DRA
funds to build Delta businesses
Special to the DBJ
The
Delta Regional Authority, headquartered in Clarksdale, MS,
has awarded a grant of $255,500 to Delta State University.
These funds will support a two-year Business Retention and
Expansion program in Bolivar, Coahoma, and Washington Counties.
Last fall, Governor Ronnie Musgrove recommended this program
for funding. According to Dr. Brent Hales, Director of DSU’s
Center for Community Development, “The program will
operate through the Center in collaboration with the DSU’s
Small Business Development Center and the Industrial Development
Foundations in Bolivar, Coahoma and Washington Counties.”
Pete Johnson, Federal Co-Chairman of the Delta Regional
Authority, based in Clarksdale, said “The unique component
of this program is that it can be used as a model to integrate
into all 240 counties of the Delta Regional Authority’s
coverage area. This is what makes this project so exciting.”
Scott Luth, Executive Director, Cleveland/Bolivar County
Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Foundation, said, “The
purpose of this program is to help local and Industrial
Development Corporations implement strategies that will
reduce the number of jobs that are being lost in the tri-county
area and to help create new jobs within existing private
sector firms and in the public sector. We hope to mobilize
teams of local leaders from the private and public sector
in each county so they will become more engaged in helping
our local firms grow.”
Tommy Hart, Director of the Industrial Development Foundation
of Washington County, says, “Through this effort we
will mobilize local support from the private and public
sector in each of the three counties so that existing businesses
and manufacturing firms will be able to respond more effectively
to the demands being placed on them. We will seek technical
assistance from a team of economic development experts who
have had success with business retention and expansion programs
in other parts of the country.”
Ron Hudson, Director Clarksdale/Coahoma Chamber of Commerce
and Industrial Development Foundation, says, “Most
of the new jobs created in rural America are in existing
firms. When community organizations support existing businesses
and manufacturing firms so they can prosper, new firms are
likely to be attracted to a community. This program will
offer a new and practical opportunity for local leaders
and citizens in each of the three counties to do all that
we can to support our major employers.”
Dr. Hales adds, “Several graduate students in DSU’s
community development program will work in the program under
the guidance of county leaders and Dr. Jerry Robinson, Jr.,
Distinguished Professor of Rural Sociology, who will serve
as program leader. This partnership is an outgrowth of the
hard work devoted by the county leaders and communities
involved in the project, Dr. Albert B. Nylander, III, Chair
of the Division of Social Sciences, and staff of the Center
for Community Development.”
“The silver bullet to true and real recovery and progress
in the Delta will come from the Delta. The expansion of
existing business and the start-up of home-owned new business
will be the hallmark of the Delta catching up with the American
economy,” says Hayes Dent Executive Director of the
Delta Regional Authority. DBJ
