What a wonderful day to be here in South Texas. I'm your state senator, Adam Hinojosa. Congratulations to Bill Dietrich and the entire Port of Brownsville team. What an incredible job you've done to help secure this massive investment for the Rio Grande Valley.
Bringing a project this magnitude here takes a lot of leadership and determination, and their efforts certainly deserve recognition. And prior to my election, and certainly after becoming your state senator, we talked extensively about job creation, investment here, economic development and growth in this area. I see Mayor Cowan out here in the audience. I want to thank him for his leadership. The City of Brownsville, everybody. It took a united effort to come together to make this a tremendous success, and we thank everybody who was involved with that.
Dino, thank you so much for your investment into South Texas, choosing Senate District 27, the Rio Grande Valley, the Port of Brownsville. You literally could have taken this investment anywhere, and you chose South Texas. And I know, and we all know for a fact that you made the right decision to be right here.
Texas has never waited for someone else to build our future. We welcome investment, respect hard work, and give businesses the freedom to succeed. That approach has made Texas an economic leader, and this project will help South Texas contribute even more to that success.
This 3.2 billion dollar investment plans for over 10,000 jobs. It will give thousands of South Texans the chance to earn a good living and build a career. Our welders and engineers will be put to work utilizing their skills to work on the missions that matter. The benefits will reach beyond this shipyard as employees support local businesses and growing families put down roots all across the Rio Grande Valley.
Special thanks to Governor Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Speaker Dustin Burrows. They put in the work to help secure this project for South Texas, they welcomed me and the team into their offices. They understood what was at stake here, and they continued to work with us to get this across the finish line in historic and record fashion.
And we really appreciate that attention to South Texas, to the Rio Grande Valley, because we know how much that means to us here, and also I just want to give a quick shout out to my friend Daniel Hodge. I know a lot of times they don't get credit and recognition, but he was very, very instrumental in helping make this a success.
And last but certainly not least, I want to thank President Donald Trump. And Vice President Vance for being here and for supporting American manufacturing and strengthening our national defense. We cannot remain the strongest nation on earth while depending on other countries to build what we need to defend ourselves. America has the ability to do this work, and we ought to have the resolve to do it right here and right here in Texas.
So I want to thank you all, Dino, once again for you and the entire Saronic team for making South Texas your new home. God bless you. God bless all of you, the Rio Grande Valley, and may God forever bless our great state of Texas and the United States of America.
Editor's Note: The above remarks were delivered by Texas state Sen. Adam Hinojosa of Corpus Christi at a groundbreaking ceremony for Saronic Technologies’ Port Alpha project at the Port of Brownsville.
