Ep 86- Exploring Houston's Economic Horizons with Brian Freedman

Transcript

Transcripts are generated by machine learning, so typos may be present.

BTB (00:00):

Welcome to the Building Texas Business Podcast, interviews with thought leaders and organizational visionaries from across industry. Join us as we talk about the latest trends, challenges, and growth opportunities to take your business to the next level. The Building Texas Business Podcast is brought to you by BoyarMiller, providing counsel beyond expectations. Find out how we can make a meaningful difference to your business at boyarmiller.com and by your podcast team where having your own podcast is as easy as being a guest on ours. Discover more at yourpodcast.team. Now here’s your host, Chris Hanslik.

Chris (00:43):

In this episode, you will meet Brian Friedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. Brian shares how his organization works to recruit, retain, and expand primary employers in the greater Houston Bay area region. Brian, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business. Thanks for joining us today.

Brian (01:08):

Hey, thank you Chris. Honored to be here and great to catch up.

Chris (01:10):

Yes, likewise. So let’s start with you’re the president and the organizational names kind of long, it’s Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. Tell the listeners a little bit about what that organization is and what it does to put the rest of our conversation into context.

Brian (01:28):

Sure. So Bay Hep is the short version of it. So we’re the regional economic development group and the, as I like to say, in the Houston Galveston region, we’re three o’clock to six o’clock on the watch face. So we kind of go out 2 25, all the municipalities and cities going out east and then going down south 45, we go a little west of 45, but that really that three o’clock to six o’clock. And we’re really focused on how do you recruit, retain, and expand primary employers in the region with the idea that if you can get great companies located here and have an group of industry clusters that are cranking away every day, that we can have a great place to live. We have great involved residents that are in this area and opportunities for the folks who live here and kind of build what the future will look like for this region. So a lot of good stuff going on and happy to get into that a little further. We do economic development, recruitment, retention projects. So how do we get companies here? We do some grants and then we’re a membership organizations how we’re funded. So we have about 300 members, 19 municipal members, Harrison, Galveston County, the airport system. It’s really how do you get the leaders of a region to work together to advance what we’re doing here.

Chris (02:37):

Wow. It sounds like it’s easier to say and harder to do, coordinating that many organizations and trying to get everybody pulling in the same direction.

Brian (02:48):

Yeah, it’s a lot of fun and we get to work with a lot of great folks. That’s how we met Chris through some of our mutual connections. But yeah, it’s really when you can get generally like-minded folks thinking about what the future of a region will look like and pretty aligned in working towards that effort. It’s more of a, well, it’s just fun and you can create a lot of impact and we’re seeing that and I’ll be happy to dive into some of the specific projects we’re working down here, but I mean you guys do it too at Boyer Miller, you all are working with clients all over the spectrum of types of industry and you have to adapt to what’s coming up, what’s at you, and be ready for that kind of stuff.

Chris (03:23):

Yeah, no doubt. So yeah, let’s jump into some stuff. Let’s talk first because when I think of your area, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is NASA and all that’s going on around that, and that leads me to technology and innovation. So what are some of the emerging technologies or trends that you’re seeing that are kind of helping shape the future of Texas and kind of the business opportunities at least in your region and for Texas?

Brian (03:52):

So I call it kind of the big five on the industry cluster. So everybody thinks about this area for nasa, which we love, right? It really is a crown jewel out here, but I call it the big five, right? Maritime and all the associated logistics with the port, aerospace and aviation, so nasa, but also the great work that the airport system is doing with Ellington and hobby tourism and recreation, healthcare and all the hospitals that have campuses down here and then specialty in petrochemical and the energy industry partners and every one of those ecosystem has a ton of stuff going on. So I’m happy to talk about some of those more granular, but a couple observations. One is that often overlooked in this community and really an asset to the greater Houston region is Ellington Field, Ellington Airport, the Spaceport, and if you haven’t seen or heard about it, the work that’s going on at the Spaceport, they have three new beautiful buildings.

