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Click on the following links for a description of each of our Focus Areas.
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Clean Energy
Life Science/Biomedical
Defense/Homeland Security
Aerospace
Advanced Manufacturing
Other
Clean Energy
Many assets of the Paso del Norte Region make this a place where innovation in the Clean Energy Sector is vibrant. The Clean Energy Industry sector encompasses a broad range of activities that offer significant opportunities for innovation, including:
- Renewable Energy Generation: e.g. wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal, tidal
- Efficiency/Conservation: e.g. green building, solid state lighting (LED’s)
- Transportation: e.g. electric vehicles, hybrids
- Storage: e.g. batteries, ultra-capacitors
- Infrastructure: e.g. building automation, smart grid, carbon trading
- Environmental: e.g. water, wastewater, recycling, remediation
- Advanced materials: e.g. carbon composites, nano-materials
- Green retail: e.g. consumer good
The Paso del Norte Clean Energy Incubator (CEI) is a partnership of The University of Texas at El Paso and The Hub of Human Innovation, funded through support from the Texas State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) and UT Austin’s Austin Technology Incubator (ATI). The Paso del Norte Clean Energy Incubator enables the region to knit together many assets in the Clean Technology Sector.
Life Science/Biomedical
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Defense/Homeland Security
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Aerospace
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Advanced Manufacturing
The Advanced Manufacturing sector, a world-class strength of the Paso del Norte Region, is crucial to global competitiveness in timely production and delivery of all modern, high quality innovative products. Increasing demands for customization, rapid time-to-market, lean cost controls, and just-in-time inventory put this sector front and center.
The manufacturing sector continues to account for 14 percent of U.S. GDP and 11 percent of total U.S. employment. And manufacturing firms fund 60 percent of the $193 billion that the U.S. private sector invests annually in R&D (U.S. Department of Commerce). Some experts define advanced manufacturing as “implementing process improvements, increasing quality controls, and installing advanced robotics and other intelligent production systems.” (U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Employment Training Administration (ETA) report). The Council on Competitiveness emphasized that advanced manufacturing entails high‐performance computing (HPC) for modeling, simulation, and analysis (“U.S. Manufacturing — Global Leadership Through Modeling and Simulation”). Along the same lines, the Office of Science and Technology Policy describes advanced manufacturing as new ways of accomplishing the “how to” of production, emphasis is customization and scalability, while advancing the technologies necessary to improve capabilities. Advanced manufacturing, however defined, is dynamic with constant improvements often comprised of pre‐commoditized processes and products.
Manufacturing salaries and benefits average $65,000, higher than the average for the total private sector. Higher pay/benefits and opportunities for advanced education and training attract workers to manufacturing (National Association of Manufacturers). Still, U.S. manufacturing employers have a serious problem finding qualified candidates for the highly technical world of modern manufacturing (National Association of Manufacturers — 2005 survey). Jobs in Advanced Manufacturing require a complete understanding and mastery of a variety of skill sets. Technical skills (design, engineering) are essential to the future of Advanced Manufacturing. Additional skills include:
- Ability to work in teams
- Strong computer skills
- Ability to read and translate diagrams and flow charts
- Strong supervisory and managerial skills
- Production skills to set up, operate, monitor and control the manufacturing process
- Process design and development skills to continuously improve production processes
- Health and safety skills in to maintain a safe work environment
- Maintenance, installation and repair skills to maintain and optimize complex equipment and systems
- Supply chain logistics knowledge in order to plan and monitor the movement and storage of materials and products
- Quality assurance and continuous improvement skills to ensure that products and processes meet quality requirements
Other
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