Jennifer Storm and Shannon Mumley: BUDA EDC
Building Texas Ep. 31 - Buda EDC
Justin McKenzie:] Welcome to Building Texas with Justin McKenzie and Somer Baburek, sponsored by the Boerne Kendall County Economic Development Corporation and Das Greenhaus. And now here's your host, Justin McKenzie.
Welcome to Building Texas. My name's Justin McKenzie and you're listening to Boerne Radio 103. 9 FM. Today I'm joined by the Buda EDC team. Jennifer Storm and Shannon Mumley, and they came to visit us at Das Greenhaus to talk about entrepreneurialism in Texas. What does it really mean? Whether you're in a big city, San Antonio, Austin, or you're a halo city.
Buda is a good example of that. You're on I [00:01:00] 35, you're right in the middle of Austin, San Antonio, and you've seen a really big boom over the last few years. So Jennifer, I'm going to start with you. How did you get into economic development in Buda, Texas? Well, I've lived
Jennifer Storm: in Buda about 11 years and about five years ago I put my name in to join the board of directors because I I grew up in a small town and I Had grandparents who told me all the time bloom where you're planted and if it's good enough for you to live there you should make it better for somebody else and Everybody can do something and so I thought I could do something and help in some way and so I joined the board and I was the president of the board for four years and then was asked to come over to the staff side and so I've been in that role for a little over a
Justin McKenzie: year.
And Shannon, what about you? How did you find yourself at the EDC?
Shannon Mumley: How do you find yourself in economic development? I grew up in the Northeast. I worked for the Metro Hartford Alliance in Hartford, Connecticut. I worked for the chamber there. I wanted to do really good economic development in a place I was doing it really well.
So Texas is where I went after [00:02:00] the pandemic and Buda was hiring. Made some really great connections and started working and can't see myself anywhere
Jennifer Storm: else.
Justin McKenzie: Well, economic development is a passion. We don't do it for other reasons. It really is. How do we get out in front of our community? And I like the analogy of landscaping your community.
What do you want it to look like in 20 years and what does that mean for the kids going through kindergarten today? 20 years from now, where are they working? What are they going to be doing? And in Texas, we have this phenomenon of cost of living Has gone up significantly, but for people from California or the Northeast, I imagine cost of living is pretty low in Texas So we're fighting this historical heritage conversation of I grew up in rural Buda and I grew up on a field, a big pasture, and today that's not the reality of Buda, Texas, just like Boerne, Texas has changed dramatically.
So today we're going to dive into that. So you came to Das [00:03:00] Greenhaus today to talk about entrepreneurialism, and really with the focus of how do you do something like this in your community. Right. What's driving that conversation in Buda today? We've,
Jennifer Storm: we've had a lot of our community leadership really interested in supporting economic development through entrepreneurship and not really understanding what that looks like.
And so we came here kind of looking for research to figure out, you know, best practices and who's doing great things. And we've heard great things about your program here and your, your system that you have. And so we wanted to come learn more about it.
Shannon Mumley: We have a really great network of entrepreneurs already in Buda in our area, right?
You know, we're right above San Marcos with Texas State. We're right below Austin. We have this market of amazing entrepreneurs who live in Buda and we want to make sure we have the next step for them.
Justin McKenzie: And Shannon, your role at the EDC is around what we call BRE. Can you help our listener understand what is BRE and What are you looking for in [00:04:00] entrepreneurialism in Buda?
That
Shannon Mumley: is how I started at the Buda EDC was, uh, business retention and expansion. I've since moved into the assistant director position once Jennifer came on board. But so, BR& E is all about retaining the businesses that you have and cultivating them and making sure that they have what they need in order to succeed, no matter what that success looks like.
So we are constantly working with them, seeing where they want to go, and then helping them get to that next
Justin McKenzie: phase. I asked the question because a lot of people think about startups and entrepreneurial activity as day one, starting up our conversation while you've been here and visiting is a lot of how do you help existing small business owners that are looking to really revitalize their business, reorganize their business, or just find a group of peers that are business owners.
My fear is a lot of those people don't think of themselves as entrepreneurs. They think of themselves as small business owners. So Jennifer, I'm curious, what, where would you draw that distinction with your membership? I
Jennifer Storm: [00:05:00] don't, I think they're the same. They just don't self identify that way. I think for us, it's important to maintain our individuality and our uniqueness in our community.
And that is all with small businesses that started usually with an entrepreneur who had a dream. So for us, they're interconnected supporting them is as important to us as business attraction is for our community. We want to make sure that people who choose Buda. Um, have a place to be for the lifespan of their business and whatever we can do to support that is what we're trying to do.
