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NAAMREI Rapid Response Manufacturing Regional Center Under Way
development, education, manufacturing, naamrei, park, rapid response manufacturing regional center, research,
Manufacturing jobs often produce the highest wages‚ so a large new manufacturing and research development park is being built in McAllen to attract such industry.
Plans are already in place to construct the NAAMREI Rapid Response Manufacturing Regional Center on 80 acres along Ware Road. NAAMREI‚ or North American Advance Manufacturing Research and Education Initiative‚ was created by the U.S. Department of Labor to help establish a premier manufacturing infrastructure facility for the seven-county Rio South Texas Region.
“This region wants to eventually have highly skilled‚ high-wage manufacturing jobs representing at least 10 percent of the total workforce in this region‚” says Wanda Garza‚ executive officer for workforce development and external affairs at South Texas College.
Garza says the way to attract manufacturing industries is to offer them rapid response customization of products.
“For example‚ if the NAAMREI center could design a specific widget for an industry and get it to market within 30 to 60 days‚ we beat out our competition in China and other Asian nations‚” she says. “Other manufacturers would hear about how advanced we are in this region and want to do business with us. That’s the goal of this whole initiative.
Story by Kevin Litwin
