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Life on the Giant Side

Lubbock rides cotton and business partnerships to economic success

by Clint Shields

Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the February/March 2008 issue of Texas Rising.

Lubbock is not geographically close to any other metropolitan area. Dubbed “The Giant Side of Texas” by the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce, the city is the economic hub of the largest cotton-growing area in the world.

Today, Lubbock is growing a new crop of businesses and jobs, ranging from medical devices to cryogenics, and is revamping its economy by forming partnerships with businesses and its biggest university.

“We’ve given everyone the authority to brag about Lubbock, not apologize for it,” says Eddie McBride, president and CEO of the Lubbock chamber.

The city survived the 1997 closing of Reese Air Force Base and the loss six months later of Texas Instruments (TI). The closings took more than 4,000 jobs and $100 million in economic impact with them. The old TI facility now has new tenants, and the Reese Technology Center is one of the most successful base redevelopments in the country.

King Cotton

The Lubbock area has long been the leading cotton producer in Texas.

Recognizing Lubbock’s cotton expertise and available production and research infrastructure, Gov. Rick Perry awarded Texas Tech University $1.9 million from the state’s $200 million Emerging Technology Fund (ETF) in 2006.

The grant helped Texas Tech hire Thea Wilkins to head the university’s International Center for Excellence in Agricultural Genomics and Biotechnology. Wilkins leads her team in search of cotton gene identification, which could lead to breakthroughs in length and strength of cotton fiber for consumer fabrics, flame-retardant fabrics and military applications.

The ETF grant and Wilkins have helped the university establish collaborations with the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR).

“Cotton is a major crop, but it does not have a sequenced genome,” Wilkins says. “NCGR has the latest in deep-sequencing technology, which we now have access to.”

Quiet Skies

Training aircraft from Reese Air Force Base filled the skies around Lubbock for more than 50 years. But when the base closed in 1997, more than 3,000 jobs went with it, leaving silent runways and empty buildings.

Ten years later, the 2,500-acre Reese Technology Center’s business park boasts more than 700 jobs in fields including university research, work force and law-enforcement training, cryogenics and machine-part milling.

“We couldn’t have done this without great partners who started right away looking at ways to develop the campus when it was announced it would close,” says Todd Reno, Reese’s director of business development. “Texas Tech, South Plains College and the city of Lubbock have all been very good to us.”

Tenants may use the runways for private aircraft, and the center received the deed to the land in September 2006.

“There was a lot of gloom and doom when the base left,” says Reno. “Now Reese pumps in more money than when the base was operational.”

New Technologies

ClassOne Orthodontics Inc. is a growing Lubbock business working with Texas Tech researchers to develop SeLECT™ technology, which involves coating orthodontic appliances with selenium, a naturally occurring element with antimicrobial properties.

At a San Antonio conference in 2007, orthodontists commented that SeLECT technology could revolutionize the profession.

“I’m a flag bearer for this type of technology transfer,” says Kenny Gallagher, president of ClassOne. “There’s no way on this Earth that we could have afforded the research that has gone on out at Texas Tech.”

For information that will help give your community the edge in recruiting new business and industry, visit the Comptroller’s online resource tool, Texas EDGE (Economic Data for Growth and Expansion). Contact the Comptroller’s Local Government Assistance and Economic Development Division at (800) 531-5441, ext. 3-4679, for more information.