My name is Harry Mayer and my family has served our region for almost 50 years, providing men’s and ladies apparel through our retail clothing store.

I love Meridian and I am so very proud to tell people where I am from.

Our community’s greatest asset is our citizens and the finest people in the world live in our area. I always say we may not have a pet therapist on every corner, but we sure enjoy a quality of life that is second to none.

I want you to really think about it and especially through the pandemic, East Central Mississippi is a great place to be. Could you imagine living in Portland, Chicago, or New York during these times?

We are blessed beyond belief to live in a region that has values, morals and ethics. We have so much to be grateful for.

As a business owner I feel a genuine connection and responsibility to give back to the area that has been so good to us.

As the “point of the spear” our East Mississippi Business Development Corporation (EMBDC) is both our chamber of commerce and our economic development organization. I support them and I’d ask you to consider supporting them, as well.

In my business, I truly believe if our community is growing and the businesses around me are doing good, Harry Mayer Clothiers will be just fine. EMBDC is that organization that is out every day working to grow our community.

As our economic development organization, EMBDC is involved daily with recruiting companies to come to our area. They’re also actively working with our existing industries, assisting them collectively with any number of issues that arise. As our chamber of commerce, they actively promote area businesses and our venues.

One of the marketing efforts for area businesses the EMBDC started a couple of years ago, is called “Member Spotlights.” (you can go to www.embdc.org and see over 200 stories of local companies you can’t find anywhere else AND, they’re continuing to publish these stories of our local companies, every Tuesday & Thursday).

Another effort of the EMBDC, which near to my heart, is their Leadership Lauderdale and Leadership Lauderdale Youth programs. It’s astounding to me that since these two programs were started 20 years ago or so, over 1,100 of our adult & student leaders have been through these programs.

If you’re currently not part of the EMBDC, please call them and let them tell you all they have going on.

We all know the students of today will be our leaders of tomorrow. One common thread through all of the work of the EMBDC is “collaboration”. Most, if not all of the programs of the EMBDC are possible because they are the “facilitator” of our community. They let our businesses, elected leaders, education leaders, local foundations and existing industries know of a need and our community responds.

One such effort has been the Mississippi Scholars and Mississippi Tech Masters programs that are provided through our school systems.

EMBDC, along with the Hardin Foundation has worked with local companies to provide funds to our graduating seniors. To date, over 1,300 students have received stipends that amount to $344,000.

We as business leaders, community leaders are all stakeholders in our community and I would like to encourage all of you to get involved and let your voices be heard. 

Harry Mayer

Harry Mayer Clothiers