Articles

Waller County busts out: Manufacturing’s center of gravity in Houston shifts West

By Bart Taylor, GHMA

Talk of manufacturing’s notable places in Greater Houston always include East Houston, the city’s “historic manufacturing center” and modern innovation hub; and points east by southeast to include a renowned space cluster and petrochemical ecosystem.

But a new epicenter is developing in Houston’s western outposts, fueled by the pull of global OEMs and the supply chains that follow. Waller County is emerging as a manufacturing powerhouse at a time when the world, seemingly, is arriving on Greater Houston’s doorstep.

Consider the nameplates that now call Waller County home:

• Tesla: In partnership with the City of Brookshire, they recently established a 1-million-square-foot facility in Brookshire's Empire West Business Park to produce utility-scale Megapack batteries, creating about 1,500 advanced manufacturing jobs.

• TMEIC Corporation Americas: A partnership between Mitsubishi and Toshiba that recently invested over $65 million in a new 250,000 square foot facility to manufacture uninterruptible power supplies and medium-voltage drives.

• Igloo Products Corp: A long-standing major employer in the region since 1979, operating extensive production and distribution facilities.

• Grundfos: The world’s largest water pump manufacturer maintains a significant global headquarters and manufacturing presence in Brookshire.

• Alegacy Manufacturing: A key fabrication and manufacturing player within the Alegacy Business Park, employing roughly 280 people. They are home to Peerless Pump (bringing 34 new jobs). In January, Waller County partnered with the City of Waller to approve incentive agreements that help attract CoreWorks, who builds brazed aluminum heat exchangers for the liquefied natural gas business.

• AFGlobal (NRG): An energy sector manufacturer specializing in technology-driven solutions, with about 250 employees.

• Everllence (formerly MAN Energy Solutions): A prominent German manufacturer that recently expanded its operations with a new facility in the county.

• Goya Foods of Texas: Goya operates a massive facility in Waller County that supports its production lines and healthy product demand.

• Elin Energy (Sirius PV): A leading European solar panel manufacturer that established its U.S. headquarters and advanced manufacturing operations in Waller.

• Green Span Profiles: a manufacturer of quality insulated panels, proudly made in America.

• Burckhardt Compression, a Swiss-owned company in the City of Waller that is one of only two in the world to manufacture reciprocating compressors.

Other distribution and logistics standouts like Coloplast, Amazon, and Tomball Forest Products, only add heft to the list.

Vince Yokom is Executive Director of the Waller Country Economic Partnership, and, as a founding board member, has had a front-row seat to what’s becoming an American manufacturing success story. 

“I always tell people I was just the last guy through the door when they were looking for a director, but basically I was on the founding board and I was on the committee to try to find a director to run the organization,” Yokom told me recently. “I had no intention of really staying in this job, but we couldn't find anyone that was willing to take the job for the amount of money we had to pay. So I told them I would take it, I would run it, I'd build it up, get it going, and I would move back to my own personal businesses.” 

So much for moving back. “And now it's been over 22 years we’ve been doing this, and we’ve built it into a very successful organization – an award-winning organization.” 

Yokom’s varied background prior to economic development gave him unique insight into what might lay ahead. “I have a very eclectic background. I started my first company when I was 25. It ended up being an overhead door company. I built that up, sold it, and took the proceeds and started a software training company.”

His training business placed him in the orbit of the Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, American Airlines, SafeCo Insurance, and others — that when combined with his entrepreneurial bent, seems to have led him to a fortuitous decision.

“My vision from the beginning was that we needed to focus on manufacturing,” Yokom maintains. “What transpired here was done on purpose. Our strategic plan was developed in 2004 and we identified four major industries: logistics, given the organic growth here because of Interstate 10. Oil and gas manufacturing and service. Food processing, of course, and we now have Goya. And we initially started with electronics – but in 2009 when an independent developer brought in the Houston Executive Airport, we removed electronics and  replaced it with aviation. The airport is a fantastic facility, one of our crown jewels here. We’re working hard to get Customs here and when that happens, it will open up even more with all the international manufacturing companies that have interest in coming here.”

Waller County is leaning into its own, nuanced industry formula. “We had a strategic plan from the beginning that identified different classes of manufacturing. And over the years, we just broadened it to say, okay, look, advanced manufacturing has taken the place of so much of the traditional stuff. Let's focus on that, which is a lot harder to get because it requires a much more sophisticated workforce. And that's been our Achilles heel if we have one, that in the county itself, with a population forecasted to go over 125,000 by 2030-2035, we don't have our own training center, which is something I'm trying to do in support of manufacturing. And we're hoping to work with folks like Tesla and others to make that happen. So that's still a work in progress," Yokom says.  

Another key variable for counties like Waller is to work with like-minded cities. Yokom is generally bullish on his municipal partners. “When we started the organization, all the cities were part of our board. So they've been here since the beginning, for those who were willing to participate. 

There’s more. Yokom’s developed a relationship with Greater Houston Partnership that works “very well”, in part to ensure that the community doesn’t become labeled as “West Houston”. “I don't really like having that moniker because I don't want to be identified as West Houston from a branding perspective. We have so many things that we've done and we're trying to develop the brand of Waller County,” he says. “And we recently became the second county outside of Harris to join Port Houston's FTZ-84 (Foreign Trade Zone). We're now officially part of the Port, which fuels our re-shoring efforts.”

Yokom’s journey isn’t without its challenges. For one, the industrial base Waller County’s OEMs will need to sustain growth largely resides east; there’s a limit to how many employees and suppliers can be sourced locally. 

But there’s little doubt that Yokom and his Waller County colleagues have worked themselves into an enviable position. And that Greater Houston’s western outpost is already a new and compelling regional destination for America’s manufacturing awakening.

We’ll look at other counties and municipalities in future editions.

Bart Taylor is executive director of the Greater Houston Manufacturers Association. Reach him at [email protected].