The Rio Grande Valley has plenty of homegrown talent, but there hasn’t always been an effective way to ensure that valuable workforce talent stays in the Valley. In fact, the roadblock to building and holding onto the Valley’s talent, it seems, has been the absence of a local talent pipeline that spurs economic growth and creates opportunities for the region’s workforce by providing the needed skills to prosper.
The Region One Education Service Center has collaborated with Workforce Solutions Centers, local colleges and universities, and city and county leaders throughout the Rio Grande Valley to establish this pipeline.
“Our three main goals were to strengthen career pathways in education, enhance employer engagement, and promote work-based economic development,” said Dr. Bobbie Sue Gonzalez, Director of Innovative School Models, Division of College, Career, & Life Readiness for the Region One ESC, who also serves as the Director for the Pathways Leadership Team. “Even though we had some wonderful pathways, it is really about getting students that hands-on experience, whether that be in high school or in college.”
The Region One Tri-Agency Convener is an impressive team of K-12 educators, stakeholders in higher education, workforce development, and community and non-profit stakeholders, who’ve spent nearly three years building an impactful conduit for learning that promotes workforce development and economic prosperity in the Valley.
Laying the Foundation
For many years, state agencies like the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and the Texas Workforce Commission have focused their energies on economic and industry growth through the creation of conduits from education to the workforce.
However, these concepts were never collaborative among these agencies.
Gonzalez said the state’s siloed approach to workforce development and education created barriers for students who may be interested in a specific career path, but the resources were not locally available.
“These state agencies have amazing data tools and data dashboards, but they didn’t connect,” said Gonzalez. “For instance, if a student is interested in criminal justice and earns a level two security guard certification in high school to attend the police academy after graduation, that student wouldn’t be able to because there isn’t a connection to higher education to any police academy program.”
In 2016, Governor Greg Abbott hoped to eliminate these barriers and launched the Tri-Agency Workforce Initiative. The focus was to gauge workforce challenges and economic opportunities, and consider innovative solutions to promote economic growth.
“Understanding the needs of job creators is paramount to ensuring that Texas remains the top state for business expansion and relocation,” Abbott said in a press release. “This past session, we made economic strides by investing in our workforce and further reducing taxes and regulations.”
The program was spearheaded by Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath, Texas Higher Education Board Commissioner Raymund Paredes, and Texas Workforce Commissioner Andres Alcantar–referred to in the state’s Strategic Framework as the Tri-Agency Partners–who hosted meetings with regional educational and workforce leaders to assess local workforce needs and to develop cooperative connections–pathways–between education and industry.
“By establishing this initiative, the State of Texas now seeks to ensure that the needs of both its growing workforce as well as new and existing businesses are met, and each is prepared to successfully operate in an ever-changing 21st-century economy,” said Abbott.
This initiative led to the passage of several key pieces of legislation, which included the passage of House Bill 3 in 2019 that enabled TEA to form the Texas Regional Pathways Network, as well as key strategic planning outlines that included the TEA’s Building a Talent Strong Texas and the Tri-Agency Strategic Framework for Work-Based Learning Report, both released in 2022.
These three documents ultimately laid the foundation to create the Tri-Agency Conveners in Texas.
Moving Forward
In 2023, the state’s Tri-Agency embarked on a $12 million grant initiative tasked with identifying, training, and designating regional conveners in each of the state’s 28 workforce districts to create a Regional Pathways System that supports the Tri-Agency’s vision.
The 24-member Region One ESC Tri-Agency Convener spent the first two years in its planning phase, which involved laying the groundwork for developing a shared vision and goals for pathways, evaluating pathway outcomes, and planning for continuous improvement and sustainability.
“We have an amazing leadership team that has been together since the beginning,” said Gonzalez. “Currently, we are doing a data analysis for our work-based learning initiative with our leadership team.”
In the second half of 2025, the Tri-Agency Convener shifted its focus to the implementation phase, with a focus on increasing the number of students involved in work-based learning opportunities, internships, and apprenticeships in government, healthcare, and education.
“There are a lot of support systems for filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or filing out the college application, but the data isn’t deep enough to create a streamlined process from K-12 into higher education,” said Gonzalez.
The creation of the regional Tri-Agency Conveners has changed the landscape of workforce development in Texas by having each work on a dedicated platform that will ultimately be showcased throughout the Tri-Agency network, so it can be used statewide.
To learn more about the Region One ESC and the Tri-Agency Convener, and the work they are doing in the Rio Grande Valley, visit esc1.net/tri-agency-convener.
