Speaker 1: On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow Speaker 2: San Antonio is a fast growing fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the Newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters round table to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now, as we go on, Speaker 1: Hi everybody, and welcome to on the record.

I'm Randy Beamer.

And this week we are talking about all kinds of different growth around San Antonio.

And just this week, geekdom announced a new partnership downtown with a one of a kind accelerator of businesses that is a cybersecurity generator and joining us right now is Charles wooden, who is the CEO of geekdom.

Is that right?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

Just want to make sure I got that right.

Tell me about what's going on now.

Cause this is a, one of a kind deal in the country.

This generator company has other, uh, kinds of franchises of this across the country, but nothing like it with cybersecurity.

Speaker 2: We, uh, I was able to meet generator a while back, maybe six months ago, and we kind of planned out this idea what was unique about San Antonio.

And one of the things that kept rising to the top was cybersecurity.

And they have accelerator experience in seven other markets and 29 other cities as well, and other programs that they have.

But when we kind of combined our efforts together, we realized that building a cybersecurity accelerator here in San Antonio with the presence of cybersecurity that we have here is exactly what we should do.

And so we're super excited to have that startup.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Now for those people who don't know the lingo, maybe cybersecurity and generators versus what geekdom does now, if they don't know what geekdom does you basically offer space?

Speaker 2: Yeah, so we offer space and programming for early stage entrepreneurs and startups to get their ideas out into the open, uh, and help them ideate, cultivate shape, and grow those ideas and form them into viable businesses.

But once they're a viable business, they have to continue to grow.

And one of the things that is really helpful with that specifically in technology and cybersecurity are accelerators and accelerators jam pack years worth of lessons, mentorship, and investment into 12 week periods of time.

Speaker 1: And this is basically what you say, funding the gap from the idea to when they can get real investment.

And so you're looking for what five firms that are just startups.

And then they'll have a three month program, very intensive with money supplied by you.

Speaker 2: Yeah, about a hundred thousand dollars per team gets injected into each one of those companies.

And those companies spend 12 weeks intense mentorship pitching.

And then at the end of it, we have this huge premiere night where everybody's invited to come out, see those five companies pitch, see the products that they're able to build upon.

And then at the end there, hopefully we get them some more investment and we convince them that San Antonio is the place to continue to grow that company.

Yes.

Speaker 1: How does it work in terms of picking these companies?

You can, anybody can apply right now.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Anybody we have applications are open right now.

If you go to a generator.com/cybersecurity, you be able to, you know, apply and we're looking for cybersecurity based startups, uh, relatively early stage that are looking to grow and are ready for an investment about that size.

So companies that have raised less than 3 million, Speaker 1: What will this mean for San Antonio for the rest of us?

And why did they pick San Antonio?

A lot of people still don't know about the cybersecurity thing that they keep hearing.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

A little bit about, well, yeah.

I mean, I think San Antonio is one of those hidden gems and a lot of different ways.

And we're the second biggest cybersecurity, uh, talent pool in the country outside of Washington DC, because we have a presence of the 16th air force.

Uh, we have the NSA here, but we also have a lot of smaller commercial based companies.

Like the denim group that just recently was acquired here in San Antonio that are building these cybersecurity products and services.

And so it's a Mecca for cybersecurity Speaker 1: And people came out of security hill over at Lackland and then started their own businesses.

And we've seen the need recently for more cyber security and you brought it up yesterday or this week at the news conference.

Why is it so critical right now?

Why do different firms need to develop different?

Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, cybersecurity is an issue that everybody's dealing with and it's affecting small to big businesses and governments across the world.

And so these products and the future of this technology is going to be, what's going to fix those issues and ideally help companies from dealing with ransomware, uh, all sorts of loss data.

It's one of the most important things that I think we need to worry about moving forward, because everything is based online.

And we need to bring Speaker 1: Tech that now people out there who don't have an idea don't want to, you know, can't come up with that kind of thing.

Don't want to be entrepreneurs.

They can help though.

Wait guys, you're looking for investors, right?

Yeah.

Speaker 2: We're looking for investors.

And we're looking for mentorship specifically for this program.

So if you guys are interested in participating in this program, supporting these types of startups, uh, you go to that generator.com/cyber security and inquire.

We'd love to have you involved.

What kind of Speaker 1: Mentorship and support will you, Speaker 2: Will you give them it's kind of twofold?

