Ted Abernathy
Economic Leadership, LLC (N.C.); Southern Growth Policies Board; Research Triangle Partnership; Economic Leadership, LLC (N.C.)

Barry Albrecht
Killeen, Texas Chamber; Strategic Location Services; Amarillo EDC; Lawton Fort Sill Chamber;
Oklahoma EDC

Sherry Alexander
MidAmerica Industrial Park (Mayes County, Okla.)

Reuben Neal Baremore
SWEPCO/AEP; Louisiana Industrial Development Association; Texas Economic Development Council 

Tom Bartels
Alabama Municipal Electric Authority

Eric Basinger
SWEPCO/AEP 

I’ve known Eric for many years. Just an outstanding practitioner wherever he has worked. The only place we have not been able to sit down together is where he is currently — Shreveport. 

Eric Basinger was preceded by the late Neal Baremore of SWEPCO (which became AEP), who died 15 years ago, but I remember him well, even though I only met Neal once around 1997 or so. 

The first time I set eyes on Neal was in the parking lot of a casino in Bossier or Shreveport, La. That is where we met to do some windshield tours of the area he served working for SWEPCO at the time. Back then, Shreveport had a GM plant, so we went by there. 

As I walked up to him in the lot, Neal graciously asked me, “You don’t mind if I remain in the car, do you Michael?” Me: “Of course not, Neal.”

So, I get in the car and there is this giant oxygen tank between us on the front seat. I settled in, while Neal adjusted the oxygen tubes in his nostrils (Neal received a double lung transplant at UAB in Birmingham shortly after I met with him). 

You know what Neal said to me when I sat in the car, all the while looking down at his tank? “Mike, you don’t smoke do you?” 

Margaret Tompkins Bass
SCE&G; SCANA 

Now, everyone in South Carolina remembers this lady if they were around in the 1990s and early 2000s. I must have stayed in that Marriott Hotel, or whatever it is now, on Main Street in Columbia two dozen times; once for an entire week. It’s the same building that housed SCANA’s headquarters. 

Down the street, at 1201 Main, was the headquarters for the South Carolina Department of Commerce, SC Power Team (ol’ Ralph Thomas, Fred Gassaway and now, James Chavez), several law firms and maybe a dozen more economic development groups. Talk about a one-stop shop for advertising sales! I would walk out of there sometimes with $75,000 in booked advertising in just eight hours in a single day. Then they would all take me out to dinner. Media pays sometimes. 

On one of those trips, I walked in to meet Margaret because SCANA at the time was my largest account. Whatever creative promotional thingie I came up with, Margaret bought it. 

So, one day, I walk into her cubicle and she is signing about 30 checks, all over $1 million each. One, she pointed out, was for $4 million. They were being written out to cities in South Carolina that SCANA served. 

She got busy with something and asked me to take the checks up to another floor and deliver them to a security guard once I stepped out of the elevator. It was the first time in my life that I held about $50 million in my hands. 

Bill Baxter
Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development

Full of energy, like a thinly built cross-country runner (which he was), Bill Baxter remains one of my favorite Tennessee Commissioners along with Matt Kisber, and until recently, I knew them all well. I may be forgetting one or two. Some greats worked at TDECD, such as John Bradley of TVA and the Memphis Chamber, and Mark Herbison of Tipton County, Tenn., and the Memphis Chamber. 

As for Baxter in the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, his career was on a roll, appointed by President George W. Bush to the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority from 2001-2006. Bill was a graduate of Duke University cum laude and the University of Tennessee Law School. 

So, I had already been in that TDECD floor No. 11 in downtown Nashville on Rosa Parks (probably the most “government-looking” concrete skyscraper of all time) a dozen times when I first met Baxter, who was from Northeast Tennessee (Bill passed away a little over a year ago). 

We exchanged greetings and he sits down in his chair behind his desk in the same corner office I had been in so many times before. 

I look around, and there is no place for me to sit. There were no chairs, except for his, in the room. So, we start talking and I am standing, awkwardly, until someone pulled up a chair for me to sit and chat with Bill. 

