Houston innovator: 3 reasons you should incorporate estate planning to your company benefits

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Why you should be offering your employees estate and legacy planning tools. Photo courtesy of The Postage

As priorities for employees have shifted as part of the Great Resignation the need for non-traditional benefits has continued to arise. Employees are expecting their personal and family wellness to be at the core of what their employers are offering. This is a big consideration when deciding to stay or leave a company. While HR professionals and employers are realizing they need to re-evaluate their benefits and how they keep top talent, there’s one key benefit that is typically missed that is a life necessity for all, estate and legacy planning.

Given today’s uber competitive talent market, there’s an opportunity for companies to embrace new benefits that go beyond the typical and support vital needs, such as financial wellness and estate planning. Taking the next step by providing and connecting employees with the right resources can make all the difference. Estate and legacy planning goes beyond creating a will, it’s about end to end care of life and legacy. It helps transition wealth and wisdom across generations. It handles your affairs, finances, your digital assets, protects your children and pets, and ensures your wishes are carried out if you are temporarily unavailable or permanently incapable of handling them. It’s as critical and as necessary as insurance yet is not typically included as a key employee benefit.

Why should you add estate and legacy planning as part of your employee benefits? Here’s the top three reasons to consider:

1. Create value for your employees and their families

Financial wellness and security are the utmost important for employees. In fact, it’s one of the most-valued benefits, based on a recent survey Morgan Stanley found that 90 percent of employees want their company to prioritize financial benefits. Are you going to be one of the 95 percent of HR executives that plan to do so? If so, there are multiple ways that a company can help its employees to build wealth and protect their financial security through traditional benefits such as retirement savings plans, health insurance, voluntary life, and disability insurance, and more. But additional benefits like estate and legacy planning should be a part of this assortment of benefits that support protecting employees and their families’ finances - by helping them build and protect their financial and personal legacies.

Employers can show that they value and support their employee’s financial success and security by providing tools and resources that make it simple to handle these historically daunting tasks and keep them organized throughout life, which allows employees to have peace of mind for their families’ future, financial and beyond.

2. Stand out among your competitors

Most employers do not provide legacy and estate planning services. Only 12 percent of employers provide these types of benefits, yet over 72 percent of those who are not offered estate planning services by their employer, would be interested in using them if offered. That’s a huge percentage of your employee population that would benefit from this service while differentiating you from other employers and provide an opportunity for your company to show just how much you value your employees’ futures.

3. Show you care about your employees

More people have begun to self-reflect on what is truly important to them as a part of the Great Resignation. Now, employee desires have evolved beyond a high salary with decent benefits. Employees want to feel valued beyond the work they do, and even further than that, they need an environment where their career, their loved ones, and their own being is supported. These psychological needs are translating into demands for companies to provide more thoughtful employee benefits packages.

A study conducted by Morgan Stanley shows how perceptions of employees and HR executives alike have transformed, with 9 in 10 HR executives saying their company needs to do a better job helping employees understand how to maximize their financial benefits. Proving to your employees that you care about them beyond the ‘now’–beyond simply providing short-term benefits that exclusively affect them in the present day–leverages your company’s commitment to caring for your workers.

For people that struggle with organizing their property and wealth, estate planning can help visualize their total net worth. However, benefits that not only anticipate employees’ future financial needs but also organize their family network will drive continual engagement within your company and prove genuine care for your workers. For example, The Postage helps people plan their legacy. On top of estate planning, customers also have the ability to store and document important life events and memories, or even utilize our message planning feature where they can send timely notes to their family at a future date.

Employees want to feel valued beyond their work and taking the steps to help them build physical and financial legacies for both themselves and their loved ones will put your company one step ahead of everyone else. It is time for estate planning to join the conversation for employee benefits packages and helping employees proactively plan their future could be the cornerstone of attracting and retaining diverse talent.

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Emily Cisek is the founder and CEO of The Postage, a tech-enabled, easy-to-use estate planning tool.

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Houston named the No.1 emerging city for biopharma in inaugural report

Biopharma Leader

Houston is ranked No.1 on the first-ever Next 10 U.S. Biopharma Clusters report published by Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN).

