people are listening wondering, you know, is it worth it? Are they effective? Are they doing a good job? And there's 700 acres of industrial park that you said, you know, when you came to town, we were having a hard time attracting business because we didn't have. And we did it with private capital. Um which for the taxpayer means none of your money was used or risked.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

Absolutely. The the the the road that was done, the the 412 acres, that was ARPA money, American Rescue Plan Act money that was given. Right. It was given to all co- municipalities. You s you spend it or you send it back. And well That didn't come from the county's budget on roads. That was a that could only be used for certain things.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

Anybody have you caught any any pushback on any of these purchases of any of these industrial parks? Well, it's hard to, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

I mean I because I keep wondering who's who's who's criticizing. You know, and when people call me gripe and and you know, race. What do they say? Is anybody calling it? You know, here's what happens, Chad. I've got a list. I've got a list in my drawer. It's uh the 160 people that write checks and their names out on the list You don't answer the phone? That that determines how long the conversation is. Right. Because that's that sounds horrible, but that's who you work for. That's who I work for. Right. I mean, you know, it's people that are involved and care that help pay the you know, you keep us in in business.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Because I mean, a lot of your members who donate at least three thousand, you know, religiously, annually, every year or more, um, they're not necessarily giving to get anything. They're just trying to create a positive climate. Absolutely. Um where other people benefit.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Absolutely. Um, you know, it makes the community better, people are working. Uh I mean, that's just the reality of it.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

When they don't have to cut the budgets at the city or the county?

SPEAKER_00 54:44

You want the pie bigger, you know, you that provide to provide fund those services. But it's just, you know, the city of Tyler, I mean, it's been a great relationship. Tyler Junior College, I mean, it's uh it's almost I'm not being I'm just being very honest, it's just open and easy here to do things because people work together, they talk to each other and and they're just reasonable. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

You know, I think people that live here or have lived here, they really love and care about Tyler. And I I think people get excited uh like you know, I like I was interested in talking to you. It's like when we hear about progress, we know it's good for somebody, right? And so we want it to happen and we're happy to hear about it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

And it's interesting. I could I could announce a billion-dollar project, Chad. You know what the response on Facebook's gonna be? Like what are we having when are we in Costco?

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Yeah, I mean that Costco thing keeps coming up, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Yeah. And Costco will be here when Costco can make more money here than anywhere else they can deploy capital.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

I mean, that's it's pretty much a straight business decision. It's a business decision. All these are business decisions. I mean, we finally got a Mass Pro Shop. Everybody was clamoring for that. But that was a perfect fit, wasn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

Yeah. They took over a lot of those Gander Mountain leases, and it fits here, and it's I mean, it's a good thing. And and you know it's more people go to that than they did Gander Mountain, it looks like in the parking lot. Absolutely. We're getting a second academy store. Oh, where's that gonna go? That's gonna go on the West Loop. The West Loop is finally catching up. The Brooks is here's gonna be much different, I'm sure you've heard.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Yeah, uh on the West Loop. Yeah. I mean It's gonna have Stanley's barbecue in it. Yeah, I think I did hear that from Nick. Yeah. I'm gonna have Nick on the show next week. Pensace, you know. Yeah, Nick's great. Um and Heather that works for him is even better. Oh, I know. She's coming to, I'm very c close with her. Uh and who, I mean, Kylie Heather, she's either a line or I'm a great guy. She makes me feel so good every time I see her. She makes everyone feel great.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

I mean, she's like, I am a good person, you know. You know, but but you looking at, you know, the Economic Development Council, I mean, we're we're funded by people in the community. I mean, it's voluntary. It's not a tax, it's not, you know, if you don't like what we're doing, you probably haven't written a check or been involved. But here's what we do. Everyone that writes a check to our group, I have a quarterly breakfast. We don't sell tickets to it, and you I tell them what this is our financials, this is our projects we're working on, and I answer any questions. I want I'm about accountability and transparency.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

Yeah, that's good. I mean, that's interesting. I'm sure people enjoy attending though.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

And it's full every I mean it's packed every time.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Well, um You know, the West Loop, people sometimes complain like, hey, they don't ever do anything for the West Loop or this or that. You know, you kind of hear that, right? Have you ever heard that? Absolutely. Okay. Or North Tyler. Oh, I was about to say, and then I was gonna go and North Tyler, but um you know, you cannot just snap your fingers and say, economic development, go there, can you? No. I mean, you have to people have to want to go there, and if it takes incentives, those have to be in addition. You've got to show them they can make money there.

SPEAKER_00 57:56

I mean, they're driven by profitability. You know, Gordon Gecko said greed is good. You know, Scott Martinez said profit is good. You know, profit is a good thing. I mean, uh and you want companies here that make money. That means they're hiring people, keeping people employed and growing.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

Well, I mean, like Brookshire's that's probably a big move to get out there on that West Loop, at least for the you know, development of the rest of that, is it?

