Auto industry recruiters pitch the San Antonio region

Several automotive projects have been announced in the San Antonio market in recent months. Among them: A $400 million transmission plant by Aisin that will employ 900, a nearly $400 million expansion of Toyota's pickup and SUV plant there and a $250 million Navistar truck plant. News Editor Lindsay Chappell spoke with Jenna Saucedo-Herrera, CEO of the San Antonio Economic Development Fund, which is attempting to recruit automotive projects to the city, and the foundation's chief development officer, Tom Long, about the outlook for auto industry growth there. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: What's happening with automotive in San Antonio?

Saucedo-Herrera: We've seen a huge uptick in automotive projects. We work with many industries here, but over the past year, about 45 percent of our projects have been in manufacturing, and predominantly in automotive. Our pipeline of future projects is also coming in at 40 percent manufacturing, mostly automotive.

What's driving the investment?

Saucedo-Herrera: For automotive manufacturing, we just had Toyota announce a $400 million expansion of their San Antonio plant. They already had about 20 suppliers on site. The new investment is creating opportunity to work with more suppliers. There are multiple expansion projects underway, and also companies that are new to this area.

Why San Antonio?

Long: It's trucks here. Trucks are where the entire industry is putting more emphasis right now, and we're fortunate to be in the middle of a truck market. It's location, location, location for manufacturers, and San Antonio has that. We're sitting in the center of a great location, with great proximity to Mexico.

Saucedo-Herrera: The affordable cost of land here is attractive to manufacturers. So is the favorable tax environment of Texas, and also affordable energy and water. The Vista Ridge water project we did two or three years ago opened up more capacity for long-term growth by allowing San Antonio to serve as a regional water provider.

We also offer a lot of programs through community colleges, as well as a work force development program called Texas FAME (Federation of Advanced Manufacturing Education), modeled after the Kentucky FAME program that Toyota developed. It's specifically for training advanced manufacturing technicians.

Does Toyota really want other companies coming into the market, competing for employees?

Saucedo-Herrera: It's a valid concern when it comes to competing for talent and recruiting the best and the brightest. But Toyota understands the bigger picture of growing manufacturing in this region. The more employers we bring into this market, the more we can build out the ecosystem for work force development.

What's is the nature of the new Aisin project?

Long: It's a greenfield project that will enable Aisin to get close to its customer, Toyota, but also to position itself for other potential customers in the central U.S. and Mexico. Prior to this project, the only place in the United States where they make transmissions is in North Carolina.

Will the plant require its own new supply chain?

Long: They will need to have other companies come in to supply them. But there also will be opportunity for some of our existing companies to begin supplying Aisin.

It surprises many Americans to learn San Antonio is the nation's seventh largest city. What's the employment outlook?

Saucedo-Herrera: It's also one of the country's fastest growing cities. We're often talking with international companies from places where the population is actually declining. But work force and available talent always rises to the top of the discussion on site selections.

Long: The conversation has really shifted from being solely focused on real estate and incentives to be really focused on work force. When we host companies and take them out for site visits now, we now include local colleges on our stops.

What geography do you include in your efforts to attract automotive?

Saucedo-Herrera: In the past, the Economic Development Foundation has focused on Bexar County and a few outside communities. But we now realize that to compete globally for large-scale manufacturing projects, we need to position ourselves regionally. Leveraging our capabilities south into Mexico is our natural next step.