Ron Nirenberg is committed to retraining and training San Antonio workers for higher paying jobs. To that end, in November, voters can vote on an initiative creating a fund of $150,000,000 to do just that. The campaign manager for this initiative joins us to discuss this campaign and what it can do for the city.

Transcript:

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Justin Hill: Hello and Bienvenido San Antonio. Welcome to The Alamo Hour, discussing the people, places, and passion that make our city. My name is Justin Hill, a local attorney, a proud San Antonian, a keeper of chickens, and bees. On The Alamo Hour, you'll get to hear from the people that make San Antonio great and unique and the best-kept secret in Texas. We're glad that you're here.

[applause]

All right. Welcome to The Alamo Hour. Today's guest is Jorge Urby of The Glider Group in San Antonio. Jorge and I have been friends for a while. We actually took a break on The Alamo Hour, so we're getting back on. We've got Jorge on to talk about a few things. He's been tapped by our mayor, Ron Nirenberg, to run a campaign that the Express-News call Build SA, but it's actually been now changed and named to SA: Ready to Work. He is one of the most sought after political consultants and political communications guys in towns of San Antonio. Express called you a heavy hitter. Did you know that Jorge?

Jorge Urby: I heard that. Somebody told me that.

Justin: [laughs] You've worked on Beto O'Rourke's campaign, Julian Castro's presidential campaigns. You're very involved in our city. Thank you for being here.

Jorge: Thank you, Justin. Thank you for doing what you're doing. I think it's a great thing for the community and I just appreciate you having me on your show.

Justin: Yes, it's a new medium and San Antonio is just far behind on things, sometimes technologically. I wanted to be in the front end of this, and I get to interview interesting people. I had the mayor on as well.

Jorge: Nice. Nice.

Justin: I would start and just get a little bit of color commentary on who you are. Just a few questions, background, your thoughts on San Antonio. When and why did you move to San Antonio?

Jorge: Absolutely, man. I'm from Del Rio, Texas originally. My family goes back there many, many generations and loved it, man. I loved growing up in the small town and the small community feel, but as most people when you turn 18, you start to look into wanting to go to college and what that experience is going to be like. I went to school at Texas State and I was there for some years. I always had a kinship with San Antonio, man because I loved the Spurs. I grew up not too far away. We would come up for family vacations or gatherings or something like that. I always knew that I would end up here, but I did bounce around definitely, especially in my 20s and early 30s.

I got involved through the Castro brothers and other people in the community, and I just fell in love with it and the people, so I just thought, "I want to make my life here." I really moved here, I guess it would be late '04, maybe early '05, something like that, and then I did a stint in the Dallas area, Fort Worth area. I lived in DC for a while, Austin and then I came back here.

Justin: What was the DFW run for?

Jorge: When I moved up there the first time, I was working for the mayor of Forth Worth actually. I worked at city hall there and really came to love that city as well, but then I got an opportunity to move to Washington to pursue my master's degree. I got a master's in public administration from American, then I worked at USDA and I worked at HHS.

Justin: Okay. I didn't know that. Your big city was San Antonio. My growing up, big city was Fort Worth. I grew up two hours from Fort Worth. That's where we'd go if we wanted to go to the big malls or one of those things.

Jorge: There's a lot of similarities actually between the two cities that I found. I like that city a lot. I go visit when I can. My dad used to live up there for a while. I would go up and see him. He lives in Illinois now.

Justin: Del Rio reminds me a lot of where I grew up, which is Wichita Falls because they're both real heavy Air Force bases and a regional big town with a lot of agricultural-type country living people around. They've always reminded me very similar of one another. I asked Ron, favorite hidden gem in San Antonio and he said the Denman Estate Park, I think, was the one he said and I'd never heard of it. Do you have any hidden off the path places in San Antonio that you think are these great hidden gems that you tell people, "Hey, you've got to go check this place out if you haven't been."

Jorge: Yes, for sure. The Botanical Gardens. I know they're popular, but I don't know if a lot of people have been there, but that's a great place to check out if you haven't checked it out. You know what I love about San Antonio? Is obviously the hidden gems. There's great restaurants, for example. One in Southtown called QPV. I know a lot of friends of mine haven't checked it out and I'm always like, "That's a great place if you haven't seen it." What I love about San Antonio is there's a lot to do in a lot of different places. [inaudible 00:05:03]whether it's the North, the West, the South, the East, of course, downtown in Parole. Then it's also the small cities surrounding it like Gruene, Fredericksburg, and Blanco. You also get to experience that and I think it adds to it.

Justin: I hear those towns brought up and I had a guy on my show who has the Texas State Trooper program. It's a PBS program where he goes to Texas cities all over. He's done hundreds of episodes, and he swears by Seguin, and I thought, "I don't know." [chuckles] He thinks it's great.

Jorge: You know what? I've been there maybe once or twice. They have a nice little downtown, but I don't know it well.

Justin: They've got the river that runs through it and all that. Who are your political heroes?

