{"id":3596,"date":"2024-10-15T10:13:09","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T10:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/?p=3596"},"modified":"2025-07-26T08:28:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T08:28:37","slug":"bcic-staff-spotlight-cori-pena-president-and-chief-executive-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/bcic-staff-spotlight-cori-pena-president-and-chief-executive-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"BCIC Staff Spotlight Cori Pena President and Chief Executive Officer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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BCIC’s President & Chief Executive Officer, Cori Pe\u00f1a, has served 14 years in the organization, introducing initiatives and forging partnerships that have been key in Brownsville’s recent downtown revitalization, quality of life projects, and small business and entrepreneurship programs. Cori’s work is personal, inspired by both the bright possibilities in Brownsville’s future and quiet, fire-lit nights roasting hot dogs with her family.<\/p>\n

Many might not know, but your career in economic development started in Harlingen. What made you want to come to BCIC in the first place?<\/h3>\n

My first real job was working at The Brownsville Herald. And I worked there for five years, but I wanted something different. And I saw a posting at the Harlingen Chamber. And I was honest. In my interview, I told them, \u201cI haven\u2019t done it, but I know I can do it, and this is how I would do it.\u201d So I got the job. I worked there for five years, then I had my daughter \u2014 and I worked in Harlingen while living in Brownsville. And that\u2019s when it came to me \u2013 I wanted to build my community. I was building Harlingen\u2019s community, but I didn\u2019t live there. Then, I found a job opening for BCIC, which was part of the city at the time. And I remember in the job interview, they said, \u201cWhy do you want to be a part of BCIC?\u201d And I said it just felt like there were still things missing. It was still missing quality of life \u2014 things for my daughter to enjoy, like trees and parks. I was concerned! Like I tell my son, I just wanted to be a part of growing our community. So that way, my daughter could be proud to live in the community, and now my son can, too.<\/p>\n

How do you get to a place in economic development where you can properly balance what works with taking risks?<\/h3>\n

It all changes constantly. Over the span of 14 years, as my role has progressed, so has Brownsville. I started as a project coordinator at BCIC, and I\u2019ve had to learn as Brownsville grows. It\u2019s always about how, as a team and as a board, we visualize where we fit in and how our projects can fill gaps.<\/p>\n

Due diligence is very important in our role. Because we have to build transparency, which is very important to me. Our reputation is really important. When we fund projects, I want the community to say, \u201cThat makes sense.\u201d That\u2019s a real balancing act\u2014supporting entrepreneurs, the community, revolving loans, and hitting the right market.<\/p>\n

The eBridge Fund is actually doing pretty well, isn’t it?<\/h3>\n

El eBridge Fund<\/a> is doing pretty well. It\u2019s at a point where now payments and interest go back into the community. It\u2019s great, but we don\u2019t have as much money now. So we have to be watchful. Make sure we make really good funding requests that will help with job creation and help with the development of the community.<\/p>\n

What do you think is one thing people gain from their time outside of Brownsville that\u2019s valuable when they come back?<\/h3>\n

I think we pick up a little bit of utility. A lot of people who work at BCIC, yourself included, have either left Brownsville for a bit or come from Brownsville. I wasn\u2019t born here but have been here for 30 years, and you learn to appreciate what the community offers. It teaches you the value of returning and helping it grow like many people are doing now.<\/p>\n

Over the years, there have been different new programs and new initiatives. Were there any that you thought might be risky but had immense payoff?<\/h3>\n

BIG<\/strong>. It was my idea. Back many years ago, I always wanted to do something because we had community meetings and everyone always talked about how downtown was so blighted. You know, \u201cThere\u2019s so many empty buildings, and property owners don\u2019t care about their buildings.\u201d And you know, when I first started at BCIC, I moved to City Hall. There was nothing for downtown, really. So, I presented BIG to the board, and it was a three-year pilot program. We would allocate $200,000 each year for the next three years to activate the buildings. And that started in March 2019. By June, requests were over $200,000. So I had to go back to the board and ask if we could start with $600,000. That was a gamble. But now, we\u2019ve funded 57 projects since 2019 and seen close to $30 million in private investment. That has paid off.<\/p>\n

