William McCalpin

"...are very natural and healthy for most people..."

LOL, Scott!...but so are other natural functions...and I imagine most people would just as soon you left them out of sight...good talking to you... ;-)

Bill

Scott, I see that you misinterpreted my position from the get-go. I nowhere said that UTD was going to have the same influence on our area as UT-Austin has in Austin; I was pointing out to the citizens of Richardson that UTD already has a larger impact on Richardson than most people realize, and that this influence is going to grow as UTD makes the run to tier one status, as we can see by the numbers coming out of Austin and the projections from U of H.

If you look at the numbers I gave, UTD may grow to employ 5,000 in 20 years or whatever; but even if it's the #1 employer in Richardson, it would be only primus inter pares (first among equals) in terms of employment - that is, it wouldn't be 25% or whatever of Richardson's total employment (well under 5% would be more like it), but it would be a much larger influence on the city's employment scene than most people realize.

My goal was to educate the people of Richardson about the current and future impact of UTD, and to remind them that UTD and the Richardson City government have been working hand-in-hand for decades to help make this happen.

It's unfortunate that you feel the need to reduce my support for this relationship to a vulgar image. But it doesn't matter to me - I saw what UTD was 40 years ago (2 buildings in an empty field), I see what it is today (15,000 full and part-time students), and I see where a lot of people in influential positions are driving it ($100 to $150 million in research spending alone)...and that's what people need to hear, not 'bickering'...

Bill

And comparing UTD to UT-Austin is laughable at best. UT essentially is Austin, whereas UTD only exists because it's a commuter school near Dallas.

I can't tell if you are being argumentative or really don't understand the concept of 'Analogy'. The point in becoming a tier one school is that UTD won't be just a 'commuter' school as you derisively put it. Actually, it's already NOT just a commuter school - the current student population comes from over 90 countries; you think they're all commuters?

And certainly, as UTD grows along its projected path of getting towards the $100 to $150 million floor for research spending to be considered a tier one school, there are going to be a lot more undergraduate and graduate students coming here from around the world to take part in it - just like what has happened at UT.

I didn't say that UTD was UT; I compared what had happened at UT as it progressed to tier one status to what is likely to happen to UTD as it proceeds along the same path. Aside from your disbelief, I haven't heard any evidence that these developments are not likely to happen...do you have any?

Bill

Being the only public 4-year U. in north Dallas area for 40 years and still only being the 6th largest employer in Richardson isn't exactly an accomplishment, imo

Scott, this statement is disingenuous, since UTD was several different things in the last 40 years...it didn't become a 'normal' 4-year university until 1990. And as you know, plans change. UTD certainly didn't start out 40 years ago trying to be a tier one school...it took many years of people arguing and planning to figure out just what it was going to be...that discussion is pretty much settled as everyone in the school and in the state government are agreed that UTD is going to become a university with a huge research budget...and this will bring the faculty and the non-faculty employment.

I am puzzled about your remark about Richardson squandering its opportunity to greatly expand its business tax base. I believe that it was the Richardson Chamber of Commerce that said that the Telecom Corridor is already the second largest employment center in the Dallas area, second only to the Central Business District. And my recollection from the last budget process (which the City is about to begin again) is that Richardson already derives a high percentage of its revenue from business property tax rather than taxes on homeowners (compared to other suburbs). And having watched the City closely for some time, it's clear that they are aggressively chasing business, not squandering opportunities.

If Richardson wants to make a name for itself, it will build just as strong relationships with private sector companies.

Indeed, what do you suppose the "Telecom Corridor" was all about? How about working with BlueCross BlueShield to not only keep its 2,700 employees in Richardson, but persuading them that the location was so good that their planned 1.1 million sq ft facility will have space for up to 5,000 employees? And how about the obvious fact that companies want to be near tier one schools. I am puzzled; what makes you think that Richardson is squandering its opportunities? Do you have any examples?

Richardson being "built out" is hardly an argument, btw. You don't need vast amounts of uncultivated land for corporations to come.

This non-argument doesn't make sense. Our recent history shows that corporations tend to come as very large employers only if they can build their own space (see BlueCross BlueShield and all the HQs in Plano). Countrywide was an exception, because it was able to use an unusual amount of empty office space left behind by the telecom bust. In a healthy economy, this won't be possible (that is, for a very large corporation to bring in 5,000+ jobs in such a way) because there won't be enough contiguous empty office space to use - hence the remark on undeveloped land.

(continued)...

Scott, not so presumptious (although I will admit that I'm using my guesstimate over the next 20+ years, not UTD's published strategic plan for the next ten years). The thing is, Richardson is largely built out, and we are going to have difficulty acquiring any more corporate headquarters the size of of the new BlueCross BlueShield in the years to come.

However, UTD sits on 500-700 acres (I get different numbers), and there is still land up there being swapped around. This puts it up to twice the acreage size of UT-Austin...meaning that UTD has plenty of room to grow...as it will if it succeeds in becoming a tier one university. In addition, there is a large chunk of land to the west of UTD owned by Texas A&M (in Dallas), that one hopes that UTD may someday own (I have no inside track here, but I would rather that UTD own it than it be a million apartments).

So, you saw the statistics for UT-Austin. Following UT-Austin's statistics and estimates from the strategic planning department at UTD, it's normal to have 5 to 7 non faculty ("faculty"=profs and asst. profs, not instructors and TAs) employees for every faculty member. Thus, if UTD eventually has 1,000 faculty (even UTD predicts 600+ in just the next 10 years), this gives us 5,000 to 7,000 employees PLUS the faculty members. These numbers are as much as 70% more than the current largest employer ( (8,000-4,700)/4,700) ); Richardson just isn't going to get a single company with that size employee base...and given the problem we have had with the telcos and Countrywide, we probably don't want to ;-)

And the nice thing about universities is that, unlike private companies, they don't tend to relocate.

So, was I being optimistic? Sure. Was I being presumptuous? Ah, no. After all, I saw it when it was an empty cotton field and watched it get to where it's gotten today, and it is nowhere close to where it's going to be when it reaches tier one status. I have watched UTD and the City work together, and between them and the North Texas state congressional delegation, the money for development is going to continue to pour into UTD.

IMHO... :-)

Bill

Ah, Pavel, I'm not on the inside, so the joke went right over my head (flap flap)...although I would appreciate a link to this spirit thing - I am dying to see Herr Schicklgruber abusing his vegetarian temple of a body with large amounts of C2H5OH ;-)

Bill

Jesus, if you're talking about the big impact that UTD already has and will have even more in the future, I imagine that most people in Richardson don't know this, either - which was really the genesis of this article.

It's in the nature of the human condition that when things are screwed up, it's front page news, but when people actually do the right thing, nobody hears about it (and I certainly don't mean just you - I mean most of the voters in Richardson). So I figured it would be good to remind people of 2 things: UTD is going to be the largest single employer in Richardson in the years to come (it's already #6), and UTD really could negatively impact its neighbors (legally) but chooses not to - and the leaders in the Richardson City government are smart enough to encourage this behavior.

Occasionally, we do really have a win-win ;-)

Bill