An interview with Megan Rodriguez of Prairie View A&M Extension

Rio Grande Guardian's Podcast

BROWNSVILLE, Texas – Area residents Daniel Garcia and Joel Tijerina have been thinking about doing business with the state government for some time.

In particular, they would to sell their services and/or products to one of the Lone Star State’s biggest buyers of goods and services but don’t know how to go about.

But this week, the two are among a group of 20 people attending a Business in Development Academy hosted by the Prairie View A&M University Cooperative Extension Service, held at the eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization in downtown Brownsville.

The academy is an eight-day course to prepare the participants to be certified in what is known as Historically Underutilized Businesses to do contracts with the government.

A HUB applies to person who owns at least 51 percent of a businesses and is economically disadvantaged and/or is a member of minority group, including Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American.

Women and service-disabled veterans with a service-related disability of 20 percent also fall in this category.

But to do business with the government each and every one of them must be HUB certified.

“Anybody with a product or a service to sell to the state qualifies,” Megan Rodriguez, the academy instructor and extension agent for Willacy and Cameron Counties, said. “The State of Texas wants you to be certified by offering this free program.”

But in order to that, each participant is required to miss no more than one class and pass a sort of test to graduate.

The academy covers an array of topics such as procurement threshold, tips for completing a HUB application, and an applicant requirement and checklist review, among other things.

In Texas and for HUB purposes, all the counties are divided into 25 geographical highway districts.

This region of South Texas falls in District 21, which includes Brooks, Cameron, Jim Hogg, Kenedy, Starr, Willacy, and Zapata.

Rodriguez said no one should include a county outside District 21 if he or she is not ready to take up a bigger responsibility.

For Garcia, the academy could provide him a better understanding on how to do business with the state.

“I am interested in the starting a drone-type of operation,” he said, “to work in agriculture.”

Tijerina, founder of Brown Rock Builders LLC, would like to do likewise.

After all, there is a lot of money to be made out there.

According to data provided during the academy introductory session held Tuesday, Jan. 7, of the $25 billion the government spent on goods and services in 2024, $2.9 billion was spent with HUBs.

Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.