Without knowing him but for a minute, I said, “Man, what’s the deal? No chairs?” Paraphrasing, Baxter said, “Mike, no chairs in my office means, ‘make your point, make it now and then make it happen.’ ”

I responded, “Does that mean me? Make my point and get out?” Bill said, “No, we give out a chair or two to people who we like that visit us. From what I have heard, Ned Ray (Ned Ray McWherter, governor of Tennessee, 1987-1995) really liked you and took you under his wing in one of his last years in office. Is that true?” 

I said to Bill, “I guess. Gov. McWherter was the first governor who ever called me or even noticed that I was promoting the South with my new magazine as the best place to live, work and operate a business in the world. I always say, “If it isn’t a Southern deal it’s a bad deal” (a statement said to me by Gov. McWherter
 in 1993). 

Baxter and I remained friends for quite a while, or until he moved back home to run the family gas business. 

As Baxter referenced, Gov. McWherter
called me one day in 1993 and said, “Mike, I want you to get to know Tennessee.” I said, “Governor, we have some folks who can do that.” Perturbed, he snorted, “Mike, I don’t think you understand what I am saying to you. I want you personally to get to know Tennessee.” 

So, Gov. McWherter’s office faxed me 95 places to visit including addresses and phone numbers and he fully expected me to visit all 95 (Tennessee has 95 counties) over a six-week span
15.83 counties a week, or a little over three counties a day. 

What Gov. McWherter really wanted, however, was to help market rural counties in the Volunteer State. Ned Ray was the rural governor; specifically, the rural road governor, as he referred to roads not well traveled as “farm to market” until the end of his last term. 

Some of the rural roads built in Tennessee during his leadership had curbs! It should be noted that the phrase “farm to market,” according to A.I., was invented in the South in 1930, the year Ned Ray was born. Texas still has roads named after “Farm to Market,” such as FM 168, the longest at about 150 miles. That road is in the Texas Panhandle. 

Again, Gov. McWherter’s goal was to assist in the marketing of the state’s rural counties. So, in the fall of ’93, he gave me the rest of TDECD’s marketing money for the year. It was $70,000, so you bet I was more than willing to visit every county in the state over a six-week span. 

But what Ned Ray wanted was pure genius. He said, “Mike, take this money to offset the cost of rural counties in the state so they can participate in a Tennessee special section with an advertisement at 75 percent off. I don’t want to give it to them for free. I want them to have some skin in the game. (At the time a full page was $3,800 in SB&D). So all counties, rural or not, got a full page in a national magazine in that Tennessee supplement for 950 bucks. 

So, with the $70,000, I would walk into the various county economic development offices from Lauderdale, Obion and Tipton Counties in the Delta to Washington, Hamblen and Sullivan Counties in the mountains of Northeast Tennessee. 

I would start off by saying, “Gov. McWherter told me to come visit you. He didn’t ask me. He explained that ‘Every rural county has a story to tell.’ His concern is that most rural counties don’t have the funds to tell their story. So, he has already paid 75 percent of the cost of your ad in this Tennessee section.”

Well, it got to the point where every place I went, they would show me their county. . .industrial parks, employers, etc. I even visited a rabbit slaughtering factory in Winchester, Tenn. (and the “secret” Nissan drive-train plant). 

At the Winchester rabbit factory, the company had a monopoly on state trooper hats in the U.S., which, I learned, were made of rabbit fur; or specifically, fur from imported Belgian rabbits. I walked into the rabbit pen and there were about a dozen workers running around catching rabbits to slaughter for hats. 

It was my first true, vast economic development experience, and I learned that you can’t really know economic development if you don’t see it, touch it, feel it, in person and first-hand. 

It took me exactly six weeks to visit every county, personally. Seventy-eight out of 95 counties advertised in that section, which ballooned the page count to 96 pages. Yes, it amounted to a state section of 96 pages. We also did a 96-pager for Alabama that offered the same discount. We had to write our asses off and hire additional artists just to design most of the full-page ads because only a few of the most rural counties had one to submit. Some didn’t even have a logo and we did that for them, too, for a small charge. Dyersburg, Tenn.’s logo today? We designed it. 