The report, which ranks the best emerging hubs for life science activities, considered patents, NIH funding, lab space, venture capital investments, and the number of jobs in regions in cities, states and “clusters” across the U.S. GEN touts Houston as the top city for the biopharma industry due to a surge in funding, job creation, medical innovations and startup success.

Here’s how Houston ranked in the report’s different categories;

  • No. 1 for NIH funding with 2,262 awards totaling more than $1.25 billion
  • No. 2 for emerging regions for jobs, with 28,000 jobs
  • No. 2 for lab space, with roughly 8 million square feet in the market
  • No. 6 for patents, with 2,760 patent families

According to BioHouston chairman Jeff Wade, Houston secured half a billion dollars in venture capital funding in 2025 and 2026 to date.

The report called out major biopharm news out of Houston in the last few months, including Bristol Myers Squibb selecting Houston for its $1 billion, 600,000-square-foot manufacturing site and Eli Lily selecting Houston for its $6.5 billion, 236-acre manufacturing site. Both facilities will be located within Generation Park, a 4,300-acre, master-planned commercial district near Lake Houston.

Houston startups like CrossBridge Bio and Duracyte were also mentioned in the report. CrossBridge, which develops antibody-drug conjugates for cancer, was acquired by Eli Lily in April for $300 million. Duracyte, a “living pharmacy” company, was launched out of Rice University’s biotech venture studio RBL LLC this spring and is backed by up to a $45 million Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) award.

The startup is working to commercialize its Hybrid Advanced Molecular Manufacturing Regulator (HAMMR) technology, a rechargeable, implantable device that can sense biological signals, monitor tumor environments and adjust therapeutic output in real time.

“There’s a lot of great talent, but the unique advantage that we have is we are able to benefit from a lot of unique clinical infrastructure and clinician insights,” Omid Veiseh, Duracyte co-founder and managing partner of RBL LLC, told GEN. “There are a lot of clinicians here who are eager to partner on investigator-initiated trials.”

The report also touted Houston’s Texas Medical Center, home to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine, and international partnerships like the recently expanded TMC Korea BioBridge.

Other cities to make the list include:

  • No. 2 Minneapolis-St. Paul
  • No. 3 Denver-Boulder
  • No. 4 St. Louis
  • No. 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

States to make the list include:

  • No. 1 Ohio (including Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus)
  • No. 2 Indiana (including Indianapolis)
  • No. 3 Florida (including Jacksonville and Miami-Fort Lauderdale)
  • No. 4 Georgia (including Atlanta and Augusta)
  • No. 5 Wisconsin (including Madison and Kenosha)

Regional state clusters to watch include:

  • Phoenix
  • Pittsburgh
  • Greater Richmond, Virginia
  • South Carolina
  • Utah

See the full report here.

Major Texas-based airlines ground humanoid robots as passengers

In The Air

Two major airlines based in Texas are drawing a hard line between human and humanoid: American Airlines and Southwest Airlines won’t permit human-like or animal-like robots to board flights as passengers.

Fort Worth-based American and Dallas-based Southwest recently adopted bans on robotic passengers after two incidents in which human-like robots joined flesh-and-blood passengers on Southwest flights.

In May, Aaron Mehdizadeh, owner of The Robot Studio rental company in Dallas, was heading from Las Vegas to Dallas Love Field with 3.5-foot-tall Stewie, according to CBS News Texas. Rather than shipping Stewie as cargo, Mehdizadeh bought the robot its own seat using a type of ticket often purchased for fragile items such as wedding dresses and equipment.

But because Stewie was technically a carry-on item, the robot wasn’t supposed to occupy a seat, according to eWeek. Crew members wound up disconnecting Stewie’s battery and relocating the robot to a window seat before takeoff.

Mehdizadeh pushed back on Southwest’s stance regarding the battery, telling CBS News Texas that Stewie’s power supply is a standard battery that’s similar to one for a laptop.

Stewie isn’t the only robot making mischief in the skies. In May, a 70-pound, human-like robot named Bebop caused a stir on a Southwest flight from Oakland, California, to San Diego.

The robot prompted a nearly one-hour flight delay after crew members realized it violated restrictions on large carry-ons and raised concerns about the battery, San Francisco TV station KGO reported. Dallas-based Elite Event Robotics owns Bebop.

