A select few international industrialists will soon beginreceiving phone calls from Southwest Mississippi’s economic andgovernment leaders, who are moving right along in the second phaseof their aggressive, short-term industrial recruiting strategy.

Southwest Mississippi Partnership President Cliff Brumfield saidthe organization is preparing to make contact with specificcompanies in the top three industrial categories identified as bestfor the region and pitching to them a location to anywhere in the10-county area. The partnership is seeking companies that fit intothe biomass/biofuels, distribution or food processing categoriesand in a “growth mode,” he said.

The partnership will work with an unnamed “leading” consultingcompany to decide which companies should get the call, Brumfieldsaid.

“This will provide us with direct contact information for us tointerface with industries that have or will soon have activeexpansion projects,” he said.

The partnership is moving through Phase Two of the itsshort-term industrial recruitment strategy, which aims to contactand recruit an industry to Southwest Mississippi in 18 months, bythe end of 2009. Big players in the economic development field,including the Mississippi Development Authority, EntergyMississippi and Momentum Mississippi – a private sector economicdevelopment agency formed by Gov. Haley Barbour in 2004 – aresupporting the effort.

Entergy Mississippi Director of Economic Development John Turnersaid the partnership would divide up into smaller teams to workindustry categories and likely generate an initial list of around200 companies. He said the list would be slowly reviewed andwhittled down to a top 20 or 25 list, and partnership recruiterswould begin “hitting the road” in the next four to six weeks.

“We know all the different companies that are in that industry,and we’re kind of weeding through that to get a more focusedapproach on those companies we want to call,” Turner said. “We’vebeen evaluating, researching and deciding, ‘How do we get the 25companies that have a more realistic opportunity to locate here?’Once we got those finalized, we will begin making calls andrecruiting those industries.”

The recruiting teams consist of not only partnership members andeconomic experts, but will also involve businessmen from theprivate sector, whose insight on doing business in SouthwestMississippi will be an asset in recruiting new companies, Turnersaid.

“When we bring prospects in, they’ll be a part of our team tomeet and greet them, because prospects want to hear how existingindustries are doing,” he said.

The partnership’s recruiting effort began by examining massquantities of data on Southwest Mississippi’s resources andcapabilities, data that was used to select the top three industrytypes that would have the greatest chance of success in theregion.

The biomass/biofuels industry was chosen as the top industrytype because of the region’s vast resources and expertise inforestry – a $1 billion annual industry in the state. Thepartnership is also considering companies in the industries ofdistribution, food processing, light manufacturing and energy.

Once the plan has been executed through to the final phone call,the governor has agreed to step in and represent the partnershippersonally in an attempt to create jobs for Southwest Mississippi -a region of the state he previously said has been left out of theeconomic growth enjoyed by such areas as Central and NortheastMississippi. Partnership statistics show the region as having anavailable workforce of 73,000.

Partnership member counties include Amite, Claiborne, Franklin,Jefferson, Lawrence, Lincoln, Pike, Walthall and Wilkinsoncounties. The regional effort being conducted is unprecedented forSouthwest Mississippi, Brumfield said.

“Our approach has become much more of a rifled instead of ashotgun approach in identifying industries,” he said. “The way thisis being carried out is unprecedented in the rural southeast, andit is changing the way we market our communities. We feel we’re onthe cutting edge with this process, and although this is a lengthyproject, we will keep our noses to the grindstone to see itthrough.”

Brumfield said the partnership would hold another summit meetingin mid-August to update and refine its efforts.