PORT ISABEL, Texas - Saronic Technologies, the Austin-based defense technology startup that is considering building a shipyard at the Port of Brownsville, places a big emphasis on developing a young workforce.

So says Chris Johnson, director for the company’s shipyard in Franklin, Louisiana.

“Saronic is really, really good at is bringing on younger talent and training it,” Johnson said, during a presentation he and three of his colleagues made to Point Isabel ISD.

By way of an example, Johnson told the story of the shipyard in Franklin.

“Louisiana has long had a problem with young graduates in STEM, specifically engineering, electrical, and mechanical. Many different types of engineers have to leave Louisiana… because there aren't good jobs for those professionals. But we're helping reduce what they call the brain drain, where young professionals leave because there's not enough jobs for them. Saronic has done a really good job of addressing that in Franklin. I suspect we'll do it here again in Brownsville, given that chance.”

Johnson said there is a “buzz around Saronic” because “our culture is different.”

Doug Lambert, a co-founder and COO of Saronic, agreed.

“We've up skilled that workforce (in Louisiana). We have welders who are becoming engineers. We have pipe fitters who are growing in their careers. And that's something that's incredibly important to Saronic. We have a robust kind of jobs skill training pipeline that we've been prototyping here in Louisiana, and could potentially bring here to Brownsville, Texas.”

Lambert said the company thinks about manufacturing differently to most.

“These are not dirty jobs. We think about them in a way that is incredibly, incredibly tech-forward and people-forward and process-forward. So we tend to invest in our employees. We like to up-skill and create new opportunities that folks otherwise wouldn't have gotten in the area. And that really is reflected in how we build out infrastructure,” Lambert said.

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