Texas Border Business
By Amanda Sotelo
From Laredo to McAllen, Ricardo J. Solis, Ph.D., is celebrating his one-year anniversary at South Texas College and marking a year of great success.
Coming to STC in 2021, Solis boasts nearly eight years of experience as a college president, along with experience in economic development and international trade from Mexico and South America to Taiwan. With this knowledge, Solis has set out to reimagine STC’s trajectory.
“STC is now deeply and substantially engaged with the Valley in this period of creative transformation,” said Solis.
Solis’ describes his leadership as purposeful, and he said he knew that coming to STC would allow him to collectively deliver the best education for the region’s workforce, which translates into increasing economic development that will impact the communities on both sides of the border.
“I thrive on creating economic opportunities that bring a better quality of life for a region,” he said. “I have been fortunate and honored to be entrusted to empower individuals, on a personal level, through the community college mission.”
Solis added that at STC, he now has the opportunity, and he’s confident, that he can have a much bigger impact on a much larger scale.
Within his first year, Solis’ initiatives and successes, have made a deep impact in the region, including Mexico.
Among his noted accomplishments this year: STC has started a cross-border workforce development training initiative, providing customized training such as English as a Second Language (ESL) and Robotics to employees from maquiladoras, or factories in Mexico.
The college has also created a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) program in McAllen and expanded it to Starr County through a partnership with Trancasa, an international ground transportation leader. Trancasa provides the trucks and STC provides the instruction.
STC is about to announce a new CDL partnership with McAllen Metro to train bus drivers for the city, neighboring communities and school districts in the region.
Another achievement of note; a partnership with Hidalgo County, that awarded STC $2 million to hire more nursing staff and faculty to accept more students into the nursing program to address the nursing shortage and meet regional, state and national demand.
“I firmly believe that the way in which an institution produces and distributes education and training, increasingly determines both the economic competitiveness of a region and the apportionment of economic opportunity among its constituents,” said Solis. “STC has the perfect component of eager and creative employees, a supportive Board of Trustees and an industry, business and civic community that has remarkable people willing to work together for the common good.”
Solis said his leadership style is inspired by business author Simon Sinek, who said, “A leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which ideas can happen.”
In the coming months and years, Solis has pledged to be attentive to ideas from his board, faculty and staff, while working toward his goals of taking STC’s nursing program from being the No. 1 producer of nurses in the state among community colleges to No. 1 in the state among all institutions of higher education – universities and colleges combined.
In addition, Solis and his team are working to create an STC Foundation Board that will help raise scholarship funds for students, implement a PROMISE initiative that will offer tuition-free opportunities; and bring new programs that are set to include Cosmetology, Aviation and Avionics, Medical Billing, Dental Assistant and a Child Development bachelor’s degree program; upskilling and reskilling with micro-credential, or short-term certification programs; and enter a new venture into electric vehicle trainings.
“We are going to continue working on forging new and creative partnerships to bring more learning opportunities and workforce development to our region,” he said. “We’ve already created immediate successes by connecting with our community leaders who respect our mission and value what the college brings to our region. We must continue to change, improve, adapt, be bold and take risks to stay viable and move STC and the community forward.”