SPEAKER_00 58:21

You know, i a a grocery store is an apex tenant for a a a retail development. Because they generate traffic that gets all of those other retailers over there. If you're uh a a shopping center developer, you want a grocery store because that's just solid traffic generation. Um But for Brooksers it was a big move, you know. But but you know, one of my frustrations here is, you know, over the past five years I've gotten to know those guys at Brooksers from the people that a lot of people that work there. You know, from Brad. Brad, you know, called me the Sunday before the Monday he retired. We had a conversation. But they're good people and they give back a lot. And you know, it irritates me when you people say, oh, well, they're they're doing this or doing that. That company does so much in this community, people don't even know all the things they do.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

Yeah, no, that I I know that to be true. And I've known Brad a long time. Uh he and I used to play tennis together. He's uh he's a very level-headed, thoughtful person.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Who cares about the community, you know. That wildlife museum they did. I mean, that's not that's just something that's kind of a passion project.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

They had to move it after the ammonium thing.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Yeah. A kind of a passion project of his. I mean, he's passionate about getting a sports museum here. Really? You know, we've been working on that. You know, just some of those things they do that don't really that are just community focused things because they were born here, the company was born here, they've grown here.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

You know, they uh I've noticed they've uh they're finally, you know, on maybe reluctantly, moving the gates into Capitol Drive. You notice that? Yeah. I mean, it is a good fit. I know it cost them money. I know, you know, um, I don't think Text Dot would give them a light or whatever it was, right? But it's probably gonna be better for those trucks, it was tough getting out.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Yeah, it was a it was a problem. It was a problem for the employees coming out on old Jacksonville. Yeah. You know, that would that will, I think, help up with a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

That's gonna streamline things. And uh, you know, Tex Dot, of course, they uh they've taken part of my property here for the old Jacksonville expansion, which I'm moving. Um You can sell to Michael Lair? No, I'm gonna hold out against him. I'm gonna I'm selling to Chama. Chama's already got first right of refusal over here. He's got it on everything else. Uh so but you know I guess state funding they've dropped back uh the time for this project, right? And a lot of that's related to the cost of getting right-of-way. Yeah, I mean, I was pretty reasonable because I was like, yeah, and then they negotiated and settled, and I settled, and then they ran out of money, and then I'm sure some people are thinking they can hit the lottery. But if you know anything about the eminent domain law, which I do, you can't hit the lottery. There are certain fair market value and Texas case law that makes it easy for them just to go in there with an evaluation appraiser, and the judge simply rules, okay, that's what you're getting, and it's probably what they've already been offered. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

Yeah. I I'll also bring up another good partner we have that's kind of out of the box, NetRMA. Oh, yeah. NetRMA does more than toll roads. You know?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

I didn't really know that, but I know them to be loop 49.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

Yeah. Glenn Glenn Green and Gary Hallbrooks, I mean, they've been good partners. I'll give you an example. Where the new road, the new County Road 3344 that was built through our industrial park, comes out at the new Avery Express facility. There's gonna be a signal there. And that wouldn't have happened without NedRMA basically helping pay for the engineering there.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

Yeah. I mean, you know so much about little projects that are dots that probably are getting connected now that will make more sense later on.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

I tell people we want to be at a ca a catalyst, a convener, and a connector. That's kind of the three C's we try to follow.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

Aaron Powell What about the you know, Luke 49? You know, from uh 110. Uh I've heard rumblings about trying to carry that thing on around. They're working on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

It's probably 2032, realistically, before anything really happens. Yeah, is that because of money? You know, just going through the process. Right away. It's the route. You know, trying to settle on the right route. There's a whole process Politics. There's all the above.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

East Texas people, they're great. All the above. They're horrible when it comes to their land.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

Well, every like you know, Texas in general, you know, they strong property rights state.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

Um now, it looks like you guys have at least five tools that I've kind of researched. The City of Tyler's has its own initiatives and incentives that they can try to help and everything's case by case.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

There's no like cookie cutter.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

Right, you can't just look, apply, and expect to get something.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:02

I mean, there's certain guidelines and that we follow. But I'll uh Chad I want to bring up something else that the EDC does that perhaps you're not aware of. Every year we take a group to a different community. We do an inner city trip to learn best practices and we go to aspirational communities.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

How does that help you? How does does that help you stay focused on thinking about the greater community?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

Yeah. So think about the we did our strategic plan five year almost five years ago. One of the things that they recommended was us visit with our leadership aspirational communities. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

People that aspirational meaning, they had hopes and dreams to have a better place. No, uh communities that have done great things that we can emulate. Oh, okay. You want to aspire to be them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:45

Absolutely. Okay. So year one, I put this thing together, it's like, uh you know, because people are going on their own dime, taking time out of their days, travel, hotel, everything. They pay for the EDC doesn't pay for. All we do is plan it and get a hotel block.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Yeah, Carlene Dark just told me about this today, earlier today. She said she was going.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:04

Yeah, so she was been, I think every year. So year one, you know, not knowing what they if I'd get any interest, we take over 40 people to Chattanooga. And what they've done to their downtown on that riverfront is just unreal. And it really sparked a lot of dialogue among the people that went and and helped strengthen some relationships. Last year we so I had 42 people go on that. Last year, I was like, okay, let's try this again, see if we get anybody to go this year. We had over 60. So I mean you're capacity to Huntsville, Alabama.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

There's a bunch of interest in this for some reason, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

Yeah, everyone from city council to university presidents to community business people, Southside Banks with the the presenting sponsor for the second year. But I mean it's a big cross section of developers, contractors, and uh you know, the thing about it is people get to know people on a different level when they travel with them. Yeah, that's true. And then it's like anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

And then next month we're going to Greenville, South Carolina. I mean, what is it is there something in particular you hope for Tyler that some of these trips may uh spark or cause people to be engaged in?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

Well, see something, you know, a lot of these communities were didn't think they could do it. You know, they had a lot of naysayers and they did it. You know, like like uh Chattanooga was the most polluted one of the most polluted communities in in the country in 1970, and they just intentionally turned everything around. They're the first uh community in the north in North America to have gig computing and gig Wi-Fi and all that stuff. You know, Huntsville has leveraged the federal government, but they've done some things beyond that. We toured a Polaris factory there that makes the side by sides and you know employs like three thousand people. And a lot of the people that went had never been in a modern manufacturing facility.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

