Texas business leaders travel to West Coast to poach more California companies

A group of Texas business leaders is traveling this week to the state's favorite place to lure away companies: California.

The three-day trip to San Francisco is the latest effort by Texas to snag corporate offices, company headquarters and jobs from its West Coast rival. For years, California has been a favorite punching bag of Texas politicians who describe the Lone Star State as a refuge from California's burdensome regulations, hefty taxes and higher cost of living.

The delegation to California kicks off Tuesday. It is led by the Texas Economic Development Corporation, an Austin nonprofit that acts as a marketing arm for the state. It also includes representatives from Irving, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso, Fort Worth-based freight company BNSF Railway, Houston-based CenterPoint Energy and the office of Gov. Greg Abbott.

Dozens of companies have uprooted their California headquarters and landed in Dallas-Fort Worth. Toyota opened its new North American headquarters in Plano in 2017. McKesson, the nation's largest pharmaceutical distributor, moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Irving. Jamba Juice moved to Frisco. Jacobs Engineering moved to Dallas. Frozen food manufacturer Pegasus Foods moved to Rockwall. And Kubota Tractor moved to Grapevine.

Even more companies have expanded in Texas. Silicon Valley-based Apple, which has thousands of employees in Austin, is building an additional $1 billion campus with capacity for up to 15,000 jobs. Austin is already the largest home for Apple employees after the iPhone-maker's Cupertino, Calif.,  headquarters. Software giant Oracle and Google have a large presence in Austin, too.

Robert Allen, CEO of the Texas Economic Development Corporation, said the trip is an opportunity to say thank you to California companies that have expanded to Texas. And he said, it's a chance to entice others.

He wouldn't name companies the delegation is meeting with, but said it'll be a mix of Fortune 500 and medium-sized firms. He said one of San Francisco's major industries — the tech sector — will be heavily represented.

Allen has made similar trips to Chicago, New York and India, but said California "stacks up there at the top." According to the latest relocation report by Texas Realtors, an Austin-based real estate trade association, California was the state that sent the most people to Texas in 2017.

Another group that's part of the California delegation is the Irving Economic Development Corporation. Irving is already home to seven Fortune 500 companies. Two of them, McKesson and Fluor, used to be headquartered in California.

"We are not shy to say we want more," said Beth Bowman, CEO of the Irving Economic Development Corporation, who sent one of her executives on the trip. "We want high quality jobs from a diverse industry base to continue to grow the Texas economy."

She said the trips are an opportunity to tout advantages of Irving, as well as Texas. The goal, she said, is to be top-of-mind when companies make decisions about their future.

"It's a marathon. It's not a sprint," she said. "It's about continuing to build relationships."