Jackson Free Press

Duane O'Neill has one of the nicest offices in Jackson, a high-ceilinged corner office in the old fire station next to City Hall. The place is appropriate for a man with his stature in Jackson's business community. O'Neill is president of the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership, sometimes called the Metro Chamber, which acts as a chamber of commerce and economic development entity for the entire Jackson metropolitan area, supporting Jackson-based projects like the Convention Center and metro-area efforts like the Canton Nissan plant.

O'Neill, 56, has held his position with the partnership since 1993. A native of Ipswich, S.D., O'Neill has worked in economic development since graduating from the University of South Dakota in 1975. He worked for chambers of commerce in Poplar Bluff, Mo., Denison, Texas, and Benton Harbor, Mich., before coming to the Jackson area.

What exactly does the Chamber Partnership do?

We're called the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership, which is a mouthful, and I wish we had a different name. But "partnership" makes a lot of sense. In this umbrella of the partnership, we have many different entities. For example, this is where the Jackson Chamber (of Commerce) resides. The Greater Jackson Alliance, which is our economic development team--that is a separate board. We also have Chamber Plus, which is an entity that helps small business in a lot of ways, a lot of affinity programs. And that has its own board of directors.

The difference between us and, say, the Jackson Chamber of Commerce or any of the outlying chambers of commerce is we work on issues that basically cross lines of jurisdiction. If we're talking about Airport Parkway, 
or the (Pearl River) flood control/lakes project or legislation that goes across (county lines)--all those things that affect our business community across those lines or that don't 
see those lines, that's what we do on the Chamber side.

What projects has the Greater Jackson Alliance been involved in?

We worked with the state on the (Canton) Nissan project in the very beginning. In fact, it was the Alliance that went out and did searches for where we could find a mega-site to land the project, did the soil borings, did all the things that were necessary to make sure the site was ready to go. ... We're kind of like a mini state organization for a number of counties around central Mississippi. That's important because most projects out there now are looking at regions. They're not looking at states; they're not looking at individual communities. They're saying, "What regions are developed and ready to go?"

Is that a new thing?

It's over the past number of years, but it's really increased here of late.

Why is that?

We are a regional community. If you happen to live in Ridgeland and work in downtown Jackson, if someone asks where you're from, you're going to say "Jackson" because "Ridgeland" they don't know. And that's what our prospects know. They don't know the Pelahatchies and Floras and other communities, but they know Jackson. So we've got to market ourselves as Jackson.

Secondly, it's important that when they do look at us, they look at us as one labor market. No prospect ever looks at just the Jackson figures. In fact, all the statistical data you'd find on Jackson these days are (Metropolitan Statistical Area) figures, and the MSA is Hinds, Madison, Rankin, Simpson and Copiah (counties). Those five counties make up 540,000 population. The important part of that is so many projects are looking for cities of a half a million and up. So until we had Simpson and Copiah added to our MSA, we were missing out on some things, but now we're getting even more looks.

How is the current state of the economy affecting your work right now?

Last year was the pits. It was terrible for recruitment of new businesses to come in, because the entire nation was in a state where we weren't expanding, we weren't going different places. So that was really tough. We spent the majority of our time just trying to help our existing businesses survive.

What things did the Chamber do for those existing businesses?

It's really unique to different businesses. Maybe we can find some programs, maybe we can find some stimulus dollars. In a lot of cases, it was workforce development. People didn't want to lay their folks off--but how could they retrain, retool? Trying to help the with some ideas on marketing and market niches to get into.

What are recent successes of the Partnership?

This one is a little more controversial, because I try not to favor one community over another, but we helped Comcast in doing the K-Mart building (on Interstate 55). It was great for Jackson, because it moved a lot of things into Jackson, but it also was good for everybody. It is consolidating a lot of their work force into one place and ... gives them the ability to increase in the future.

I spent a big portion of my personal time working on the National Bio- and Agri-Defense Facility (in Flora). For three years, we were in the running for that, and we led the project out of this office. ... That project is now in Manhattan, Kan., and we finished tied for second with San Antonio, Texas. That was hard to swallow, but it really put this region on the map as far as a great location to take a look at. ...We have some deals working now with some biotech companies that we think we can bring into the area because they saw what we put together. Now, we just had a groundbreaking for that same land we were looking at for NBAD a month ago, had the groundbreaking for Monsanto. It's not a lot of jobs, but it's research scientists looking at how to grow corn better in the South.

We do a lot with our existing businesses. Sometimes retaining somebody is just as important, but those aren't ones you go around talking about because if people didn't know they were leaving, you don't want to say, "Oh, such-and-such was leaving town, but they didn't."

We've very involved in the (University of Mississippi Medical Center's) Research Park that's going to be turning dirt here later this year, where the old farmer's market is.

What about places where the Chamber hasn't been as successful?

There are some projects across lines of jurisdiction that I wish we could have an impact on, to make happen. Flood control is one. It is absolutely essential that we get our act together. Yet, the divide on that issue right now is quite volatile, as you know. Thirty years is crazy to work on a project this long. I have hope in that area, but that's been one of the things that I wish we could've helped earlier.

Does the Chamber Partnership have an opinion about what should be done?

Our position is that we want to work with the Levee Board to ensure, number one, flood control and then as much economic development as we can get. No, we don't want just levees. Would Two Lakes be nice? Absolutely. But can it be done? The sides have gotten so polarized. I think the Corps' position, even though we don't like it, is pushing us together. We've always said we could be a neutral party to look at the facts and figures, and I think that's a possibility still.

Previous Comments

ID

157792

Comment

"Duane O'Neill says Jackson's fortunes are intertwined with those of the entire metro area" He's exactly right. The anti-suburb and anti-jackson stuff coming from either side is pitiful. I have friends in Birmingham, Memphis, and Little Rock (all live inside the city limits) and none of them see the kind of attitudes towards the 'burbs and vis versa that we have here. The suburbs would be nothing without Jackson, but similarly the city has many people that consume and still spend their money in Jackson proper that don't live here.

Author

RobbieR

Date

2010-05-12T13:02:13-06:00