They don't know how automated it all is.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:55

Automated and how you know how and then we'll see BMW and In South Carolina. So a lot of things happen on those trips and it sparks ideas and gets people to thinking of what's possible. Rather than this is Tyler, this is the way things are and it gets them to think kind of outside the box.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

I mean, you know, uh I was struck uh when I talked to Don Warren. Uh he seemed to refuse to hear no and say, well, there's some kind of way that we can do some of this stuff and just seem to, you know, be almost stubborn to the point where it has happened. Am I am I seeing that and reading that right?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Don't been a phenomenal mayor. I can say without hesitation, a lot of the things downtown, Valencia Hotel, would not be would not be happening without Don Warren. And just the other things that he's invested his energy in, with whether it's parks or other things, that he gets plum giddy, you know, talking about the community. And it's great to have a mayor that's not going through the motions, that's genuinely enthusiastic about the community he leads.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Well, I know Don feels that way because uh every year, the Juneteenth parade, you know, uh we both ride in. He rides in as the mayor, me, I ride in as I don't really know what. Just a local lawyer, a friend. Uh I'm hoping uh eventually they'll make me the master of ceremonies and I'll get to ride in the convertible. But all joking aside, Don, he really cares. It's not even a burden for him to go to things. He he likes to go to stuff and talk to people. Uh and I think he's been great. He's kind of pushed us to this point now. The question will be like you said earlier, you know, different administrations, different relationships to the, you know, development, right? I mean, what do you think we're looking at with these this next group trying to win the mayorship?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

I think it's a good group of candidates. I mean, I don't think there's anyone I'm confident there's no one that's running that I can't work with.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

Um Because we don't know what's going to happen with a runoff and and who who are the two left standing, and then, you know, what do you have there?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

I know them all. I know some better than others, but all of them, you know, I I'm confident I can work with. And I think they'll be supportive of economic development.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

Because um, is it three out of four have city council experience? Is that right? Right. I mean, Shirley. Shirley. James. James. Stewart. Yeah. Uh John Nix, I think he ran against Don Warren one time. He was on council at one time. He was? Okay. So, you know, at least we've got people that are familiar with the the, you know, the machinery of the way the government runs. And we've had consistency with the city manager here. Yeah, I mean, Ed's been here eleven years. I didn't realize that Ed Broussard. Yeah. I didn't realize um I hate to say this, but I'm going to because this is unfiltered. Uh, when I read that book, Smith County Justice, I didn't realize how much power a city manager had in connection with the police chief, the uh the city count you know what I'm saying? You didn't realize that an unelected person was so important if they were really good. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:10

And it's like that throughout the state of Texas. City managers and depending on the charter, you know, they can wield good power. I will say this about our city manager here. I've known him twenty years. High integrity, high intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

Yeah, and I'm no way suggesting that he's part of an old crowd.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

I'm just saying, I think having that consistency as city manager for eleven years, which is, you know, again, you don't see city managers serving one community for that long. Um, you know, there's a steadiness there.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:40

Yeah, and and I think that's important.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:42

And we have good people in public safety.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

We our police and fire chiefs. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, that's been uh you know, we have a lot of good people in all of the service organizations, fire, sheriff's department, I mean we're we're really fortunate, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:56

And But Jeff, think about this. In 2024, Smith County added one new job in the private sector every three hours. Last year we added three jobs every day in the private sector. It was down, but we still outperform the state and the country as far as our job growth in the private sector. And we're doing that uh because not because we've got the biggest economic development budget. It's not, you know, oh you've got to have you gotta fund economic development of this group. You you get creative on how you can do things. This our secret sauce is getting people to work together. You know, those collaborations that made that interstate commerce park possible. You know, that makes this new business park, you know, being able to collaborate with the city and them help with you know, sewer. Because unless you can flush, you're not getting a project. Do you ever turn on fossil flush?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:46

Do you ever present, you know, what we just talked about, these things that you got done, sewer, water, road, to get somebody there to these other companies that you're you're you're asking to come in to say, look, this we work well together with the city and the county, and you're more likely to get something done here. Do you use that as a Absolutely?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

Uh that video brochure I gave you has a time time lapse of when we started the Interstate Commerce Park and when Yellowwood was operational. It's like less than 18 months for and they built the world's largest wood treatment facility. They can treat six million board feet a week out of that facility. I can show you a time lapse of Amazon. They went from ground to an operational 140,000 square foot distribution center in ten months. So I tell people we move at the speed of business. We don't I can I can show you that with valid things that and that wouldn't happen without people working together. And then it's easy for me to talk about, oh, we needed a road, we found a way to do it. We needed, you know, I can just give proof point after proof point. And my window here is short. I've been here just over five years. I don't have this long runway. I mean, we've done this in this amount of time.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:57

Well, also, you know, when businesses borrow money for projects, you know, interest is is is building, is owed, right? I mean, the longer it takes a project that they've borrowed for to get going or get that that adds cost to the project, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

Our little group adds our little 501c3, we have debt service we have to pay every month on on our property. You know, I think I've got one land sale, one good land sale, and it goes away. But there's risk involved. You know, not a lot different than what priv a private developer would go through. They'd have to borrow money, they'd have to figure out the infrastructure, they'd have to do a lot of the things that we have to do to make our projects work. And that's what sets us apart as an economic development organization than most of our peer groups in the state of Texas is that we've got to be a whole hell of a lot more entrepreneurial to make the thing cash flow.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:52

Because you don't have backing from city and county money. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

No, I don't have I don't have bellbox money.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:56

What about this? Um your membership group that supports you, would you say that those uh that's a steady increase? It's been flat. I mean, do you uh do you gauge your support in any way from the members?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