The only place I got stood up in those six weeks was my appointment with the dude in Crockett County, Tenn.

On that week’s trip, I visited Dyersburg (Sami Dietrich, and later, the late Allen Hester), Jackson (Kyle Spurgeon), Trenton, Union City and other places in West Tennessee; I even had time to visit the Shiloh Battlefield in Hardin County on the way up. 

Throughout my travels over 30 years, I always found the time to visit a Civil War battlefield. Walking those fields would always make the hair on my arms stand up. 

I will never forget those times in the early 1990s with Gov. McWherter, and later that same decade with Commissioner Bill Baxter and Gov. Don Sundquist, who succeeded Gov. McWherter. Good times in Tennessee! 

Phillis Belcher
Greene County, Ala. IDA

Mike Berry
Hillwood, AllianceTexas; Perot Field Fort Worth

John Bevington
LG&E and KU Entergy; Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development; PPL Energy

Shane Bolding
Yates Construction

Jerry Bologna
Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission (JEDCO) President & CEO

Susan Bourgeois
Louisiana Economic Development

It has been so far, so good with this relatively new team. Louisiana is capturing some unique projects that they have not landed in quite some time. 

Beth Bowman
Irving-Las Colinas; Texas Chamber 

A real deal maker, as Irving has been one of the hottest majors in the South since Beth has been there. 

Robin N. Boyd
Newport News, Va. EDA

Del Boyette
Boyette Strategic Advisors; Deloitte; KPMG; Georgia Department of Economic Development; Arkansas Economic Development Commission

Beth Braswell
Sterling Economic Development Consultants; PCG Companies; Henry County, Va. Office of Commerce 

I have known Beth Braswell for decades and back in the day, she used to write for Southern Business & Development. She and George Harben, who made Volume II of this hall of fame, seemed to always be working with the great Wayne Sterling, one of the “godfathers of economic development in the South.” Beth and George helped Wayne become great. That is why both are now in the Southern Economic Development Hall of Fame. You don’t have to be the boss. We know who you are behind the scenes. 

Tracy Brick 
Marion, Ark. Economic Development

Kay Brockwell 
Marion, Ark. Economic Development 

David Britt
Spartanburg County, S.C. council member

Phyliss Brunning
Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development 

Like her cohort Mandy Lambert, Phyliss keeps things running in Frankfort. 

Sharon Butts
South Western Kentucky EDC

Sharon and Carter Hendricks (also in this listing) are a great deal-making team. 

Carl Campbell
Dalton-Whitfield County Joint Development Authority

Eric Canada
Blane Canada

Lucia Cape
Huntsville Madison Chamber

Bruce Carpenter
Corbin County, Ky. EDA

Home of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, located on the “Florida Short Route” in rural Corbin County, Ky. I’ve been there. 

Flave Carpenter, Sr
AP&L; Entergy Arkansas

Flave Carpenter, Jr.
AP&L; Entergy Arkansas

Watts Carr
North Carolina Department of Commerce

All of the folks in this Hall of Fame listing from the North Carolina Department of Commerce were always so professional and consistent. Several are still there. North Carolina Commerce has been, year in and year out, an outstanding group of professional economic developers. 

Helene Caseltine
Indian River Chamber of Commerce

John Chaffee
Pitt County, N.C. Development Commission; North Carolina’s Eastern Region; NC East Alliance 

Dennis L. Chastain
Georgia Electric Membership Corporation

Ed Christian
Burr & Forman (Birmingham, Ala.)

Jim Clinton
Louisiana Central; Southern Growth Policies Board

Tony Copeland
North Carolina Department of Commerce

Bob Cordes
Gulf Power Company; FP&L

Glenn Cornell
NationsBank; Bank of America

Glenn Cornell was a huge player in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was one of the finest and smartest men I had ever gotten to know. And he was one hell of a banker. 