So one of the folds is building a proper business, you know, making sure that it's a solid on a good foundation, but also cybersecurity focused expertise is another component that we're looking for.

So both of those areas are what the companies can expect to get while they're there.

And if you have any experience in that, we'd love to have Speaker 1: We involved.

And now you talked about this week about the exit strategies.

A lot of these companies grow so big and then they're acquired and basically exit, but you want some of those people to stay, or you want as many as you can to stay in San Antonio, even if they're acquired, what kind of impact are we looking at here in terms of long-term percent of time?

Speaker 2: So I would say that if you look to the recent history, Rackspace's acquisition back in 2016 was an event that happened in an effected a lot of other companies and individuals here to be able to invest in other ideas and other companies.

And we just had a recent one also with another company called Mailgun or path wire, $1.9 billion.

That money gets reinjected into the city, re-injected into these early stage ideas, and then they can become the next big Rackspace is the next big.

Speaker 1: And I didn't realize last quick question here that this actually came from a data point that we learned some lessons of what not to do in terms of not supporting them.

They did some great things early on, and then weren't supportive the way Rackspace has been and then supporting others.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that data point Rackspace, they succeeded in spite of some of these things and geeked geekdom.

One of the main core missions of our, of our existence is to help these companies win due to the resources that we're able to inject into that.

Speaker 1: All right.

Well thank you very much.

And they can find more information on your website, Speaker 2: Ate them.com, Speaker 1: Eat them.com Charles wouldn't CEO of geekdom.

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: Appreciate it, Randy.

Thank you.

Speaker 1: And you might've seen another effect of growth all around San Antonio.

We're talking specifically the downtown area here, and that is murals on the sides of buildings in downtown San Antonio, and that as a, to a little bit of controversy over the future of the murals and, and how I guess how they come to be and joining us right now to talk about that is Cathy Rhodes, the president of the San Antonio conservation society.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now you, uh, sent a letter to the city council about this.

What is your concern?

The concern is the lack of a master plan for everything because central is doing their deal and their shareable central San Antonio.

Yes, Yes.

And there, they want to do 21 murals in downtown.

It's it's the lack of a master plan because private businesses are also putting up murals.

There are some murals that have commercial names on them.

Do they fall under public art or do they fall under billboard and sign regulations?

So it's a, it's a, you know, it just cropped up pretty fast.

It's kind of the flavor of the day right now.

And, um, they're beautiful.

We're not against public art.

We love the public art on San Pedro Creek that they're doing.

It tells a story, historical story, but in the talk of the reverence of the Alamo and leading up to the Alamo and that sort of thing, do we want, you know, some cities like Austin have kind of done away with their historic buildings and they need to cover them up with something, but San Antonio has beautiful.

So now what are you worried about in terms of the buildings around like specific buildings?

You don't want to see murals on those, or you don't know what they are.

Yes.

Coordinated effort and how are they going to be put up Centro?

San Antonio is putting them up very carefully, but they're gorilla signs that are just being painted directly on that historic brick.

Um, there's just no master plan, No central San Antonio doing that.

They put up something called mural, cloth, probably tab where you can take it off.

It doesn't have to be permanent, but you're worried about other people just coming in and painting.

Sure, sure.

Are you worried about the style because some people who are supporters of contemporary art, see it as an older faction versus a younger faction in terms of art, aesthetics and appreciation.

Well, As you know, I've been in arts all my life, so I love the arts.

It has nothing to do with that.

And I don't want to get into anybody's first amendment rights on what they put up and that sort of thing.

Um, it's really not that it's the coordination of it and protecting the surfaces of our building.

So, um, it's normal If it's in some cities, like you said, San Francisco, if this was going on Austin.

No problem.

Well, what's the difference here in San Antonio, Maybe a good example of what brought all this up is they wanted to paint the Astrodome in Houston and directly onto the brick and Texas historical commission came in and said, because it's landmarked, you can't do that.

So we have things like world heritage site down here by the Alamo, you can't do stuff within a certain footage, mileage, whatever it is, footage of, of a ward of historical, we don't want to lose that designation.

You don't just want, or you're worried about the things on those sites themselves, but it's in the, in the area of those sites as well.

Yes.

And you know where they are in relation to the world heritage it's land or at which is around the Alamo.

And, um, I, I love murals.

They're great, but we need to have a plan for those things.

And now, since you sent a letter, you had a meeting with Andy Rodriguez of, uh, central San Antonio.

