IED Texas

Heather Halstead graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2008, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Ms. Halstead has eight years of experience in customer service, as well as two years off experience as a small-business owner in the fields of photography, graphic design and marketing. Heather’s mission is to provide support for daily operations within the SBDC and assist existing and potential clients with questions about SBDC training programs and SBDC counseling services.

Irene l. Mireles brings more than 18 year's administrative, clerical, and secretarial experience to her position of Senior Administrative Associate at UTSA's Institute for Economic Development. She provides comprehensive administrative support to key leadership within the Institute for Economic Development's offices.

Irene has a BA in Mexican American Studies from UTSA and is currently pursing a graduate degree in Bicultural Bilingual Studies. She is an active participant in UTSA campus committees.

Jaime Martinez graduated from UTSA with a bachelor’s degree in International Business. He brings eight years of banking experience to the SBDC, assisting clientele with consumer/business lending, financial advice and money management. Jaime’s role in the SBDC is to coordinate all customers’business needs by identifying events that may affect their business and provide them with valuable advice.

Jaime is active in the community, participating in the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Free Trade Alliance, as well as the Alex Briseno Leadership Program. In addition, Jaime is an alumnus of the Leadership San Antonio Class 30. He enjoys hobbies such as running, traveling, and spending time with his family.

Jose Munoz currently serves as an assistant project manager in technology commercialization for SATAI. He helps the project manager to serve a wide variety of clients, assisting them with strategic planning, patent research, market research, business planning, licensing, and technology valuation. He has worked as an intern at the Institute for Economic Development's SBDCNet, where he gained experience in market research and business analysis. He also completed an internship with the City of San Antonio Dept. of International Affairs in the area of foreign investment and trade.

In December 2009, Jose was one of 100 postgraduates to attend the Campus of Excellence 2009 in Madrid. In 2008, he was one of two engineers from the Canary Islands selected to work with UTSA's Center for Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship (CITE), co-managing the international project Creating and Training Technology Entrepreneurs in an Isolated Model. In 2008, Jose got his Master in Management of Technology from UTSA. Prior experience in Spain involved Business Technology Consulting, auditing technological capabilities for innovation. He also worked as a Strategic Product Designer in a wide variety of projects.? Jose earned a degree in Industrial Design Engineering in 2007, after being awarded a scholarship by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain to further develop his engineering senior-year project at the Tec of Monterey, Mexico.

Javier Oyakawa is a business and economics researcher at the Center for Community and Business Research (CCBR). He finished the doctoral program at the Economics Department from the University of Texas at Austin. Recently he has developed research on unit roots and co-integration tests for the estimation of trade elasticities using STATA; on input-output analyses of the educational and training content of the labor force in the U.S; and on computational general equilibrium models for analyzing trade and fiscal policies using GEMPACK, GAMS, and SAS.

As part of his duties for the CCBR, he has developed economic impact studies for several firms and economic analyses of regions affected by external events for different agencies. In the past, he has had administrative and financial management experience in academic and commercial institutions. He obtained a master’s degree from Northern Illinois University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

Biography:  Janie joined the SBDC in November, 2009.  At the SA SBDC, Janie assists potential and existing business owners with business workshop registration as well as coordinates business advising services between clients and business advisors.

Janie brings 20 years of administrative and customer service experience to her new position.  She spent the majority of her career working for the country's fourth largest property & casualty insurance company, where she was a Director of Insurance Operations.  Janie is also a small business owner.  Her company manages all aspects of a client's medical claim, advocating for the patient.  She is a graduate of Abilene Christian University where she earned a BBA in Marketing. 

Jim is the President and CEO of SATAI (San Antonio Technology Accelerator Initiative). Prior to joining SATAI, Poage was the CEO of H2O Advisors providing investment advice to selected companies seeking funding. He has been active as a founder and an accredited investor in early stage companies.

Poage was previously the Chief Marketing Officer of TradeMC, a 50/50 joint venture between Fluor Corporation and IBM. TradeMC sales in the first 8 months of operations exceeded $100 million. He has over 30 years of senior management positions in information technology including:

Sabre, Inc. – SVP Worldwide marketing - $1.2 billion global P & L
Texas Instruments - Division manager – 3 years in Singapore & 3 years in Amsterdam Bausch & Lomb
Intel in the U.S., Europe, and Asia

He holds an MBA and BS Electrical Engineering degrees from the University of Wyoming. He has served on a number of international boards and advisory panels including being elected to the Marble Falls City Council in mid 2005. Jim has made hundreds of speeches worldwide to audiences of all sizes, and has appeared as a guest on a multitude of radio and TV talk shows and appeared on all major U.S. television networks.

