Mississippi's business continues

By By Trent Lott / senate minoraty leader
Oct. 9, 2002
There's no question the U.S. Senate has become a partisan pit hindering a lot of needed national legislation, but the work of providing Mississippians with a better future through enhanced education, improved transportation and more jobs continues.
Recently Mississippi received some good news that with all the concern about everything from terrorists to tort reform may have been somewhat unnoticed by the press, but not unappreciated by people in our state.
On the education front, federal funding for our state's universities continues to increase dramatically. The most recent example is a $2 million funding package for the University of Southern Mississippi. USM's new National Center for Excellence in Economic Development will help train professional economic developers, whose sole mission is to bring jobs to local communities.
Though USM already has an outstanding economic development curriculum, this will take USM's current economic development graduate program a step further, helping USM to produce even more well-trained economic developers, many of whom will go to work in Mississippi helping to lure new jobs.
Our junior and community colleges are impacted, too. I was pleased to join Congressman Chip Pickering in announcing a $500,000 federal funding package that will help finance a 50,000 square foot training center at Jones Junior College. JCJC's Advanced Technology Training Center will be located within the 504-acre technology park near Ellisville.
It will compliment growing businesses, like Howard Industries, which is based there. Howard Industries has roots in the transformer business, trucking industry and now the company is even manufacturing its own line of desktop and laptop computers. This is paving the way for the creation of more good paying-high tech jobs in the Pine Belt.
Mississippi's secondary schools are moving forward, with the Bush administration and U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige a Monticello, Miss., native showing a lot of attention to Mississippi's unique educational challenges.
In fact, some 30 school districts throughout our state were recently approved for a U.S. Department of Education "Gear Up" grant. This program seeks to provide students in our poorer school districts, many in the Delta, with more access to a higher education through tutorial programs, mentoring initiatives, and the like.
Also, I was pleased that the Bush administration additionally approved funding to enhance the teaching of American History in our schools, an area in which we obviously must improve. All too often, students and even teachers themselves cannot name important dates in America's history, or important American figures. This program will nurture a better appreciation of our rich history in our children, and in the people who teach them, too.
On the transportation and jobs fronts, Mississippi's largest private employer, Northrop Grumman Ingalls Ship Systems, just won a $2 billion contract to build four destroyers for the U.S. Navy. With this contract, Northrop's business base will remain solid through 2010, which is very good news for shipyard workers in South Mississippi.
Another major Mississippi defense contractor, Raytheon Aerospace, of Madison, has won a $69 million contract to provide aircraft maintenance at various U.S. military bases worldwide, again sustaining good jobs in our state. With regard to transportation, the Biloxi-Gulfport airport was awarded $1.7 million in federal funds to construct an additional taxiway  part of a plan to help further separate the airport's military operations from civilian service, promoting safety and efficiency.
Furthermore, East Mississippians received long-awaited news with an announcement by Congressman Pickering that Meridian's new industrial park  on which much of this region's economic future hinges is approved to receive $1.5 million in federal funding to provide part of the essential park infrastructure needed to attract new jobs.
This is just some of the good news we have received amidst all the unnerving, unsettled matters in Washington. Improving education, transportation and job opportunities for Mississippi is an agenda that always moves forward in my office, regardless of a stalled national agenda on the Senate floor.