(04:44):

One is occupied by intuitive machines who just put the first commercial lander payload on the surface of the moon. One is occupied by a company called Axiom that’s building the next generation of commercial space suits and the next generation space station and call-ins who do spacesuit design and are building and maintaining the current space suits set up huge facilities down there. And so new stuff coming on, but I’m equally excited about just across the runway is the one 47th reserve group. So there’s a reserve unit out there or reserve base, and the defense opportunities are pretty exciting. So that’s highlighted by the one 47th, but almost every branch has a reserve unit out there, save the Space force and we’re working on that. And so the opportunities with defense manufacturing to come out to do more work in Houston and some of their innovation units, and as mundane as it sounds, some of the procurement opportunities because when it comes to contracting, having a group of folks here would be a great opportunity for Houston businesses to then pipeline the work that they’re doing into the broader defense industry, which can be really exciting. One other thing I’ll mention Chris, is if you just look at the path of predictable growth for Houston, it keeps going out and we see that on our freeways every day. So there are growing pains that come with that,

Chris (06:00):

But

Brian (06:00):

For our region, it’s that steady March down Interstate 45. And so while Clear Lake League City are starting to get to fully built out and we’re looking at what does the next generation of building look like, what’s redevelopment look like for communities? Dickinson, Hitchcock, Santa Fe to some extent Texas City, although they’ve got quite an industrial complex too, there’s still space. And so it really brings up the opportunity of we can handle big projects and whether they’re industrial or tourism, there’s a lot of opportunity it comes with that. And so as folks, as we get built out further and further, those cities that were, they’ve always been important cities for the regional ecosystem, but they become major players and so it’s exciting to be able to work with them on that stuff.

Chris (06:45):

Sounds like a lot of opportunity for real estate development, both residential, retail, commercial, industrial, kind of all sectors are going to be playing a big part in that ongoing development in your region.

Brian (06:57):

Exactly right. And part of the fun part is every municipality has different targets of what they view their economic development to look like. And so we get to work with all those cities where some may be really focused on industrial, some may want to be bedroom communities and be focused on residential. Our task is to support those municipalities in this region and identifying good players to bring to the table. So who are people that we do want to partner with that can follow through on the projects that can complete ’em and make ’em successful?

Chris (07:27):

That’s great. And I think I saw recently in the news the state of Texas, I think it’s had something along these lines, but it’s like a fund for the space related projects. And I know I don’t know the name and you’ll help me with that, but I seem to recall the governor being in town and making some big announcement right after the first of the year. Tell us a little more about that.

Brian (07:47):

Exactly right. So last legislative session, primarily spearheaded by state representative Greg Bonin, who’s also a Fringewood resident. He’s a neurosurgeon by day and state representative chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. During the legislative session, he had this kind of vision of how does the state become a major player in the aerospace community that’s been primarily a federal and private industry ecosystem. And so under his vision and was support of the state legislature and certainly the governor, they put a bill that kind of outlined a direction for the state to engage and in the resources behind it. And it does a couple of things. One was it allocated about $200 million that would go to Texas a and m to build this a and m space institute. And they’ve actually located that property. It will be built on the edge of the campus of Johnson Space Center.

(08:37):

So for those familiar with this area right on Saturn Lane, 200 million building, and as M’S laid it out, it will have a giant lunar rock yard and a giant Mars rock yard with the idea that everybody who’s going to be doing hardware testing to send vehicles to the moon or Mars is trying to figure out where they’re going to do that testing. And it’s very expensive to build, obviously. And so companies are making the decision whether they’re going to build that themselves and own it or go lease it somewhere and if they’re going to lease it, where do you go to find a giant rock yard to simulate the surface of the moon? And well, the state of Texas answered that question. So what was so unique about that vision was that everybody who’s in that ecosystem now wants to come through Houston, Texas to do that work.

(09:21):

And so with that comes, they’ll have their lab space there, but they may need offices, they’re going to be hiring people. And so it really is an exciting project. They had their groundbreaking right at the end of last year. I’ve seen surveyors out there and they think they’re going to have it open in 2026, so an aggressive timeline to get that bill. The other part to that bill was they had appropriated $150 million for a grant program to incentivize sort of space leadership projects in the state of Texas. And so they have to set up a whole basically administration portion of this. So they selected nine individuals to serve on the Texas Space Commission who will review those proposals and evaluate them and make awards, and then they’ll also help advise the state on how they can keep their leadership position in the space industry. The first of those awards, about 20 million were released a little over a week ago. A couple of them were studies for best use for really cool stuff, hypersonic corridors where to be landing sites, and then another one that is to build assets and capabilities for the Space Force in El Paso to have more of a space force presence in the state of Texas, which is pretty exciting. So I’m optimistic about what’s to come for them.