Yeah, when I got here we had 118 members, and now we've got over 160.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:12

All right. So it's steadily up. And a lot of people, even like myself, know what the council is, has no idea you could join and support, you know, uh just really you know, didn't know if that was just kind of, you know, some insider elites were gathering up for a breakfast once a quarter.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:29

Um yeah, we do. No, there's no there's no such thing as backroom deals. No. Anything that involves public dollars, you know, it happens in a public setting. It gets voted on by a public public body. You know, there's no backroom dealers. Well, I mean, I don't I'm not the public sector, so I know. You know? Uh and I you know, it's you know, I I I made an endorsement this election cycle the first time in twenty-five years. Really? I just don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:04

Right. I mean, it's because it do it's not beneficial to you usually. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

Uh but but if I know someone's gonna be against economic development and some of the tools in the toolbox, and we already, you know, from a funding perspective and other things, we've got to do things differently. I felt incumbent to get out there and say, look, I support this person and this is why.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:25

Well, I mean, that's not political. That's simply just, you know, survival, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:29

I mean, that's survival, but also just communicating why I'm supporting someone and how it impacts other people.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

Aaron Powell Do we know I mean, since you made an endorsement, it's not a secret. Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, it's not a secret. I endorsed Austin Lewis. Okay. For what uh position? For commissioner. People listen. This would be a county commissioner, right? Trevor Burrus, there's four spots and a county judge.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

Um and so I don't know who he was running against.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:55

Look, and and that's not anything personal. Right. I have to. She's a so she she's a nice person. I just don't agree with her politically. All right. And he And that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

Luce was a stronger advocate for growth in Smith County and Tyler. He was. He is. Okay. And so he's going to add to a court that's already, you know, pretty pro-business and you know, with Scott Harrod. Yeah, Scott Harris's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:18

And uh and whoever uh Ralph Caraway's outstanding. Also, Judge Franklin. Judge Franklin's great. John Moore's been a good commissioner.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:25

Yeah, yeah, that's good. I mean, we we've got a I mean, it look for business friendly policies practice. It looks like we've got a good council and a good commissioner's court.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

Petra Hawkins is great. I mean, I can just go to Petra's my rep. Petra is Petra is a force of nature.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:41

My council woman. I love Petra. Chandra Marsh. I like her too. You know Chandra? Y'all discounted land. Y'all kind of advertise this as one of the tools in the toolbox. How could y'all discount land?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

Not very well these days. Not with debt. Right. I mean, that's No. Uh you know, we're going to be less to look, we'll make it work. That's with land that you own? If yeah. If I've got uh a company that wants to come here with a lot of jobs, with very good salaries, you know, we'll make it work.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:15

You'll do anything you can do to get the land bought by somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:18

Absolutely. Right. Or we'll figure out a way to make it cash flow on our end because you know, we are, you know, we have to be an industrial developer, but at the same time, we've got to focus on our mission. We can't stray from our mission and just be driven by margins. We've got a double bottom line, let's make no mistake about it. You know, when I look at things, uh meeting our mission of, you know, driving capital investment to Smith County, Texas, is it higher going to drive people getting jobs in Smith County, Texas? But also what's the fiscal impact to our organization? Right. And I've got to balance those.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:49

But you don't really have to make a profit per se, do you? Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, but it's nice when I've got debt to pay. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. I mean, and I'm not suggesting that you run a bare bones operation, but you're not incentivized. We're not driven by pro You're not incentivized to put yourself and your organization first and the city and the county's initiative secondarily, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:10

Trevor Burrus, Jr. I mean our uh my mission is jobs and capital investment, but I have to be cognizant of the fiscal impact of the organization to keep the lights on.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:18

Right. Yeah. I mean, I mean, because that's your job as a CEO. I mean, if you weren't paying all the bills or making bad moves, you probably still wouldn't be in the job twenty-five, six years later.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:28

No. I mean, uh you've got to balance it. Here is different just because you know you've got debt, you've got things, but you know, you get one deal and the debt goes away, and you've got all this land free and clear. So there's a risk aspect you take on the front end, no different than a business or an entrepreneur. And I I think, Chad, I think that makes us better. Yeah, you that makes us more creative in how we approach things. That makes us think outside the box to put deals together. It makes us better. You've got a lot of land left in this 700 plus acres.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:59

That'll be free and clear, with one sale. Right. One more. Yeah. One more business that also brings jobs and pays taxes.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:07

It's not just a a real estate transaction. It's not just transactional, but it's also, you know, you want someone that's gonna put money on the on the tax rolls and hire neighbors.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:18

Now, I also see this Freeport exemptions missed it listed as a tool in the I don't quite understand that I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:29

You know, they pay taxes on it. Which I always thought was kind of hard, like a car dealership. Yeah. So they so the Freeport exemption, if they move it out of the state of Texas within six months, it's not subject to the So I wouldn't hire somebody to drive all the cars outside of Texas and then bring them back. Well, you wouldn't want to certain states you wouldn't want to go to uh with your cars. They may not make it back.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:52

Um But you know what I'm saying? But when you don't sell a a a piece of inventory and it sits there and you have to pay tax on it while it sits there, that's just kind of like ah right?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

We also set up a foreign trade zone. Really? We've got foreign trade zone two nine nine we set up Where is that? It's most of Smith County.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:09

Really? It's just it's a legal entity created for certain tax benefits for companies here.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:15

So if you're bringing in foreign goods, you can put it in um a basically a bonded warehouse and it doesn't enter the commerce of the United States of America until you take it out for tax reasons. And you can do duty deferrals and do some other things with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:29

