THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Changes in San Antonio last 25-30 years
INTERVIEW WITH: John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
DATE: 18 August 1995
PLACE: Mr. Holmesly's office
INTERVIEWER: Sterlin Holmesly
H: ... with John Howe, President of the University of Texas Health Science Center, August 18, 1995, in my office. This is Sterlin Holmesly.
JH: I'm John Howe, President of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. I joined the San Antonio community in January of 1985, in the midst of snow. And so now it's been now nearly eleven years that I've enjoyed the opportunity to lead the Health Science Center Family.
H: You've been here more than ten years. Compare what was at the Health Science Center when you came in '85, and what it is now in the summer of '95. The growth, the relationship now and then we'll go back earlier than '85.
JH: You bet. Well, 1985 was a challenging year. As between the time that I lifted off from Logan Airport to come to Texas and arrived in San Antonio, the ... three things had fallen: Thirteen inches of snow; the price of oil and higher education budgets. And so we've moved from an era of relative growth for the University to one of significant economic constraints. We were faced with choices. The choice was to deny the reality, to be sorrowful, or to move ahead smartly and develop the next phase for the Health Science Center. And so clearly the latter choice was what was selected. And the ... if you contrast the Health Science Center today to 1985 it's a tremendous tribute to both campus and community. For example, the number of students; this year we will admit eight hundred and twenty-three nursing students to the Nursing School. That stands in stark contrast to the 1972 when the school was built to house two hundred and twenty-five students. This growth has largely occurred during the past decade. Today our Nursing School is the largest Nursing School in the University of Texas System. The other side of the ledger; Jim Reed, at the Heart Association, put it well in a phone call yesterday. In 1985 we received about forty-eight thousand dollars in research awards from the American Heart Association, this year that figure hit nine hundred and seventy-five thousand. That's just from one funding source. Overall, our research awards have grown from about thirty million dollars a year in the mid-'80s, to well over a hundred million dollars. And this ... the significance of that lies in the dollars, but also the fact that most of these monies come through a peer review, a competitive process, which speaks well for the effectiveness of our faculty here at the Health Science Center. So there are many indices from students' research which can, in a way, serve as proof pudding of the changes that occurred in this past decade.
H: And prior to your coming, the Medical School, as I recall, was ... started coming into being about the time of HemisFair 1968.
JH: That's absolutely correct.
H: And the HemisFair was a watershed for recognition for San Antonio. The Medical School, what is now the Health Science Center, was a watershed for employment, for research, for health care in the community. And, as I understand it, more than twenty thousand people now work in the Medical Center area.
JH: That's right.
H: You have the Health Science Center; you have numerous private hospitals; you have the University Hospital; the Bexar County Hospital; the Veteran's Administration Hospital; numerous clinics, practices and everything. So in that area where once cows were pastured, more than twenty or twenty-two thousand people are out there now?
JH: Yeah, twenty-two thousand.
H: Twenty-two thousand.
JH: Yeah.
H: What do you know of the beginning of the Medical School?
JH: Well, there's a wonderful story associated with that. A group of San Antonians, in 1946, trekked up to Austin and visited the Texas Legislature. Their intent was to demonstrate that San Antonio was the largest city in the John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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U.S. without a medical school, and now was the time to fix that. In the stealth of the night they became very, very close to succeeding in bringing that medical school to San Antonio. The way they did it was rather unusual. They came within two votes in the Texas Senate of creating the legal language that would move the Medical Branch, UT-MB, Galveston Island, to San Antonio.
H: Just pick it up in its entirety.