Jorge: That's a great question. I would say I admired Obama a lot. I thought some of the stuff he did was really good. I will caveat and say that there's never been a perfect person or somebody who served that I could say, "Oh, I loved everything they did with either side." I just admire the guy because, number one, he broke barriers. Number two, such an eloquent speaker and his character was unbelievable. The way he carried himself, the way he was a family man, all of that because I think that stuff matters, especially at that level. I admired him a lot.

One of the guys who helped me grow and maybe understand the way politics was, was Congressman Joaquin Castro, who I think the world of. I know him personally and I can really say that his heart's in the right place. His brother, same way. Mike Moncrief, man. The mayor of Fort Worth. I learned a lot from him, working for him for a little over a year. Very gregarious person, got a lot done. Bill White in Houston; honorable man, super smart.

All these people that I've been blessed to work with and count as mentors. When I have a big decision to make in my life, I'm able to call them and they walk me through it. Those would be some of the people. On the national level, probably Obama and LBJ in some ways just because, again, not perfect, did some things probably I didn't agree with, but I thought he got a lot done. He's a fellow Texan so I have to add him in there.

Justin: His ability to influence people is just-- They said there was never somebody that ran the senate as effectively as he did.

Jorge: Oh, unbelievable. If you read the books by Robert Carroll, which I don't know if you have or not, but, man, you're just in awe of the skill that he had to really get legislation passed. You know what I mean? I don't know if we had somebody that effective ever.

Justin: The Johnson treatment, they called it.

Jorge: Yes, yes.

Justin: I was just reading about this the other day. I watched his last interview he did which I guess was with 60 minutes. He was 67 when he died, I think. He was pretty young.

Jorge: Yes. He was young.

Justin: You've been involved on the political side in this city, which means you hear and see the issues and they are brought up day to day because politicians run on issues for the most part. What do you think, personally, are some of the biggest issues facing our city that keep eluding us?

Jorge: Absolutely, man. Look, I have my business which is The Glider Group. I do communications. I used to manage campaigns and I've been involved in politics in government and stuff like that. The reason I got involved with what I'm doing now is because of what you just asked. I've always felt and I've heard other people say this as well. That San Antonio was missing that knowledge-based economy. The jobs that pay higher wages. When companies look at the cities in Texas, we might get looked at, but they may go to Austin or Houston or Dallas or even Fort Worth.

We're the second-largest city in Texas. We absolutely should be getting looked at and also landing those types of businesses. For me, I think that's the main thing in San Antonio. Our literacy rate is not that high. I think investing in that. Also, what they did with the Pre-K 4 SA, which is investing early because the studies show that it'll help in the long run. Homelessness, I think, is another big issue that needs to be dealt with in the city and of course, COVID showed us that we are absolutely in need of helping folks break that generational poverty and elevate themselves so they can create a better quality of life for them in terms of economics. For me, that's why I took a step away from the business, man, because this was important. I said, "You know what? I'm always talking about this. I got a chance to do it so I'm going to do it."

Justin: Do you think our rising tide in the cybersecurity world is going to be that wave that gets us where we need to be because every city that has ended up with this high education, knowledge base workforce, has had some industry that has brought them there, it seems like. Rackspace didn't really do it for us, even though we had this cloud computing thing pop up for a little bit, but it seems like maybe cybersecurity will be that impetus to get us where it needs to be. Do you think that's a likelihood? Do you think that's going to be a small part of our industry? What's your thoughts on that?

Jorge: I think that's one of them. For sure, man. We're doing a lot of work in that sector, but I think tech in general. If you look at all these tech entrepreneurs that are moving to San Antonio, some of it's because they're getting priced out of Austin. They're coming here and you're seeing these bubbles pop up and these folks are really investing in the community, creating this energy downtown that I've never seen before and I used to live downtown. I think tech is going to help us get there, but there's other opportunities besides that that we need to build upon.

Justin: I want to talk to you a little bit because it sounds like SA: Ready to Work is exactly what we're talking about here. Talk to me a little bit about about The Glider Group and your past. I spent some time working on campaigns. It's funny I worked on Alex Sanders senate campaign in '02 against Lindsey Graham, the first time he ran and did some fieldwork in Missouri and South Carolina. I was familiar with it. I thought about maybe working in politics and I decided to go this route. Sounds like you're in communications. What got you to that and because in the politics side, there's field, there's direct mail, there's communications, there's polling? What brought you to the communication side?

Jorge: Yes, sure, man. I've done all of that. I've worked enough in it that I got to see every department division, every aspect of the political campaign. Honestly, I was going to go to law school. I had moved up to Dallas. I was working in health care. I was working at Parkland Health and Hospital System and I really loved that job. I'm doing it, I'm really loving it, but I'm thinking, "I might just go back to law school because I've been doing this for a while." I moved back to my hometown because we had a family tragedy and I wanted to be home with my family. This was about four years ago. I moved back home. I hadn't been home in 17 years.