Bonded warehouse being like on Palace Street, that big warehouse? I don't know if that's bonded. I don't either. I just know it's a huge warehouse.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:35

But this would be John Solz owns that one. Um but yes, but it would be something where you know you have a a designated area in your warehouse that's bonded. Like Brookshers? Uh Brooks wouldn't do it because they don't have a lot of foreign stuff. Like some caviar coming in. But if you're making like we w in Austin we used it for like Seiko. Seiko would bring in watches and put it in the foreign trade zone from Japan, and then it wasn't taxed until it left. So they could stock inventory in there for years if they needed to.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:08

Until they wanted to send it out to a watch store or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:12

What about revolving loan fund? We've got two revolving loan funds that basically for um companies that aren't bankable or their project isn't bankable. What do you mean? We'll partner with a bank and we'll provide some of the capital for it, and then the bank will take some of the rest. So we've used that for we got a special allocation of money. This all comes from the federal government for us to administer. So we get a pot of money that we can loan out. What do you mean not bank? They may have an issue with they may not have enough assets or something. They may not have to get a loan. Bank may they'll they'll deny their loan, then they can come to us and we may be able to put capital into it through our re reviving loan fund program to make the deal work. I mean, we partnered with Ultra Credit Union on a one recently. We partnered with other banks on it. I'll give you an example.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:04

When you partner, the ones you partner with, that bank or lending institution gets the loan. Yeah. Right? That's kind of the incentive for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:11

Yeah, and then we'll put capital into it to kind of make it work. So that they don't have as much risk. Absolutely. They still take first position. So I'll give you an example. After COVID, uh, you know, some companies took a real impact. Yes. And the federal government gave us another um tranche of money to set up a basically a a COVID-related resiliency long fund. And we set that up. And we we did one to a local company and that was really, you know, hurt with COVID, Chuck's travel. Chuck's Travel, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:43

Great guy. Chuck is a great guy. Nobody was taking any travel on the club.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:47

So we were able to get him along, help him out, get the guide back up. Of course, he's a great guy, you know, good example. And it was that was able to help him. I think it was like a fifty thousand dollar loan.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

Yeah, because I mean like big companies, they're not coming for this, right? No. Um, it might strike people as strange, not understanding how things work, that the federal government would give uh a nonprofit Tyler Economic Development Council any money. How does that work? With a lot of strings.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:18

I mean, right, you have to jump through hoops, you have to Yeah, this thing's been around Tom Ollins and set it up uh we're probably more than twenty years into it now.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:31

But I mean you know what I'm saying, like it's such a that's helpful to local businesses to survive this revolving loan fund, but and it's funny or different that it or originates with government money given to the Economic Development Council.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:45

Yeah, and then you know it's revolving loan funds, so we loan it out, get it back, and just keep it going.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:50

Aaron Powell What do you do? Just get your principal back with some interest? Yeah, we get interest on it. So and then you kind of use that to build up the revolving loan fund over time? It gets replenished as the people pay it back. With the interest. With the interest. So I mean I'm assuming it's becoming more and more.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:07

People that have heard this that say I'm a small business or might be in trouble in the future, or um what they uh apply. Yeah, just come see us.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:16

And just say, hey, look, I I need um we've got a process we go through and been doing this for oh gosh, it shattered must probably twenty-five plus years.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

The strings attached for the revolving loan fund, does it in any way uh relate to or attach to some economic activity happening outside the county or state?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:37

We just do Smith County, but it has nothing to do Okay. I mean, we've nothing to do with anything going outside the state.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:43

Aaron Ross Powell, yeah. Your revolving uh loan fund isn't kind of limited to ensure that they do business outside. It's just for businesses. Absolutely. And we changed the regulations on that since I've been here. Because I remember some of these restrictions involved a certain amount of work or or services or goods being outside. Okay. That has been eliminated.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:05

And economic development's evolved. Right. And that's what you've told us. It's evolved. And we've got involved with things now we probably haven't gotten involved with historically.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:15

Think about this. You've told us here today, not only have tax abasements evolved on what you could use them for, right? The half cent sales tax A to B has evolved on what it could be put towards and and the limitations on outside, it sounds like a change.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:32

But you know, the city, you know, the city and the half-cent sales tax have got their own board that does that, and um that group, they've done a lot of good things.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:41

Yeah, because it looked like the uh City of Tyler and the half-cent sales tax board are the ones that kind of decide on the projects.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

And they've got a plan and they've got a hierarchy of, you know, half-cent sales tax projects that they're gonna do. But um it's been, you know, the half-cent sales tax, you know, most communities fund the economic development program, and it works for those communities. Here it's driven by the private sector. And I I think it it's I think it really works really well here. We've got to do things differently, but it works well here.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:13

Your budget's smaller, yeah. But do you think the expertise from the private sector makes your your organization more beneficial?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:21

We've got a very engaged private sector. I'll give you an example. Our finance committee, um our auditor says he's intimidated by our finance committee. Because these are people that actually know how to make a profit. Well, you've got Lee Gibson, CPA, just retired as head of Southside Bank. He's the treasurer. You think he doesn't know anything about the Bible? I guess he can keep up with the money. Yeah. You've got uh Thomas Duhoff, who runs the CFO for the Heard Family Office. All right, nice. You've got uh Ray McKinney, the president of Genicobe Group, also the CPA. I mean, I can just go I think there's you've got Kevin. Well, that's what I'm saying. They're all engaged asking questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:01

You know, what they would say in the business world is that's talent. Yes. Right, compared to sometimes in the public in the government sector, you don't have this kind of talent you know, assimilated for these projects.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:16