JH: Yes. And, needless to say, when that was discovered at daybreak, it caused great consternation at the Capitol, particularly among those who cared deeply about Galveston Island. So it wasn't an accident that not much was heard from the Texas Legislature over the next many years having to do with the Medical School in San Antonio. I'm told that whenever San Antonio came forth, there was usually people checking their pockets to make sure there wasn't a loose Medical School around that the San Antonians might take home. But it was in the late '50s that the city was successful; that dream that had been dealt with in the late ... in the mid-'40s. And again, a wonderful story! One of our community leaders, at that point-in-time, was none other than Pop Gunn and he happened to have his position here ... within the community of great influence, but additionally he was president of the Texas Automobile Dealers' Association of that year. And he said I think this is the year. And John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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with coming together with a number of people in this community, most notably, very notably Dr. John Smith, they trekked up to Austin again. But this time they had an ally, a very special ally; that was the lobbyist for the Texas Automobile Dealers' Association, who Pop enlisted in this particular cause. That lobbyist was very, very effective in getting the Legislature to agree to the Medical School. That lobbyist worked the floors of the House and the Senate to make that happen and, ultimately, we were chartered in 1959 by the Texas Legislature, not as the UT-Health Science Center of San Antonio, but as the South Texas Medical School. And that lobbyist, then, is the current lieutenant-governor of the State of Texas, Bob Bullock. And so there is no question that Bob Bullock has a keen interest in what he refers to as "his" Medical School.
H: Well, he has every reason to. (laughter)
JH: Yes.
H: And then when did the campus first open?
JH: Well, the first class of students graduated just around 1970. But the construction of the campus, of course, was in '66, '67, '68. Wonderful pictures that exist today here in San Antonio taken from the top of Methodist Hospital, looking across the way and you put it, a deer-run, with a couple of silos, with a sign that said, "Future Home of South Texas Medical School". John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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H: And Methodist Hospital was out there all by itself.
JH: Yeah, people thought that that was the Methodist Hospital of Boerne. And that that was a long ways from downtown, a long ways from civilization, and there was a real question as to whether or not that it would be successful in developing a medical complex, given the distance. But as you so wisely ... thoughtfully pointed out ... now a few years later, there are twenty-two thousand people that come to work every day at the Medical Center, and our biggest problem at the Medical Center is not ... have to do with delivery of health care, it has to do with delivery of employees; getting people in and out of the Medical Center.
H: The great traffic jam on I-10 everyday.
JH: Yes.
H: Coming and going. Well tell me what comprises the Medical ... the Medical Center itself and then the Health Science Center. Can you enumerate?
JH: You bet. The South Texas Medical Center, which is the tract of land that was put together, now numbering seven or eight hundred acres, is governed by the San Antonio Medical Foundation and its board. And that board has been a tremendous advocate for the Medical Center in general and the Medical School in particular. But on that Medical Center campus is the tract of land that was given to the John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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Health Science Center, and given to the Board of Regents. That's a hundred acres. We subsequently have an additional acreage down the street for the building that was given to us with monies from Ross Perot. But focusing back on the parent campus; it's about a hundred acres and allows us a very real presence in academic medicine here in the US. It's an Academic Health Center with a Medical School, Nursing School, Dental School, School of Allied Health Sciences, a graduate School of Bio-Medical Sciences, and, in partnership with UT-Austin, a College of Pharmacy, in partnership with Health Science Center at Houston, a School of Public Health. So seven professional schools, and all told, we have just under three thousand students, interns and residents that are being educated at this institution every day.
H: And how much faculty?
JH: Right now we have ... full-time ... and part-time ... about thirteen hundred and fifty faculty members. All five schools.
H: Okay, and then the rest of the Medical Center itself?
JH: The rest of the Medical Center is ... begins with ...
H: As of today ... ............ changes.
JH: ... ....... is physically connected with the Health Science Center is the University Hospital which is a six hundred-bed Teaching Hospital, well-known for its trauma John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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services and its transplantation services, and its one-of-a-kind neo-natology unit. And physically attached to the University Hospital is the Audie Murphy Veterans Hospital. And that is also about six-hundred beds, the Veterans Hospital serving the region called South Texas. Just across the street from us, of course, is the first facility in the complex, the Methodist Hospital, which has grown and grown, most recently with a new eleven-story tower. And which very recently has changed hands, in the sense that the Methodist Hospital Board is comprised of fifty-percent of the original owners of the hospital and fifty-percent from the Columbia Health Care System. And added to that list are an array of hospitals, now totalling twelve, in the Medical Center. From St. Luke's to Regional to Women's and Children to Villa Rosa to Santa Rosa Northwest, and the story goes on. Very vibrant medical complex, and but, unlike Houston, which has land that is at an absolute premium, they had to teardown the Shamrock in order to find land for the A&M Institute of Bio-Technology, here we have about two hundred and fifty acres yet to be developed at the Medical Center.