Chris (10:35):

That sounds very exciting, especially the concept of the 200 million grant a and m and what that will do to attract other businesses that might relocate somewhere else and bring them here, and then all the ancillary things around hiring and jobs, et cetera. So that’s very exciting, the news, and I think it’ll be just around the corner. Let’s maybe talk a little bit about, you’ve mentioned maritime and the port and most Houstonians and people know the Houston port is a significant asset for our area. Anything going on there that’s new and exciting? Any kind of innovation that you see when you’re working with those entities and I guess the Port authority itself?

Brian (11:14):

Yeah, well, maybe the first thing when you talk about the port is you’re absolutely right, just how important they are to this, well to all of Houston, but to the country. I mean the scale of the port is hard to appreciate when you just look at the numbers, but the numbers are just staggering the amount of capability that comes through there. And the innovation really is on the logistics and management for how they move, whether it’s container, container containers, the container terminal organization and how that whole orchestra is operated and the capabilities from there is the cranes getting stuff unloaded then onto the trucks or rail or whatever. The mechanism to get it out and then get it distributed to it’s going is pretty incredible. And so we’re fortunate to have them. We just hosted the new port CEO, Charlie Jenkins, who’s a phenomenal leader, has a career in service of the port, is the right guy to lead that organization into their next chapter.

(12:07):

But he made this comment kind of in passing that the ports operations are about a 3 billion a day operation and you just go, oh, a day of economic impact that it go into that the scale is really something impressive, and that’s all the trickle out and secondary effects, but it’s amazing. The big thing that’s going on with them right now is project 11. That’s the deepening and widening of the channel that’ll allow additional capacity to go in there. And it’s really writing the story for what the next chapter, the port’s future is, and Houston as a trading hub is, and so it’ll allow for larger ships to come through. The additional investments they’re making will allow faster turn and movement of all the goods that are on there. So a lot of good stuff going on. I guess the last thing I’ll say is anybody who’s driven 2 25 sees all those trucks, and I drive it pretty regularly and see that too. And as much as nobody likes driving next to a giant 18 wheeler, every one of those trucks is jobs and prosperity for our region. And so the next time you’re driving there and you see a hundred trucks going down 2 25, that’s our economic prosperity moving around our region and candidly around the country. It’s good stuff.

Chris (13:13):

It’s a good point, yeah. I mean you wouldn’t want the roads to be empty and no trucks moving. I mean, that’s not a good sign. So feel blessed that we have all that in our area and driving all kinds of different prospects and opportunities for people. So when you are working with, let’s talk a little bit about these member organizations and all the different moving parts. What are you doing? How do you, I guess, keep things organized and people moving in the same direction? I would think that in itself is a full-time job.

Brian (13:43):

Yeah, it’s a lot, but it’s good stuff. I guess I’ll start with a phrase that I kind of live by, which is we have a lot of stuff going on and so we’ll find something to get on about, right? We can always find something to work together on. And so if you kind of start with that attitude, there’s a lot of common issues that really require a lot of work, but you can get maybe not perfect alignment, but general directional alignment. And so one of the big issues we’re working with right now is insurance, right? We’re all dealing with it. I’m sure you’ve gotten your insurance bill, but whether it’s home or your business insurance, all those things. And so you can find a lot of commonality and ideas about, Hey, how can we work with our state leaders, potentially our federal leaders with the insurance companies themselves to try to manage the cost of doing that and find ways, could it be grouping doing kind of what they do in medical where you can have these larger groups or other mechanisms to try and help mitigate some of the costs for that?

(14:33):

I’m getting a little granular, but you can find these little pockets where you can go move the ball down the field and get general alignment. And so we spend a lot of time doing that, but we are very fortunate that our membership, and generally this is kind of a Texan spirit type thing, is, Hey, how do we go get some stuff done? We want to go work on stuff we want to go work on together. Generally it’s a rising tide mentality and I spent a good portion of my career in industry and there are times where we compete like crazy and that’s fun and makes great products and great opportunities for our customers. There are a lot of times where we need the tide to rise and finding alignment about that. We try to be an outlet for that and keep things running is that we have not a big staff, but a staff that can help make sure that our members are doing a lot of this stuff as volunteers, but they’re bringing ideas to the table.

