2 0 2 2 H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N G U I D E
In Fort Bend County and Sugar Land, health care and social assistance remains the top industry, but industrial and tech-focused jobs trail not far behind.
WORKFORCE BY INDUSTRY
that are building plants, but up toward where you have all the industrial—like Amazon, for example—a lot of those jobs are run by a lot of robotics, and it takes a special kind of training to be able to go into that,” he said. “That’s where students coming out of these programs can go into a lot of these other high tech-type jobs.” This workforce environment serves as a backdrop for UH as it is in the early stages of also expanding its Sugar Land campus to include a 40-acre industry partnership zone, Neal said. Sepa- rate from the College of Technology expansion, the university is working with a consulting rm to generate a strategic plan for the land that should be completed by August. College of Technology Dean Tony Ambler said the zone will be used to create investment proposals sub- mitted as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Build Back Better ini- tiatives, a program to develop and strengthen regional industry clusters across the country. This zone will be used to encourage outside investment in the area from industries while also bringing collabo- ration with the College of Technology and enhancing economic develop- ment, Ambler said. “The new building enables the bulk of the College of Technology to n- ish its transition to Sugar Land [and] Fort Bend [County],” Ambler said in an email. "This will con rm [the college’s] commitment to economic development in the area with strong links to the educational establish- ments in the area, as well as with the economic development councils."
Health care and social assistance Accommodation and food services
Retail trade
Construction
Professional, scienti c and technical services
Educational services
Manufacturing
Other
36.3% 6.1% 12%
17.3% 8.5% 3.5% 6.3%
14.5% 9.7% 11.3% 5.9% 10%
39.6% 8.8%
73,388 Employee total
367,035 Employee total
NOTE: PERCENTAGES DO NOT EQUAL 100% DUE TO ROUNDING SOURCES: CITY OF SUGAR LAND, JOBSEQ, FORT BEND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
when the university last performed an economic impact study, the cam- pus brought $46.6 million in economic activity to Sugar Land. Professional and technical services made up approx- imately $1.5 million of that activity, according to the study. “We’re excited about the work- force that [the] move brings to our businesses and to be able to retain them and give them exposure to our existing businesses is a great pipeline,” said ElizabethHu , the city’s economic development director. That pipeline extends to the Sugar Land Department of Innovation, which uses data, technology and improve- ment strategies to encourage new ideas and collaboration, per its website. The department’s team partnered with the College of Technology’s leadership and innovation man- agement minor program to provide semester projects for two classes in the program’s spring 2022 introduc- tory Innovation Principles class. Out of the 148 students enrolled in the class, 52 students are involved in semester projects, which involve creating innovations to address chal- lenges for Sugar Land, Crawley said.
with plots of land 50,000 square feet or more a rarity. Still, local businesses have expanded, such as construction software company Heavy Construc- tion Systems Specialists, which has expanded its operations over the last four years, Hu said. The local expansion comes as the region has also welcomed new tech giants, such as Amazon, which opened two Fort Bend County locations in 2021: a 2.8 million-square-foot ful ll- ment center in August at 2303 Hurri- cane Lane, Fresno, and another 3.7 million-square-foot ful llment center at 10507 Harlem Road, Richmond, which opened in October. Texas House Rep. Gary Gates, R Richmond, played a role in the Leg- islature allocating the funding to UH for the new College of Technology building. Gates represents District 28, which now includes Sugar Land fol- lowing the state’s redistricting pro- cess that was nalized in late October. The move and expansion by the College of Technology can serve a growing need in the district’s tech industry, Gates said. “We don’t have a lot of industries
By fall 2022, 185 students are expected to be enrolled in the class. “This is just our rst e ort,” Crawley said. “Our plan is to take the whole introductory program ... and address that before the challenges and needs of the city of Sugar Land and the other communities.” Additionally, Sugar Land’s innova- tiondepartment has participated in the college’s innovation engineering fast- track program, said Reena Varghese, the city’s director of innovation. “We’re also having the professor come and talk to our organization on the whole concept of innovation and what that means so that we can continue to expand the opportuni- ties that we have both internally and externally with innovation,” she said. Future growth Over the last ve years, the city of Sugar Land has experienced 2.6% growth in its professional, scienti c and technical services sector. That trend looks to continue over the next year with an anticipated 2.8% in job growth, according to JobsEQ data. Much of the city of Sugar Land has already been built out, Hu said,
For more information, visit communityimpact.com .
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SUGAR LAND MISSOURI CITY EDITION • APRIL 2022
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