H: To your knowledge are there any plans immediately for expansion there for new facilities?
JH: Yes, you bet. We have underway, as we speak, a six million dollar expansion of the Nursing School to accommodate that growth that I spoke of earlier. And just John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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two months from now we will see the ground breaking for the new Allied Health Sciences Research Building, to be located just down the street on our property next to the McDermott Building. And this will be a nineteen million dollar facility devoted to the School of Allied Health Sciences and some basic bio-medical research.
H: But you're more than just a campus; you're tied in with military medicine, with the private hospitals obviously around you and elsewhere in town, and also the Texas Research Park, are you not?
JH: Yes. Our principle affiliations are with the University Hospital, the VA Hospital, Brooke Army Medical Center, and Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center. And just a comment about the two military hospitals. Back in 1985, here in this community, there was a tremendous debate over the future of one of our four teaching hospitals, namely Brooke Army Medical Center. It was then Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dr. Mayer, who had it in his mind that what we needed to do was close the Brooke Army Medical Center, as we've always known it, and replace it with a station hospital. Maybe a hundred and fifty beds as opposed to six hundred beds. And at that point in time, with lots of help from lots of people, very importantly the business community, the University, and the media, and principally the San Antonio Express-News, the community came forth and John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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said, "No, no, no, that's not a good idea! We need to replace the Brooke Army Medical Center, but with a state-of-the-art teaching hospital". And one of our great joys this summer is that on the 18th of July, the U.S. Army took beneficial occupancy of the new four hundred and fifty bed teaching hospital at Brooke Army Medical Center at Binz-Englemann and 35. When the hospital officially opens in mid-March, with lots of celebration and heraldry, it'll be a wonderful occasion for this community.
H: I assume Dr. Mayer will not be invited to the opening.
JH: I suspect that he will hear about it from afar.
H: BAMC, Brooke Army Medical Center, Wilford Hall are also the other two trauma centers in town.
JH: That's right.
H: And so, between the two military hospitals and the University Hospital, the major trauma cases are taken care of, one way or the other, is that correct?
JH: That's correct. About sixty percent of the trauma is cared for at the University Hospital, about twenty percent at Wilford Hall, twenty percent at Brooke Army Medical Center. Three Level One trauma facilities located in different parts of the city; all very important to trauma victims.
H: And the Texas Research Park. What role or relationship does the Health Science Center have to that?John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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JH: Well, the University of Texas is today the anchor tenant in the Texas Research Park. This is a twelve-hundred acre research park, spawned in the mid-'80s with the clear hope of having the ... populated by research activities over the next decade or two. Now of all of this occurred because of the recognition that here in San Antonio we had existing precious assests in the bio-sciences; Health Science Center, Wilford Hall, Brooks Air Force Base, Brooke Army Medical Center, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, Southwest Research Institute, and the list goes on and on and on. And if we could find a way to transfer some of the discoveries, that are occurring every day at those institutions, to technology and to patentable products, this would benefit San Antonio in terms of attracting scientists on one hand and creating jobs on the other. And as a result we now have a Texas Research Park which has the University of Texas Institute of Biotechnology, very prominently placed on the highest rise in the Research Park. And right next to it the Institute for Drug Development and the Southwest Oncology Group facility, both of which are parts of the Cancer Therapy Research Center. And in addition, Research Plaza One, Research Plaza Two, which houses young start-up companies and the Powell Conference Center and apartment complex. But the best is yet to come. Right now we are in the midst of a major community-based fund raising effort to John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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allow Tom Slick's dream to come true; namely the creation of Science City. By moving the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research from its position, its address on 410, into the Research Park, this is a a thirty-two million dollar fund drive and as I understand it, we're right now at twenty-two million dollars, not far away.
H: And this will serve ... well, it'll be another anchor tenant obviously ...
JH: Yes, yes.
H: ... and it'll bring a lot more scientists in the Research Park?
JH: Yes.
H: In your judgement, how is the generation of bio-tech products going, out there? Has that begun yet?
JH: Yes, it's underway. The challenge for us is a perceptual one. When we all band together as a community to create a shopping center or mall ... that's something that can be very tangible, very quickly. Easy to see. Easy to feel. Easy to walk into. Easy to see its products. When we're talking about bio-medical discoveries, some of them take years of gestation. And so that the ... well, the first, the creation of the mall is something that can happen overnight; the creation of a Research Park is something that takes time. I feel very good that we are making progress, with the addition of Southwest Foundation, toward the John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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ultimate goal. But it's not an overnight project.
H: Well, adding the Foundation will add certainly another magnet ...
JH: Yes.
H: ... for the entrepreneurs, I should think.
JH: Uh-huh.
H: And as the Health Science Center was, the Research Park is a long-term deal.
JH: Yes. Yes. There were some that looked from the windows of the Methodist Hospital across the way and said, "This Medical Center is just the figment of somebody's imagination. It's a dream that won't come true". Look at it today with twenty-two thousand people coming to work! My prediction is that in an equal time from now, twenty or thirty years, we're going to see that Research Park just as vibrant, with just as many people working there.
H: What is the Health Science Center's relationship with, say, the Southwest Foundation and Southwest Research; or UTSA, Trinity University? Do you have adjuncts? Do you have shared research projects?
JH: Yeah. The relationship is formally described in the by-laws of the Southwest Research Consortium. And that particular entity is a legal one that comprises the Southwest Foundation for Bio-Medical Research, the Health Science Center, Trinity, the Southwest Research Institute,John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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and UTSA. We created the consortium as a vehicle for insuring our scientific family that there would be opportunities for collaboration and cooperation. Practically speaking, the successes we've enjoyed among these institutions won't be found in any legal document. It's found in the laboratory. And at the Health Science Center we have very, very close ties to, as you mentioned, the Southwest Foundation and many, many of its faculty have adjunct appointments at the Health Science Center.
H: How is the Health Science Center's relationship with Bexar County Hospital District now? A number of years ago there was some ... as close to hostility on the faculty, the practicing faculty would not put their own patients in what is now University Hospital, the paying patients, and help fund, as it were, the charitable patients. Has that been resolved?
JH: Right. The answer is yes. Today there're probably forty to fifty percent of the patients at University Hospital come with some funding. And this represents a dramatic change from ten or fifteen years ago. And the University Hospital is a hospital-of-choice for many kinds of illnesses that San Antonions face. For example, if one was needed, heaven forbid, a heart transplant, there's no other place to go. On the other hand, if you needed to insure that their little kiddo was going to do well right John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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after birth, maybe premature, that neo-natal unit, Level One neo-natal unit, is sort of a gem in the city. So the relationship between the University Hospital and the Health Science Center is a very close one, very positive one, very supportive one in 1995.
H: You alluded to it earlier. Methodist Hospital by itself is half way to Boerne, or so people thought then. And one of the complaints about the location of the Medical School ... it's too far away from the people who really need it, people downtown or on East Side, South Side, West Side of San Antonio. How are those people being served now? How does someone without a vehicle who is ill? Does he or she go to the emergency clinic at University Hospital? Or how are they served now?
JH: I think the answer to that question in '95 is tremendously different than it would have been in 1985. Why? Because the hospital recognized the importance of having as much care in the neighborhood, to obviate the need for travel across the city. To that end, the Board of Managers has allocated monies to develop West Side, South Side, East Side clinics, so that people know that if they have an illness they can see their doctor in their neighborhood. Now if it's a more complicated out-patient concern, then go to the Brady-Green and be dealt with there.
H: Which is downtown.John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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JH: And it's downtown. Now, in the heart of the city. So that the only patients that are coming out to the Medical Center from these far-flung sites are the patients that really need the tertiary care.
H: And they are referred.
JH: That's correct.
H: And I assume you have residents and interns at these clinics?
JH: Yes. That's correct.
H: They are learning.
JH: Yes.
H: But walk-in medicine is or carrying in?
JH: Yeah.
H: What about the old Lutheran Hospital on Zarzamora?
JH: Well, that ... the physical hospital doesn't exist anymore. Again, this has all happened in the past decade, where the Board of Managers made a decision in the face of the closure of that hospital to acquire that property. And they acquired it in a very special way. The decision was not to re-build, or re-configure, the old acute care facility. That was deemed to be inappropriate and duplicative with other facilities in the community. But, at the same time, to recognize that in that particular area there was a need for other kinds of care; diabetes; for example. On the other hand the care for kiddos with John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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developmental disabilites; and today we have in progress the development of a major diabetes research education and care facility on-site. This is a multi-million dollar facility built by the hospital.
