During the annual Mississippi Economic Council meeting on April 12, Governor Bryant announced the creation of a new group designed to spark a variety of economic development agendas across Mississippi. Naming 100 people from the state’s business community to serve on this committee, Governor Bryant’s new entity will be called, “Mississippi Works.” I’m honored the governor has asked me to serve on this committee.

In a press release, Bryant stated, “As I said in my inaugural address, my first job is to make sure every Mississippian has a job. From our policy summit in December to Blueprint Mississippi, many great ideas have been put forward to help advance the economic success of our state. I have taken great care in selecting these exceptional leaders who come from across all regions of Mississippi and who reflect the great diversity of industry within our state.”

Mississippi Works will be privately funded and the group will collaborate via a series of roundtable discussions. Strategies will be created to expand Mississippi’s economic opportunities and workforce training in the state. Mississippi Works will also look at each region of Mississippi and determine what the special assets and needs are of each region.

The Executive Committee for 2012-2013 of Mississippi Works will be: Jim Barksdale, former head of Netscape and current director of the Mississippi Development Authority; Carl Chaney, CEO of Hancock Bank on the coast; Ed Day, CEO of Mississippi Power Company also based on the coast; Tommy Dulaney, CEO of Structural Steel Services; Haley Fisackerly, CEO of Entergy Mississippi based in Jackson; Mayo Flint, president of AT&T Mississippi, in Jackson; Jerry Host, CEO of Trustmark Bank in Jackson; Warren Hood Jr., CEO of Hood Companies in Hattiesburg; Bill Lampton, president, Asphalt Division of Ergon;   Hu Meena, CEO of C-Spire Wireless in Ridgeland; Ambassador John Palmer, CEO of GulfSouth Capital, Jackson; Aubrey Patterson, CEO of BancorpSouth in Tupelo; Mary Peavey, president of Peavey Electronics in Meridian; Carol Pigott, CEO of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi in Jackson; Joe F. Sanderson, Jr., CEO of Sanderson Farms in Laurel; William G. Yates, Jr., CEO of Yates Companies, and David Landrum, Senior National Sales Director of Primerica.

Specifically, Mississippi Works will focus on three main areas of Economic Development: To help craft a long-range strategy to expand economic opportunities in the state with a focus on workforce development; to help bring new investments to all regions of Mississippi while continuing to grow existing businesses and expand them into new markets; and to provide a forum for Mississippi Business Leaders to learn about all of the great work going on throughout the state, giving Mississippians the tools they can use in spreading Mississippi’s success stories around the nation and world.

We at the DBJ are excited about Governor Bryant’s new economic development initiative, and we salute him for moving early in his administration towards putting this entity together. We look forward to helping the governor with Mississippi Works in every way that we possibly can.

During upcoming editions of the DBJ, we’ll keep you posted on Mississippi Works.

In closing, we would like to make special note of a historic event that took place 85 years ago here in the Delta, and that is the Great Flood of 1927. To this day, the event that took place on April 21, 1927 is one of the worst natural disasters that has ever occurred in the United States. This flood displaced thousands of Deltans and delivered an economic blow to the Mississippi Delta that took decades to recover from. The flood also had national ramifications by propelling Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who was in charge of flood relief operations, into the national spotlight setting the stage for his election to the presidency. DBJ