Articles
Houston 2030: A Manufacturing Blueprint
GHMA members and guests gathered in Houston last week for an annual review of association business and a forecast for industry development through 2030
By Angela Rose, Inside MFG
The Greater Houston Manufacturing Association was founded in 2012 to support the region’s growing bioscience industry. But as GHMA Executive Director Bart Taylor communicated to attendees last week at the trade group’s annual business and shareholder meeting, a sector-wide mission, across multiple industries, informs GHMA operations today.
“Houston’s nation-leading industrial base of fabricators and machinery and equipment manufacturers has served the oil and gas industry so well,” Taylor said, “but today, opportunity extends across multiple industries including transportation and aerospace, bioscience, automotive, a new shipbuilding ecosystem, a booming electronics manufacturing cluster, power-generation in the form of data centers, and more.”
Taylor also emphasized regional food and beverage manufacturing. “Food and beverage manufacturing is a national juggernaut, an employment success-story that includes Greater Houston, with over 18,000 employees working in F&B processing,” he noted.
Taylor described the GHMA as a trade group squarely focused on business development. “In the past decade, manufacturing associations have worked hard to promote workforce development and to be advocates for manufacturers at a time when the sector really needed both,” he said. “But today, we’re hyper-focused on connecting our membership — and Houston manufacturing writ-large — with the panoply of industry opportunities developing in the Gulf. The best thing we can do to support manufacturers is help them grow their business.”
According to Taylor, the association has experienced a successful year with approximately 60 new members joining the group in 2025, an expanded schedule of in-person events, and a growing media and trade network.
Attendees also heard from Magesh Hari, Director of Operations, Foxconn Houston, about the contract manufacturing giant’s local operations in the context of a major expansion in Houston to meet the product and component needs of a global clientele. The company has “doubled” the size of its workforce the past eight months.
Taylor mentioned the GHMA’s Houston 2030 initiative as a “blueprint” for sector development in the next few years. “I think it’s important that we have a clear-eyed view of where opportunities will materialize for Houston’s industrial base, how we help companies assess their capabilities to pursue those opportunities, and what an ideal industry blueprint for sector development looks like by 2030,” he said.
Two new GHMA board members were also introduced: Nubia Perez, CEO of Gretna Machine; and Manuel Pasillas, founder of TECH CNC.
Guests were also invited to subscribe to the GHMA Update e-publication and participate in Houston’s first Fabrication to Finish Directory, offering industrial suppliers free visibility to publicize people, capabilities, and industries-served.
Angela Rose is editor of InsideMFG. Reach Bart Taylor at [email protected].
