MCALLEN, Texas - The president and founder of Commodities Integrated Logistics (CIL) says cities and economic development organizations in the Rio Grande Valley should pool their resources to market the region.
Joaquin Spamer was one of the panelists at the “CEOs Unite – Let’s Get Uncomfortable” summit. The event was hosted by Hidalgo County Prosperity Task Force and Futuro RGV.
In his remarks, Spamer said the Valley needed to be marketed as a whole, not individual cities. He said it was superfluous for different economic development corporations to be going on individual trade missions to Mexico.
Instead, he said, the various EDCs should specialize on different parts of the world. For example, he said if San Benito EDC does not have a big marketing budget, let that group focus on Houston on behalf of the entire RGV. He noted that the Port of Brownsville is strong in Northern Europe, so let it focus on that. McAllen EDC has strong ties in the Far East, so let it focus on that.
“You have all these different organizations taking care of different areas of the world and doing something we need to do, that is to be selling exactly the same concept: the RGV. That is my personal opinion,” Spamer said.
“We won’t accomplish anything… I'm going to say something that my sound wrong, but we're not going to accomplish nothing, anything, if we keep on gathering together, coming out very nicely in all the pictures in the Rio Grande Guardian and different media here. It doesn't work. We are talking to each other. We're preaching to the choir.”
Spamer, who went on a trade mission to China to promote the entire RGV a few months back, said he was pleased to learn Adam Gonzalez, CEO of the Council for South Texas Economic Progress, is going to India next year.
“That's what we need to do. We need to get out of the Valley. We need to get organized. We need to work together and go out and bring business to the RGV. “
Like other speakers at the summit, Spamer also spoke about the bad press the Valley gets.
“We have very bad press. That’s true. One bad press is equivalent to 20 good ones. So, we need to go out there and start talking good about the Valley in order to offset the bad press that we have as a region,” Spamer said.
“We need to get all the stakeholders organized. The EDOs, the cities, the developers, the realtors, the bankers. And we need change the mindset.”
Spamer said he wanted to end on this point:
“Whenever they ask me, where are you from, I am not from McAllen. I am not from Mission. I am from the RGV. We need to say that from now on. We are from the RGV.”
Editor’s Note: Here is an audio recording of everything Joaquin Spamer said at the summit:
