If you are a member of any of the area Chambers, Partnerships, etc…or if you just want to meet some good people and mingle, swing by for Business After Hours at the GTR Airport tonight!
Columbus Lowndes Chamber of Commerce
Golden Triangle Development LINK
Greater Starkville Development Partnership
Peco Foods to Bring $40M Warehouse, 300 Jobs to West Point
WEST POINT, Miss. (Excerpt/Edited PRESS RELEASE) –Courtesy of WCBI
Peco Foods CEO Mark Hickman announced today that the company is locating in the existing 185,000-square-foot cold-storage warehouse formerly occupied by AmeriCold in West Point. The Tusaloosa, AL-based company is planning to spend $40 million to construct the facility, and anticipates that it will create three hundred local jobs as a result.
“The addition of the West Point facility to the Peco Foods’ portfolio and the creation of so many new jobs for the people of the Golden Triangle Region demonstrate how existing companies in our state benefit from our productive workforce and prime location in the fastest growing region of the U.S.,” Gov. Phil Bryant said.
“It’s exciting to welcome more jobs to the West Point area,” said Mayor Robbie Robinson. “This company is providing jobs in a sector we’re familiar with, in a more advanced environment, with a high rate of pay for our citizens. It’s a great opportunity.”
Peco Foods has more than 6,000 employees and six state-of-the-art poultry complexes in Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas which supply a broad range of products and services to national restaurant chains, regional food service distributors and retail grocers, as well as international accounts.
MDA Praises Golden Triangle Region for Industrial Growth
The Dispatch – Columbus
Mississippi Development Authority Director Glenn McCullough, left, visits with Columbus Rotary Club member Tango Moore after speaking at the club’s meeting at Lion Hills Center on Tuesday. Photo by: Luisa Porter/Dispatch Staff
Mississippi Development Authority Executive Director Glenn McCullough recently gave a presentation to the Columbus Rotary Club, extolling the Golden Triangle Region’s virtues as an increasingly attractive place to do business, especially for industrial concerns. He spoke of the economic growth brought about due to large companies such as Yokohama, Toyota, Nissan, Steel Dynamics, and Plum Creek, to name a few. He also expressed his appreciation for all of the GTR communities’ working together to make the area a more successful place for everyone: “When it comes to economic development — when it comes to community development and leadership, we are all on the same team,” McCullough said. “We are not big enough to fight when it comes to building our communities. We, as leaders, need to look across the state of Mississippi and see the state of Mississippi not just compete, but win. You’ve been doing that.”
McCullough also addressed the room with regards to workforce training, which he said is an important factor for the future of the state and its economic growth. The State of Mississippi has committed $50 million toward such efforts, which includes funds for the state’s community college system. He mentioned the planned Communiversity, in particular, which is currently under construction near PACCAR: “You’ll have a facility and some people at the Communiversity that will give the Golden Triangle something no other part of the Southeast has,” he said. “…It is so important –Mississippi needs to make sure that people understand around the world (that if) you want to produce a product or service in Mississippi, our people are the best.”
McCullough went on to say that the state has other advantages, as well; he said the state is a top-10 state for business costs, permitting speed, competitive labor costs, automotive manufacturing strength and other categories.
Despite this, he also acknowledged that the state faces competition from other states (especially those nearest to us) in this regard, and that we need to continue to improve how we are perceived by those in the outside world: “Sometimes Mississippi’s perception is not want we want it to be, which is why tourism is so important.”
Please click here for the full article.
Joe Max Higgins Helps Golden Triangle to Make a Great Impression
“Business Facilities” magazine did a great article following up on CBS’ coverage of our own Joe Max Higgins not too long ago, highlighting his zeal and efforts in bringing manufacturing plants and jobs to our area. Higgins has been working tirelessly for many years to help revitalize our area — and that’s Good for Business!