How did that go?

That went great.

And we were cooperating and Andy's an old friend from library foundation days.

And it's, it's great.

Everybody's trying to make the city better.

We are too, but we want to not destroy what got Us here.

What do you want the city council to Do?

Right.

Well, I think it's more city manager, city staff.

That sort of thing is certainly if council gets involved, that's great.

Um, they all have their own areas to represent, but downtown, particularly, we're just concerned about center city.

We're not concerned about There's a lot of, uh, and there is not just the art everywhere, but there's other art organizations here that do directly paint on old warehouses and buildings all over downtown.

You can go on tours, but that's not a concern.

No.

The thing is the coordination downtown and the protection of downtown.

And, um, people come here to see our historic, uh, How would you like that coordination to happen?

Who should be in charge of that and who goes and gets permission to do it?

Well, The sample billboards and signage have a whole deal, historic design and review commission reviews.

Centros so it's just that everything's popped up so fast that I don't know if it's long range, it's long range plan or, um, you know, everybody's moving so fast that they didn't think about it.

So all we're doing is raising a little flag and saying, Hey guys, wait, you know, let's, let's coordinate this.

So it looks even Better.

Most people don't realize a much of downtown.

The Riverwalk area is landmark is a historic site.

So would you like to see the exterior's of those sites, um, overseen by the historic designer review commission, for example, To a certain extent now, but Centro is going before HDRC to get as approved.

It's the rest of them that are, that are not that just go up and nobody knows.

When do you expect some action on this after talking to different people Soon.

So stay tuned.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Kathy road, San Antonio conservation society.

Hope to have you back when we move on down the road with us.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you.

One more aspect of the growth around San Antonio is the airport and the need for a bigger airport, maybe more flights, more non-stop flights.

And there's a new plan just presented this week to city council about what should happen in the next 20 years.

And joining us now is, Hey, who signs Jr.

The new director of airports in San Antonio.

Thank you very much for coming in.

First of all, tell us about this new plan and what we should expect over the next six years, 10 years.

It's not set in stone, all of this, but it's been worked on for a number of years now by a committee.

And you hope to have some of these plans in the works.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Thank you all so much for having me.

It's a tremendous effort being undertaken by the city of San Antonio, uh, led obviously by the airport.

And in addition with the airport, uh, service development committee that was established by the mayor to help assist with this visioning document that establishes the plan forward for the San Antonio airport system.

And we're excited to be moving forward with that.

Speaker 1: And no there's increments for this.

What are the first things say before 2030 that this committee recommends and you think will be happening Speaker 2: As we look at the overall growth in population, household and jobs of where the city of San Antonio is moving towards, and more importantly, the growth in the region for the city of San Antonio, as we look at that continuous growth, it's important that the airport be prepared for that future.

Uh, so as we look into, uh, further destinational reach on the airfield or additional capacity to add additional gates into the terminal complex, those are the two specific areas that we're focusing with this master plan Speaker 1: At a brand new terminal, uh, by 2030 and more baggage capacity and parking the first three things you're going to work on, Speaker 2: Correct.

Uh, what we'll work on the tremble complex, which will be a brand new terminal C that could add up to 17 gates.

Uh, that's an addition to the existing 24 gates that we have today, uh, that could take us, uh, as high as 37 total gates, and then also on the roadway and in the parking garage at additional parking facilities, uh, possibly 1500 spaces to be added, uh, to help, uh, the passenger as they come into terminal C and then roadway, uh, enhancements, uh, to minimize some of that, uh, difficult confusion and, uh, delayed Speaker 1: Four 10 and 2 81.

And now down the road, you're also looking at extending, uh, one of the main runways for bigger planes.

So you'd have more big planes international flight.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So we're excited about the plan that we've worked with the federal aviation administration.

Uh, once we complete this exercise with the SDP, we'll be moving forward with, what's called an ALP and airport layout plan to provide to FAA.

That's going to extend our existing 13, right?

31 lift runway to 10,000 feet within its existing footprint.

Speaker 1: Now there's been talk for years about either, you know, the competition with Austin's airport or building a new one somewhere in between that's passed.

And the committee says, that's not a good idea.

We don't need to.

Speaker 2: Yes, that, that was one of the first efforts in phase one was, will the existing airport, the future airport of the future for the city of San Antonio fit in its existing footprint.

And the answer is a resounding yes, it will fit.