H: And this is on the West Side?
JH: You bet.
H: On Zarzamora. One question that arises periodically: even though there are super-hospitals and health science centers and everything, do we have too many fancy, expensive medical machines, such as MRIs, say for the number of people served? Are the hospitals unfairly competing, to duplicate expensive services?
JH: Yeah. I think that it's a valid concern today as it was four or five years ago. I think it was more of an issue at that earlier time than it is today. And let me explain why. First of all, hospitals today are maybe sixty to seventy percent occupancy. One could immediately say, "My gosh, that means that there is some excess capacity." Well, what we're doing today is working with Rita Thompson, and her Board, through the Medical Destination San Antonio effort, MDSA, to find a way to bring patients from the region, from Mexico, to San Antonio, to use that excess capacity. The alternate to paring it away is to have the beds filled by paying patients from outside the region. That takes better advantage of the tertiary facilities here,John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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and creates jobs in the hospital industry for people to serve those folks from other parts of the country ... region. So I think that we've got some way of addressing that. Second of all is that the major hospital chains have moved in, for example Columbia, and some of the HMOs, and their priority has to do with cost-savings. And so I think that they're not going to be in the business of building additional facilities, additional equipment.
H: Okay. Will you also reach further than San Antonio? The Health Science Center affects health care along the border and the Rio Grande Valley. Could you tell me how that works?
JH: Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, we were officially coined, officially chartered as the South Texas Medical School. And it was in 1972 that we were ... the Regents changed our name to the UT-Health Science Center of San Antonio, when the schools, the other schools were added. But our roots remain as a South Texas institution, and this was recently re-affirmed by the Texas Legislature. In their last session they voted seventeen million dollars for funding of our out-reach activities in three areas: the lower Rio Grande Valley; the Laredo-Del Rio-Eagle Pass area; and the Corpus Christi Coastal Land area. And this was clearly a strong signal from Austin that the people of this region can look to our institution as the resource in healthJohn Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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education for this region of Texas.
H: Well, the Legislature gives you missions, but it doesn't always supply the money to fulfill them with any stable flow. It's been my impression over the years that every two years everyone in the University System for the Medical School or of a institution like UTSA has to go to Austin and lobby. And you have obviously been pretty good at it.
JH: Well, we have. As a community ....
H: But the team and the community. Do you find that a little bit demeaning to have to go beg for operational and building funds every two years?
JH: Well ...
H: Or to try to persuade people that this is really worthwhile.
JH: I tell you, there's no question but what trekking to Austin every two years for a hundred and forty days, is a challenge.
H: A hundred and forty-nine sometimes.
JH: Exactly, exactly. It's challenging. However, perhaps I could say this after this session, it's also invigorating. Because every two years we have gone forth with new ideas, proposals. And, yes, while the Legislature has faced fiscal constraints and the Legislature has severely challenged us in some instances with budget cuts and budget cut-backs. On John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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the other hand, they've done some very, very, very creative things. I might cite, for example, the South Texas Border Initiative in Higher Education two years ago, in which nearly four hundred million dollars was provided to educational institutions in the region for expansion of physical facilities. I would cite just this last session, our South Texas Border Health Initiative. And so that as I look back over the past decade we have had significant challenge from our Legislative colleagues. But part of that is due to the fact that about eighty-four percent of the State's budget is really out of their hands, with mandates and requirements and federal matching and et cetera. And really about sixteen percent of those monies are actually discretionary. And guess who makes up two-thirds of the sixteen percent? Higher education. So it's no accident whenever there's a difficult time they come chasing after us. But, in the end I have to say that the Legislature has been very good to San Antonio, very good to the Health Science Center.
H: But isn't it difficult to do any really significant long-term planning when this figure can be turned up or down or off every two years? I mean, they fund the initiative, then what happens? Two years later when you need money to continue the initiative, either the Border or the South Texas Higher Education Initiative?John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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JH: That is unequivocally a challenge because the ...
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1, ABOUT .. MINUTES.