I think they're the same person, they just maybe are at different cycles in their business lifespan of the startup entrepreneurs early on and it's easy to identify as an entrepreneur. And once you've kind of leveled out a little bit, they're probably more likely to consider themselves a business owner.
So
Justin McKenzie: we look at Buda, Texas, we've described it as sitting in between Austin and San Marcos, I think is the better way to describe than San Antonio. But between Austin and San Marcos, and it was originally a railroad town, as many of those [00:06:00] are. What is Buda today? What has it become? Buda,
Jennifer Storm: like it or not, is basically a bedroom community to Austin.
People think of that as in a negative term, but it's really just facts for us. We have lots of folks that are business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders that live in Buda, but work, spend the day in Austin. We're trying to change that a little bit. The pandemic helped us for people to realize that they didn't have to drive down to Congress Avenue to conduct business, that they could do it from Buda, from anywhere really.
And so For us, we've had a lot of growth on our main street. We have lots of new restaurants, unique eating opportunities. And so people are able to spend. Their entire workday in Buda, their weekend, you know, date nights. There's places to go in Buda where there wasn't just five, six short years ago.
Justin McKenzie: I lived in San Marcos for a number of years and Buda was a pass through. On I 35 you didn't really get off the highway, but that is changing. And it's changing across Texas as we're bringing north of 1, 200 [00:07:00] people a day are moving here. And they're moving to cities like Buda because you're in a great location to serve larger job markets.
What type of professional job market is Buda looking to create? I understand people can come now and they have restaurants, but what does that look like for a kid graduating from high school two years from now? Where do they see their opportunity in Buda?
Jennifer Storm: Because of our location on 35 and near 45, we have access to both Tesla and the Samsung facility, as well as San Antonio Automobile Manufacturing.
We have about 3 million square feet coming online of industrial spec space. And the end users of that have looked more toward Tesla supplier types. And there's lots of great jobs for kids coming just out of school. Um, we have a fabulous CTE program through Hays Consolidated, and they're getting kids ready for those jobs.
They work specifically with businesses that have come to town to, to create programs for them. Um, we had a Subaru dealer recently come, [00:08:00] and they're working with the auto mechanic program, and they're hiring kids straight out of high school, making more money than, Um, a lot of people we know, so, so there's some great opportunities there.
Proximity to the big city, but still the small town feel and local business priority. And I think that's offers a lot of opportunity for people. Well, I
Justin McKenzie: get to have this conversation with people across the state. And I think a small West Texas towns like Leakey where they're not getting big attraction, but they have people.
And so they're looking to get really creative around entrepreneurial co working places. People can go drive economic activity. You're a little bit different in that you're in the perfect location for big manufacturers to come support Tesla or Toyota. You're right in the middle on the conduit. I 35.
Where's your hope for entrepreneurialism in Buda? Because if that's the case, I mean, if I'm an entrepreneur, downtown Austin's really exciting, but I know the flip side of that is that's [00:09:00] not always what an entrepreneur needs. An entrepreneur might be opening an alterations office, a shop, but they might be doing software and it really doesn't have a need for downtown.
How does Buda EDC want to see that grow and how do you want to support your entrepreneurs?
Jennifer Storm: Ideally, for every, you know, new business that we bring into town, we are somehow able to connect those to existing businesses, whether it's through suppliers or But we, we've had some really interesting Tesla suppliers come that bring, you know, they create one specific piece of the car.
And that makes me think a lot about, you know, what, what kind of folks we have in town that could plug into that. And maybe they break down an even smaller piece that, that they could help be become a supplier. And so I think we're having to balance that. We're having to balance the new businesses that come in and then figuring out how to help.
The small businesses grow and connect, but also just provide the support that they need. Folks don't want to sit in traffic anymore. COVID taught us a lot of things. We don't want to [00:10:00] waste our life sitting in traffic. And so, if I can do business in Buda and not have to drive to downtown Austin, I would be much more interested in that.
And so we have to build that support and that ecosystem to be able to provide them the things that they need there, but also to help them to connect to business, to prove it out that they could be there and still have
Justin McKenzie: So from a retention or growth standpoint, uh, I, I see the example of an automobile supplier coming in, they're building widget a for the car, but they have a staff of 200 and for me, I think of things like childcare.
So now you're looking at, do I need another daycare center? How do I find an entrepreneur that's going to open a daycare center? Exactly. I look at the service industry. We all love great restaurant. You mentioned date night in Buda, Texas. It's a different experience dependent on the service that you get in downtown Austin.