Let's look at our real estate committee. Taylor Burns, he knows a little bit about real estate. He was our real estate chair for 30 years. Mark Whitley's still on there. Herb Bowie still shows up, he's on there. He's just bored, Herb's bored. Herb is awesome. I love Herb. Uh, you've got Bob Garrett with the Fair Foundation. Uh huh. I mean, you've got Sam Scarborough.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:37

I mean, I just go down a list of Sam's kind of the young gun. Yeah. I see him at Stanley's, he likes Stanley's.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:42

Yeah. So I can just go down a list of all these people that are actively involved in real estate that do deals, you know, that are on there, that are engaged. And so Ray Boudreau, who's a civil engineer with Brandon Corporation. You know, all these folks, we get in there and talk about real estate. I've got a civil engineer in there, I've got all these real estate folks.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:02

But it's not the way Tyler's running their their economic development um program. Just probably the best synthesis between the talent in the city that's also motivated by the people that make money and work on the projects when they happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:21

Yeah. And everyone wants the community to m to prosper.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:24

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And it goes back to what I said. Yeah. Everybody gets excited. I I don't know anything about Yellowwood, but I'm excited when somebody tells me, hey, they're building a you know, one point or whatever million dollar facility out there. You know, I'm like, uh, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:37

Let me tell you, the owner of that is a guy named Jimmy Rain. Jimmy Rain. He's Alabama's only billionaire. So he used to have these commercials, the Yellowfella. Yeah. Uh a big Auburn booster, Auburn University booster. But they came here, they got no incentives, and you know, just engaged in the community. It's just uh it's probably been one of the better companies I've worked with. Tyler Pipe. Let's talk about Tyler Pipe. McWayne industry.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:03

Also from Mississippi or Alabama.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:05

Alabama, Birmingham. Yeah. But you know, they when I got here, they had 280 employees. We worked with them. They got a new foundry here. They've got over 540 people, and their safety record now is really, really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:20

Yeah, I mean, that New York Times was whooping them up pretty good back in the old days. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, whatever. Uh but you know, there used to be like Western Foundry, it shut down way back when, when I was a little kid. You know, that there was another foundry. I don't know if you I didn't. Yeah, there was another foundry, uh, other than Tyler Pipe. And it was um it was right there on the the North Loop. You know, where you go past like Nijum Industrial Park in there, out there on the East Loop, and then to cut over to get to the other side, it was right in there. Hey, you're enjoying this, aren't you? I am. I am almost we're almost through, Scott. Yeah, I've got as much time as you need. We have uh you know, this is show is gonna be very interesting because I know so many people that when your name is mentioned, people think of excitement, progress like something's gonna happen. And, you know, when you're talking about government and you know, it's you know, there's not always a lot of people, you know, getting things going. Um what do you what are your immediate plans for us in economic development that you can reveal?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:27

Yeah, I think we've done very well over the past several years with health care, obviously. Obviously. Great healthcare systems. Shout out to Kevin L-Tiff. Big shout out to Kevin. Once again, you know, LTEF has been half cent sales tax, which we've talked about the most transformational figures in the history of Nylor Texas. That would have happened without Kevin.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:49

I mean, then we're gonna have to call Kevin the gift that keeps on giving.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:52

You know, he does. I just you know, we we need something to make sure Kevin keeps going and keep staying involved and everything. But Kevin's just been a blessing to this community. And uh but but you know, beyond that, I mean just health care. You know, we've got we're strong in healthcare. We've done uh some good blue-collar manufacturing jobs in the past several years. But, you know, what's next? Yes, what's next? What is next? I think we've got we've got to do a better job of the opportunity is leveraging UT Tyler more and Tyler Junior College more. You know, we do very well with healthcare when it relates to those institutions. You're talking about the nursing college? Yeah, healthcare, the medical school, all those things. You know, when people think of UT Tyler now, they automatically migrate to the thought thought, let's go to medical school, healthcare. Same thing with you know the Rogers School of Nursing, everything with teachers. Right the nursing engineering. You've got a full engine you've got a thousand engineering students here. You've got all these things happening with the Soles College of Business. You know, how do we leverage those things?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:58

Don't forget the pre-law program, uh Scott.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:02

You know, a friend of mine, Carol Palumbo, with um who's she with now? Baker Botts in Austin, from I I did a project with her way back. She put money into that, which I thought was fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:14

Well, would you say that, you know, over your years of work and including the success here, you've you've you've made relationships with people where they might give you a tip or talk to you about a potential company that was looking for a place to go. I mean, is that a networking thing that happens in your business?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:31

It is, and it's nationally, you know, we've done you know, I think some of the people I've brought to speak of these breakfast have never been to Tyler, Texas. I had the a guy named Mike Grella who stood up the Economic Development Department for Jeff Bezos at Amazon. He also stood up Amazon Web Services. He was in Tyler, Texas a few months ago, looking at Tyler, speaking to my investors at a breakfast. Uh last February, I had a lady from Greenville, South Carolina, a lady named Dee Dee Calwell. Bloomberg does a big feature of her, called her the factory whisper for all the factories she's put around the world. She did the Emirates aluminum up in Tulsa, but she came to Tyler, spent a couple days with us, spoke to our group. So those friends I've had nationally that I've been blessed to build relationships with, I get them to Tyler. Does that the head of economic incentives for JLL he's come to Tyler to speak at the breakfast? Head of Ben Swanger, real estate comes to Tyler to speak.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:29

The factory woman that you mentioned. Does that give me uh a view into the window of your mind about uh who you're tapping, what you're looking at in trying to figure out how to best prepare our area to reel one of those in?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:47

