Brazos County delegation trip to Japan aims to bring promise for economic expansions
BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas (KBTX) – The Brazos Valley Economic Development Corporation led a trip of local delegates to Japan last week. This took leaders from Bryan, College Station, Brazos County and Texas A&M across the world to learn about how bright of a future they see in Aggieland.
“When we showed up people knew who we were and they knew what we were doing,” Bryan Mayor, Bobby Gutierrez said.
The group spoke with major companies throughout Toyko and Kyoto, used a bullet train for travel and learned a bit about why companies were interested in Texas. And, it’s not just interest, but real plans being put in the works.
“It was just about selling them, why they need to be here in the Brazos Valley versus anywhere else in Texas because everybody wants to come to Texas. So I think we made a lot of in-roads on different companies. These are major companies and with all the rumors about what’s hopefully, potentially going to be announced, everybody’s ready,” Gutierrez said.
College Station Mayor John Nicols said companies showed the group this is a place they want to be. This includes those working to bring a high-speed railroad connection from Houston to Dallas and beyond.
“We did a very interesting overview and tour of the Japanese railroad companies headquarters where they organize all of their high-speed bullet trains and that company gave us quite a tour of their training programs and scheduling. We even got to see the control room through which they control these high-speed trains all over the country,” Nichols said. “I think a lot of exciting things potentially for us to diversify our economy around the things that Bryan-College Station is known for. We’ve got a lot of land, we’ve got a very highly educated workforce coming out of Texas A&M and out of Blinn. We can take advantage of that and that’s part of what we were really marketing. The people, the talent, the community and the welcoming environment that we have in Bryan-College Station.”
