Thank you. This is a pleasant surprise. Julian usually just tells everybody that Pat Hobbs has all the money so I get all the calls.
I am honored to be here. I visited with Rebeca before, offering her our services and those of the Texas Workforce Commission.
I am the executive director of the Cameron County board and I want to make a plea today to all the energetic businesses that are in this region, specifically San Benito today because as I am standing here before you, that we have an awful lot of resources that are available to assist businesses, particularly now during the COVID pandemic.
Julian and all the rest of the commissioners have done a very, very, good job of pulling back a lot of their uncommitted resources that they have with the skills development fund and some of their other funding and pushing it down to the boards across the state to deal with the COVID-19 problem.
So, we have funding for what is called layoff aversion. We have funding to assist furloughed employees that need retraining so that when the jobs come back they are even more well-trained to take those jobs. We have a lot of assistance for small businesses, for PPE here, for the hand sanitizers, we even have done some Plexiglass barriers so you can invite your customers back in.
We have training programs and business tactics, if you want to convert your business or find you that have to convert your business to online, we will teach you how to do that. We are partnering with the community colleges and UTRGV to build the courses that employers need in order to get back to work.
So, my suggestion is come and see us, talk to your friends, and other employers. Tell them we have services. I would be glad to come up here and bring my team and if Rebeca wants to set something up for the area employers and find out all the things that we have got available, we are here to serve you. With Julian’s help we are going to make it happen. Thank you for having me.
Editor’s Note: The above commentary was given by Pat Hobbs, executive director of Workforce Solutions Cameron at a celebration for the first anniversary of the San Benito Business & Economic Development Center. In his commentary, Hobbs referenced Julian Alvarez, a commissioner with the Texas Workforce Commission, and Rebeca Castillo, executive director of San Benito Economic Development Corporation.
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