San Antonio's success story gaining traction

I have been asked in recent days why I was chosen to be a guest of the first lady at President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. I'm convinced it was because San Antonio exemplifies the vision that Obama laid out for America — a globally competitive business climate with a workforce that is trained and educated to be a leader in the 21st century global economy.

For San Antonio and for our nation, the approach is paying off.

In December, the Milken Institute ranked San Antonio as the best-performing local economy for 2011. Forbes and the New York Times, among others, followed suit by noting that San Antonio bucked the general trend of economic woes that gripped many cities in 2011.

The trajectory of San Antonio is no fluke. It is the result of a concerted strategy by the public and private sector to expand our city's opportunity spectrum by attracting and growing higher-paying jobs more than we ever have before.

In 2010, InCube Labs, a California-based biotech company, announced that it would relocate three startups and launch a branch of its incubator in San Antonio, while creating about 400 jobs in the next five years. In June 2011, CPS Energy announced a partnership with three New Energy Economy companies to relocate their corporate headquarters to San Antonio, investments that are expected to create 800 high-paying jobs by 2015.

A few months later, San Diego-based Petco opened the doors on a San Antonio Satellite Support Center, which by the end of 2013 will involve 400 administrative jobs with an average annual salary of $57,000.

These are just three examples of the new approach we're taking toward economic development and, by extension, contributing to the economic comeback being engineered by the administration. President Obama has overseen 23 straight months of private-sector job growth, unemployment has declined five straight months to 8.3 percent and there's a growing sense of cautious optimism about America's economic future.

I felt a particular sense of pride listening to the president last week because economic prosperity for every person in this country is the American dream, not just a Democratic or Republican talking point. And San Antonio is already focused on two of the president's major themes — expanding access to higher education and taking a leadership role in the new energy economy.

The president's efforts to reduce student loan interest rates, slow college tuition hikes and double the number of work-study opportunities for hard-working students are in line with what we're trying to accomplish locally. For instance, we created Café College to fill the gap created by a student-to-counselor ratio in Texas of more than 400 to 1.

On the clean energy front, CPS Energy announced earlier this month that it is negotiating a deal for 400 megawatts of solar power that includes a commitment from OCI Solar Power for 800 jobs paying an average of $47,000 a year, and the investment of a $100 million North American manufacturing headquarters in our city.

Every San Antonian should be proud that our city's success story is gaining traction in our nation's capital and beyond.

Julián Castro is mayor of San Antonio.