Yeah, you look at you know, data centers is worth a big capital spend are of course become a political hot button with electricity and water and some of the noise and some of the other things people see around it. I think, you know, we've got an opportunity to get some, but it won't be it'll be off-grid stuff more than likely. But I think we you know you look at things, sectors that are growing where we may not be able to get be a good fit, like a semiconductor plant. I don't have a thousand acres I can put together for something like that. But let's look at the supply chain. What goes into making those? Is there something in that supply chain that I can leverage here?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:24

What that you already have here that already gets made here?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:26

Or I have the real estate that would fit a manufacturer of a component that can same thing with data centers.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:33

Real estate sounds like I've heard you say that from the beginning of this show till now, that that's the thing that we need help with as a uh uh uh di Economic Development Council. More real estate to offer.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:46

You know, when I got here, I realized we didn't have real estate that worked. So I hired a group to come in and look agnostically at Smith County and find me real estate that aligned with what we with economic development projects. Right, with no inf outside influence about the property. I've got uh I've got a list of fifty sites in Smith County. That you I've identified as that kind of we kind of keep up with. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:10

And and and so if somebody calls and wants to is wants to come here, you already have done the work to be ready to present those to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:17

When you're dealing with business and and prospects and getting a new manufacturing or logistics facility up, it's three things is speed, risk, and cost.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:25

Yeah, how fast can we do it? Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:28

What's the risk? Is there environmental stuff? Can I even the risk and can I get a workforce to to make me profitable here?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:34

What they're smart enough or they're technologic they can do the job. That's yeah, and then the cost.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:40

You know, what's it gonna cost me to build a facility? What's the long-term operating cost? What's the long-term tax exposure? What's the long-term labor cost? All those things are evaluated.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:52

So the speed, the TEDC is good because they seem to facilitate speed in these projects, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:57

Yeah, because we've done the due diligence on the property, we've got phase ones, we've got geotechnical, all those things.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:03

The risk, um, including the workforce, seems like that. The colleges, TJC, and the um, you know, kind of the the training programs help reduce risk of of of the workers that they're gonna have available for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:16

They do. And you do a we do a lot of work up front, you know, is there an environmental risk? You know, we bought property that was part of Camp Fannon. And so there's something there that what has to be remediated? Well, I mean, everything's been remediated is probably from my perspective, it's probably the cleanest property in Smith County because of all the work that the Corps of Engineers did, you know, post-Camp Fannon.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:39

So what's the environmental issue then?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:41

Well, it's perception. I mean, you know, but I mean they're like, are we gonna hit a bomb that blows up? No. Oh that.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:47

You know, they didn't even really have bombs.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:49

But all those, I mean, I've got stacks of studies and Corps of Engineers actually been good partners with us and making sh alleviating any concerns that may arise.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:59

But I mean you can carry insurance during the process the construction.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:02

I mean, Yeah, but we don't even get that to that point because we we address that up front.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:08

What about Ray Perryman? Um, is he a part of actually your annual thing? Is that what that is? No, I do a different one. Um because I always see Ray Perryman.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:18

Ray Ray does one in January. And Ray's full disclosure, Ray's been a good friend for a lot of years. Um but we do our economic development annual meeting in October. And you did it this past October 23rd or something like that? Something like that. We we had Cliff Ellis, the former Auburn basketball coach who I met through Jimmy Rain. He was a speaker. Did he know anything about economic development? He knew a lot about leadership and motivating people.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:42

Okay, so that's the angle that you had there.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:44

It wasn't a I got to know him through Yellowwood and Jimmy Rain and and and that group. And then um the foundation event that Jimmy did last May. Um and then we created a s an award this year. First time we've ever given an award, and it's gonna be an annual award, the Herb Bowie Visionary Award. Because Herb started doing economic development and getting involved in our economic development program in the nineteen forties before he went to Korea and came back.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:12

He's been active in nonprofits and philanthropy and giving money to people for as long as I can remember.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:18

Herb was one of those folks that still comes to meetings. Well And just a true blessing to this community.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:37

Well, let's talk about, you know, 2030. Uh is 2030, you know, because it's a uh it's uh it's a new decade, end of the decade, is is the are there any goals set for 2030 for you in the Economic Development Council? Or is it longer range than that?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:52

Well, I want to see us, you know, with with a whole change and how the world operates with AI, what does that look like? What does automation look like? What's the future of the American worker look like? Right. I mean those are unknowns right now. It's unknown. You know, there's still certain things that you have to do with your hands that you can't do on AI that you plumbing, mechanics, HVAC, like building houses, even though they may do it with 3D printing at some point, which they're already doing some places. That'd be wild, wouldn't it? You know, so you you know, what does that look like? You've got to have that future cast to where you're thinking about what does that look like, what impact does that have on the community? You know, you go back I'll you can go back three years. We were talking about doing data centers here, and it was not a political hot button. We were looking at the the large capital investment, you know, few employees that doesn't take a lot of public services to support. And I mean we were pro we were gangbusters all in. And now you look at it and you look at it about, you know, politically, this may get a lot of blowback if we were to announce something like that if it's not done the right way.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:55

Well you know, people still have PTSD over Winterstorm Ure. Winterstorm, which one? You know, yeah, that one. That one, you know. Uh but but when you start talking about the electric grid and things, you know, that could be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:08

Oh, yeah, you're talking about the ice the ice McGeddon. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, you know, you have to I don't know as much as you know about it. Of course, AI sounds good, profitable, and all that stuff at first, and then you hear the secondary stuff, it's all the electricity it uses, all the water it uses, and then people say, not my water, not my land.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:30

