#1 - Glenn Hamer: Workforce Development & Infrastructure in Texas-Mexico

‍

Welcome to bills and business, taxes, legislative news, your go-to podcast for the latest developments in Texas legislation and business. I'm Laura Carr, the co-founder of USLege, an AI-first legislative tracking software designed to keep you informed and ahead of the curve. We are a Texas startup, and we are so happy to be partnering with the Texas Association of Business for the start of our news organization.

Today is a very special day because this is our inaugural episode, and we are launching a new monthly segment called Hammer Time, where I'll be speaking with Glen Hammer, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business. We're going to be talking about the most pressing issues at the intersection of business and policy. They were focusing on a historic moment: the inauguration of Mexico's first female president, Doctor Claudia Sheinbaum.

Glen recently led a delegation of 50 Texas businesses and government leaders to Mexico City for this event, and he served as your insights on what that means for the future of Texas, Mexico, relations and opportunities for our businesses. So, Glen, I am so happy to have you here today. For our audience, we have Glen Hammer, president and CEO of Texas Association of Business, and he was on the ground in Mexico City last week to witness the inauguration and engage in discussions, strengthening our economic partnership.

So, Glen, welcome to the show. Great to be on the show, Laura. Yes. You're a man, a traveling man. Where have you been most recently? I feel like over the weekend you've been to so many different places. Well, last week I was in Mexico City for the historic inaugural of the first elected president of Mexico, Doctor Claudia Sheinbaum. But more recently, this week, I've been traveling around the country of Texas.

And last few days. Houston, San Antonio, Austin. And, I'll be, bouncing around the great state of Texas for the next several weeks. I keep up with you on LinkedIn, and it's hard to keep up. I will say you've one of the best LinkedIn presences I have ever seen. So, yeah. Well excited too Laura. I appreciate you saying that because I really feel for, for professionals and young professionals.

I tell you know, we have great interns develop your LinkedIn profile. People really pay attention to it. And it is a great way to get information, out there to, to to your, professional colleagues as well as, people in your personal orbit. I love it. Yeah, I've definitely up the presence since, starting, starting a company and definitely noticed just so much more connected with people.

And. Yeah, absolutely it works. It works for you. I use Instagram, too, because this is neat. Because. Okay. It's also connected to Facebook. So for my daughters, when I put something on Instagram, they know that their dad is doing something. And for Facebook, my mom knows I'm doing something. So it's a way to keep the family connected with, with my activities.

And people love knowing what's going on in Texas till they do. I need to follow you on Instagram. I did not know you were there as well, so not not as many followers as the Kardashians, but I'm getting there. You're you're getting. I'm close. You're getting close. I did notice we're matching as well. This was not planned. Everyone like great minds.

Well, like Laura, you look very solid. For me. It's hit or miss. You know, if I could get the the shirt on the right way, I'm pretty comfortable with that. But, I do like the colors. Me too. Me too. Well, tell us a little bit more about your trip. I know that you hosted this historic trip, and at 50, people go with you, so I'd love to hear a little bit more.

Yeah. First, I want to give a ton of credit. The inspiration of this, idea was from Representative Claudia Ordaz. We met about a year ago in Mexico City. And we were talking about the importance of making sure that Texas has a very positive relationship with its largest trading partner by far, Mexico. And we really thought, let's get a nice Texas delegation.

Elected officials, bicameral, bipartisan, as well as business leaders to Mexico around the inauguration of the next president. We didn't know who that would be at that point in time. But we felt let's, from the jump, establish a very strong relationship with the next administration. And I really believe that that the 50 business and elected leaders that we were able to bring to Mexico last week accomplish just that.

And I want to give, Claudia Ordaz a ton of credit. I also want to give Senator Nathan Johnson a ton of credit. He was our representative from the state Senate, and he did a marvelous job. What was the atmosphere like? I saw photos, but I'm sure didn't do it justice. It. Oh, it's really was a magical day.

So in Mexico, they have the inaugural. It's every six years or so the presidents elected. It's a six year term. And that's that's it. The, atmosphere, they hold it in the historic Zocalo. Hundreds of thousands of people, I would imagine. And there's just a very positive spirit. And I also believe, Laura, that this was very special because of the fact that Doctor Claudia Sheinbaum is the first elected female president in Mexico.

‍

‍

And that was really a she made that a very, very big deal. And and there was an undercurrent there. And it wasn't disrespectful for any of the male leaders who, were her predecessors. But it was it was a very strong statement that this is an important development in Mexico and one that will be beneficial to the people of Mexico.

