Pine Belt Poised

“We have all of the money that we will ever need. Unfortunately, it’s still in your pockets,” drew a good laugh from the attendees at the Economic and Technology Symposium at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville, MS. Tim Lawrence, president of the foundation was putting the ask on what has become the largest community college foundation in MS and in the top 6% in the country. They were the sponsors of the event, which featured two of my favorite economic development gurus, Leland Speed, head of ED in MS, and Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes and author of Life 2.0. I was thrilled to be on the same program with them.

The college has taken the lead in economic development in the region known as the Pine Belt for all of the pine trees grown in the area. It is just north of the Gulf Coast and was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. There were still a lot of blue roofs visible even though it has been over five months since the disaster.

The Foundation put $1 million into a new Advanced Technology Center (www.jcjc.cc.ms.us/atc/), a $7 million 53,000 sf high tech center that is nearing completion. It is one of the first buildings in a new 504 acre Howard Technology Park (www.howardtechnologypark.com) that lies adjacent to I-59.

Howard Industries (www.howard-ind.com), a local success story, is building its headquarters along with a couple of other manufacturing plants in the park. This $750 million company was started in 1968 by Billy Howard, who had worked his way up the ranks at GE. He returned to his native Mississippi with a vision of building electrical transformers. Another major success story is Sanderson Farms (NASDAQ symbol SAFM), which has become a $1 billion sales company. Both are headquartered in Laurel, MS (population 18,393) and have done wonderful things for the community.

Having one such company headquartered in your community is wonderful. Having two is incredible. This area is on the cusp of some great things happening. Watch them!