Fiesta is when San Antonio tells its story out loud, through culture, tradition, and symbols that are worn proudly.
Fiesta medals do more than decorate lapels. They mark milestones, honor partnerships, and celebrate the people and ideas that shape our community. This year, one medal tells a greater story: 50 years of greater:SATX helping San Antonians build job opportunities, prosperity, and momentum.
Like Fiesta itself, our work advances year after year, always driven by partnerships and a long-term, strategic vision. greater:SATX’s ability to collaborate and connect our city to opportunities has been part of our DNA from the very beginning.
The origin story traces back to a familiar downtown San Antonio setting: the Gunter Hotel, long a gathering place for leaders shaping the city’s future. It was there, in 1975, that business and civic leaders led by Retired Brigadier General Robert F. McDermott, then CEO of USAA and Chair of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, came together to form the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, which would eventually become greater:SATX. At the time, San Antonio was losing out on corporate recruitment projects and these leaders founded our economic development partnership to meet that moment.
That moment, paired with a long-term strategic vision, has guided our organization since its earliest days, rooted in a belief that San Antonio’s future would be built through intentional collaboration, with our people at the heart of it all.
Over five decades, greater:SATX has worked with some of the region’s most influential employers to realize their expansions here.
We’ve welcomed marquee corporate employers to San Antonio like Boeing, Whataburger, Toyota, H-E-B, the National Security Agency, JPMorgan Chase, EY, Victory Capital, JCB, International Motors, and many others.
As site selectors and C-level executives shifted their focus to a strong and competitive workforce as a top site location criteria, we were ahead of the curve and integrated SA WORX 10 years ago to ensure that San Antonio was building a stronger workforce to support existing and future regional employers aligned to the target industries we’re growing here: cybersecurity and new technologies, life sciences, aerospace and defense, advanced manufacturing, and financial and professional services.
And in 2021, we launched the All In regional economic development strategy, formalizing this organization’s reach to the 10-County MSA and rebranding as greater:SATX Regional Economic Partnership to solidify our organization’s competitive position and expanded scope.
In recent years, our momentum has accelerated. Since 2021, greater:SATX has helped attract or expand 120 major employers, generating $7.1 billion in capital investment and nearly 19,000 high-wage jobs. That job growth spurred San Antonio to rise in the rankings among the top 50 US metros for job growth, going from 20th to 2nd in manufacturing and logistics, 47th to 19th in life sciences and healthcare, and 39th to 25th in cyber and IT. Today, our region stands among the nation’s top performers in job growth, wage growth, and educational attainment gains.
Through every era, greater:SATX has continued to meet the moment, expanding into a regional partnership, strengthening workforce pipelines, and launching forward-looking strategies like All In and today’s MOMENTUM:2030. Each builds on the last, creating continuity across generations of leadership and growth.
It is fitting, then, that we celebrate our 50-year milestone during Fiesta, a party with a purpose defined by shared pride, collective effort, and belief in what San Antonio can accomplish together.
Like the medal itself, our greater:SATX’s story is a small symbol of something much larger: 50 years of vision backed by results, momentum built through partnership, and a reminder that San Antonio’s next chapter is already taking shape—and built to last.