WHY SAN ANTONIO?

INNOVATION WARRIORS

In 2011, the big question from the Wall Street Journal and others is: Why San Antonio?

San Antonio has had a hand in the challenging science and technology-based issues of the day for a century. The city's history of science and technology innovation is rooted in 1910 but the city's spirit was forged by a struggle for water and for independence. The principal leaders in the city across sectors have led as innovation warriors for the past century, by doing what is necessary in spite of the odds or circumstances:

• When Benjamin Foulois launched at the Fort Sam Houston Parade Grounds, on March 2, 1910, he did so at odds with popular thinking that favored dirigibles (blimps) over airplanes. In 1926, Harold Clark sketched his designs for an Air City on the back of dispatch sheets at the Kelly AFB motor pool of his own volition.
• When Schriever time-paced the development of missiles, satellites, the Moon mission and ultimately Mars in 1957, he was told to never use the word space in public again. When McDermott wanted and could not secure computing resources to teach astrophysics at the US Air Force Academy, he borrowed the resources on time-share from his friend Bernie Schriever at US System Command.
• When Katherine Stinson looped the loop, she did so at a time when women were largely relegated to books and letters to express their dreams of a life free from restraint. Meanwhile San Antonio's Katherine Stinson was creating a flight school in San Antonio, flying mail in China and flying for Red Cross in the U.S. to raise money for the war effort.

This unstoppable spirit is at the heart of what it is to be a San Antonioan. For military men and women, the city is a crucible upon which the future is forged. The Alamo City, is often regarded as the Heart of Texas and San Antonio is a place where put-up or shut-means something. It's a state of mind where the old and new coexist and where action always speaks louder than words.

Today, the city is growing vertically and horizontally. Mirroring an earlier era, Mayor Julián Castro has launched San Antonio 2020 to convene the city's stakeholders in a strategic planning process. Similar to Mayor Henry Cisneros, architect of San Antonio's Target '90 Initiative established in 1983, Julián is progressive and embracing technology, education and economic development as tools of transformation.

San Antonio, the new face of the American dream.

 
The Target '90 initiative provided the foundation for meaningful public-private partnership. The San Antonio version 2.0 initiative advanced higher education, urban development and a focus on engineering and technology at UTSA and through area high schools in the nations' model STEM program for engineers. Under the wing of the young Mayor, the University of Texas at San Antonio is advancing from Tier 2 status to Tier 1. In addition to burgeoning enrollment in academic programs and a new football franchise new construction of athletic facilities and fields is near Olympic in scale. Overall, the Alamo city moving into a San Antonio 3.0 planning and execution strategy in 2012.

San Antonio's University of Texas San Antonio is emerging as a Tier 1 research university and the University of Texas Health Science Center is Central Texas' premiere medical school. Both are charting the course to the future.

UTSA, We are Roadrunners

University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (UTHSCSA)

San Antonio innovation firsts include:

• Materials inventions including tiles for the Space Shuttle, improved silicone rubber skin for robotic dinosaurs in the Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World, improvements making liquid paper scientifically viable (SwRI)

• Contributions to the Human Genome Project, a landmark study in the Journal Nature “A physical map of the human genome,” Naylor and Garcia, UTHSCSA)

• Invention of the Palmaz Stent revolutionizing the care of heart disease and one of the top-ten patents of all time (Palmaz)

• Largest Phase I cancer clinical trials program in the world (CTRC’s Institute for Drug Development)

• Central repository of human-effects data for non-lethal weapons (Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Human Effects Center of Excellence)

• Discovery of “floating air” principle enabling open-air frozen food display in your local grocery store (Friedrich Air Conditioning)

• A method to remove the peanut butter from molds at M&M candy factories

• First network intrusion detection system (Wheel Group)

• First telecommunications phone-system firewall (SecureLogix)

• Invention of the first personal computer, the de facto standard for network configuration (Star topology), and providing the first personal computer-based protocol (ARCNET) for industrial monitoring and control (Datapoint)