And we're excited to move forward and get these plans underway so that we can start building a, an airport of the future Speaker 1: Because there are, you know, we're competing with them.

Are we not getting some of the non-stops that they're getting and will the expansion of the airport maybe get more of those?

I mean, we're so close to them.

Speaker 2: We're certainly going to make ourselves more attractive.

Competition is good.

I think we welcome that and we want to continue to have competition because that competition results into better fairs, more nonstop destinations for the consumers and the passenger.

Speaker 1: We also recently announced jet blue has new flights, non-stop to Boston and JFK, and then there's some more coming this week.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So we're excited.

We just launched us a couple of weeks back, a nonstop service between scent, the city of San Antonio, uh, to Boston, Logan, and then as well, uh, with jet blue, we're launching service, uh, between San Antonio and JFK, and then new exciting news.

Us Southwest airlines is going to start a seasonal, uh, offering for San Antonio to Colorado Springs.

So we're excited to start that up with hopes of continuing that, uh, uh, all through.

Speaker 1: Of course, we've talked about this in the first part of this bay before 2030, I think, is the cost is a billion people wonder, oh my gosh, well, who's going to pay for that.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So it's paid through, uh, what's called airline revenues that we receive.

Uh, we are a city department and we are an enterprise fund.

So everything that we receive is, uh, within the airport division through our airport improvement funding with FAA.

So it's done through airport improvement, project funding from the federal aviation administration, the revenues that we receive, additionally, uh, through, uh, assistance with the airlines and all the work that we do with them.

So it, everything, the way we like to, uh, picture this as if you use the airport, you pay for the airport.

If you don't use the airport, you're not paying for it.

It's not coming out of the general funds.

And now Speaker 1: The next step, the city council has to take action on all this before.

Uh, so when would we see that third terminal and more parking and a better baggage?

Speaker 2: So there's a lot of different ways to slice the pie we want to make that happen sooner than later.

So, uh, once we re now that we've received the approval from city council, uh, in 20 early 20, 22, we will begin what we call advanced planning and programming to start the efforts of establishing delivery methods and the speed of delivery of how we can make this happen and new, Speaker 1: Faster security checkpoints as well.

I should say, Speaker 2: Yes.

We just signed a memorandum of agreement with, uh, the transportation security administration.

So we'll have new technology on checkpoint lanes.

Additionally, we now have what's called PSEs passenger screening canines that will be, uh, utilized at both terminal a and terminal B to help you get through the checkpoint sooner.

Right?

Speaker 1: Well, good luck with all this hay zoos signs, junior director of airports recently in, from Houston.

Welcome.

And you'll like it here.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: And finally, on our reporters round table, we're talking economic development and growth and some good news and some bad news about that.

And Michael C. Taylor columnist business columnist for the San Antonio express news and the Houston Chronicle.

You had a great article about for economic development cranks, some welcome news, but it also talked about, you know, some good news coming up, but what really hacks you off The good news, bad news start with a bad news, bad news economic development deals that I think are lazy.

So lazy in my mind is you take a public good taxation, grants, rent money, you know, easy terms, and you give them to a private company.

So this is how we traditionally attract Microsoft sort of money, Uh, statements and loans, and deals like that.

We describe it as This is going to create X number of jobs, but actually the money in my opinion goes straight to the owners of these businesses.

And we hide it behind the we're going to create 27 jobs or 50 jobs or something.

And now you looked into this, but it's hard to look into some of these deals in San Antonio.

It's better than some places though.

We can, you can find out more information.

So the history We have it is, it used to be four years ago, I looked into this and the city officials would say, okay, anybody who wants to know, just ask us, which is never going to happen.

Now they have a website.

It's not a great website.

It's not that searchable, but you can find the deals without having to play mother, may I, with city of, And some of the deals you found were what Microsoft Toyota.

Yeah.

So now we have deals going back to 2005.

It's a database.

And, uh, there's some problems with the database.

It's not searchable.

It's I would say it's 2002 technology, but hopefully that that's going to improve.

But it's the kind of thing that like, if you were already mad, which I am, and then you want to go find out the information.

It's not easy.

It's not searchable.

It's not the way that people use the internet these days.

And now the information you can find out is how much these companies promised in terms of investments or jobs or wages.

But can you tell whether they kept up with that?

No, the monitor, no.

Okay.

2009, you'll cut a deal.

If they were going to create a hundred jobs, we'll give you $2.5 million.