John Correnti
Nucor; Big River Steel; Severstal; SeverCorr 

A couple of months after Katrina, I found myself in a large pickup with Joe Max Higgins (former CEO of the Columbus, Miss.-based Golden Triangle Development LINK) and steel magnate John Correnti. We were driving up to one of TVA’s first certified megasites. It was September 2005, one month after Katrina. 

Correnti was about to break ground on SeverCorr’s new steel mill near Columbus, Miss., a joint venture between Russian steel giant Severstal and SteelCorr.

So, Joe Max told me to sit in the front (he was driving) and Mr. Correnti sat in the back. Well, John was mad about a lot of things that day. His road was not finished to the site and other stuff was missing and his Russian partners wanted to break ground in October, which they did. 

Correnti was using every curse word imaginable (steel guys are even worse than folks like me who grew up in a baseball dugout) as we drove up to the site and they were not directed at me. They were directed at Joe Max. 

So, we are driving and Correnti is yelling from the backseat, “Joe Max, I want my %#&damn road.” John was kicking the seat in front of him, which was my seat, and basically pitching a fit he was so mad. 

I don’t know the details about all of it, but it was a day I will never forget. John Correnti got his %#&damn road as fast as it could be built. That I knew. The plant is still making steel in Columbus after a couple or three different owners, or at least names. 

William P. Cotter, Jr.
Cotter Consulting and Development; Hancock County, Miss. Development Commission; Stennis International Airport (Miss.)

Mark Crosswhite
Alabama Power

John Crutchfield
Killeen, Texas Chamber

Leigh Davis 
Alabama Power

Matt Davison 
Atmos Energy Mississippi

Joey Deason
Madison County, Miss.; Golden Triangle Development Link; Mississippi Development Authority

Sharon Allred Decker
North Carolina Department of Commerce

Sami Dietrich
Dyersburg/Dyer County, Tenn. Chamber of Commerce

During that six-week Tennessee section that was ordered up by the aforementioned Gov. Ned Ray McWherter, I met Sami Dietrich. Sami was a spitfire in economic development when not that many women were in the business in 1993 or ’94. I will never forget her spunk. 

Peggy Doty
Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance

Jason El Koubi
Virginia Economic Development Partnership; Louisiana Economic Development

Jason learned from Stephen Moret when they headed up Louisiana Economic Development (LED). They are two incredibly smart men. 

Jim Fain
North Carolina Department of Commerce 

Corey Faucheux
St. Charles Parish, La. EDC

Jim Flanagan
DeSoto County, Miss. EDC

Jim Fram
Community Growth Strategies; Greater Hot Springs Chamber; Tulsa Regional Chamber; Bartlesville Development Corporation

A true professional, that’s Fram. 

Roxann Fry
LG&E KU; Greater Louisville Inc.; Tennessee Valley Authority; Nashville Chamber; Knoxville Chamber

Danny Games
Entergy Arkansas

Hans Gant
Batson-Cook; Atlanta Chamber of Commerce; Hampton Roads, Va. EDA; Columbus, Ga. Chamber of Commerce

David Ginn
Charleston Regional Development Alliance

Dr. Gerald Gordon
Fairfax County, Va. EDA

Dr. Jerry Gordon is one of the “Godfathers of Economic Development in the South,” along with Wayne Sterling,
Harry Martin, Neal Wade, Jack Roddey, Jim Rogers, Mark Heath, Greg
Wingfield, I could go on and on. 

Joan K. Goodrich
City of Treasure Island, Fla.; GSD Southeast Consulting; BDB of Martin County, Fla.; Delray Beach CRA; Coral Springs, Fla. EDF

William “Bill” Gottshall
Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence; Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, Lott Leadership Institute

William R. Greene, II 
Gadsden-Etowah County, Ala. IDA

Denny Griffin
Franklin-Simpson County, Ky. Industrial Authority

Albert “Al” Guarnieri
Parker Poe Consulting

Mickey Harbin
BellSouth; AT&T

Phil Hardwick
Author; Hardwick & Associates; Mississippi Valley Gas (Atmos); City of Jackson, Miss.; John C. Stennis Institute of Government; Mississippi State University

Tom Harned
Logan County, Ky. Economic Alliance; Virginia Economic Development Association; Virginia Industrial Development Authority Institute. 

