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Nearly 50 years ago, local leaders founded the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation (SAEDF) to promote and expand our economy. By working with top business executives and visionary civic leaders, SAEDF sought to grow prosperity.
As our economy and our organization have grown, so have our collaborations with cities and organizations beyond San Antonio’s city limits. Through our partnerships, we have helped grow the economy across the entire South Texas region. And as our involvement expanded, it became clear that our founding name no longer made sense. In fact, it caused confusion.
So, this summer, as our region and our reach continue their rapid growth, we announced a new name that better communicates our work, purpose, and broader geographic reach. SAEDF is now the greater:SATX Regional Economic Partnership. Although our name is different, our focus continues to be on recruiting new companies to the region, creating global business relationships, assisting local companies in their growth, and building a bigger, better, and stronger local workforce.
We still exist to bring quality jobs to the region and our new name helps reinforce that charge.
The greater:SATX team recruits new companies, creates global business relationships, helps local companies grow, and builds the local workforce. Our talent-led, industry-driven strategy for economic development is designed to meet the needs of our community. And our approach to fulfilling this strategy — in partnership with area leaders and fortified with a powerful, unified voice — will launch our region into a post-pandemic era of expanded opportunity for current residents and others who want to build a future here.
After nearly a half-century operating with our original name, developing a new one that communicates who we are, what we do and what we will become was no small task. We approached this process much like how we work on growing our economy: It was done collaboratively, working with our partners across the region, so that we could decide what best represented our organization. Together, we determined that our new name would need to communicate our regional approach to economic development.
The result was a forward-looking representation of our commitment to our regional business community that inspires confidence (greater), reflects our region (SATX) and relays our purpose (Regional Economic Partnership).
SATX is affordable and prosperous — attractive characteristics for companies of all sizes and from varied industries. Our business development experts travel across the nation, working hard to recruit companies. What they have to market is extraordinary. We provide companies with the community connections, market and business intelligence, and site selection support they need to relocate to our region.
We also work with international companies interested in doing business in our region. Foreign companies often need a soft landing into the U.S. market, just as local companies may need assistance with exporting, and our global development team knows exactly what to do to help.
Every economy is built on local business. That’s why we are committed to giving those businesses that already call SATX home the support they need to remain and grow in our region. Our Business Retention & Expansion program places resources where they’re needed, and we work with key organizations to remove barriers to success.
Perhaps most critical to our success is our region’s skilled workforce. SA Works, the greater:SATX workforce team, brings employers together with education and training providers, policymakers, and workforce development organizations to ensure our diverse community members are ready to contribute to our collective success.
This is an exciting time for the San Antonio region, and there’s remarkable momentum behind our “All In” regional strategy. Count on us to continue expanding opportunity and increasing development, driven by businesses both new to and existing in SATX. The local business community is backing us more strongly than ever, and we are positioned for positive change, smart growth, and an even “greater” SATX.