Fast forward a decade.

The same people who cut the deals are not on the job anymore.

The website is not searchable.

Citizens are not looking to find the 2009 deal.

Did we get the 200 jobs?

Now, there are a couple of city officials whose job it is to monitor this.

And they do that.

And I'm not saying they don't do it, but I am saying as a citizen or as a journalist, it's somewhere between hard and impossible to ever find Out.

But in Houston, it's near impossible, so much Worse.

So they have a PDF on a website.

That's not at all a database and you just have to click it open and find a 75 page document, which nobody's going to do.

And in my somewhat paranoid view, that's by design.

They don't want people to particularly look at what happened 10 years ago to find out is this deal a good deal or a bad deal, But at a tech city of Austin, it's a better system on the web Searchable database.

They have a 2021 type technology where you could say, show me the deals sorted by size.

Show me the deal sorted by year.

Show me the deal sorted by company.

They're kind of normal things that, And you want a certain monitoring.

They keep track of that.

And you find some that aren't yes.

So here's the problem in San Antonio, which I just found out, which is when the deal gets out of compliance.

So the companies that do badly, they just remove it from the reporting, which you could say on the one hand, the wheel's not active.

So, okay.

I guess you were moving it.

On the other hand, you have a, what we would call selection bias, where the only, only the good deals are still searchable.

The bad deals disappear.

I'm not pear enough, paranoid enough to think that that's on purpose, but it is a weird choice.

So how come Disclose it?

We're kind of enforcement and, you know, consequences do these companies have, if they don't meet.

Ultimately, if you talk to the economic development folks which I've done in the city, they say we have clawbacks.

We could ask for money back.

Um, and you know, I suspect they do, or we end the program and your tax abatement has gone away.

Uh, but it is a tremendous degree of trust with the economic development folks.

Now, some of those have more than paid off.

I mean, it's an investment from the city, but say the Toyota deal that in, in terms of the area has brought in more jobs than just that DLA promise.

I think it's, I really believe that Toyota was a success and that's touted as a reason to keep doing the deals.

I don't think it is possible for somebody like me or a citizen to know, 15 years later.

Was this a good way to create that?

Look, let me just mention what I think is the better way to do this.

And I'm not an economic development director, but the better way is you just have a trained workforce.

You have good amenities, you have good electricity and water and infrastructure and companies come.

Not because you bribed them, but because you have an incredible city, that's a, it's a long road to economic development, but it's not the cheap road, which has given money.

But other good news that you reported is that there's a new law going into effect.

So everybody should be a better database as of next year.

Yes.

My complaint was cities do whatever they want and reporting.

But the Texas comptroller has said, everybody report into us at the comptroller's office.

We will create the searchable database.

So I believe we will get 20, 22 technology in 2022 on how to search this stuff up.

If you wake up in the morning, angry about economic development, like I do every once in a while, it was your lead in the story.

Yeah.

You get mad.

You're like, I want to find out about this.

But then, uh, fortunately the comptroller's office out of Austin, the state comptroller is going to create this database probably next fall.

So it'll be, These are for you, as you said, when you wake up on a Saturday morning on the wrong side of the bed and your coffee's mud, It happens every once in a while.

You know, sometimes you write happy stories as a writer and sometimes you just go, this is, comes out of a place of deep anger.

And that's what economic development deals Sometimes do for me.

And now your background, how I'm gonna set your writer entertaining as well as informative, but your background, you were Harvard magnet comb Loudy and worked for Goldman Sachs and Fulbright scholar.

And you have a blog that's called Banker and honors anonymous, right?

Yeah.

So you were in it and now you're out.

Um, yeah, I'm an ex wall street guy who believes that the difference between what people should know about finance and what we actually know about finances is so wide that I'm the guy who might be able to help Bridge the gap.

So if you don't want to be angry and when, when you wake up on a Saturday morning, read your column on Sundays, and then you also have, Uh, I do have a book, the financial rules for new college graduates.

So the 20 something or 50 something who we're going to charge you for, It was a plug by the way.

So that's our financial deal.

Well, thank you very much.

Michael C. Taylor columns and the San Antonio express news on every Sunday morning.

Yup.

Appreciate you coming in.

Thanks.

Thanks so much.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

You can see this show again or previous shows as well as our podcast at dot org.

Tell your friends and neighbors about it, and we'll see you next time.

on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Duplo.