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Other major capital investments announced recently in the Vicksburg area include a $150 million, 300-megawatt power plant by the Warren Power Company, a $25 million expansion by the Anderson-Tully hardwood lumber company and a $1.5 million expansion by GNB Technologies.
Heidel, who preceded Burns as head of statewide economic development efforts for Mississippi for eight years, says the key for continued prosperity for Mississippi is for the state to be service oriented. "Every industry is now on a fast track," he says. "We must offer fast, complete service. One good thing about the Advantage Mississippi Initiative is that it puts more authority for funding decisions back into the hands of the Mississippi Development Authority, which is where it should be. This gives them more ability to make decisions on projects that are coming to our state right now."
In Tupelo, Rumbarger says that his own region of the state is benefiting from Gov. Musgrove's "New South" philosophy toward government and his pro-growth outlook on business. "The interesting thing about Tupelo is that we were formerly an agribusiness economy, but we now have some 19,000 jobs in manufacturing," says Rumbarger. "Our biggest announcement this year was Tecumseh Products' $10.5 million plant expansion adding 600 jobs to the local area."
Other large expansions in the Tupelo area in 2000 included FMC adding 100 new jobs, Stanley Door Systems adding 70 jobs and Leggett & Platt adding 60 jobs in the furniture hardware sector.
In the high-tech sector, Gov. Musgrove announced a $29.5 million by the state to build a 220,000-sq.-ft. (20,438-sq.-m.) facility for Lockheed Martin. The project will house an advanced Propulsion, Thermal and Metrology Center at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis and will create 270 new jobs once it opens in the fall of 2001.
Also opening at the Stennis Space Center last year was the new Boeing engine assembly facility. The 100,000-sq.-ft. (9,290-sq.-m.) factory will employ nearly 300 in the assembly of at least 40 RS-68 engines per year.
Around USM in Hattiesburg, the polymer-related industries continue to flourish because of their proximity to the Mississippi Polymer Institute. According to Jesse Smith, marketing and training manager for the institute, "In the polymer-related fields, we have more training programs than any other state in the nation. The institute helps Mississippi-based companies in new product development, and the demand for workers in these fields is still very high."
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Jimmy Heidel, executive director of the Warren County Economic Development Foundation, can point to a number of recent success stories in the Vicksburg area along the Mississippi River. Entergy Wholesale Operations announced in 2000 that it would invest $140 million into an advanced gas-fired generating plant in Vicksburg on the Baxter-Wilson plant site. The inducement? No taxes on the plant for 10 years.