Every Last Word

Dallas Innovates’ signature series capturing what leaders across North Texas are saying — in their own words — about innovation, impact, and what’s next.

The Last Word: Charlotte Jones on Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones’ Doodling Masterpieces

by | Apr 11, 2024
In March, Dallas Cowboys Owner and GM Jerry Jones did an interview with Dallas Morning News sportswriter David Moore about Dak Prescott's Super Bowl-winning potential. When a photo from the interview was posted on X, it went viral fast—even faster than the 'Pokes end their playoff runs.
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The Last Word: Talmage Boston on How Being a Litigator and Historian Go Hand in Hand
by | Apr 10, 2024
Dallas-based commercial litigator Talmage Boston has another avocation as an historian, and writes that his dual discipline "has made me a better lawyer and vice versa, since both callings require the same skills"—meaning researching, writing and rewriting, interviewing and interrogating, and public speaking.
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The Last Word: Sportec Solutions’ Christian Holzer on Planting a U.S. HQ in Arlington
by | Apr 4, 2024
"All of that will happen at our Arlington operations center," Holzer adds in our story about Munich-based Sportec Solutions establishing its U.S. headquarters in Arlington.
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The Last Word: Dallas Mayor Invites Kansas City Chiefs To Move Back to Dallas
by | Apr 4, 2024
Kansas City Chiefs fans love their football team—but they hate taxes more. Jackson County, Mo., residents voted down a proposed 40-year, three-eighths of a cent sales tax that would have helped fund an $800 million renovation of Arrow Stadium. Now Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson has invited the Chiefs to come back home to Dallas.
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The Last Word: Re:wild’s Barney Long on Partnering with Dallas-Based Colossal To Save Species Facing Extinction

by | Mar 29, 2024
Long's Austin-based Re:wild and Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences have announced a new partnership to accelerate global efforts "to save species on the brink of extinction, search for lost species, and restore key habitats for species recovery and rewilding."
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The Last Word: Dallas Sports Commission’s Monica Paul On World Cup Strategy — ‘Like an Onion We’re Still Peeling’
by | Mar 28, 2024
NTXIA's new Urban Resilience Fellowship Program, launched in partnership with UT Arlington and UT Dallas, connects students from universities and higher education institutions across Dallas-Fort Worth with community and industry partners. The pioneering initiative "aims to nurture emerging leaders and equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to address critical challenges facing the North Texas community."
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The Last Word: Jacobs’ Sindhu Avalokita on Women Taking the ‘Driver’s Seat’
by | Mar 27, 2024
NTXIA's new Urban Resilience Fellowship Program, launched in partnership with UT Arlington and UT Dallas, connects students from universities and higher education institutions across Dallas-Fort Worth with community and industry partners. The pioneering initiative "aims to nurture emerging leaders and equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to address critical challenges facing the North Texas community."
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The Last Word: NTXIA’s Jennifer Sanders on the New Urban Resilience Fellowship
by | Mar 26, 2024
NTXIA's new Urban Resilience Fellowship Program, launched in partnership with UT Arlington and UT Dallas, connects students from universities and higher education institutions across Dallas-Fort Worth with community and industry partners. The pioneering initiative "aims to nurture emerging leaders and equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to address critical challenges facing the North Texas community."
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The Last Word: Hudson Nguyen on His High School Team Beating the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at the 2024 RoboBoat Competition

by | Mar 22, 2024
Last month in Sarasota, Florida, the 17th Annual International RoboBoat competition featured 15 university teams from the U.S. Canada, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Turkey—and a single high school team from right here in North Texas: the Arlington Martin High School Seals (short for science, engineering, autonomous, learning). 
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The Last Word: The DRC’s Jarrad Toussant on the New DFW Health Care and IT Talent Pipeline Portal
To help fill those jobs, the DRC—with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies—recently launched a new workforce development tool called the DFW Health Care and IT Talent Pipeline Portal. The online tool provides "expansive, up-to-date data on the supply of and demand for talent for middle-skill jobs."
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The Last Word: Shug’s Bagels Founder Justin Shugrue on His Boffo Bagel Success
by | Mar 20, 2024
They say you gotta be a New Yorker to really know bagels—which may be just one reason for Shugrue's successful 2020 launch of Shug's Bagels at 3020 Mockingbird Lane in Park Cities Plaza near SMU. 
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The Last Word: Live Happy’s Deborah Heisz on Wednesday’s International Day of Happiness
by | Mar 19, 2024
Wednesday March 20 is the International Day of Happiness. Established by the United Nations in 2012, the day promotes happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings, in their families, and in their communities. But for Heisz's Dallas-based media company Live Happy, that's the goal 365 days of the year.
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The Last Word: Canyon Ranch’s Mark Rivers On the Demand for Fitness and the Wellness Wave

In 2022, we told you about two next-gen, robotics-packed Walmart facilities that were coming to Lancaster, just south of Dallas: a 1.5 million-square-foot automated fulfillment center and a 730,000 square-foot automated grocery distribution center. The first opened last year and the second is still under construction. When it's completed, it will complete a trifecta of transformation in the region, including a retrofitted 1.2-million-square-foot distribution center in Sanger, north of Denton.
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The Last Word: Walmart’s Dave Guggina on Reinventing Company’s Supply Chain in DFW
by | Mar 13, 2024
In 2022, we told you about two next-gen, robotics-packed Walmart facilities that were coming to Lancaster, just south of Dallas: a 1.5 million-square-foot automated fulfillment center and a 730,000 square-foot automated grocery distribution center. The first opened last year and the second is still under construction. When it's completed, it will complete a trifecta of transformation in the region, including a retrofitted 1.2-million-square-foot distribution center in Sanger, north of Denton.
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The Last Word: The Dallas Fed’s Anton Cheremukhinm On How Employee Poaching Could Lead to Softer Economic Landings
by | Mar 12, 2024
In a new Dallas Fed research paper, Cheremukhin writes that the central bank may find it easier to avoid a recession, thanks to a key fact: while job vacancies are decreasing in the U.S., unemployment has remained steady. 
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The Last Word: Dude Perfect’s Coby Cotton on Moving to a New $3M Frisco HQ This Summer
by | Mar 11, 2024
Dude Perfect is about to move into a new stepping stone: a $3 million new HQ in Jerry Jones' Star Business Park in Frisco, leaving behind their Frisco HQ 10 minutes to the south, where they've shot videos for the last seven years. 
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