(15:20):

So how can we make sure that they’re staying engaged, that we’re checking in on ’em, that we’re helping carry these things and that we’re creating a forum to have the right discussions and bring leaders together so we can invite in elected officials over relevant stuff, the right industry players and bring them to the table and figure out what we can do. And then I guess the last thing I’ll say is that manifests itself, we have a very active state legislative agenda that we’re going to be spending a fair amount of time in Austin, federal priorities that we work with our congressional delegation and then very on the ground working with our municipalities and all the companies that are out down here to make movement, probably talk for all day about little one-offs.

Chris (15:59):

Hello friends, this is Chris Hans, look your building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations, and business leaders. Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm@boyermiller.com and thanks for listening to the show. Well, legislature is in session, so I know that creates a busy time for you. You talked a lot about some of the opportunities and I hope we can talk some more about that, but I do want to ask you at this point, what are some of the headwinds that you see this region and specifically kind of where you are that could be out there that you’ve got to try to deal with to get ahead of or navigate through?

Brian (16:56):

I’ll start with, it’s a great time down here. Just the way that each one of those big five industry clusters is going about is that they’re all doing well and have a lot of opportunity. It’s on the horizon or that they’re in the midst of right now, but certainly a few headwinds. One of the things that we’re always worried about and we work actively is just natural disaster, flood mitigation and storm surge and making sure that we’re resilient and prepared for the future. And so the risk from some incident happening, I’m more excited to talk about when it comes to that, all the things that we’re doing to mitigate that in terms of flood mitigation, the coastal barrier protection work that we’ve been spending a lot of time on, that’s the Ike dike has a lot of names, but most commonly known as that, but a system to protect us from storm surge. So one is the risk of natural disaster. I don’t like it, but it’s a real thing.

(17:43):

The second is that we’re in the how do we have responsible development? And so when you have a project that comes online, there are reasonable concerns from citizens saying, Hey, is this the best thing to be doing with this piece of land? And so anytime you’re talking about a development that’s going to take a field and turn it into a thing, people get concerned about that and that’s perfectly reasonable for them to be concerned and want to do that. And so part of what I spend time doing is addressing like, Hey, here’s why this is worthwhile. Here’s why this funds your local municipality and build more parks so we can have the resources and the tax base that justify expenditures that come elsewhere and make through that. But just the ability for the public’s ability to impact development as it happens is important. But for them to do that, knowing all the ground truth, knowing what the trades are and understanding that so that if they are concerned about something, that they come with that from an educated knowledge base. And so that’s out there. And then I certainly don’t want to get political, but anytime there’s an administration change, there’s just priorities that get changed. And so we’re still waiting to understand all of those where we’re kind of watching how things are shaken out in Washington DC and we’ll adapt and make sure that we’re doing everything we can to put our region in a great posture with whatever those priorities are at the end of the day

Chris (19:03):

To that last point where you’re kind of right in throws that change right now that’s happening pretty fast to got to stay on your toes. Lemme take you back to the I dike because something to get after Harvey. Hurricane Harvey got talked about a lot. You don’t hear much about it anymore. Any kind of updates for the listeners that might be curious, is it really going to happen and if so, what’s really going on down there to make sure it does happen?

Brian (19:29):

So it’s still moving along and with some enthusiasm. So a couple of big milestones. One is that in December of 22, it became a formal project of the US Army Corps of Engineers. It was authorized by Congress as a project. So that says they can now go focus on that. And so the next big question becomes how do we pay for it? To answer that, the state stepped up in a big way in the last legislative session and they had previously formed what’s called the Gulf Coast Protection District. That is the local entity for that project that will work with the US Army Corps of Engineers. So that group exists and has monthly meetings. They actually have an office in our suite, we lease an office to them and they have their meeting in our conference room two out of every three months, and then they do a rotation one that third, and they’ve been funded to the tune of about a half a billion dollars from the state of Texas.