You get great service because it's a competitive job market in Boerne. We [00:11:00] struggle with a service industry because there's not a lot of options. There's not a lot of stability in it. I worry in the halo cities, which are Smaller suburban bedroom communities around bigger cities. How do we attract the employee that is the right employee for service work, entry level jobs for that startup that you've brought?
How do we show entice that first early worker into that role and show them a future of
Jennifer Storm: prosperity? Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of working with the school district and ideally, you know, creating the perfect utopia of a community where somebody right out of high school, whether they have any college experience or not, can find a job and can and can grow in that role versus somebody who went off to college and maybe comes back in their thirties.
There's a role for them too. And so having some diversity in options, which we haven't had historically, and so having, having some additional um, larger businesses, I think gives us that. Um, I don't think we [00:12:00] have all the answers, but I think we're just trying to figure out the best thing we can do and working with the school district and exposure, right?
Like showing the kids what's here, telling them. Hey, did you know you could work for this company and they pay this kind of money? I, I think a lot of kids have no idea. They know about being doctors and lawyers and, you know, astronauts, but they don't understand maybe they can be an engineer and work for an automobile manufacturing facility.
So exposure, exposing the kids as early and often as we can, I think is important. I mean, my kids talk about it, you know, what, what am I going to do? Do I have to live with you? Am I going to have to live with you? I think they would, they would prefer that, but hopefully
Justin McKenzie: not. I love to hear that your school system is doing so much because It is giving that line of sight to what's possible, and the answer is really anything's possible, but kids know what they see, they know what their parents did, they know what their neighbors did.
I talk about this in many episodes, where our incubator EDU program, just having mentors come into the classroom and say, [00:13:00] Hey, here's what I did. It opens up the eyes and says, well, maybe I can do something not what my parents
Jennifer Storm: did Our school district does um, I think it's called cow day and every time they say that I think it's funny But it's careers on wheels and they bring out all kinds of equipment, you know to the schools and they And I think it's basically that it maybe it's a tour, you know, bringing kids in my, my husband works for tech start and every summer they do bring your kids to work day.
And my 14 year old says he's working at tech stock because he spent every summer going to, you know, bring your kid to work day. And so I think it's more opportunities like that so that they can see. What's available right here in their own communities.
Justin McKenzie: Yeah, I, I worked in the utility industry for a long time and there's this desperate need for linemen.
Being a lineman is a great career if you're committed to working outside and helping people. But you have to know that it's an option. You have to know that they need fiber techs now. And so now it's a more technical skill. And we just need the trades and everything else. And I, I think [00:14:00] in cities like Buda, those are highly effective startups.
If you're a plumber and you start a plumbing company and you're servicing Buda and South Austin, you can make a great living. But you have to know how to start your business. You have to know how to frame your business. And you have to have a peer group that is supporting and encouraging you on those hard days.
Jennifer Storm: Yeah, and I think for us as Government organizations realizing that those businesses are just as valuable as the big flashy ones or the, the retail, you know, sales tax generating and realizing home-based business has changed the perspective, this perception of home based business has changed since COVID for sure.
That I know several plumbers, electricians that operate out of their home, but they provide some great jobs for some folks in our community and so. Sort of validating those as, as businesses just as important to the main street businesses, I think is important too.
Justin McKenzie: You're listening to Building Texas with Justin McKenzie on Boerne Radio [00:15:00] 103.
9. This is Justin McKenzie from Building Texas. Today's segment is brought to you by Das Greenhaus. Das Greenhaus is a business incubator launched here in Boerne to serve our local community. Das Greenhaus is a place where you can come to grow your idea. Our goal is to make Boerne accessible to people who are looking to grow a business, expand a business.
Or learn more about what's out there in their community and get involved. Visit us@dasGreenhaus.org or come visit us at seven Upper Balcones Road Boerne, Texas DAS Greenhaus.
Today I am joined by the team from but's EDC Economic Development Corporation. Jennifer and Shannon are talking to us about what is the reality of. Work in Buda, Texas today, and I want to pivot the conversation a little bit to talk about the business of government [00:16:00] quasi government We talk a lot about property taxes in the state and there's been a big emphasis on the runaway property taxes.
Buda Hays County is not immune to Sure. The property tax bills that Texans are getting right now, and I talk about that from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Often because property taxes can be reduced with the addition of business tax and, and other revenue sources to act on the business of government.
So from the beauty EDC standpoint, how do you encourage people to think about additional business growth? As a reduction to their property tax.
