Starkville, Oktibbeha County and the surrounding area is ripe for growth, but tapping into what would spur that growth has been a problem.
It has not been for a lack of effort, though, with plans for a new industrial park at the interchange of Highway 389 and Highway 82 coming closer to fruition each day. Rather, the process has moved along slowly, while seeing increased support from a local labor force that wants to see the economy evolve.
So, what's at stake?
Mississippi State University, with its roughly 21,000 students, is the catalyst necessary for 21st century expansion in the Golden Triangle … and that's just one of the schools refining its curriculum to better prepare students for the workforce. There's just one big glaring problem - the jobs aren't there.
High-tech, high-skill jobs are rapidly taking the place of traditional manufacturing jobs, but some areas in the south have been slow to adapt this concept - Oktibbeha County being one of them.
This is in no way a slight at the work being done at the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park. If anything, it's praise for the concept. But one industrial hub and scattered facilities throughout the Golden Triangle is simply not enough to meet the needs of a local economy that fluctuates based on such a large student population.
If you follow industry around the world, automation and robotics in sterile facilities are replacing the soot-covered sweatshops of the past. They run cleaner, more efficiently and offer a better quality of life to their (typically younger) employees than the sector has ever seen. But those jobs aren't easily found in Starkville to facilitate the glut of job-ready labor being pushed through MSU and other learning institutions in the area.
And what do those students do when they finish their studies and look for work in those sectors? Chances are, they go elsewhere.
The number of manufacturing facilities in Okitbbeha County has seen little change over the past decade, with the retail trade sector dominating the local employment market. Advanced manufacturing typically sees lower turnover than other sectors, meaning that employees cling tight to their station and leave it up to corporate expansion to provide more jobs. In manufacturing, those jobs can also be found in abundance along the supply chain, and making Oktibbeha County a stop along that line will further develop an economic and tangible infrastructure capable of supporting a wide range of businesses.
While unemployment statewide and in the area is at a decade low, many of those jobs are in the retail sector and have their own future to worry about as technology changes the way business is done around the world. Companies like Amazon have refined the way consumers operate, from the way they buy Christmas presents to the way they buy groceries. Also, retail jobs often don't provide much in the way of take-home pay and generally provide a minimal impact on local economies. The same can be said for service industry jobs.
But as high-tech manufacturing goes, manpower will always be required and the manpower to do so will always require a competitive paycheck - for employee retention, if anything else. Those employees in turn settle down in their communities, their competitive paychecks stimulate the local economy, and so on.
Don't believe me? Ask Birmingham, Alabama. I covered business in the city there for almost two years, and saw firsthand what economic innovation is capable of. The downtown area was once blighted and the suburbs didn't fare much better. But with the tech revolution and the awakening of job-ready training at community colleges and universities, those 21st century blue collar jobs became more prominent with each passing year. The labor force was there (like with the numerous universities in the Golden Triangle) and finally provided an opportunity for many to cash-in on the ground floor of economic expansion.
The proposed industrial park represents the conduit by which the local economy can diversify and thrive. If the area wants in on the exciting new-age industrial revolution, it will have to find a way to closer marry the area student population with the local economy by providing an environment capable of sustaining those high-skill, high-wage blue collar jobs.
Every year, too many students leave Oktibbeha County to follow their professional dreams where there is available work. Why not make the effort and spend the money and resources to keep those students here? And when asked how to keep those students here, the answer is simple: appeal to them.
The process of bringing a new industrial park to Oktibbeha County has been contentious, but in the end, those conversations and compromises are shaping what could be an economic boon for the area.
As a plus side to the squabbles that have purveyed the industrial park discussions, the kinds of businesses that will be allowed to operate have been hyper-focused to exclude industry normally viewed as environmentally or socially detrimental. Adult video stores and slaughterhouses are far from the businesses we have been discussing, and I believe those on both sides know that.
I believe this underscores an earnest effort on the economic development front to bring the jobs of the future to the area - jobs that will be appealing to the next generation of blue-collar worker.
Diversity is the name of the game. When a local economy has a wider range of capabilities, supply chains refocus, competition heats up, more business is attracted, more dollars are spent and the quality of life improves for all. That's what the area needs and will take a big step toward attaining if and when the new industrial park goes online.
Ryan Phillips is the editor of the Starkville Daily News.