JOINING THE LINEUP

Accelerator: Brandon Lingle makes his introductions in debut of his tech column.

New year. New president. New perspective. New SA Inc. column! Welcome to Accelerator, a weekly riff on San Antonio’s vibrant tech and startup scene.

We’re excited to push the throttle up on this project, which will soar into stories about the people, companies, institutions, politics, money and trends behind the news.

When I joined the ExpressNews last summer, the bosses assigned me to the business desk and Business Editor Greg Jefferson gave me the tech and economy beat.

I warned him that I didn’t have a wealth of tech or economics knowledge and was a terrible math and engineering student. Plus, I don’t have a STEM or business degree, and I came to journalism late — after a 24-year Air Force career.

But I’ve been interested in tech and science since I was a kid, thanks to growing up near Vandenberg AFB in California, where missiles and rockets have been lobbed into space since the 1950s.

Random aside: Gen. Jay Raymond, Space Force’s head honcho, used to frequent my parents’ frozen yogurt shop when he was a captain at Vandenberg. He was gracious and often made time to talk with me, a teenager considering an Air Force career. Someday I should ask him about the decision to place Space Command headquarters in Huntsville, Ala., instead of San Antonio or Colorado Springs, Colo. One rumor is former President Donald Trump trumped the Department of Defense’s decision, but that’s another story for another time.

After a short, unsuccessful stint at pilot training, I spent most of my Air Force time working in public relations. That often meant translating complex concepts and jargon into understandable language. I also taught in the U.S. Air Force Academy’s department of English and fine arts. Yes, the Air Force Academy, that engineering school nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, has an English and fine arts department.

Thankfully, Greg said not to worry and that it’d work out.

Over the past six months with the paper, I’ve met CEOs, economists, engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, spiritual healers, rocket chasers and more. It’s been a wild ride, and I’m thrilled to keep the momentum going with this column.

So, what’s with the name, Accelerator?

Beyond the obvious reference to startup accelerators — programs that fuel entrepreneurs and their young compa

nies with funding and other resources — the title is also a nod to our community.

In some ways, San Antonio itself is a large accelerator with business-friendly policies and incentives, a convergence of industries, unique collaborations and a tough but collegial competitive environment.

“Coopetition,” is what Dax Moreno, CEO of Verity, a local consulting firm, calls it. He said, there’s “the sense of like, ‘Hey, I can help you get better. I’m still going to beat you, but I’ll help you get better, too … and more people will come to us.”

2020 was the year tech emerged as the next phase of San Antonio’s economic growth, Moreno said. He sees the city developing a tech and research triangle anchored by Port San Antonio, Southwest Research Institute, and the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Houston Street entrepreneur network.

And there’s plenty of work out there — about 18,000 tech and cybersecurity job postings with an average of 1,400 monthly hires between June and November, according to SA Works’ 2020 fourth quarter job report.

Austin-based data company Spanning Cloud Apps said San Antonio-area workers in computer and math occupations make nearly 125 percent more than their counterparts in other cities, the sixth-highest pay premium of the 53 large metro areas. The median annual wage stands at $81,170 for these occupations, well above the $36,130 mark for all jobs.

Of course, there’s always room for improvement.

The same report placed the San Antonio area at No. 42 out of 53 large metro areas for the share of employment in computer and math occupations. Only 2.7 percent of area workers (28,220 people) are employed in these sectors. We’re No. 4 in Texas, following Austin (6.2 percent), Dallas (4.3 percent) and Houston (2.8 percent). And no region in Texas competes with Silicon Valley’s 12 percent.

And despite tech navigating the pandemic better than many industries, San Antonio ranked 47th among the top 50 U.S. metro areas for tech talent markets for the second year in a row, according to CBRE, a commercial real estate service firm.

“Openings continue to outpace hires, as San Antonio employers find it difficult to fill mid-level and higher roles,” said SA Works’ job report.

But we shouldn’t read too much into these reports. They’re valuable reference points as we keep moving forward.

This column’s name also hints at how the pandemic has accelerated the economic changes that were already underway, such as the shift toward e-commerce, telemedicine, remote working and automation.

Finally, Accelerator sounds cool. It’s active, going somewhere and carries an “X” sound.

And Xs are always in — SpaceX, Gen X, Xbox, X-factor, X-ray, X-Men, “X-Files,” X-wing, Xerox, Excalibur, Gas-X, exspouse — the list goes on.

San Antonio even has a few X businesses: Xenex, the germzapping robot maker; Xyrec, the airplane paint-stripping robot company; XArc, a space architecture firm; and 6Connex, the virtual meeting platform. I bet there’s more.

All that to say, I’m excited to dig into what South Texas’ X-factor is in the tech and startup world, and I look forward to hearing your ideas.

So here’s to hitting the Accelerator.

Staff file photo Plus One Robotics employees tune warehouse robots last year. Tech is emerging as the next phase of the city’s economic growth.