• Dark Screen, Pale Horse, Alamo Alert – pioneering work in the medical, infrastructure protection and remediation aspects of homeland security and preparedness (City of San Antonio, Industry, Academia and Military)

• First multi-directional panoramic photography (Goldbeck)

Source: Jim Brazell, San Antonio Firsts Speech, siteTREK Bus Tour, SACCESS, September 20, 2003

Visitors by the millions are drawn to the city's meandering River Walk, the eighteenth-century Spanish missions and the sacred site of the Alamo sacrifice. In 1968, San Antonio hosted the first officially designated world's fair in the southwestern United States; the theme of the fair was the Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas. The city offers one of the largest family friendly parades in the nation, the Battle of Flowers Parade. Conceived in 1891 by Ellen Maury Slayden who had seen a similar Spain, Mrs. Slayden suggested to her friends that a flower parade should be held in San Antonio each year on April 21 in memory of the fallen heroes at the Alamo and to commemorate the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836 (Battle of Flowers, History).

Battle of the Flowers

Handmade oil painting reproduction of Battle of the Flowers, Fleet Festival, a painting by Alexander Harmer.

Viva!Fiesta

Fiesta's History

The River Walk, a San Antonio treasure and one of Texas' top attractions, was aglow during the 2011 holiday season with more than 1.76 million multi-colored light-emitting diodes (LED). Wrapping the trees and lining the street bridges along its banks, the lighting tradition adds 20 times more lights, utilizes less than half the energy of traditional incandescent lighting and supports long-term sustainability efforts of the city. The LED lighting is durable and is expected to last 10 years in comparison to incandescent bulbs, which were replaced annually.

Photo Montage of the new energy saving computerized lights draping the San Antonio River for the first time Christmas 2011.

San Antonio recently unveiled a much-anticipated extension to its celebrated River Walk, one of the top tourist attractions in Texas. This 1.3 mile, $72 million, addition nearly doubles the site in length, connecting even more museums, restaurants, hotels, theaters and historic sites with meandering pathways that border the spring-fed San Antonio River. Attractions along the extended River Walk, include the San Antonio Museum of Art and the historic Pearl Brewery, an eco-friendly urban village that offers top restaurants and shopping (Boing, The Hot Spot).

San Antonio’s world-renowned River Walk doubled in length on May 30, 2009 with the opening of the Museum Reach – Urban Segment. The Museum Reach is a 1.3 mile stretch of new walkways, landscaping, parks and public art along the meandering San Antonio River links several downtown historic, commercial and cultural institutions, including the San Antonio Museum of Art, The Pearl (a restored former brewery and stables) and the oldest VFW post in Texas.

San Antonio’s world-renowned River Walk doubled in length with the May 30, 2009 with the opening of the Museum Reach – Urban Segment. The Museum Reach is a 1.3 mile stretch of new walkways, landscaping, parks and public art along the meandering San Antonio River links several downtown historic, commercial and cultural institutions, including the San Antonio Museum of Art, The Pearl (a restored former brewery and stables) and the oldest VFW post in Texas. 

In what is San Antonio today, for over 11,000 years native American hunter-gatherers utilized the lush and varied ecosystems of the Olmos Creek basin, the springs and the rivers they created. The springs and rivers were favorite meeting place for campsites. In the location of the freshwater springs that feed the San Antonio River, stone and flint tools attest to thousands of years of technology use (Edward's Aquifer). In 1877 Harriet Prescott Spofford, writing for Harper's New Monthly Magazine, rode on one of the first trains to San Antonio and declared: On a more enchanting spot the eye of poet never rested. There is probably nothing like it in America. (Edwards Aquifer)

Ultimately, San Antonio is the river city--a city of springs from which culture and technology flows into the future. One of the oldest cities in America, San Antonio, today, is a living laboratory for what is next in the grand experiment of American cultural transformation. The city is like Peoria, IL in the 1970's--the model for middle America of the future--today.

The question is now: Will it play in San Antonio?