By Ida Brown / senior staff writer

Hoping to "shrink the miles" that separate the state, representatives of the Mississippi Economic Council are currently on a 12-city Transformation Tour around the state.

Themed "Turning Challenges Into Opportunities," the tour kicked off Nov. 9 in Greenwood, and will conclude on Dec. 10 in Gulfport. Meridian was among the tour stops last week and during his visit on Wednesday MEC president and CEO Blake Wilson met with The Star's Editorial Board.

"We don't go to every city, but we come to Meridian every year," Wilson said. "We feel that it's a place that has lots of potential."

The goal of the tour is to generate discussion as MEC explores ways that Mississippi can build a strong economic future.

The Star: Governments offering huge incentives to prospective companies has been a trend in economic development. What happens when there's all this community investment, the economy goes south and company can't build it? What are some of the latest trends in economic development in a down economy?

  Wilson: There are usually clauses and contracts in all of that – if they don't meet it, they have to pay back the incentives. I believe we're going to see the Toyota plant open; the governor

believes it. You need to continue to try to land a big fish, but you can also land smaller fish and have a successful economic development program. Like Tower Automotives, which was landed here by East Mississippi, that was a great boon. If you can land a few of those, it's as good as landing a big one. It doesn't impact the region as broadly, but it certainly does impact the community where it locates.

    So you take what you can get, and in an economy like now you've got an opportunity to still get some supplier business. This Aerospace Alliance the governors of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana have put together is another potential. We've had Aerospace, if you look in The Golden Triangle Area, you've seen several Aerospace locations: Aurora Flight Service, Stark Aviation and of course Eurocopter, which opened a relatively small facility there six years ago and now has built a significant addition that has about 300 employees.

    Meridian has other connections that can be used to connect into Mississippi State, particularly in the automotive and cabs connection. You're better positioned; you've got an ideal spot for that kind of location. It's a question of timing; it's a question of continuing to put yourself in the place of great opportunity. I think Wade (Jones) and his team at EMBDC have done that. When is it going to hit? You don't know.

    Who would have ever believed that Blue Springs site would have been selected by Toyota? What was the difference? The difference was that community that went out and sold their education system. The work that this council is doing here, the EMBDC, on education, which is a huge part of their agenda, is critically important because it helps put this part of the state in that same place of opportunity.

    I think Meridian is positioned to be a major next time location for a big facility. It's just a matter of time.

    The Star: What is the purpose of the Transformation Tour?

    Wilson: We (MEC) started doing this a number of years ago and the idea was, we're a policy organization – we're not like the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation or a local chamber in other communities that is involved in actual recruitment of business. We are strictly a policy group. We focus on education, economic development, tax policy, things that improve the business climate and image – that's our work.

    We've been around for 60 years and we realized that we needed to shrink the miles that separate Mississippi. Mississippi is a very small state in that there are only about 3 million people. We have a unique advantage in Mississippi: about 70 percent of Mississippians have never lived, worked or gone to school anywhere else.

    Why is that an advantage?

    That creates this unique interconnection. Anywhere you go in Mississippi, they say, "Where are you from?" and "You must know ... " That is how the conversation starts off, because you're try to find something in common. We did that in Delaware, too. Even though I'm not from Mississippi, I get it.

    When I came to Mississippi, I asked, "How do we deal with this geography challenge?" We've got this problem of all this land that's in between everybody, because everybody says, "When you go to Tupelo, say hello to Jack Reed" or if you go over to Meridian, "Be sure to say hello to Tommy Dulaney." So how do we separate the miles that separate us?

    First, we've developed a database of about 8,000 business leaders; it's the largest business database of any organization in the state. So how do we reach this database face-to-face? We go on tour, talk to them, give them a general overview of the issues that are coming up, we have a formal process of soliciting their feedback (i.e. survey). And some the issues we're surveying on are already adopted MEC positions. Others are work in progress, where we really need feedback about what people are really thinking. By the end of the day, we have gotten more than the scientific sample.

    On this tour, we'll reach about 2,000 maybe 2,500. That's a great sampling of the business community. If you were doing a scientific telephone poll, you would poll 300-600. We then break it down geographically, we look at where there is regional difference (and there sometimes are on issues) and we also look at the types of businesses that have responded and then the overall responses. And we share that with our leadership – Tommy Dulaney will be our chair of the board in two years; he's on the executive committee now as our incoming vice chair. And Manny Mitchell serves on our board.

    So the deal is how do we take it to the next level and shrink these miles using this database? These meetings give us a way to get the issues in front of people, draw their attention, and then they can use their interactive Web site to communicate with us. For instance, when the governor's budget came out, we sent it out to all our members and asked for their feedback. We're always soliciting feedback so that we don't become this Jackson-based organization that's clueless to what people outside the state are thinking. When I came here, 70 percent of MEC's membership was within the three-county Metro Jackson area and 30 percent was outside. Today, 70 percent of our membership is outside the Metro Jackson area and only 30 percent is within that area. It has changed dramatically because we're interested in what people thinking and we're being reflective of the state.

    The Star: Talk a little more about economic development, particularly in a time of recession.

    Wilson: I have become an ice hockey fan.

    Hockey is probably the fastest growing sport in Mississippi. Ole Miss and MSU have hockey teams – neither have any ice, but they each have teams and they go elsewhere to play.

    The ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky says, "You cannot win at ice hockey if you chase the puck. You've got to position yourself to feel the puck." So what we're kind of focusing on here in Mississippi today is, how do we put ourselves in the position of greatest opportunity for when the recovery begins?

    That's why we have to continue to focus on education, this Children First Act that has been passed by the legislature with the leadership of (Sen.) Videt Carmichael and (Rep.) Cecil Brown. I serve on that committee that worked on that legislation. It's profound; it's one of the things we've promoted on this tour.

    For the first time ever, beginning around the first of the year, every school district in Mississippi will have to produce a  Dashboard Report, a one-page document that shows how your school district compares to the rest of the state educationally. It will be sent out via the newspaper and every student will take it home.

    What we miss sometimes in some communities in Mississippi is a demanding group of parents. They people overly complacent about their school systems and, therefore, are not off their seat and on their feet about the importance of excellence in education. This is a tool to get there.

    The other element is that it provides a tracking of every student so that school districts will have to focus their attention on students that are not performing, and put plans in place that are going to help those kids. For the first time, they really are targeting kids and making sure that if a kid's failing, they are putting them in a program to bring them along – tutoring them in math, in English, helping them along because they just need somebody to reach out to them. So many times these students have other issues, and they just need an adult who cares. It's beyond teaching them the basics; it's also reaching out and taking a little interest.

    The last element is it actually calls for the removal of superintendents if a school district fails consistently for more than two years. That superintendent can be removed; that is huge, HUGE for improving our school.

    So that's an example of how do we put ourselves in the place of greatest opportunity.

    Improving our Workforce Delivery System, as has been done in our community and junior colleges is another way that we put ourselves in the place of greatest opportunity.

    And, maximizing our IHL (Institutes of Higher Learning) System and really trying to sort out how are they going to each use their unique capabilities to excel.