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SAN BENITO, Texas - The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service recently secured an exclusive interview with Rafael Tapia, the new grant manager for the Council for South Texas Economic Progress, otherwise known as COSTEP.

For many years Tapia was executive director of Alamo Economic Development Corporation.

In his new role Tapia is responsible for overseeing grants and managing the grant programs for the Rio-South Texas Education & Community Development Foundation (RSTEF), a nonprofit private foundation focused on postsecondary and workforce development educational programs in Rio South Texas.

In his interview with the Guardian, Tapia explained that RSTEF is part of COSTEP.

\u201cCOSTEP actually is a has two different organizations. Obviously, there is COSTEP itself, which is trying to do the economic development. But, they also manage a foundation, which has been around about the same amount of time and just started to provide post-secondary education and workforce development grants to institutions of higher education, as well as organizations that are 501c3 and promote our focus, which, again, is certificates, GED and certification, anything that has to do with apprenticeships, internships, post-secondary degrees. That's more where my work is.\u201d

Here is the interview.

Editor's Note: Go to the Rio Grande Guardian website to read the full story.

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