SIDE 2.
JH: ... these new initiatives are so-called special items, and what can be a very exciting special item to a city legislator one year can very easily be forgotten in futures years ...
H: Or that legislator may not be in that seat next time around.
JH: That's right. So there's no question that it is a challenge, but that's why at Health Science Center we have stuck to the knitting and focused on our mission which, no matter who's in the Legislature, there's still going to be an issue of health, health education in South Texas, and a need to resource that. And so that's not really a Republican or Democrat issue. It's not an old or a new legislature issue. It's really a South Texas issue. And if we continue to focus on that I think we'll have support.
H: Let's go back to research. You cited the enormous increase in grants which helped fund research. And then of course the institution itself and the System help fund. What would you regard, or what would you say, are some of the most significant medical research advances you've seen?
JH: Well, I think the ... one might have an ally in answering this question if we were to ask Mother Theresa. John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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Mother Theresa today has the ... as health is directly related to the presence in her body, in one of her coronary arteries, of a discovery from San Antonio. And Dr. Julio Palmaz recognized that many people are afflicted with ravages of coronary heart disease and, put simply, their coronary arteries become narrower and narrower and this jeopardizes the blood supply and hence the oxygen delivery to the heart. And he postulated that if you could find some way of preventing that narrowing, that people's blood flow would be continued, their oxygen delivery would continue and they would remain healthy. So he figured out a way in which could just put a small stent which, I guess in kind of lay terms, is like a mini-culvert, in that coronary artery at the area of narrowing and place that in there and have it just sit in such a way that that culvert keeps the artery from narrowing down further. Well, I'll tell you that's been very successful. Johnson and Johnson paid hundreds of millions of dollars for that particular product and it's marketing and today that stent is used throughout the world, including Mother Theresa's. That would be one example. On the other hand we have Dr. .(name?)... Lee, who was recruited to head the University of Texas Institute of Bio-Technology, who's claim to fame is the discovery of the genetic basis of one of the forms of cancer involving the eye. And his hope now is that once he understands that John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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genetic basis that he can find a way, as he puts it, to fix the broken gene. And so that work continues apace at the Park.
H: Well, how much of the royalties, say for the stent, come back to the institutions itself?
JH: The monies do come back. And the reason that I just hesitated is that most of ... that particular discovery came along before the University of Texas System formally adopted its policy concerning that activity. And so that today the royalty split is fifty percent with the inventor and fifty percent with the University. But that particular one occurred before that ...
H: So it all goes to the inventor?
JH: Yeah, well, there's some that comes to the Unversity, but it's not the fifty percent that would have been the case today. But we have seen, and we expect to see, growth in that area. But in the same breath I have to say, though, it's very expensive to develop these technologies, it's expensive to go through the patenting process, so I suspect it will be a few years before we really see some significant monies from that. But that's on the horizon.
H: Is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd like to cover?
JH: Well, I guess there is. I'd like if I can to talk just a little bit about the fact that when the textbooks are John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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written on San Antonio and medicine. On one hand they'll point out that San Antonio has three large industries: military, tourism, but number two, the bio-sciences. And if you total up all the expenditures in the bio-sciences this year, that would include research institutions, University of Texas, the hospital systems, it's about two billion dollars a year. And the nice aspect of this industry is that, unlike some industries in some communities which are just segregated on one side of town or another, the bio-science industry is found in all quadrants of our city. It's not North Side, not just South Side, in fact the South Side with Brooks and Wilford Hall has large expenditures in this area. The Research Park on the West Side, BAMC on the East Side or the Health Science Center on the North Side, it's a very evenly distributed industry within our community. And very successful. Tom Frost, who you mentioned earlier, just a year ago cited the industry that had the greatest job growth in San Antonio in the previous year. It wasn't military, and it wasn't tourism. It was the bio-sciences. So what we have here is a clean industry, a very vibrant industry, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Because the average interpreter might just say this happened because of the magic fairy. Just happened. But what I would like to comment on is the fact that during the past ten years I think the successes that we have enjoyed inJohn Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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the bio-sciences have been directly related to the kind of community confederation that has advanced these various causes. I mentioned earlier ... the Brooke Army Medical. That only happened because there was an alliance of the University of Texas, the business community, the media here in our community, our elected leaders, to see that new four hundred million dollar facility be put here in San Antonio. And ...