Jennifer Storm: Yeah, I mean, I can't remember what conference it was at, but there was a slide that said, you know, individual households cover about 80 percent of their cost to a city and every business covers 120, right?
So you need that, that delicate balance. And for us, I think that that's an easier sale to explain. Traffic concerns, you know, are different from neighborhoods versus business growth, but really the balance, that it can't all live on the [00:17:00] taxpayer, the individual property taxpayers back, that we have to have some Commercial businesses to help, help spread that load, whether it's retail, you know, sales tax generation or just in general businesses that have huge amounts of capital investment in our community.
It helps. It all helps cushion the blow of those taxes. I think
Justin McKenzie: I hear a lot of push back in my city around. We don't want the growth, but then they also want the reduction in property taxes. Yeah, and it To me, the challenge for all developers, EDC developers, economic developers in Texas is having that conversation.
We have a Buc ee's coming in and it is a hot topic, but it replaces the property taxes of 750 new homes. I'd much rather one gas station on the highway where it belongs than 750 houses in the
Jennifer Storm: woods. I think that's the key, is the perspective. You have to put it in perspective and you have to figure out.
How to explain it in a way that people understand I mean in my community that would [00:18:00] make a huge difference, right? 750 homes times two cars times two kids times, you know, all of those things is a much more Um, daily impact on them than maybe going to the highway that one day to get in the Buc ee's traffic.
So, I think, I think you're exactly right and to say what's the perspective and what, what helps sell it as a good project and definitely adding the jobs and the salaries I think help people understand your kids and grandkids could work here too. Yeah,
Justin McKenzie: kids and grandkids is a hot topic in these communities where we raise great, highly capable students and then they leave.
And we want to leave. We want to go to college, experience life. But how do we entice them to boomerang back to their hometown, to their family units, to where your grandkids could be here? And that's something that people in Boerne often ask for, like, how do I get my grandkids here? Guilt. Guilt isn't enough.
Guilt and shame, yeah.
Shannon Mumley: We're great communities. Imagine that. [00:19:00]
Justin McKenzie: But it really is thinking about, well, can you support it? You're putting all this tax investment into these kids, and then they're leaving and going to Frisco or Plano or San Francisco, New York, wherever they end up, and they're building their life.
It is a mission here for Das Greenhaus to say, how do we build it here? How do I show that high school senior that they can go out, they can get all their experiences, but they can come back here in five years. And we're ready to help them build an opportunity.
Jennifer Storm: Yeah, I mean, internship programs, I love the, I love the programs that let kids leave a little early their senior year and start working in the community.
Whether it's at the vet clinic or, you know, things like that. I think there's a lot of opportunity in, in succession planning. Thinking about a vet in particular, like, they probably need to be thinking about. 10 years from now 15 years from now and if that could be a kid that's already invested in the community that already has family here What great opportunities and so a lot of it is about connections and connecting kids [00:20:00] to those opportunities Regardless of their age, you know We're starting to bring them in into the fold my now ten year old wanted to sell cookies at the Budapest parade and so I Got him a booth and paid for him to have a booth and did the whole thing and one of the local food trailers called me and said Hey, could he make me some to sell as gifts?
I'd like to be his first order that meant more to him than almost anything that happened that day that they had enough faith in him. I don't know what they did with them. I don't know if they gave them away. I don't know if they liked them, but for him. He, his favorite restaurant is the one that bought a hundred cookies from him.
You know what I mean? And he's not 10 years old and he's going to remember that his whole life that other people in the community supported him. And so figuring out ways to do that. I mean, my team knows I want to do a young entrepreneur day and have, you know, market opportunities for kids like my son who want to make something and sell it and, and try, um, try to figure out.
Um, you know, ways that they can become an entrepreneur too. See,
Shannon Mumley: I think it's about the connecting, like you said, but it's creating the opportunities [00:21:00] first for them to be connected to, which is what we're doing, which is why we're here at Das Greenhaus is how do we make room for opportunities and entrepreneurs to be here in Buda for people to be connected to.
Justin McKenzie: I tell people that I'm doing work today that I won't see the, I won't see the reward of it for 20 years.
Jennifer Storm: Planting trees, economic development, but
Justin McKenzie: if we weren't doing it today, It wouldn't happen five years from now, 10 years from now, it would be, well, we really should do that. We really could get to that.
I've got a friend that lives in Wimberley and, and she has startup kids club and she started in Austin through the pandemic, survived it, but now she's at a point where she's. Doing maker birthday parties where 3D printers going out to seven year old birthday parties because kids are interested in making it and doing things.