Harned is somewhat of a legend today. I followed his career in Virginia and Kentucky and met with him in both states. He recently retired. 

George Haygood
Santee Cooper; St. Lucie County, Fla. Economic Development 

George had a great job at Santee Cooper, which was purchased after the utility essentially went away, or at least dug itself deeply in debt after the catastrophic failure of its joint nuclear project, V.C. Summer, in 2017. 

The project’s leading contractor, Westinghouse, filed for bankruptcy in 2017, a critical factor in the utilities’ decision to abandon construction of the plant. SCANA was the other partner in what folks called “Nukegate,” and it essentially failed, too. SCANA was purchased later by Richmond-based Dominion Energy. 

That is not the story I want to tell about George Haygood, though. 

On a trip to see George and others when he was the head honcho in St Lucie County, Fla., I flew in to Fort Lauderdale because I had appointments down there before driving up north to see George and others. 

I liked to fly to Fort Lauderdale in the mid-1990s. I still do. I mean, that airport is the perfect picture of “Old Florida,” you know what I mean? Giant flamingo, gator, whale, palm tree and beachcomber murals are all over that airport. 

Back then, the Jai Alai Fronton in Dania Beach was still operating, right next to John Lloyd State Park, which was later renamed for civil rights activists Dr. Von D. Mizell and Eula Johnson. 

There was a Motel 6 (it wasn’t $6 then, if I recall) located right next door to the Jai Alai Fronton (granite court where players sling a pelota with a cesta) and I loved to stay there. It was clean and cheap. I could walk to see French, Spanish and Americans play the fastest game on earth — Jai Alai. . .and you could bet on those guys. 

Well, one morning at the Motel 6, I got up early for appointments. That Motel 6 was also next door to the old John Lloyd State Park. Most Motel 6s back then were of the “motor court” variety.

So, fired up and ready to sell, I opened my room door, walked about 12 feet to my car, which was sandwiched between two other cars. I turned to open the door and a large spider monkey was in my way, walking straight for me. I leaned on the rental car door and let him walk by. 

The monkey kind of touched my hand, like a low five, and kept walking on to the sidewalk to the pool gate. He jumped over the gate and walked down the steps into the pool. Now, wild monkeys were not common in Florida back then like they are now. I was stunned. 

I got in my car and headed out to my South Florida appointments, including Miami’s Beacon Council, the Fort Lauderdale group and others. I came back for my bags to go north and see Haygood and there were probably 10 monkeys swinging on the dumpster. They were on the top, in and around the dumpster, dancing and singing. 

So, the next year I went back and I was so stoked to see the monkeys again. It became a goal of mine, to see “my monkeys” at least once a year. I pulled up and there they were at the Motel 6 dumpster having a good old time. 

I found out later that the wild monkeys in the early 1990s were blood relatives of monkeys used in the 1932 filming of Tarzan the Ape Man starring Johnny Weissmuller. The movie was made at John Lloyd State Park. As for George Haygood, he passed away years ago. 

Bob Harvey
Greater Houston Partnership

Charles Hays
Research Triangle Regional Partnership

Joanna Helms
Apex, N.C. Economic Development; Wayne County, N.C. Development Alliance

Carter Hendricks
South Western Kentucky EDC

Susie Heird
Shoals, Ala. EDA

Mario Hernandez
Greater SATX Regional Economic Partnership; Windcrest, Texas EDC

Jacob Hickman 
Terracon Consultants; Duke Energy; Upstate SC Alliance

Loren Hill
Carolina Core; Piedmont Triad Partnership; High Point, N.C. EDC

Brian Hilson
Bibb County, Ala. IDA; Huntsville-Madison Chamber; FloridaWest EDA; Birmingham Business Alliance

David Hooks 
Gadsden-Etowah County, Ala. IDA

Don Hopper
Calhoun County, Ala. Economic Development Council 

Victor Hoskins
Fairfax County, Va. EDA; Arlington, Va. Economic Development; Deputy Mayor, Washington, D.C.

