The backstory
Gibb previously worked as the economic development director in Salt Lake County, Utah, and has worked in consulting and in other economic development roles in areas including Chicago, Connecticut and Boston. Previously, he was an officer with the Navy Judge Advocate General Corps and completed law school at the University of Texas at Austin.
Gibb presented the annual economic report prepared by The Woodlands Area EDP at The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce's annual Economic Outlook Conference on Feb. 21.
Community Impact spoke with Gibb on Feb. 27. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to The Woodlands?
[My] goal has been to get back to Texas. It's just been a long road to get excited to finally be here [and] to raise my family here. The Woodlands is such a spectacular place for both the business community and ... personal life.
It just sold itself [and] ... I realized it was something that I could sell to businesses from around the country [and] around the world.
What do you feel are the most important growth areas for The Woodlands?
It’s going to be business attraction [to] bring in kind of that diversified portfolio ... where it's not just big corporate headquarters. ... The beauty of George Mitchell's vision and of Howard Hughes vision is you actually have urban planning. ... I think we have to go after a diversified portfolio of new businesses to continue bringing the next generation of companies to The Woodlands.
[We're] going to be getting really precise [on] what we go after. ... We're going to be smarter in how we spend investor dollars. ... While it's a low win rate, sometimes it's one in 100 deals. We want to make sure [we] win as many deals as possible in order to bring in as much as possible in a way that supports the prosperity and the goals of this place.
How important is it to attract smaller companies with fewer than 100 employees?
You need the mix because, for example, if you look at our chemical sector, you’ve got Huntsman and [Chevron Philips Chemical], but around them ... we’ve got great mid-sized companies. It's going to be very unlikely, given the mature stage that a lot of large chemicals companies are in now, ... to attract another CP Chem. It's going to be much more likely that we can go after these independent midstream companies.
... I think we've got a great niche for that sub-100 employees and [can] build out from there. ... You don't just go big game hunting, you've got to have, again, that diversified portfolio, so that when all the pieces fit together, it really makes sense.
How did you prepare for the first Economic Outlook Conference this year?
One of my big emphases for ... the first 100 days, has been meeting with as many investors as possible to understand context. So ... going into that conference, it was really understanding our awesome investors and what they wanted, but also combining that with my connections across the country and across the world to say, ‘Hey, have you heard about The Woodlands?’ ... That was one of the reasons that we got connected with [site selectors] Newmark Global. We actually got connected with a bunch of site selectors, and we narrowed that list down and finally selected Newmark out of them because they seem to understand us best.
What challenges do you see for economic development in this area?
I think it's bringing structure and vision and efficiency to this whole idea of doing more, doing more sometimes can be really clumsy, and you waste resources and you waste energy. We have a very clear mandate to do more. The challenge is going to be to do that in a way that is cost effective and to take the awesome foundation that I've been given from previous teams that were here to figure out how we make the best use of our current resources and how we allocate resources differently in the future. To make this a good investment for the township, for business sector partners and for others, so that they can go to their stakeholders and say, ‘This is why we're invested,’ not just in terms of funding, but also in terms of time. Because for many people, while their investment is substantial, the value of their time is even more important and more valuable, of course, so we have to make sure to make the highest and best use of that as well.
What is the biggest advantage for this area in terms of economic development?
The big advantage is the master-planned community. Texas is a huge asset. It's one of the most competitive states for site selection and economic development in the country, but Texas doesn't do a lot of land use planning, urban planning. There's a lot of sprawl. There aren't well defined or well curated communities in a lot of places. You have that here, so you've almost got the best of both worlds, because it is Texas, and it's urban planning and it's great schools and it's low crime, and it's all the things that a lot of other places in Texas struggle with ... and it [doesn’t have] high taxes.