Mr. Rodriguez has a specialization in construction at the Contracting Resource Center. His passion is directed solely to the interest in the growth of small business and has a strong desire to see his community and the nation strengthened by the services and support that the Institute for Economic Development can offer. His previous experience background consists of a small business owner in the small business consulting, construction contracting and construction management industries for the past 23 years. He received his BS in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University, attended Burbank High School and is a native San Antonian.

Luke Ortega Luper is Sr. Business Development Specialist at the UTSA Minority Business Enterprise Center. Luke recieved a BBA in Organizational Management from the University of Houston and a MBA from UTSA. Prior to UTSA he held Management positions with ARAMark, Pepsi Bottling and HEB Grocers. Luke also owned his own food and beverage consulting company in the mid ninties.

Luke consults clients on a range of issues from bonding, financing, government contracting, marketing and strategic planning. ?In 2008 and 2009 Luke initiated, recruited for and taught a 12-week small business management class to over 50 students, wherestudents were required to write a business plan. Luke is a Certified Global Business Professional, a board member for Business Opportunities for Texans and is active with the American Marketing Association San Antonio chapter and the UTSA Alumni Organization.

Lisa Owens brings over 15 years of administrative experience to her position of Administrative Associate. She holds a degree in Accounting from Hawaii Pacific University. Prior to joining the SBDC she served 16 years as an Intelligence Analyst in the U.S. Navy. Lisa is married and has three children.

Linda has over 13 years experience working with small businesses through the Small Business Development Center programs. She has been a program director with the SBDC program for over seven years, two of it with the SBDC Contracting Resource Center. Linda has been with the UTSA South-West Texas SBDC Network for five years. She has a BBA from Baylor University and graduate work in Applied Technology Training and Development from the University of North Texas.

Marissa is dedicated to SBDCNet Information Clearinghouse as a part-time Technical Staff Assistant III. She earned a B.B.A. in Marketing (2001) and a B.A. in Psychology (2006) from The University of Texas at San Antonio. Currently she is pursuing a M.A. in Counseling with an emphasis on Community.

Manuel Barba is a Web Management Assistant for SBDCNet since the summer of 2009. Currently a Civil Engineering student at UTSA.

>Marcie Garza joined the SBDC's Rural Business Program in late 2009 as the administrative analyst. Ms. Garza’s responsibilities are to research and analyze and support various small business and economic development projects in rural communities in the 79-county South-West Texas border region.

Ms. Garza holds a Bachelors of Public Administration from Texas State University. She is a native Texan and a new resident of San Antonio. Marcie is an active member of the Austin Young Republicans, secretary of The League of United Latin American Citizens – Austin Chapter, Public Relations Chair of the Central Texas Commercial Associated Realtors. During her free time Marcie enjoys rowing down Lady Bird Lake and attending classes at the Austin Ballet Company.

Michael joined the SBDC National Information Clearinghouse as a Business/Economic Research Associate II in January 2010. He holds an MBA from the University of the Incarnate Word and a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from Texas A&M University.

Mario R. Medina is director of Business Operations for the Institute for Economic Development. He holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in Accounting. He has more than 15 years experience in university fiscal administration. Mario currently serves on several university and institute committees, as well as serving on the National Council of Research Administrators as the treasurer. He also serves as contributing editor to the NCURA Magazine. Mario has a daughter by the name of Gabriela.

Marion Perry brings over 20 years experience, most of those at UTSA, as an Administrative Associate with the Contracting Resource Center.  At the IED she has worked the Minority Business Enterprise Center, Human Capital Program, and International Trade Center.  Marion handles the Bid Match registrations, billing, and payments, as well as travel for the center.

Mary Peters is the Associate Director of Operations for the South-West Texas Border SBDC (Small Business Development Center). She holds a Bachelor's degree in Marketing from St. Mary's University and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Public Administration at UTSA.

Mary has been with the SBDC program for over 16 years and her primary responsibilities include managing the data collection and reporting of all counseling and training activity. She also leads the strategic professional development activities for staff development with a focus on quality control and improvement.

Mary's husband is a small business owner, so her "off time" includes keeping the books and helping to market his business. They have two teenage sons and she enjoys involvement with youth group activities at their church.