She grew up in District 9, watched it grow from a two-lane road on 281, and now she represents it on City Council. Misty Spears is anything but a typical freshman.

In this episode, Jeff Webster sits down with Councilwoman Spears to talk about her first year on Council, a week in Taiwan pursuing a $2.8 billion procurement opportunity, the push for a new VA hospital, and what it's going to take to deliver a tough budget without passing the pain to residents already facing rate increases from every direction.

They also get into the new Spurs arena, the search for a new police chief, and her personal commitment to going beyond town halls, meeting constituents at sports fields, in neighborhood groups, and across all four corners of District 9.

Chapters:

• (00:00) – Meet Councilwoman Misty Spears: Homegrown in District 9
• (01:37) – From Accounting to Oil and Gas to City Hall: Her Road to Council
• (05:23) – What District 9 Really Needs: Infrastructure, Safety, and Jobs for the Next Generation
• (07:19) – Year One: Budget Battles, Utility Rates, and Project Marvel Right Out of the Gate
• (10:19) – Committees, the Military Transformation Task Force, and a Trip to Taiwan
• (14:20) – Chasing Taiwan's $2.8 Billion: What Came Back from That Trip
• (16:32) – Military City USA: Advocating at the Pentagon and the New VA Hospital
• (18:47) – Public Safety, the Police Chief Search, and a New Stone Oak Substation
• (21:49) – The Spurs Arena, Local Business, and Why Sports Diplomacy Is Real
• (24:45) – Facing a Tight Budget: Core Services First, Rate Hikes Second

Links and Resources:

• City of San Antonio -- District 9
• Greater San Antonio Chamber

Podcast Production Services by https://EveryWord.Media

New York has had a duopoly on U.S. stock exchanges for over 200 years. Texas is coming for it.

In this episode, Jeff Webster sits down with Nicole Chambers, Global Managing Director at the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), to talk about why America's public markets are broken, what it's going to take to fix them, and why Texas is the only place bold enough to try.

Nicole spent nearly 20 years at Nasdaq running IPOs across Texas and the Southwest before joining TXSE as one of its first five employees. Now she's helping build the first serious challenger to NYSE and Nasdaq, backed by BlackRock, Citadel, Charles Schwab, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs, with a trading platform set to launch in Q3 2026.

They dig into why public companies have dropped 45% since the mid-90s, the private equity bottleneck choking off the IPO market, how Texas is becoming a rival to Delaware for corporate incorporations, and what it would mean to bring retail investors back into the wealth-building power of public markets.

Chapters:

• (00:00) – Meet Nicole Chambers: From Nasdaq to TXSE
• (02:41) – Why She Left Nasdaq and What Was Broken in the Public Markets
• (04:33) – Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC Overreach, and How Exchanges Became Regulators
• (06:18) – The Texas Miracle: 170 Relocations, 52 Fortune 500s, and a Rising Financial Hub
• (08:53) – The Backers: BlackRock, Citadel, Goldman and $275M Raised
• (09:29) – How NYSE and Nasdaq Responded When Texas Came Knocking
• (13:15) – The 2026 Roadmap: Trading Platform, ETFs, and the First Company Listings
• (15:24) – The IPO Bottleneck: More PE Funds Than McDonald's Locations
• (18:05) – The Real Tripwire: Taking On a 230-Year Duopoly

Links and Resources:

• Texas Stock Exchange: https://www.txse.com/
• Greater San Antonio Chamber: https://www.sachamber.org/

Podcast Production Services by https://EveryWord.Media

The Alamo Colleges District serves 89,000 students across five campuses and has quietly become one of the best community college systems in the country. Most San Antonians still think of it as just a place to get an associate's degree.

In this episode, Jeff Webster sits down with Chancellor Dr. Mike Flores to dig into what Alamo Colleges has actually become: a two-time Malcolm Baldrige Award winner, a bachelor's degree granting institution, and the region's largest workforce development engine -- graduating 14,000 credentialed students every year.

They talk about the Alamo Promise, how the college-going rate jumped from 45% to 65%, the push to raise Bexar County's educational attainment from 41% to 50%, and how frozen tuition rates and smart state funding have kept costs down while enrollment explodes.

About Dr. Mike Flores

Dr. Mike Flores is the Chancellor of the Alamo Colleges District, the largest community college district in the region. Under his leadership, Alamo Colleges enrolls more than half of all college students in the area and graduates more students than any other community college district in Texas. He views the district as the region's most powerful economic development strategy -- offering a path to a better life for residents across San Antonio and Bexar County.

Chapters:

• (00:00) – Meet Chancellor Mike Flores and the Alamo Colleges District
• (02:00) – From Two Colleges to Five: 80 Years of Growth Across Bexar County
• (04:46) – Beyond the Associate's Degree: Bachelor's Programs in Nursing, IT, and Business
• (07:18) – Aligning Workforce Programs with San Antonio's High-Demand Sectors
• (09:26) – Who's Actually Enrolling: First-Gen Students and the $500K Lifetime Earnings Gap
• (12:24) – The Alamo Promise: Free College for Every Bexar County High School Graduate
• (16:24) – Keeping Costs Down: No Tuition Increases Since 2018
• (24:38) – Malcolm Baldrige, Aspen Top 10, and Why This System Ranks Among the Best in the U.S.

Links and Resources:

• Alamo Colleges District -- https://www.alamo.edu/
• Alamo Promise -- https://www.alamo.edu/promise/
• Greater San Antonio Chamber -- https://www.sachamber.org/

Podcast Production Services by https://EveryWord.Media