Excerpt:
Thanks to an interview on last Sunday’s 60 Minutes broadcast on CBS, the economic development community has a new mega-star, and his name is Joe Max Higgins. Higgins is Economic Development director for Mississippi’s Golden Triangle.
As revealed during his star turn on 60 Minutes, Higgins is a project-building dynamo. Since he arrived in the Golden Triangle in 2003, Joe Max has turned a rural stretch of the Magnolia State into one of the hottest high-growth locations you can find anywhere. If you didn’t watch Sunday’s show, we encourage you to check it out.
Here are some highlights:
Under Joe Max Higgin’s leadership, the area has attracted $6 billion in new investments. Unemployment in the Golden Triangle is now 6 percent and falling fast.
Beginning in the 1990s, the Golden Triangle began suffering an exodus of manufacturing jobs in its primary industries of textiles, toys and tubing, with a majority of the estimated 12,000 jobs it lost leaving for overseas locations. Since Higgins arrived, more than half of these jobs have been replaced. According to Joe Max, the influx of 6,000 new manufacturing jobs to the tri-county region was driven by companies who had offshored production coming to the realization that they could produce their goods and get them to market from plants in Mississippi cheaper than by shipping them to the U.S. from overseas plants.
Joe Max’s in-your-face approach has landed some killer deals for the Golden Triangle, including a Steel Dynamics plant that is one of the most advanced steel mills in the nation.
Higgins’ bulldog tenacity is applied to state and county officials as well as corporate site selectors. He’s succeeded in convincing them to pony up more than half a billion in incentives and tax breaks to grease the wheels of dealmaking in the Golden Triangle.
Higgins told 60 Minutes that when he arrived in the Golden Triangle the area was “paralyzed” by poverty. But he saw some golden assets that could form a foundation for solid growth, including an airport, railways and waterways that connect the area to the Gulf Coast in the south and the Great Lakes in the north.
Higgins told the locals to shake off what he called “a losing attitude” and realize they had the assets to make the Triangle “big and strong and fast.”
Bulldog indeed. You’ve got our full attention Joe Max, and we look forward to keeping everyone up to date on the great progress being made in Mississippi’s Golden Triangle.
Jackson, Mississippi — March 8, 2016
Nammo Talley munitions manufacturer announced today that they have been awarded a five-year, $97.2 million contract which will create 12 new jobs in Crawford, Mississippi, for the production of ammunition for the Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon system. Their local facility was designed for the assembly and storage of SMAW munitions and similar products. This contract will allow for the re-opening of the facility, which was temporarily closed down in 2014.
“This is a huge win for our program team and for our operation in Mississippi,” said Jim Mullis, general manager of Nammo Talley’s Mississippi operations. “We have received outstanding support from the Mississippi Development Authority, Golden Triangle Development LINK, East Mississippi Community College Workforce Training and the Mississippi Department of Employment Security in re-establishing our operations here.”
For more information about Nammo Talley, visit www.nammo.com.
Full article here: https://www.mississippi.org/general/new-ammunition-contract-firing-up-nammo-talley-operations-in-lowndes-county/
HottyToddy.com’s Scott Coopwood
From recent conversations with friends I have had over the last month or so, I’m amazed to discover they are not aware of this agency of they have never even heard of it. However, this department is vitally important to the state and it has been in business for decades, although the name has been changed a few times. The Mississippi Development Authority and that team who provided the heavy lifting, who actually wrote the plans and proposals that helped Toyota and Nissan make the decision to put plants here.
Glenn McCullough is the current head of the Mississippi Development Authority based in Jackson across from the Capitol.
McCullough’s long career is significant … McCullough’s leadership in northeast Mississippi is huge and in the coming years, the state will benefit greatly from his long career and current efforts. Simply put, the state of Mississippi could use more economic developers like Glenn McCullough.
To learn more about the Mississippi Development Authority, visit www.mississippi.org.
Full article at the link: http://hottytoddy.com/2016/03/07/coopwood-on-mississippi-development-authoritys-glenn-mccullough/