(20:18):

So they’re ready to take significant action. We’ve been working with our federal partners about identifying where the big dollars come from for that project. It’s going to be expensive and it’s going to take a long time, but it will be likely done in phases. And so that allows it where you don’t need this one giant of money all at once. You can do it sort of in a series and address the most important aspects of that, like the gates, some of the initial most highly populated areas in phases, but we got to federal appropriations for it. So in addition to the state entity being in our office, actually the US Army Corps of Engineers is on the fourth floor of this building. And so all of the players for that project are in one building in our area right here. So what I’m hopeful for is the Corps moved in about six months ago. Anytime an elected leader wants to come down and meet, they’ll get every leader for that project in the same building and often meeting in our conference room or one of the core conference rooms, but a lot more can get done. There’s sort of the opportunity for water cooler conversations between the state and the fed folks. And so I’m optimistic that the cadence just from that proximity will be helpful to that effort.

Chris (21:25):

Very good. That’s good to hear. Let’s change conversation a little bit. So as I said, you’re the president of bhe P, you mentioned your staff. Let’s talk a little about leadership. How would you describe your leadership style and how do you think that’s evolved as you’ve been in this role?

Brian (21:43):

Yeah. Well, I don’t know that I can quantify it terribly well, but I’m a kind of, hey, all hands on deck and let’s all just lean into wherever we’re going. And I kind of have that expectation of our team that we have a clear set of priorities generally around the growth of this region and the projects that we’re undertaking and that we’re just leaning into ’em all the time and focusing that I love getting down and into projects. And so I’ve been on this journey. That’s been one of the big focus points to me is that you need a team to get this amount of stuff done and the size of these projects and the scope. And so the ability to trust in the team and lean on them and let them go run with the ball is really important. I’ve been extremely fortunate that we have a great staff and we have a great membership base that we can lean on to help go bring those things to fruition. But it’s a lot of fun coming to work. I think the team has a great time and enjoy the work that we do, and you can see the difference that we make because there are buildings we can point to that wouldn’t if not for the work of us and the leaders in this community wouldn’t be there. And I’m looking forward to seeing that one on Saturn Lane with giant Texas a and m buildings sticking out of it coming through. But

Chris (22:56):

It sounds like it’s going to be impressive with the rock yards and all. It made me think though your team has a lot on its plate, I would think at times it may feel overwhelming. So what do you do to help keep the motivation and keep the energy level up for a team that probably at some point just starting to get to the end of the rope or run out of gas

Brian (23:22):

Diversity of projects and lots of different stuff to work on. I’m guessing. And actually I’d kind of turned that question on you, Chris, because I can only imagine the type of stress that you guys live under as especially working big cases and big projects. There’s one part that is, Hey, we’re just all in this together. And the esprit corps that comes with, we’re tackling big projects and that’s just part of what comes with it. But there’s another part where you just need to shift gears for a little bit and work on something different and give yourself a little recharge time. But how do you guys deal with it? I’m curious how Boyer Miller, because

Chris (23:54):

It’s a fair question to turn around on me. I would say it’s similar. I think to me that you can’t underestimate the power of a team. And if you have the right people on the team, there’s some self-motivation just within that group. And then I think it is, we are fortunate to have very diverse type projects. We practice in all industries, so we may be doing a deal or a project, it’s in a different industry and there’s different nuances that make it exciting. And at the end of the day, I think it’s the one point you highlighted on, you can point to something and we’re helping clients achieve their goals so we can point to a deal that’s been done, or maybe it’s a merger of two companies or one that’s grown and now has a new building and doing whatever, but you can point to those successes where you’ve helped the client achieve something really big for them and their business and their life. And so I think all of that continues the motivation. Yes, sometimes at the end of a big deal, you need just a little bit of a breather, but you just jump right back in and get going. So it makes it fun.

Brian (24:57):

Well, if you’ll let me share. So you and I first met in person, had an opportunity to meet at one of your big forums, and that was a bunch of your customers and clients were there. And I love meeting new folks, as you probably saw, and walking around just saying, Hey, I’m Brian, what do you do? And almost every one of ’em I would ask like, Hey, so how do you know Chris? How do you know this group? Have you worked with them? And they all had a story that was exactly that, whatever thing it was that you helped. Oh, we did X, Y, Z project and it was awesome, and we just kept it. We use ’em all the time for all these things. It was just very striking how passionate your customers, your clients are with the help they’ve gotten from you guys. So anyway, that is extremely commendable and what I’ve seen from your team has just been amazing.

Chris (25:39):

Well, I appreciate the feedback. It’s always good to get that, especially from different sources. So I think we’re always trying to create raving fans so that they’ll keep coming back and tell their friends. So you get a unique seat. And I think it’s similar. You kind of analogize back to us. I think we get a unique seat to work with Texas entrepreneurs, and that’s a pretty cool thing to do in my view. How would you describe the Texas entrepreneurial spirit if you could, based on your experience?

