North Texas companies with operations dependent upon sophisticated skills will find that the region’s diverse array of schools produce students equipped with technical knowledge, workplace skills, and real-world experience.

Few things can tell a community’s story better than its business residents’ insights. This is why we created the “Why Midlothian?” series. 

In this series, Midlothian companies share their experiences, observations and impressions about why Midlothian has proven a great fit for their business needs. We hope their stories will inspire you to consider how you can make something great with us in Midlothian.

Texas State Technical College (TSTC) is changing lives one student at a time thanks to hands-on training designed to meet industry workforce demands.

It is no secret that North Texas is home to one of the fastest-growing metros in the nation.

In fact, from July 2015 to July 2016, Census Bureau figures revealed that the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex added 143,435 residents — or roughly 400 people per day. Since then, Texas residents-to-be have continued to fuel this in-migration trend.

In 2016, Chipotle reported its first-ever quarter of declining sales, with revenue down 6.8% to just under $1 billion. During the period, same-store sales declined 14.6% and net income plummeted 44% to $67.9 million. This decline, of course, was a result of the company’s food safety crisis following the burrito chain’s devastating E. coli and Norovirus outbreaks.

There has been a lot of discussion as to what the future holds for advanced manufacturing. The move to technology and automation in both assembly and production lines has created fears around job displacement and losses for manufacturers everywhere. The reality could not be further from this. In the U.K. alone, the addition of technology in manufacturing processes has added 3.5 million jobs compared to the 800,000 jobs displaced.

When the earliest forms of agriculture were sprouting up nearly 10,000 years ago, we had little knowledge that someday we might be faced with food sustainability challenges. Our current methods for producing nutritious foods are not able to keep up with the pace of our population growth. According to some estimates, there will be more than 9 billion humans on this planet within the next 50 years, and we need to double our food production by 2030.

The preparation, processing, and packaging of our food has increasingly become an automated process with the rise of robotic and automation equipment. And this trend — which is expected to continue for the next several years — brings perks for both the manufacturer and consumer.

Midlothian Independent School District experienced record activity for a fourth quarter, according to the most recent School District Strategies report.

The district’s new-home market produced record highs in 2017 with 791 starts and 634 closings — up 41% and 43%, respectively.