Justin: Wow.

Jorge: That was a long time. I'm getting acclimated to my community again and I just thought about it and I said, "What do you really love? What do you want to do?" I think for me, it wasn't the legal aspect. I just said, "You know what? That's just not really what I want to do." I just really love communications. I started thinking about what I was good at and what I thought I could put together. That's why I started the company. As you start anything, it's like you start thinking it one way, and then as you go, you start shaping it based of what it is that you can do.

Justin: What does communications mean at The Glider Group? What type of services do you provide to clients?

Jorge: Absolutely. Strategy work, we do production, commercials, documentaries, that kind of stuff. We do design, creative. We do digital. It's like an all in one because I had studied the market and I felt like there wasn't that many places that you could go to one place and say, "I need all this stuff." That's why I was like, "You know what? Let me go ahead and see if I can get this off the ground." I started with one client and then it was two and then it was three and then it just took off.

It's funny, man, because when I was younger, I worked really hard throughout my 20s and my early 30s. I was just really, really, really working hard and that paid dividends without me even knowing because you're not thinking that. I wasn't thinking this grand plan of I'm going to start a business and all these people I'm helping, I'm going to be able-- It's just like people remember me and they remember that I was a hard worker so they gave me a chance. I'm almost five years in, man. It's been a blessing.

Justin: Is there any lobbying or more communication side?

Jorge: No, no, no. Not a lobby. I do public affairs sometimes. Education, letting people know how to attack something or who may be to talk to and stuff like that, but I don't lobby per se. I'm not even trying to get votes for people or anything like that. There's a lot of good ones in town, but she's not something we do.

Justin: What are campaigns have you worked on in a major role?

Jorge: [crosstalk] I'm not even sure.

Justin: [laughs]

Jorge: I'm not even sure.

Justin: That our San Antonio listeners would know about.

Jorge: Sure, sure. I was involved when Jessica Rodriguez ran for state rep and then when you ran for commissioner. Phil Cortez in the Southside. I helped [unintelligible 00:16:08] Donya a little bit. Julian, for sure. Joaquin. Not that it not sounds very specific, but when Bill White ran for governor, I was in charge of Bexar County for him. I've done big county races.

Tommy Calvert is another one that I've helped. Now the mayor, of course, through this initiative. Honestly, one of the things that I wanted to do when I knew I was going to go into this, was I wanted to know all of it from the grassroots all the way to the top in both sectors; in government and in politics. I've worked school board races, for example, in Edgewood. I've worked on presidential races. All the way from school board to presidential. On the government side, I've worked at the local county state, and national level. I did that on purpose because I really wanted to know everything. That's how I did it for myself.

Justin: All people campaigns or have you done bond campaigns and initiatives or is this your first foray into the initiatives?

Jorge: No, I've done some initiatives. I did one recently for water, for example. There was a campaign to provide water infrastructure for communities that were lacking that throughout Texas. It was called Turn the Tap Texas. I did that recently and then, of course, this one that we're doing now, SA: Ready to Work, Pre-K 4 SA a few years back in some ways.

I've been involved in both. Actually, I enjoy the initiatives or the propositions a lot, especially if I believe in them because that's the thing. If you ask anybody who moves [unintelligible 00:18:01]. I'm involved, but I'm involved in the things that I would like to do. If I think it's important and something that I really care about, I get involved and I go 110%.

I'm not one of these guys, honestly, that's jumping from campaign to campaign to campaign and just trying to help everybody. I want to meet the person. I want to know what they're about. Are they really in it for the right reasons? Then maybe, "Okay, let's go," or something like SA: Ready to Work, I just think it's a game-changer for the community and I didn't want to not be involved.

Justin: You've been named the campaign manager by Ron Nurnberg for the SA: Ready to Work campaign. Talk to me a little bit about how the mayor is involved in this initiative that has its own campaign and we'll talk about it, but seemingly it's own financing for the campaign. What is SA: Ready to Work, to begin with?

Jorge: SA: Ready to Work is a program that's going to help people get training and education to get higher-wage jobs. Here's what happened. The mayor, COVID hits, and he's trying to help as many people as possible, keep them safe first. Let's save lives, let's make sure everybody's good and then I don't know if you remember that photo for the food bank that went viral?

Justin: The long lines? [crosstalk]

Jorge: Basically what happened was, the food line went from 60,000 to 120,000 like that. [snaps fingers] All of us are looking at each other like, "This is messed up. That's our city." Everybody in the country-- If you probably think of one thing that encapsulated that time, it's probably that photo.

Justin: Yes, I think that's fair.

Jorge: It's like, "You know what? Enough. We got to do something about this." The mayor sat back because if you remember before that, he was really pushing something called SA Connect, which was the transportation initiative that he [unintelligible 00:20:15]. Priorities had to shift. It was like, "Okay, how do we not let that happen again?" That's why he came up with SA: Ready to Work and he's like, "Okay, here's what we can do. We...