The Building Texas Show

08/17/2026

Texas students are back in the classroom this month — a good time to share something I learned this summer.

I sat down with Missy Bender, Executive Director of the Texas School Coalition, to understand Texas school funding. Property taxes keep rising, enrollment keeps falling in most districts — and the money still doesn't add up to more for education.

Isn't recapture just "Robin Hood"? Missy's answer isn't that simple.

Full episode: https://youtu.be/SINBOUhPDnI

08/16/2026

Bulldozers are in Big Bend right now, clearing land near Santa Elena Canyon for a new border road and vehicle barriers. Local ranchers, all five border-region sheriffs, and a bipartisan group of state lawmakers have pushed back, and a lawsuit was filed just this week.

We were already sitting down in Alpine with Lalo Gonzalez from Borderlands Research Institute, talking about how West Texas nearly lost its entire pronghorn population. The reason wasn't hunting or drought. It was fences. Pronghorn won't jump one. Cut their open range into small enough pieces and they just stop moving, stop breeding, and eventually disappear.

That's the whole conversation in this episode: what fragmenting the land does to the species that depend on it, and what it took to bring pronghorn back once landowners and researchers started removing barriers instead of adding them.

Pronghorn don't jump fences. They just stop. That single fact nearl...

08/09/2026

From the job site to the pit. 🔥

On this episode of The Building Texas Show, we're at the San Antonio Home Shows Home and Garden Show with Sloan Rinaldi — a 4th-generation pit master who spent decades in construction before building Texas Q, her own craft barbecue brand.

Sloan talks about walking into her first BBQ competition as the only woman among 20 all-male teams, the brisket sandwich that changed the direction of her life, and gives us a first look at her new show "From Texas With Love: United We BBQ" — an 8-country journey exploring how live-fire cooking unites cultures around the world.

Watch the full episode and subscribe to The Building Texas Show on YouTube: https://youtu.be/OIlhyswZuEs?si=k8gfDn7E4JzpeQZl

She spent decades building buildings — now she's built a barbecue e...

08/09/2026

Can AI replace your CFO?

Bart Davis, founder of 512Financial, gets real about where AI breaks down in finance, it doesn't ask questions, it just makes up context. And in your financials, that's a problem.

He built 512Financial after running fractional CFO work for a portfolio of Austin startups, and he's not anti-AI , he's just clear on where it needs a human in the loop.

Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/MTUbmXlj-WM

Fractional CFO, now CEO, Bart Davis built 512Financial into a firm ...

08/08/2026

They still make this bread the same way they did 400 years ago. 👀

Mayor Rudy Cruz Jr. shows us the mud ovens, the mission trail, and even the local brewery that make City of Socorro, Texas - Government one of the most underrated stops on the border.

Full episode ⬇️
🎥 https://youtu.be/xEPjPU3edk8

08/07/2026

A few weeks ago I sat down with a leader from Arlington, and he said something I keep thinking about.
Arlington is the most diverse city in Texas. It ranks fourth in the country. And when I asked him why, he didn't reach for a stat or a policy. He said it's because the community doesn't care who you love, who you worship, or the color of your skin. What matters is how you treat each other.
He made a point I haven't been able to shake. A lot of the noise around us, from leaders on every side, is about what divides us. He told me he'd rather live in a place that says not in my backyard, we're going to stand together regardless.
Worth 60 seconds of your day. Drop your thoughts below. 🧡

08/07/2026

We recorded 7 episodes on the show floor last weekend, and episode 1 features Richard from Tuff Shed. Here's the part that surprised me most: in San Antonio you can go up to 300 square feet with no building permit at all. Tuff Shed handles the permitting for the cities that do require it, like Castle Hills and Alamo Heights.

Richard walked me through how these sheds are stick-built on site, most of them finished in a single day. And a majority of his buyers aren't adding storage, they're dropping the paid storage unit and getting 24/7 access in their own backyard. 74 factories, 45 years in business, employee-owned.

A huge thank you to the San Antonio Home Shows for having us. It was a great three days on the floor, and we're grateful for the chance to share the stories of the people building in this city.

Full episode here: https://youtu.be/qH-XaktT6-c

In San Antonio, you can go up to 300 square feet without a building...

08/06/2026

The CEO of the world's largest HOA management company says over 95% of residents actually enjoy living in a homeowners association. So why does everyone complain?

John Carona built Associa from two people in Dallas into a 24,000-employee operation managing communities in 44 states and 5 countries. Here he breaks down the survey data behind that number, why homes in mandatory HOAs appreciate faster, and how Associa handles the small share of residents who feel otherwise.

Full episode with John Carona, CEO of Associa: https://youtu.be/lKtqY2819BI

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08/05/2026

Texas just hit pause on new data centers until the state audits their power and water plans. Timely, because we just released an episode on exactly this.

Nash Whitney of Stella Power Company joins us to talk behind-the-meter generation — why data centers building their own power plants might be the only way Texas keeps the lights on for everyone else. ERCOT is staring down requests for 4x its current peak capacity by 2032.

Straight talk on ERCOT, SB6, and what "being a good grid citizen" means for your own electric bill this summer. 🎥 https://youtu.be/xmt0ityZBLk

ERCOT has over 300,000 megawatts in the queue by 2032. Peak load to...