How do you navigate working with developers to ensure not just that these projects bring economic benefits but also align with the needs and values of us living in Brownsville?<\/h3>\n

I think, like you just said, you work to make sure it aligns with values and needs. We\u2019re open to working with anybody as long as it aligns with what the community can enjoy \u2014 it does more for the masses than a singular member of the community, But we don\u2019t work with too many developers. We work more with small property owners. The Sports Park area, for instance, is a huge project. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019ll be dealing with a developer on that scale.<\/p>\n

Why do you always have Halloween decorations up in your office?<\/h3>\n

They\u2019re not all Halloween! There\u2019s Harry Potter, too. And Nightmare Before Christmas. And I\u2019m wearing my Nightmare Before Christmas shoes now. My family will say I\u2019m hard to shop for, but those are all gifts from my kids. Halloween and fall are my favorite times of the year.<\/p>\n

Once the nice days are here, how do you take advantage of them?<\/h3>\n

We explore the city. We cook over an open fire every weekend. Not barbeque \u2014 an actual fire pit. Like a lot of Brownsville does. Open fire pit. Another thing we love about this type of weather is going fishing. Like going to Arroyo City and fishing and cooking hot dogs over one of our fire pits.<\/p>\n

BCIC has formed really big partnerships, like with UTRGV, to run the eBridge Center. How have these collaborations really amplified our impact, and what message do you think they send to people looking to us?<\/h3>\n

It validates our impactful work in innovation, community development, and small business growth simultaneously and it enhances our reputation on an international scale. The partnership also strengthens our credibility with our stakeholders and opens doors for innovation, for future partnerships, and also planning more changes.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your escape? I heard you got into nail string art.<\/h3>\n

I used to do that during COVID \u2014 my whole thing was making cactuses with them. I paint, but I haven\u2019t done that in a long time. I like art. That\u2019s my escape, but reading is my escape, too. I\u2019m always reading. I\u2019m reading the novels you get at Target \u2014 I like sci-fi and some romance. I started watching Bad Monkey last night.<\/p>\n

Our region\u2019s business environment is known for several things, one of them interestingly being a sense of hospitality. How does that fit into the whole equation?<\/h3>\n

There are some things we do that go the extra mile. We don\u2019t have to do it, but it\u2019s to show that this is how our community embraces visitors and that the stigma you hear on the media platforms is not true. We are very educated, very cultural people. We\u2019re not what their perception is. When they see negatives, I want them to know we have a lot of positives, too. Any chance to break the stigma and open people\u2019s eyes to what\u2019s really happening: that Brownsville is on an upswing. There\u2019s opportunity \u2014 fertile soil. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important. Come and plant some seeds. When Hunden Partners came, we took them to see what our downtown is, and we have the second most historic sites in Texas. We\u2019re not letting it fall. We are paying attention. That says a lot. We\u2019re respecting our history but looking forward to the future. One barman was like, \u201cWhy are you taking this person here?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cSeriously, why not?!\u201d Because they need to see there\u2019s so much more of Brownsville. There are so many facets to Brownsville and I love it. It\u2019s neat now, from when I moved here. I moved here when I was 18. But it\u2019s interesting to see, over the next 30 years, what the future can hold for our children. It\u2019s really cool.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  BCIC’s President & Chief Executive Officer, Cori Pe\u00f1a, has served 14 years in the organization, introducing initiatives and forging partnerships that have been key in Brownsville’s recent downtown revitalization, quality of life projects, and small business and entrepreneurship programs. Cori’s work is personal, inspired by both the bright possibilities in Brownsville’s future and quiet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_angie_page":false,"content-type":"","page_builder":"","feature_success_story":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}