I love that. How do you think, her new administration is going to kind of impact Texas trade? And. Yeah, we're we're very positive now. I'll say that to give a little bit of context. Her predecessor, Amlo, president, former President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador is is considered to be more of, a leftist figure.

There's no other way to put it. Now, with that said, his administration still had a good working relationship with the United States and Canada. And why that's important is Mexico, the United States and Canada. We make up the world's most prosperous economic trading bloc and sort of the infrastructure, the operating system of that is the US, Mexico, Canada agreement.

Doctor Sheinbaum, was elected in Alliance Lot, in large part because of the support that Amlo, provided for her. Now, I'll say to her credit, she actually received a larger margin of support than, than the than her predecessor. So the why was that? I think part of it was a referendum on Amlo tenure. But I do believe that a big part of it was the fact that Doctor Sheinbaum came into office exceptionally well prepared.

And what do I mean by that? Well, if you take a look at her educational credentials, she has, a doctorate in environmental, engineering. She won a Nobel Prize in some of her work on climate science. She was part of a Nobel Prize winning team. She was a very successful mayor of Mexico City. And Mexico City is the largest city in North America.

Or. I come from a small town in comparison to Mexico City. That's New York City. Mexico City is about two and a half times as large. And when she was mayor, she reduced the homicide rate in half. And part of the reason she succeeded is she worked quietly and smartly with US law enforcement officials to accomplish that.

So my point by all of this is she comes into office very well prepared, regardless of what 1st May think of her ideological leanings. She is qualified to be the president of Mexico. And and there is a confidence in the country of Mexico that she's qualified. And already, she's been making a lot of excellent appointments in key positions.

I know in your recent article, you mentioned that the new secretary of the economy and being very, very pro-business. So how do you see him playing a role in this? Yeah. So the new secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, who is held he was also a former mayor of Mexico City and was also the head foreign affairs official under the previous administration.

If you had a if you pulled the business community and said, who should be Secretary of Economy, if it's not 100%, it would be darn close to 100%. They would say Marcelo Ebrard. He understands the economy. He has very warm relationship with the business community. And another point that I'll make about, President John Bo is after winning in a landslide.

What did she do? Did she, pour salt in the wounds of the of those she defeated? Did she rub anyone in in the. I know she made it a point to reach out to those constituencies that didn't support her, including a number of people in the business community. And met with the leading business organizations, met with leading CEOs to make the case.

She wants to unite and bring Mexico together. And I'll just say, I hope that that occurs in the United States, regardless of who wins or loses it, what we what we know, Laura, it won't be a landslide, and it'll be very helpful for whomever wins to do the best they can to heal the country and bring people together.

And Doctor Shine has thus far done a very good job of that. That is really good to hear. And I know you mentioned a little bit about kind of safety and security. I'm curious to know with some of the recent like political assassinations, how you felt going down with the delegation, you felt safe. So you have to think about it.

It depends on the part of the country. Like, I feel very safe in Austin. Would I feel safe if we were, doing this podcast in Chicago? No. And I'll just say I, I want, I want viewers and listeners to know I feel much safer going to Mexico City. And I've been there a gazillion times, and I'm not quite follow it.

I am on a 1600 day Duolingo straight up for you. Okay. And so yeah, I am still just a gringo. I feel much safer in Mexico City. That I do in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.. And it's not. Not even close. So it's my opinion. Very safe city. Now, there are other parts of Mexico. I certainly wouldn't say that.

And and you're right, Laura, there have been there's there's still is a lot of, violence. And there's, you know, there's tragically assassinations when it comes to, even certain officials. So I don't want to be Pollyanna here. There's a lot of problems in a lot of different areas in Mexico, but there's also big parts of the country, Mexico City.

Overall, the states of Nueva Leone, the neighboring state of Cuil, cities like Saltillo, that are very safe and as safe as are safer than many major American metropolitan areas. That's great to hear. Well, shifting gears just a little bit. I'm curious to hear your views on North Shoring becoming, near shoring is becoming a bigger trend.

So companies moving their, you know, manufacturing closer to home. What do you think that's going to do in Texas now with more and more companies? Well, doing that Texas is so well positioned because of our geography. So when you think about why we spend so much time in Mexico, it's because Mexico is far and away the state's largest trading partner.

It's now the largest trading partner for the United States. Canada is number two. China slipped three. Why? One thing both parties agree on in the United States of America is that China is the biggest threat to our national and economic security. So what does that mean? We need to bring supply chains back to the United States, back to North America.