H: Well, not only that, but Brooks was not closed.
JH: I was referring to Brooke Army Medical Center.
H: Oh, I'm sorry.
JH: I was about to say, Brooks Air Force Base was slated as you pointed out, to be closed. It was on BRAC list to be closed. Everybody said, "We'll never retrieve that." And the fact of the matter is today, it's not only not closed, they're adding missions to Brooks Air Force Base. But as Senator (Kay Bailey) Hutchinson said, on the escalator going up at the Dallas Convention Center, at the BRAC hearing in May, she looked over and shook a finger at me and said, "John," she said, "the Brooks Air Force Base, we're going to do it, but the only way we're going to do it is to be able to speak to the way that Brooks is woven into the fabric of its community." The second example of the community collaboration. The third has to do with the expansion of the Health Science Center. It literally, when you talk John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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about Dr. (name?) Lee joining the UT-IBT or Dr. Peter Fox joining the Research Imaging Center, you're talking about major research additions to our community. Well, Ross Perot was a great contributor. Fifteen million dollars to that. Now how did that happen? Well, General McDermott, Red McCombs and Henry Cisneros, gave of their time; got on an airplane and went up to visit with Mr. Perot. And they asked for ten million dollars and he said ... Why not fifteen? And so that ... again, an example of community collaboration. But a fourth that I would want to mention, and this should come as no surprise to Sterlin Holmsely, is the fact that everytime the Legislature comes together for its hundred and forty days, it's influenced greatly by its clip service. It's influenced greatly by every morning the newspaper clips that are put on the Legislator's desk that become the talk of the morning and influence the direction of the Legislators. During these ten years, the absolute tough times, every Legislative session has begun with a consideration, or raid, on the practice funds of the hospitals and the clinics. But in that context, here in San Antonio the print media, the Express-News, and formerly The Light, that the ... and today the Express-News and its editorial leadership have come forth and said, "No, no, no, no, no." Said, "government, what we need to do is solve our problems, but don't solve it on the backs of some of our John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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precious assests." And I think that, as I have visited around the country and people ask, "How is San Antonio different?" And one of the things I point out is that our successes are shared ones; there's a generally accepted feeling that the health of the economy is directly related to the health of the citizenery. And that isn't Republican and Democrat; it's not University or private sector; it's not town or gown; it's community. And I think one of the special ingredients for success in recent years, particularly as it relates to the bio-sciences, has been the community confederation that has allowed the advocacy for the bio-sciences to be so effective in Austin and Washington.
H: Well, if I may add a personal note, I think you have been an exceptionally energetic key component of the confederation for ten years. I'd like to back up a little bit to Brooks Air Force Base.
JH: Yeah.
H: It was kept. Kelly Air Force Base, or at least part of it, is closing.
JH: Yes.
H: In your judgment, is keeping Brooks, for the long run, more important that Kelly?
JH: As it relates to my ... well, I can answer it in two ways. The answer is that five or ten years from now, I John Howe (Tape 1 of 1)
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predict, we are going to see a very vibrant Kelly that has a mix of public and private sector activities. And my prediction is that those private activities will have added more jobs to this community than would have been the case if at every year we were having to fight to keep Kelly there. At the same time, I think that when you look at Brooks Air Force Base and recognize that that is a huge congregation, nearly four thousand individuals, most of whom have master's or PhD degrees, that that is a precious asset in terms of the intellectual capital of our community. And as it has been reaffirmed to stay here, taken off the BRAC list and deemed to stay here, what we're going to see, I predict, is more of like missions brought to Brooks. So, that's from my point of view, is that right now if I'd walk out on the streets of San Antonio and say it was a good idea to close Kelly I'd probably wouldn't last very long. But you'd ask me in five or ten years from now are we going to be better off for having a change of mix at Kelly and keeping Brooks Air Force Base, as opposed to keeping Kelly as it was and close Brooks, there's no question but what we're going to be a healthier city maintaining Brooks with a different mix, private and public at Kelly.
H: Okay. Thank you, John. I sure appreciate your time.
JH: Well, that's great.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2, ABOUT .. MINUTES.