Brian (26:10):

Yeah. Well, I’m a native Texan. I have this hypothesis that part of the reason we’re such a proud bunch is that when you go through, I don’t know if you grew up in Texas, Chris, but for those who went through the Texas education system, you have Texas history almost every other year. So you hear about all of this great, just immense amount of history, and we just are such a, and that instills a lot of pride in your state. But then also this sense of we can do big things and big audacious things and we can make big asks and ask big questions and go get it done. And so we see a lot of that down here. And so if you were sitting in, I’ll make this up Iowa, and you said, I want to have a space business and we want to go put hardware on the moon, and your neighbors would look at you and kind of scratch their head.

(26:55):

And in Texas they’d go, oh yeah, that’s intuitive machines, and they’re down the street. You should go talk to ’em. They’d love to work with you. So that kind of spirit is really something special. When I was in industry, I traveled all over the country work in projects. There’s something very special about this region, this community, this state, and that translates into why people want to come here. We keep Texas and Houston keep winning all these awards for new businesses coming here, people moving here. And that’s not by accident, it’s not by coincidence. It’s because we have a great, great story to tell, whether that’s workforce and the capabilities, the affordability of being here, the caliber of people you can work with and who your competitors are, and the level of intensity in the game that we play here is high. And that creates the right ingredients for a really thriving community for entrepreneurs, but also for industry, any size.

Chris (27:49):

Right. Very good. So what advice would you give to entrepreneurs out there that might be looking to start a business? Let’s say specifically within your region, if not maybe beyond that in Houston, what’s some of the advice you might give ’em if they wanted to get involved in some of all the things you’ve been talking about?

Brian (28:08):

Yeah, dive in. It’s a great community and a great ecosystem, and there’s a reason people are investing here and making a great run at it. We try to make that as easy as it can be. Now, it is not easy. There’s no illusions that starting a company, scaling and growing a company, all those things are very challenging. So the question I find myself asking, I don’t know that I’m in a position to give this immense amount of wisdom about these things, but what can we as a community and we as an organization be doing to help that entrepreneur? How do we help them build the relationship so that if they’re having a trouble with a permit, they know who to go ask, who to go talk to if they have a big idea, who might be good partners if they want to bounce something off a retired executive who they might go talk to about that has the right skillset so that we can create the conditions for them to be successful. And so that’s really how we find ourselves interface with that ecosystem is how do we put the right players together to go make things happen.

Chris (29:04):

Very good. So the other thing I’m curious to know is what do you see, you mentioned your five big industries. What have you observed of those industries working together to create innovative ideas to help each other? You got to move forward.

Brian (29:20):

Yeah, there’s been a lot of, so workforce has been one of the biggest, especially over the last few years, where there’s been this really high intensity competition amongst folks. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you have been in some of that with recruiting and retaining high talent attorneys. Is that that been? And so we’ve spent a lot of time, and I’ve observed a lot of our members in this community go with that in a spirit of, Hey, we’re not really doing anybody any good if we’re just poaching each other’s people and creating pain points and friction between senior executives and those kinds of things. Let’s go look at other communities and go figure out, Hey, what are the best universities and how do we get the professors that are training the students in it to send resumes to our area? And then we have a coalition of companies, not just one company has a relationship with one professor and that company benefits from that.

(30:10):

It’s how do we build that relationship as a community and say to them, Hey, we have a very strong demand signal. Let’s work together on things like that. And so feeding that workforce pipeline, so we’re not divvying up the pie, we’re growing it. And so on the workforce side, I hate to be cliche, everybody’s talking about ai, but we’ve had a couple of membership meetings about it. We’ve been working with partners about integration of it. We’ve adopted different technologies that have come out of it. But that’s stuff really, I mean, it’s the wave that we’re living in right now. And so the integration of that into systems, both the how to do it and the mitigation of risk. I think I saw over the weekend that the new deep seek had a big, not terribly surprised, but had a giant data leak and compromise. And so when you’re using that, I can only imagine, Chris, and I’d be curious how y’all are integrating it, but everything you put in there, you got to assume that at some point, somebody you don’t want to have access will at least have the opportunity to have access to it.