And for that, we need a strong Mexico, and we need a strong Canada. So what we're seeing is a surge in trading. We're seeing, more exports and imports than ever before in the state of Texas and in the United States. So the near shoring phenomena is very, very real. And something that, that the new president of Mexico has made clear is something, she supports.

Final point is, right now we build stuff together. Think of, like, the Gigafactory. You got a Gigafactory in Austin. You have one that's going to be going up into what, Nuevo Leon for so many of these industries, whether it's agriculture, semiconductors, consumer electronics, advanced automobiles, you name it. We're building things, together with, both Mexico and Canada.

What can more Texas businesses do to prepare for more of this trend? Yeah, it's a great question. The the US, a few things. One, I want to commend, Governor Abbott and Adriana Cruz and her and her economic development team for having a terrific operation in Mexico that's led by a gentleman by the name of James Taylor.

So, as we speak, James Taylor and his team are working hard to make sure that businesses in the United States, know how they can work with our friends in Mexico. But, Laura, also important is how, Mexican companies and individuals that want to have safety and security and invest in our economy can do so. Because one one thing that was very interesting on the trip to Mexico and this and this happens, no matter where I am in the world or in the country, people, the the secret is that people know that Texas is the best place to do business.

And Laura used to say, we're the best place in the country. All the stats show that 20 years in a row. CEO magazine well, we're we're we're the best place in the world. I moved here, I'm here. Yeah, absolutely. I moved here. We're G7 economy. Basically. We're on the verge of passing France. We have a $2.6 trillion economy.

And I like saying now that Space-x is going to be headquartered in Texas. We're the best economy in the galaxy. So people want to do business in the state of Texas. I love that. So where are the biggest challenges and opportunities with people moving to, kind of Texas and Mexico in terms of workforce development and growing the economy.

So it's there's a great opportunity if we hit the the most difficult issue far and away is how to deal with, migration and, and specifically illegal entries into the United States. We need workforce in the state of Texas in the United States. We have many more jobs open in the state of Texas than people to fill them.

You can take every unemployed person in Texas, give them a job, even if the skills didn't quite match up, and we would still have tens of thousands of open jobs. So we need, labor from abroad, but we need to do it in a legal way. We need to do it in a way that if people are coming in, they should be coming through ports of entry.

They shouldn't go going in between ports of entry. I tell it this way. We all fly a lot. We'll fly, fly, fly out of Boston in the next few days, somewhere. And I can't just cut the TSA line. I can't say I don't want to go through that security. So the United States has every right to make sure that every person, every single person that's coming in, does so legally and is vetted.

‍

‍

But with that said, we need the federal government to get its act together so that we have these legal pathways and all of these different areas where we have labor openings and in certain areas, like you think about construction and health care and agriculture. The labor needs are acute. And our our native born workers would suffer greatly if we couldn't get workers in to fill these positions.

Absolutely. Very well said. And with kind of industry leaders, business leaders, what do you think they should focus on in that respect? Yeah. Well, Laura, a few things. One is making sure that we're working closely with our neighbors to the north and south on migration issues and on and the numbers on migration, illegal migration have dropped dramatically in the state of Texas in the United States.

Now, I'll give, Governor Abbott and the Texas legislature, due credit, for what they've done and in Texas. But if you look at some of the other big trends, the second that President Biden said that you cannot enter through, but in between, excuse me, the second set, President Biden said you cannot enter and file an asylum claim.

If you come in between a port of entry, the numbers started declining. The other big part of this is, is as a result of Mexico, clamping down on its southern border with Guatemala, as well as doing a lot more checks in the interior of Mexico before people reach the United States. And I want to make this point I don't blame Mexico can help a lot when it comes to reducing illegal entry into the United States.

But the fault is not theirs. The fault is I do place it on the, current federal administration, and the reason why I do that is that the magnet is the fact that we've had a very, very lax asylum standard where people have been able to game that. And when I say people, I mean the cartels. So the equation is very simple for people who enter illegally.

The cartels are enriched, and it puts additional stress on the government of Mexico and makes Mexican security, much more perilous. So, we have to work together with Mexico on this. And Canada actually plays an important role as well in accepting certain asylum claims. So if the North American countries are all working together, Laura, I'm very confident we could reduce illegal migration flows, increase legal migration flows where we need them, and trade, even more aggressively and continue to make North America the envy of the world.

Do you think there's anything Texas lawmakers can do? I know you mentioned the federal government's position, but do you think anything else? Yeah. Border infrastructure is super important. So because of all these increased trade flows, we now trade about $800 billion, the United States and Mexico. No, I'm sorry, about 81% by rail or and truck comes through the state of Texas.