And those things have changed, you know. The data centers are much more efficient with electricity and water. There's still a lot of electricity, but less water. But it's interesting, the same folks that are big property rights, they get really upset about what other people do with their property.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:46

Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean, I I don't know what's that about. I guess they're afraid. Again, fear is a big motivator in society, right? They're afraid they're coming our way. What do you think about, you know, Bill Gates and some of these other people that are uh always on the cutting edge of what's coming uh are kind of going into nuclear. Do you think do you think they'll ever harness a mini nuclear technology? I'm on to I'm on to something, aren't I? Yes. All right. That all the problems can be solved in that direction.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:24

You'll see a lot more deployment of nuclear, I I think. But you know, one of the things that that's interesting is we have so much natural gas here, and you can burn r natural gas relatively clean. Right. And we've got this abundance of it, and you know, I think we don't harness that enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:42

Well, uh, do you think that everybody cycles we went through this we went through this terrible cycle where everybody believed that we would have enough electricity for there to instantly have everybody drive an electric car and wind and solar taking care of everything. And we know that i i in a beautiful world if that could happen, great. But we can't that that can't we can't survive with that. It's not gonna happen. And what's what's charging your Tesla? Right. I mean, the i i people don't even stop to think about what you just said. And that's unfortunate because somehow then it becomes a political issue. I'm a bad person. They're a good person because they want sustainable energy, and the the truth is not even talked about.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:24

Yeah, and you're seeing pivots. I mean, four motor companies t done a component. Away from electric. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:29

Yeah, and I think the data centers and the the national security interests with China and artificial intelligence, I think, is what this will push this nuclear so that we can get over the democracy and the political hurdles that we have in this country that China doesn't have. Right? Yeah. I mean And the regulations. And the regulations, right. They the the Chinese government or Russia can decide, hey, we're just gonna do this. There's no opposition. There's no regulatory waiting period. Yeah. But, you know, uh hopefully the government cares more about us than they care about theirs. Absolutely. Um anything you um anything you hope about the elected officials uh that come forward going forward uh as it relates to the uh TED COVID.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:15

I just hope they continue to be collaborative because everything this we've done in this community has been done through people working together. It hadn't happened because of one entity.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:24

Do you think that um the fact that the mayor and the city council races are nonpartisan has benefited this community continues to do so. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And it just seems like the camaraderie that I've seen with all council members and Don Warren, uh and even uh to s uh in large extent with the commissioner's court, uh, you know, a little not as much, right? I mean, because they're running on a political thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:53

You know, the commissioner's court is much different than city council. Right. And it's a totally different constituency. The rural constituency is much different than one within the city. It's just a different mindset. And they don't have any money. They don't have as much money.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:06

Right. The county's always complaining, like, hey, we've got no funding.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:09

And it's a very county government here actually is really, from my perspective, ran well despite what some people say. No, I mean it's a lot of people. I interact with Frank Davis with Road Bridge all the time. We've worked on projects together. He's a professional and and he's been good to work with.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:26

I mean, they've got a lot of there's a lot of territory and things that the county does without a whole lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:33

They do. They do. And I I think about what they've you you know, people talking about road bonds and how much roads can road can be built with this and audits and all this stuff, which is really there there's so many guardrails around public dollars. When things go off the rails with public dollars, people go to jail because there's so much that happens with that. When I went to Louisiana, I had friends tell me, you know, half the state's underwater and the other half's under indictment. And when I was there, we had three CADO commissioners get federal charges in different years for different things. So if you do something wrong with public funds, chances are you're gonna go to jail. There's that many safeguards when you deal with public funds. And I see all the stuff going back and forth about audits with road and you know they were gonna do this with the bonds. There was nothing in that bond language that specified what those there was a list of potential roads, but there's nothing that said this is the absolute list that the roads are gonna be done. Well, guess what's happened since those bonds were passed? You've seen changes. You've seen all these changes, you've seen inflation, you've seen more public projects, you look at all the tech stock projects, and you know, you're com you've got only a certain number of contractors. So the whole supply and demand, you've got this many contractors with this many projects available, that's that's gonna drive up pricing. But the whole notion that and I'm I'll just be quite blunt that they're gonna want to spend potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to audit the road and bridge department, I think how many bowels of road could be built with that?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:04

It's just total I I I don't understand it either. That, you know, the inclination for some is to immediately be suspicious and accuse instead of looking at people that are ha trying to work to help the community. I mean, it's like where's the bad guy? Why are you looking for one?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:22

I I'm for all I'm all about accountability and efficiency and all those things. You know, and I think you know, we've got that with what I see with our county government and our city government. You know, you look at the tax rate and you look at the the delivery of services, you know, I uh it's happening here. And just it's kind of frustrating to see that distraction.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:43

But luckily for you, you really don't have interaction uh with groups or people uh that primarily, you know, their foundation is criticism of the government instead of trying to make it better. I you know, I that's the great thing about being private is again, you know, uh that's just and and that's why talent accumulates in the private sector instead of the public sector, and nobody wants to run for office anymore, is because this is what they have to deal with. Trevor Burrus You have to perform.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:13

If you're set up like us, uh you know, if you're not having success and people can't see that you're doing the right things and things that are moving the needle, they don't have to write those checks every year.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:22

Well, um I'm going to join, uh, and that sounds funny, uh, you know, a plaintiff lawyer, first front relay, one would not think that I would want to join the Tyler Economic Development Council. But I urge others to join as well because you've heard here today what the organization does, what its value is, and how it helps everything around whatever your practice is, whatever your business is. Scott Martinez, very impressive interview. Thank you for being here today and being on the show. Thank you for the opportunity. Don't get heard twice, come to finally.