Victor Hoskins. . .no one could have picked a better person to follow Jerry
Gordon. If you count the last three decades, one would be hard pressed to find a county that has generated more high-tech service jobs than Fairfax County. 

Frank Howell
Delta Council, Miss. 

David Hutchison
Butler County Economic Development; Alabama Development Office; Alabama Department of Commerce

Kevin Jackson
Shoals, Ala. EDA; Cullman, Ala. EDA, 

Vicki Jaramillo
Orlando International Airport

Dianne Jones
Site Selection Consultant, JLL (North Carolina)

I have never met Diane, but she received several nominations, one coming from a member of the Roddey family. If you know the Roddeys in this business, then you know Dianne is well qualified to make this HOF. 

Heather Simmons Jones
MRB Group; Greenwood, S.C. Economic Development

Barry Jurs
Santee Cooper; Berkeley County, S.C. Economic Development

Steve Kean
Greater Houston Partnership

Herb Kelleher
Southwest Airlines

Florence G. Kingston
Newport News, Va. EDA

Ron Kitchens
Wichita Falls, Texas Chamber; Birmingham Business Alliance; Southwest Michigan First

Brad Lacy
Conway Development Corp

Gov. Jeff Landry
Governor of Louisiana

Brenda Lathan
Golden Triangle Development LINK; VisionFirst Advisors

Brenda has an interesting economic development practitioner history of working for Joe Max Higgins in Columbus, Miss., as well as Gray Swoope, CEO, VisionFirst Advisors. Both Joe Max and Gray have worked in Arkansas and Mississippi. 

Now that Gray has gone to the private sector and Joe Max is formerly of the Golden Triangle Development LINK, it looks like Brenda has outlasted them all!

Bill Lavers
Harrison County, Miss. Development Commission (HCDC); Development Corporation of Snyder, Texas

Buck Layne
Searcy, Ark. Chamber

Melinda Lemmon
Cartersville-Bartow DED

Andy Levine
Development Counsellors International (New York, N.Y.)

Nelson Lindsay
Parker Poe Consulting

Tom Long
Temple, Texas EDC; Great SATX; CPS Energy; Charleston, S.C. Chamber

Glenn Loope
Alleghany Highlands, Va. EDA; Virginia Tobacco Revitalization Commission

Jill Loope
Roanoke County, Va. EDD

J.D. Lowery
Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas

David Luckie
Griffin-Spalding Development Authority

John Lummas
Upstate SC Alliance; Anderson, S.C. Chamber; Tri-County Technical College

Laura Lynde
Site Selection Magazine

Sean Malott
Central Florida Economic Development Council 

Along with Hall of Famer Jim Degennaro, the Central Florida Development Council, based in Polk County, Fla., has now had three Hall of Famers. All of them (including Bill McDermott listed here) are or were outstanding economic developers. 

Bill Martin
Greater Osceola, Fla. Partnership for Economic Prosperity; Quad Cities Chamber, Iowa; Harlingen, Texas EDC; Cumberland County, N.C., Business Council

Misti Whitfield Martin
Cherokee Office of Economic Development

Gary Matthews
Tishomingo County, Miss. Development Foundation

Michael Maulden
Entergy Arkansas

Mike McCain 
Gadsden-Etowah County, Ala. IDA

Hugh McColl
NationsBank; Bank of America

A true generational leader, not only in the Carolinas, but Southern-wide, shoot, worldwide!

Charles McCrary
Alabama Power

Bill McDermott
Central Florida Economic Development Council

Sue McGowan
Paragould, Ark., Regional Chamber 

Sue was a trip. We toured Paragould one day and she gave me a belly laugh. We went to a few industries there in Northeast Arkansas. But she also pointed out her new, sparkling, county-owned, senior living facility. That was a first for me. Sue told me, “We don’t want them to leave Paragould when they retire from some of the manufacturers I have brought in here. We prefer that they stay here at our senior living center. We also have a county-owned cemetery, so, we are ‘full-circle’ here in Paragould.”

