Gilberto Salinas is t he Executive Director & CEO of the Great er Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC), where he plays a pivotal role in shaping the economic landscape of Brownsville, Texas. Having previously led economic development efforts at GBIC, Salinas successfully recruited Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to what is now the Starbase Spaceport at Boca Chica. After a tenure as Executive Director of the Kerr Economic Development Corporation in Kerrville, Texas, Salinas has returned to GBIC, bringing with him a wealth of exper ience and renewed vision for the region’s growth.
Salinas is co-founder of the Rebel School of Economic Development, a mastermind series providing a mix of leadership coaching, entrepreneur-led training and economic development
mentoring.
He was named in 2021 as one of North America’s Top 50 Economic Developers for his contributions to the field of economic development and is the recipient of DCl’s inaugural class of 40-Under-40 Rising Stars in Economic Development. Salinas is also a founding member of the IEDC Race & Equity in Economic Development Fellowship Program.
In addition to his accomplishments in Brownsville, Salinas was appointed by Governor Gregg Abbott to the Aerospace & Aviation Advisory Committee in 2016, and in 2023 as Chairman of the Texas Education Agency oversight committee on charter education.
Salinas holds a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Arts in Communication from the University of Texas-Pan Amer ican at Edinburg. And in his spare time, he performs stunt work for the television-film industry having appeared in From Dusk Till Dawn, Queen of the South and The Walking Dead.