(31:06):

And so you have to be quite careful about how you integrate it. It just as an aside, are you guys using it much? Have y’all banished it? What’s

Chris (31:15):

Well, I’d say it’s a little bit of both. I mean, we are definitely looking at and finding ways to integrate it. We’ve adopted a policy, but it starts with, as you mentioned with us, it starts and stops with maintaining client confidentiality. So only there’s some systems out there through recognized legal researchers. So Westlaw comes to mind where they’ve developed an AI tool that is solely within their database. So it’s secure, it’s all legal. You don’t have to worry about, you still have to check things, the human element of that. But if you’re searching, for example, using the AI tool within Westlaw, you don’t have to worry about the fake cases you’ve seen in the news, but our attorney, if you’re going to use it, it has to be approved through the firm, which are only a handful. You can’t use anything outside and everything has to be double-check by a person to make sure for accuracy, et cetera. So it is, I mean, the confidentiality side is a real concern, not just for law firms, for everybody, any company using it. And unfortunately it’s just going to be more and more what we see, the more that we’re moving everything to cloud, you’re going to have people coming after it to try to on the bad side of that. And certain countries, it’s not illegal to be a hacker. So that’s the world we live in now.

Brian (32:35):

Yeah.

Chris (32:36):

Well, Brian, this has been a very interesting conversation and the last time we spoke, I came away with the same feeling and that is we talked a lot of opportunity going on in the three to six o’clock region of Greater Houston, and we didn’t even scratch the surface, I’m sure, but my takeaways have been it doesn’t matter what industry, again, I said earlier, you always automatically think of space and nasa, but it’s every type of business you could think of, an industry you could think of. Sounds like you’ve got ample opportunity for businesses and entrepreneurs to start, grow, expand, and be there and thrive.

Brian (33:15):

Well, perfectly said, and I think we get a recording. I may use that in some of our promotional material, Chris. That’s exactly right. Great time, great place to be and welcome folks to reach out to us to help however we can if they’re interested in looking at opportunities down here. For that. Before I lose you, Chris, one of the favorite questions that you had sent over that I wanted to ask you that you didn’t get a chance to ask is what your favorite recreation vacation spot in the state of Texas is?

Chris (33:42):

Well, I’ll answer that. I was about to ask you that. I would say if it’s kind of a vacation spot in Texas, it would probably be anywhere along the Texas coast to relax a little bit and get some fishing in.

Brian (33:54):

Perfect. I love

Chris (33:55):

It. How about you?

Brian (33:56):

We are huge campers. We love going camp. My kids are eight and 11 and we have state parks pass, and so any day I’m in a state park is a good day for me. But Inks Lake is one of my favorites and McKinney Falls between the two of those. Those are my top two right now. But we’ve probably been to teen and we’re just checking off the box to hit ’em all and maybe we’ll upgrade to national parks as we get a little bit older. But I love our visiting our state park system. They’re just absolutely wonderful.

Chris (34:26):

That’s great. Okay, last question. You’re native Texans, so do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue?

Brian (34:33):

Oh, I feel like that question’s going to get me in trouble, but if you made me choose, I’d pick barbecue. I’ll eat it all day every day as it shows. Very good. How about you? How about you?

Chris (34:44):

I think it is a tough one. So I’ve had some guests. It depends on the day. I probably lean Tex-Mex more than barbecue, but I love the restaurants now that are combining the two. So brisket tacos or brisket nachos or something like that. It’s a great combination.

Brian (35:01):

Yeah, there should be an answer all of the above there. So,

Chris (35:04):

Well, we’re getting close to the rodeo time in Houston, so I’ll have to go with barbecue for now and then back to TexMex, I guess.

Brian (35:12):

Well, I look forward to seeing you at the kickoff event where we get to go sample a little everything

Chris (35:17):

Deal. That sounds good. Brian, thanks again for taking the time. Really appreciate your friendship and definitely appreciate what you and your team are doing for all the things business down in the Bay Area.

Brian (35:30):

Well, right back at you, Chris. Thanks for your leadership and all the great work you’re doing with your team. Appreciate the opportunity to visit with you today. Thanks.

Chris (35:39):

And there we have it. Another great episode. Don’t forget to check out the show notes at boyarmiller.com/podcast and you can find out more about all the ways our firm can help you at boyarmiller.com. That’s it for this episode. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you next time.