Partnership Members Making News

Partnership Members Making News - October 2022

Published Oct 21, 2022 by Hailea Schultz

The Greater Houston Partnership celebrates our members making important announcements and sharing news about their operations and impact in our community. Learn more about some of those announcements over the last month below.

AltaML, a leading applied artificial intelligence (AI) scale-up placed 18th on The Globe and Mail’s Fourth-Annual Ranking of Canada’s Top Growing Companies. Canada’s Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth. AltaML earned its spot with three-year growth of 2309%.

The Translational Research Institute for Space Health, housed out of Baylor College of Medicine announced a new fellowship opportunity for postdoctoral scientists focusing on the health challenges of deep space exploration and innovating solutions with partners California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. TRISH is now accepting proposals for the fellowship program. Selected fellows will participate in TRISH’s Academy of Bioastronautics — a mentorship community for space health professionals.

BP is set to acquire Archaea Energy Inc., a renewable natural gas company that moved its headquarters to Houston last year. The deal is valued at approximately $4.1 billion and is expected to close by the end of this year.

In result of selling its headquarters building in San Ramon to Sunset Development, Chevron will move to a smaller office in California and send 200 employees to Houston. In order to improve its employee experience, Chevron's new office is one-third the size of its recent headquarters, coming in at 400,000 square feet and will accommodate 2,000 employees.

Houston-based nonprofit Episcopal Health Foundation received a gift of $20 million from Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. EHF focuses on researching preventative solutions for the underlying, root causes of poor health as well as making health care more affordable and accessible. Scott pledged she would donate her entire fortune in 2019 and since, has given away at least $12 billion to 1,257 groups.

Through the purchase of Optum, a subsidiary of the insurer UnitedHealth Group, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic advances their $1 billion expansion plan. Kelsey-Seybold will continue to focus on and deepen its commitment to high-quality, patient-centered care at a lower total medical cost, and plans to reach 50-plus locations in Houston by 2026.

In a $25 billion deal, Kroger plans to buy Albertsons, combining two of the largest supermarket chains in the country and creating one of its largest private employers. Kroger states that the deal will best benefit consumers by using half a billion dollars in cost savings from the merger to invest in lower prices.

A new development project is underway, bringing a man-made surf resort to Houston's Generation Park. The project will include a 6-acre man-made surf lagoon, a large beach area, an event lawn and more. California-based Beach Street Development and McCord Development, developer of Generation Park are partnering to open HTX Surf in fall 2024. Construction will begin early next year.

Management Consulting Firm McKinsey & Co. has set up a decarbonization hub in its Houston office as part of its plan to spend $100 million over the next decade to boost Houston’s decarbonization economy. This new initiative will focus on promoting carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and green hydrogen, revamping business models for carbon-heavy companies and more.

RDLR Architects recently celebrated 40 years of serving the Houston community. Being one of the few Hispanic owned Architect firms in its time of opening, RDLR helped pave the way for Hispanic business owners in the Houston area today. The firm is credited for many award-winning architecture projects throughout the City of Houston including the Houston Food Bank, SER Jobs for Progress, HCTRA Toll Gantry’s, IAH People Movers, METRO LRT Stations and more.

Shell plans to build a $1.48 billion low-carbon fuels facility at the site of its former Convent refinery in Louisiana. The plan to repurpose Convent is the first in a series of projects Shell is considering at its chemicals facilities along the Gulf Coast to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels. The regional spending plan could cost as much as $10 billion.

Announced at the Partnership's recent State of TMC event, the Texas Medical Center's future 500-acre BioPort campus will focus on cell and gene therapy — a method that takes cells out of the body for correction through highly sophisticated biomanufacturing then places them back into the body to treat diseases — as well as manufacturing and distribution for pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. Additionally, the BioPort campus is expected to create 100,000 jobs and incorporate an education campus for students right after high school.

If you are a member and want us to help communicate news about your organization, please send a press release or information about the announcement to member.engagement@houston.org and we will share it with our content team for possible inclusion in an upcoming roundup. Learn more about Partnership membership.