Taylor Eighmy and Graham Weston were a true portrait of leadership last week – two visionaries coming together to announce a stunning $200-plus million dollar transformation of the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Eighmy has been president of UTSA exactly one year this month, and already has established himself as a leader with big ideas, last month launching his Presidential Initiative on Research Excellence. Weston, a Rackspace co-founder, has emerged in the last decade as the driving force in the resurrection of downtown San Antonio. The new Frost Bank Tower, which will be completed by the end of 2019, is the signature centerpiece of Weston Urban’s planned redevelopment of, literally, acres of western downtown.

This massive investment in downtown and higher education represents a hugeSouth Texas Medical Center, which started 50 years ago, has become a destination for medical services and education in San Antonio. Credit: Scott Ball / San Antonio Report

The Rivard Report, in partnership with Methodist Healthcare Ministries and the San Antonio Medical Foundation, will shine a light on quite a bit of this research activity at a Monday luncheon program titled, “The South Texas Medical Center: A Look Back at the First 50 Years, a Look Ahead at the Next 50 Years.”

(Click here for tickets and more information.)

The event aims to celebrate the Medical Center’s founding in 1968, a catalytic year for San Antonio – one that also saw the opening of HemisFair ’68 and the city being ushered into a new, post-war chapter in its 300-year history. The