We need to make sure that our, ports of entry are properly staffed and resource and and for the state of Texas that we're investing properly and our roadways by the by the border. And and that does require. This is the nice thing, Laura, about being in a state with a $20 billion surplus. We're not talking about taking away funds from the metropolitan areas that are also growing, but we need to make sure that our border communities, our ports of entry, have adequate resources to deal with this increase in trade that we're experiencing.

That's great for Texas and great great for North America, for sure. So before we wrap up on this topic, what do you think Texas business leaders should keep an eye on in the coming months when it comes to our partnership? Let's go. I would I would continue to look at who, President Sheinbaum appoints. I would also really start digging in.

We should dig into the energy issue. We know that so many of the the issues that are important for the state of Texas to continue to be the top economy in the world. And I'm talking about advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI, energy, you name it. What would of all of these things have in common? We need more energy. We need all the above and below.

And then so and here we have, a leader in Mexico that understands energy at a level that probably no other world leader does. And given that Texas is the energy capital of the world, and then Mexico does so much in the energy space as well. I'm very optimistic that if we really focus on energy, it'll be a nice bank shot to make us even more competitive when it comes to near shoring and manufacturing and things like that.

So I would put a major focus on on energy policy and how we could better collaborate both sides of the border and then bringing in, Canada when when you think about, the mining and some of the minerals and also the energy that that Canada produces, it's that to me is an area where there could be, an increased opportunity.

And given that Texas is the energy capital, we're going to lead the charge. That is you, Glen, you're a wealth of knowledge on the subject. I really appreciate you going to detail. And for for going on that, that trip. What is something fun that people do not know about you that would surprise someone? I don't know if it would surprise anyone, but, the my most enjoyable moments, on the planet are, playing tennis with my 15 year old daughter who, is is doing an outstanding job.

It's what I did when I was in high schools. The thing that I enjoy the most. And I usually beat her, but my days are numbered. So you do pickleball, too. When the forever. I'm going to take the fifth I key thing that gets people out there doing activity is as a positive thing. But as long as I can, keep going on tennis, I'm going to I'm going to play the, play that sport.

But yeah, it's not a typical I know everything's becoming a pickleball court now. It's kind of crazy. Just I just ask, please keep some tennis courts. Tennis courts, I gotcha. Well, I so appreciate your partnership with us as an emerging startup. And I would love to hear kind of your experience working with us so far and our partnership and, and how that's been for you.

Well, Laura, we love us so much. To me, this is a must have product for anyone that's serious about advocacy and that wants to really know what's going on at the legislature. What you're doing is, is a must have. And I and I love how you've incorporated I and and and I appreciate you've sent us some clips of some of our, best hits at the legislature as well.

So, we're looking forward to, many years of a fruitful partnership. And what you're doing is timely and much needed and also just shows, a very positive use of, of AI technology. Absolutely. We can take a look here at some of your best moments of session. We've got our, witness list up, I think, Texas Association of Business testified over 100 times last session.

So we can definitely pull that up and and show people kind of the the use cases right here. But I really appreciate your partnership. And support and starting this news organization. And and Laura, I'm grateful that through, Megan Morrow our executive vice president or chief of staff who runs our tech means business platform, we first met through one of the events that that Megan, put together.

And, just just really, you you had the best of reputations at the state legislature. You get you get the federal side with your US chamber, work. And I love what you're doing as as being, very entrepreneurial and putting a product out there that, that I know the Texas Association of Business, will, richly benefit from.

I'm glad to hear it. Well, thank you, Glenn. Up. Let's do some shout outs. How can people find you? So share your wonderful pages with everyone. Well, text is, dot org is as our website. For myself, personally, I'm on LinkedIn. If you just Google it, it's pretty easy to get. And that's, that's really the best way to to figure out what I'm doing.

And Texas Association of Business, we also have a very strong LinkedIn profile for people who want to see me on the tennis court. That's my Instagram, which is just which is just my name. And, my ex handle is is is is also, my name as well. Great. Well include that in the show notes so everybody can join.

But thank you everyone for joining a Phil's in business. And Glenn, really appreciate your time and for the partnership and for you joining honored to be on the show for thank you. Thank you.

‍

🎙️We Have a Podcast! 🎙️

Bills and Business is your go-to podcast for conversations related to Texas legislation and business. Hosted by Laura Carr, Co-Founder of USLege—an AI-driven legislative tracking software—we bring you in-depth analysis on economic trends, impactful legislation, and key developments shaping Texas business.

Subscribe on Youtube and Spotify for weekly episodes!