EDINBURG - Officials at the University of Texas-Pan American and South Texas College hope to usher in a new economic age in the Rio Grande Valley.

This morning U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez and local business and education leaders plan to open the first phase of the much-anticipated Rapid Response Manufacturing Center at UTPA.

The center is the first part of a combined project between businesses and local educational institutions, including UTPA and STC, to transform the Valley's manufacturing industry into a global powerhouse.

With the center, researchers and engineers will work on projects that will speed up manufacturing and make the industry more agile and flexible in this region. Many foresee a program in which companies can take a concept from design to finished product in less than 24 hours.

"This is what will help us compete in the future on a global scale," said Keith Patridge, president and chief executive officer of the McAllen Economic Development Corp.

Local business officials say the region needs to maintain a technological edge over less expensive manufacturing locations like China and India.

Today, school officials plan to open the first physical portion of the center, a research facility on the UTPA campus, said John Lloyd, a manufacturing expert the school has selected to run the program. Lloyd was hired last year from Michigan Stage University.

STC already has been hosting some training aspects of the program at its technology campus on Military Highway in South McAllen.

The college and UTPA plan to make the Rapid Response program the center of their research endeavors. An 80-acre research campus is slated to open in 2011 on Military Highway. The future could also bring a linked industrial park and an additional research center in Edinburg near the UTPA campus there, said Wanda Garza, who is organizing the program for STC.

"We are also going to need to train people to do this work," Garza said. She predicts the program will help increase the standard of living in the region.

The initiative started after the U.S. Department of Labor gave the schools a $5 million research grant in 2007 and the state that same year awarded them a $3 million grant for training.
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Kyle Arnold covers business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4410.