I love the story of the cookie order because how much purpose, how much pride does your son take in getting that order? Just like a business owner would and everyone else that says, [00:22:00] yeah, I've created value. Someone saw the value and they're, they're wanting it. Kids are no different. They need that experience.
They need that exposure. to go out and want to do it again. We live in places where that's a reality and we love to see it come to
Jennifer Storm: reality. I do think our community, and I'm sure yours is the same, but I think our community loves to support its community. We've seen that in, you know, health issues with people and in, or accidents or terrible things, but also just in general, you know, supporting our local businesses.
I think people like to do that. They like to shop local. And so the more opportunities we can give them, I do believe that they subscribe to the, you know, of supporting local first if they can. And so the more, more of that we can do, the better for everybody.
Justin McKenzie: The people here are very supportive to one of my concerns for EDCs, Chambers, developers like us, is we market to ourselves far more often than we market to our constituents and our customers and people we don't know yet.
And I [00:23:00] wonder, how are you breaking that cycle of community marketing? because Chambers Are notorious for this, right? They're going to do the ribbon cutting But the ribbon cutting is being seen by their existing members Not the next city over we've had extensive conversations about Competition in this space and how does Boerne and Kerrville or Buda and Kyle compete? When my belief, my staunch belief, is that we're better together. We have different resources, different reasons you would choose Boerne versus Kerrville. But where do you see that coming together? How do you break that bubble of self-marketing in a city like Buda? And get it to Buda's marketing itself in Plano or McAllen, El Paso as a place to move.
Jennifer Storm: We're just starting to do that. So this, we recently went through a rebranding effort and said this year is kind of our first time to come back to focusing on business attraction and how we position ourselves. And so I'll get back to you on that because I don't have the answer to [00:24:00] it. But, but I think you're right in terms of better together.
We have a great relationship with Kyle. The citizens in Buda and Kyle don't see the governmental lines that we see, and so they function as one community. Our school district shares both communities, and we think there's things that are a great fit for us, and things that are a great fit for Kyle, and we're glad to shop at the Costco that they have now, you know, instead of going into Austin.
So, anything that keeps us in the community, I think, is a win for all of us. Going through
Justin McKenzie: rebranding and talking about attraction, it's different attracting an automotive supplier. Mm hmm. Then it is entrepreneurs, but we're competing on a national level to attract the right entrepreneurs just like we would an automotive supplier.
One of the things that our city realized, Boerne realized, is that we said we were supporting entrepreneurs, but we really didn't have any meat behind that claim. So when we were competing, we were attracting them, but not landing them. Do other cities, other areas, [00:25:00] combat that similar issue? And how do we resolve that?
How do we, as a state, say, yes, we have some
Jennifer Storm: tools? Shannon has done an amazing job on our team in a lot of ways, and this is one of them that we can't be all things to all people, right? And so we're trying to figure out how to leverage resources and how to expand our network and connections and talk to people who've already done great things like you guys have here.
And bring that to our community, we could definitely do more for our entrepreneurs. We, we say that we want to help them, but we don't know exactly what that means. And it means something different to each entrepreneur. And so in absence of a, a real program, we're kind of grasping at straws and we deal with them the best we can.
And we help as best we know how when they come in. But to me, I think it's always starting at home. And so supporting the, the people who've already invested in your community and who've already. decided that Buda is the place to be, or Boerne is the place to be, and then helping them grow there, I think is phase one, and then you're ready to have a story to tell on the larger stage of why someone from Dallas should move and be an [00:26:00] entrepreneur in our community.
We gotta start at home first. Well,
Justin McKenzie: I love that answer, and I love the focus on how do we make How do we make our neighbors successful? How do we focus on the people that are here today? And then make room for people that are coming into our area and give them tools to be successful. Jennifer and Shannon, it's been a pleasure to know more about BudaEDC, to visit with you today.
And I appreciate the way you are building Texas.
Jennifer Storm: Thank you. Thank you.
Justin McKenzie: This is Justin McKenzie from Building Texas. Today's segment is brought to you by Das Greenhaus. Das Greenhaus is a business incubator launched here in Boerne to serve our local community. Das Greenhaus is a place where you can come to grow your idea.
Our goal is to make Boerne accessible to people who are looking to grow a business, expand a business. or learn more about what's out there in their community and get involved. Visit us at DasGreenhaus. org or come visit us at 7 Upper Balcones Road, Boerne, Texas. Das Greenhaus.[00:27:00]
