Connecting Texas: The State of the Future

By Ed Curtis, CEO, YTexas
Authored: September 23, 2021
Published: December 2, 2021 (Texas CEO Magazine/YTexas)

At a time when the world is looking for answers, the Lone Star State is doling
them out.

Since the pandemic, Texas has gained nearly 100 new corporate headquarters. That has, in turn, spurred a wave of new vendors and suppliers, all looking for proximity to the 2.8 million businesses in the Lone Star State. Meanwhile, Amazon added to its $70 billion investment in Texas with two new fulfillment centers, allowing our 29 million residents to receive more packages faster and on demand. We’re getting a lot more people, too: While other highly populated states are seeing a population drain, Texas is becoming the state of the future.

In every corner of Texas, businesses are thriving, along with the local workforce and community. In North Texas, the autonomous vehicle industry touts our favorable regulatory environment for its aggressive plans to test and train road and air mobility. Tesla is transforming Central and South Texas, bringing a supply chain that will soon help our state supplant Detroit as the automotive capital of the world. The Gulf region is leading the space race, and our seaports are more prepared than our coastal partners in meeting supply. East Texas is manufacturing the building supplies that are fueling the nation’s housing boom. And West Texas is becoming the new feeding ground for food manufacturing and distribution. Last but not least, we’re all leaning on San Antonio for advances in cybersecurity and modern approaches to national defense and biomedical research.

While the size of our state is something we have going for us, it can sometimes work against us.

Connecting all of this innovation into an integrated whole is the one unsolved piece of the puzzle. And it’s our mission at YTexas to solve the problem.

YTexas Insider is an interactive publication that combines a print and digital experience to bring you inside information on what’s happening around our great state. In addition to print stories covering state leadership’s innovative approaches to pandemic recovery as well as Texas’ leading role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, you can access the full program of the 2021 YTexas Summit here. We featured over 70 Texas executives in discussions ranging from workforce development to Texas’ worldwide business draw to spotlights on the energy, aerospace, engineering, and sports industries—and a lot more.

You can also visit YTexas.com for our full suite of product and media services, including a preview of the largest business symposium our state has ever seen—the 2022 YTexas “State of the Future” Summit, to be held at AT&T Stadium in Dallas on September 30, 2022.

I hope you enjoy your reading and viewing.