Southwest seized Bebop’s lithium-ion battery, but the airline did let Bebop take the San Diego-bound flight.

Southwest’s new robot policy prohibits human-like or animal-like robots from riding in an airplane cabin or as checked baggage, no matter their size or purpose. All other robots, including toys, must fit in a carry-on size bag and comply with battery restrictions, the airline says.

In a statement sent to CultureMap, a Southwest spokeswoman says the airline “has taken a strong stance on this issue and has led the U.S. airline industry with our battery policy.”

“The robot policy is a further evolution of a [safety] journey we have been on for several months. This move was not in response to any single incident,” the spokeswoman adds. “To eliminate confusion, the policy applies to all similar devices, regardless of size.”

Lithium-ion batteries can overheat, catch on fire, or explode on airplanes.

American’s new robot policy, which took effect Monday, August 17, is similar to Southwest’s. The policy prohibits human-like and animal-like robots from sitting in a purchased seat, being stored in an overhead bin or traveling as checked baggage. The ban applies to U.S., international, and regional flights.

“While there have been no known events involving this type of robot on any American flight, this policy was developed following a comprehensive review of safety risks associated with these devices, including the large lithium-ion batteries that power them,” the airline said in an internal memo obtained by the View From the Wing travel blog.

American gate agents have been told not to allow a passenger accompanied by a robot to board a plane or to let a robot travel as a checked item, the memo say.

If a robot is discovered after check-in, American employees are supposed to follow the Federal Aviation Administration’s “undeclared dangerous goods” procedures. These procedures cover hazardous shipments like lithium-ion batteries, explosives, flammable liquids, and compressed gases that lack required warning labels or shipping documents.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Texas A&M, UH rise in global rankings of universities attracting the most attention

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Houston and Texas universities had a strong showing on the 2026-27 Global University Visibility (GUV) Rankings compiled by D.C.-based higher ed market research firm American Caldwell.

Texas A&M ranked No. 6 on the list—the top rank of any Texas university. Meanwhile, the University of Houston ranked No. 52, a 15-spot jump from its previous ranking.

The GUV rankings rate colleges that garner the most global attention via news coverage, social media influence, website traffic, YouTube views, and general public interest. GUV evaluated over 1,200 universities across 193 United Nations-recognized countries.

Texas A&M, with its No. 6 global ranking, also claimed the No. 5 spot among U.S. institutions. The university climbed 21 spots from its previous rank.

“News mentions were a driver of Texas A&M’s movement in this year’s rankings, and earned media remains one of the strongest signals of relevance,” Tim Doty, associate vice president for earned media at Texas A&M, said in a news release. “Much of that visibility begins with our faculty and research experts, whose work helps explain, solve and give context to issues people care about. When Texas A&M experts appear in news stories about research, discovery, national security, agriculture, health, engineering, service and the future of Texas, audiences see the university not only as large or well known, but as useful, relevant and necessary to the conversations shaping our state and country.”

In the “Public Interest” category, UH also claimed a top 10 global ranking at No.6. UH touts its overall GUV rankings success to Guggenheim Fellowships, MacArthur “Genius” grants, National Academy membership, studies like researchers breaking the superconductivity temperature record, and success on the football field and basketball courts.

“Across the board, there is no question that the University of Houston is a brand on the rise,” Shawn Lindsey, interim vice president for marketing and communications, said in a news release. “People are seeing our story, hearing about the amazing things happening at UH and actively seeking us out to learn more. We are seeing it in record-high student applications, we are seeing increases in trademark licensing revenue, our faculty are earning global accolades. It’s an exciting time to be a Houston Cougar.”

Other Texas institutions to make the top 250 on the list include:

  • No. 22 The University of Texas at Austin
  • No. 104 University of Texas at Dallas
  • No. 159 Texas Tech University
  • No. 178 Rice University
  • No. 191 University of North Texas
  • No. 248 Texas State University

For the fourth year in a row, Harvard University secured the top spot on the list, followed by MIT, Stanford University and Purdue University. The University of Oxford was the top non-U.S. institution at No. 5.

See the full list here.

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