mike willis

MCALLEN, Texas - The executive director of the South Texas Manufacturers Association has given an overview of apprenticeship programs in the Rio Grande Valley.

Mike Willis was a keynote speaker at South Texas College’s 2nd Annual Apprenticeship Summit. 

“The apprenticeship program is a proven model that has been used for many years, as Dr. Solis pointed out. In our region, the construction industry continues to use it widely. In Texas and elsewhere, electricians and plumbers are actually required to complete an apprenticeship to even take the state licensing exam,” Willis said.

“In the manufacturing industry, apprenticeship was widely used in the past but some structural changes like outsourcing to smaller and more specialized manufacturing firms, and, of course, the offshoring that's been taking place over the last 20 yeas has made it more challenging but not impossible to support apprenticeship programs.”

The “Dr. Solis” Willis was referring to was Ricardo Solis, president of STC.

Willis said that in 2002 his organization started working on apprenticeships with STC, Texas Southmost College, Texas State Technical College, VIDA and McAllen Economic Development Corporation. “We formed a regional partnership to create, develop and support manufacturing apprenticeship programs across the Valley.”

Willis said STC secured a Department of Labor grant to support the creation of DOL registered, STMA sponsored, apprenticeship programs for industrial machinery mechanics, tool and die makers, and plastic process technicians. He said the grant helped produce highly skilled workers for the manufacturing industry.

“The strategy was to have our organization create regional standards for all the manufacturers in the region,” Willis said.

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BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Representatives from NextDecade and its main contractor for the liquefied natural gas export terminal being built at the Port of Brownsville, Bechtel, gave the keynote presentations at a recent South Texas Manufacturers Association meeting.

However, the presentations were deemed private and not for publication. So, the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service sought the analysis of STMA President Mike Willis, who emceed the meeting. Guardian audio editor Mario Muñoz asked Willis what he knew of the LNG project.

Willis said: “Well, this is one of the largest projects in the country and certainly the largest in the state and certainly the largest in the Rio Grande Valley. It's been years in planning and conditions are right that finally NextDecade was able to secure all the customer funding they needed, the long term commitments and they made a final investment decision to move forward with this (LNG facility at the Port of Brownsville). So, years of planning, and now they have pulled the trigger on it. They have got paying customers contracts for 20 years or more.”

Willis said two other major projects related to the LNG facility would be going on at the same time.

“So, this project is going forward at the Port and it is going to involve several other major projects. The Brownsville Ship Channel is going to be dredged to 52 feet deep, all the way from the jetties to the Port to facilitate these large tankers coming in to pick up liquefied natural gas. There's a major pipeline that is going to be constructed by Enbridge Energy out of Canada that will connect to pipelines flowing from the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale to Nueces Main in Corpus. They will tie into those pipelines and pipe natural gas down to the Port of Brownsville and that natural gas coming into that pipeline will be the raw material, the input for these liquefaction trains that are going to be built. So, this is an eight year long project.”


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BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Mike Willis, executive director of the South Texas Manufacturers Association, says about a third of the manufacturing jobs in the Rio Grande Valley are located within the triangle of north Brownsville, Boca Chica, and the Port of Brownsville.

Around 5,000 of the Valley’s 15,000 manufacturing jobs are located there. 

Speaking at the September meeting of STMA, Willis said this part of Cameron County is starting to fulfill the potential he always knew it possessed. “It’s a huge economic development generator,” Willis said.

Willis said he is now more optimistic than ever about the Valley’s manufacturing base.

Here is Willis’ jobs report from the STMA meeting. 

To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.

RANCHO VIEJO, Texas - Mike Willis, executive director of the South Texas Manufacturers Association, has given his view on how the Rio Grande Valley’s manufacturing sector coped with the coronavirus pandemic.

Willis said there were winners and losers and cited some examples. A big issue right now is overcoming supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic.

Willis provided his analysis at a recent monthly meeting of the STMA. The event was held at Rancho Viejo.

Here is an audio recording of Willis’s presentation.

To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.