The San Antonio metro area has won entry into an exclusive federal program that will give it bonus points when applying for grants to promote manufacturing.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has picked San Antonio among a dozen regions to join its Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership program, Secretary Penny Pritzker announced Wednesday. Membership in the program will make it easier for local agencies to get federal money for efforts as varied as building a skilled workforce and taking care of infrastructure needs to funding academic research and promoting international trade.

Local leaders are especially eager for training grants to fight the “skill gap” that limits hiring for some local manufacturers. Expanding San Antonio’s skilled workforce is “essential to expanding local manufacturing,” said a statement from U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, whose district includes part of San Antonio.

“The greatest challenge we face is a robust skill training program,” County Judge Nelson Wolff said, adding that a skilled workforce could affect whether companies such as Toyota Motor Co. decide to expand local operations. “It’s great that we were recognized, and now we have to put together a good proposal.”

The program could help San Antonio with its application for a $5 million American Apprenticeship grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, which would create 1,000 manufacturing apprenticeships over five years, said John Dewey, an ex-officio director at the San Antonio Manufacturers Association. Applicants for the grant can score 100 points overall; San Antonio will get two points for being part of the federal program.

Wednesday’s announcement marks the second time in the past two years that the federal government has singled out San Antonio for help with grants.

In 2014, President Barack Obama chose San Antonio’s East Side as one of five areas designated as a “promise zone,” giving it extra federal help in fighting poverty. That designation gave the East Side preference in applying for grants for housing, education and public safety, and allowed businesses investing in the area to get federal tax credits.

The manufacturing program is designed to prod local governments to work together on strategies for regional manufacturing growth, Pritzker said in a conference call Wednesday. Drawing up a strategy was a major part of the application process.

In their applications, regions had to show they ranked in the top third of the country in a certain type of manufacturing, Dewey said. For the San Antonio area — home to plants for Toyota, Caterpillar Inc., Continental Automotive Systems Inc. and Kalmar RT — that was transportation equipment manufacturing. Local officials presented the Commerce Department with plans to grow that sector further.

The other regions chosen are Pittsburgh; Memphis, Tennessee; Minneapolis; Salt Lake City; Peoria, Illinois; Madison, Wisconsin; Hartford, Connecticut; Fresno, California; south central Idaho; an area of Oregon and southwest Washington; and an area of Louisiana stretching from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, according to a White House news release.

The regions will get preference when applying for more than $1 billion worth of grants from 11 federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation and the National Science Foundation, according to the White House release. They also will receive a federal liaison to help them apply.

Ramiro Cavazos, president of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the city’s former economic development director, said he hopes the program will lead to grants that will encourage entrepreneurs to stay here rather than move to other cities.

“If they have a great idea, we want that idea to be spun off locally, the way Rackspace was,” Cavazos said. “We want funding for those companies to come from the local business community, so those jobs can stay in San Antonio.”

San Antonio went through a competitive process to join the program, with about 40 regions applying for the 12 spots, Commerce Department officials said in the conference call. The region will be in the program for two years, with an opportunity to extend membership afterward, according to an announcement on the U.S. Federal Register.

This is the second year for the program. Last year, local officials faced off against 70 regions but didn’t make the cut. Currently, there are no plans to bring more regions into the program next year, Commerce officials said.

This year’s effort was led by the Alamo Manufacturing Partnership, which includes the San Antonio Manufacturing Association, the Institute for Economic Development at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the economic development departments for San Antonio, Seguin, Bexar County and Kendall County.

The first round of winners for the manufacturing program, announced in May 2014, are the metro areas of Chicago, Milwaukee and Portland, Maine, and southwest Alabama, southern California, northwest Georgia, southern Kansas, southeastern Michigan, the New York Finger Lakes region, southwestern Ohio, the Tennessee Valley and the Puget Sound region in Washington.

Since entering the program, the first winners have won $100 million in economic development funds from the federal government, according to the White House release.

rwebner@express-news.net

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