Betty McIntosh
Cushman & Wakefield; KMPG

Sid McMillan
JESCO

Sid recently retired. He was such a major player not only at his job, but helping lead the Southern Economic Development Council as well. Sid is simply a great guy. 

Michael Meek
Greater New Braunfels Chamber

Probably the most underrated chamber guy and economic developer in the entire South. 

Mike Meidel
Pinellas County Economic Development

Paul Meloun 
Gadsden-Etowah County, Ala. IDA

Lisa Miller
Energy Southeast; Alabama Municipal Electric Authority

Mickey Milligan
BellSouth; AT&T; Mississippi Development Authority

Sanders Mitchell
MidAmerica Industrial Park (Mayes County, Okla.)

I have not met the current administration of MidAmerica Industrial Park (even though I have tried). MidAmerica is a former World War II munitions complex of 16,000 acres located between the towns of Pryor and Chouteau, Okla.

In 1960, Oklahoma’s federal delegation, along with state leaders, made the decision to form a public trust, the Oklahoma Ordnance Works Authority to establish a 9,000-or-so-acre industrial park out of the munitions site. The first tenant of the new MidAmerica Industrial Park was Utah Tool Company. It set up shop there in 1962. 

Today, MidAmerica is one of the largest industrial parks in the country. For decades it was run by Sanders Mitchell, who I found to be a really interesting guy, along with his marketing director, a name I have forgotten. 

Sanders was more like the “king of
MidAmerica” as opposed to the “administrator.” He had his own great gig going and retired in 2012. The main street in the park is named “Sanders Mitchell Street.” 

In about 1998, I was invited to the park by Sanders (my first visit was on my dime) because then Lieutenant Governor Mary Fallin (1995-2007) wanted to meet me, as she was set to make a presentation there. Fallin later served two terms as governor of Oklahoma between 2011 and 2019.

Mary and I both made presentations at some gathering at the large industrial property. Later, she drove off with a state trooper and Sanders put me up in a state park lodge perched high on a hill overlooking the park. I was the only resident for one night in that big spooky place. 

If I recall, the lodge had several bedrooms, a huge central room and I found myself alone in this massive lodge. I would be picked up the next day for an extensive tour of the park with Sanders and said marketing director. 

Being in the lodge, by myself, reminded me of the movie The Shining, made in 1980, starring Jack Nicholson (Jack Torrance), Shelley Duvall (Wendy) and son Danny (“red rum”). The story was from a Stephen King novel and the Jack Torrance character took the winter administrator’s job at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado in hopes of curing his writer’s block. 

Believe me, after a one-night stay at that eerie lodge, all alone, my writer’s block, if I had one, was indeed “cured” almost 30 years ago at a one-night stand at
MidAmerica Industrial Park. 

Bobby Morgan
Atmos Energy Mississippi 

Crystal Morphis
Creative Economic Development Consulting; Sanford Holshouser Economic Development Consulting; Surry County, N.C. EDP

Jeff “Judge” Moseley
Texas Association of Business; Greater Houston Partnership; Texas Governor’s Office 

I met Jeff “Judge” Moseley (I assume Jeff was a former judge) in Austin when he ran economic development for, I believe, Rick Perry’s first term. The Judge really liked me and used my eternal line, “If it is not a Southern deal, it’s a bad deal.” 

Harry Moser
Reshoring Initiative; Charmilles Technology Corporation

A data hound, just like me. 

Sam C. Moses
Parker Poe Consulting

Marvin Moss
Laurens County, S.C. Development Corporation; City of Clinton, S.C.

Marvin has a soft heart for animals and is probably the nicest man I have met in almost 30 years of constant travel from El Paso to Richmond and everywhere in between. 

CONTINUED (Go to MAGAZINE tab/CURRENT ISSUE/Southern Economic Development Hall of Fame - Volume 3 (N-Z)