Gulf Coast Business Council President & CEO Jamie Miller recently joined WLOX anchors Hugh Keeton and Bill Snyder to discuss the next chapter for the Gulf Coast Restoration Fund (GCRF). Across recent interviews, Miller laid out a clear framework for how to assess projects and how the region can get back to a transformational, collaborative approach.
“We’re picking that back up and trying to recalibrate — get everybody back to the same page about, how do we make investments that give us the greatest economic impact long term?”
Move Past “Good vs. Bad” — Measure Economic Impact
Miller is explicit about shifting the language and the lens.
“I think the first thing that we’ve got to do is reorient the conversation away from ‘good’ and ‘bad’ projects and think about projects as either having a significant economic impact or having little economic impact,” said Miller.
The North Star: Five Guiding Principles
Miller referenced the TIP Strategies report the Business Council commissioned in 2019 and distilled it to five guideposts for investment:
“Economic competitiveness, quality of place, regional collaboration, innovation, and then strategic and resilient infrastructure.”
These principles align with legislative intent and orient applications toward long-term growth rather than short-term, hyper-local benefits.
Think Bigger, Together
The statutes encourage transformational outcomes, but the process has often driven smaller, fragmented asks.
“The legislation requires that we think big,” Miller said. “Unfortunately, the process has forced everybody to think small. We see a lot of smaller projects, city by city and county by county. We’ve not seen those regional collaboration projects that we hoped to see early on.”
With roughly $300 million still to invest, Miller’s message is that scale and collaboration should become the default.
Update on the Advisory Board Review
As Chair of the GCRF Advisory Board, Miller described the first cut in this year’s review:
“We took 87 projects, eliminated about 35 of those projects, and so that’s our first cut, first draft… I really don’t want to send the legislature another list of 20 projects this year.”
He added that lawmakers themselves are fatigued by sprawling slates and have signaled a preference for fewer, bigger submissions.
Leverage: Public Dollars Should Pull in Private Dollars
Miller is clear that grant math should not invert standard economic-development practice.
“This public money ought to be highly leveraged with private money. The public money should be drawing higher leverage of private financing,” Miller said.
“The grant program itself only requires a 20% match… That is upside down. That is not the way economic development is done.”
Projects that demonstrate outsized private capital alongside GCRF dollars better position the Coast for durable job creation and tax base growth.
What Promising Categories Look Like
Miller pointed to several categories and examples that fit the criteria for long-term impact:
Cyber and Defense-Aligned Innovation
On the cyber campus tied to Keesler and higher ed partners: it “has high potential for a long, lasting economic impact, because its connection with Keesler Air Force Base, with its academic connections of Mississippi State and the community college, and then hopefully the private sector will become a real component of that campus.”
Accelerators and Venture Mechanisms
Applications that build accelerator programs around strategic clusters (cyber, blue economy) and capitalize revolving loan funds can stretch dollars and improve deal flow. Revolving funds would “leverage the money longer,” create “higher leverage from the private sector,” and, in one concept, stand up local research and venture capital alongside restoration funds.
Strategic Sites and Infrastructure
Site readiness, utilities, rail, and industrial assets are prerequisites to landing employers: “You have to have a product to sell… the product itself is the real estate and the assets at that piece of property.”
Quality of Place That Supports Workforce and Industry
Mixed-use and downtown infill can matter when they unlock housing, hospitality, and amenities that directly support nearby research, training, or industry hubs, and when they are heavily leveraged with private capital.
Innovation, AI, and a 10–20 Year View
“We need to be thinking collaboratively about what the next 10 to 20 years looks like.” That includes the evolution of technology and AI, aligning universities and community colleges with employer needs, and recruiting tech firms and startups into Coast-specific clusters.
Miller’s long-view scenario: “In 20 years from now, we’ve got 10 to 15 cyber security companies… working with the Air Force, working with academia. I think that is pretty special.”
Private Sector Growth Is the Engine
“We want to grow the economy. The only way I know to do that is through job creation, higher wage jobs, more tax base. That ultimately has to happen through the private sector.”
Public funds should catalyze private expansion, not substitute for it.
A Practical Checklist for Applicants
Use this to pressure-test proposals before submission:
1. Regional scope and spillovers
Does the project benefit multiple counties or tie into region-wide assets (defense, blue economy, logistics, research)?
2. Long-term economic impact
Is there a credible path to durable job creation, higher wages, and tax base growth over 10–20 years?
3. Private capital leverage
Are public dollars pulling in significantly larger private dollars and operational commitments?
4. Innovation and workforce
Does the project strengthen talent pipelines and align with AI/cyber/blue-economy trends and anchor institutions?
5. Strategic and resilient infrastructure
Does it create or upgrade the “product” (sites, utilities, rail, port, airports) needed to recruit and grow employers?
6. Quality of place with purpose
If quality-of-place is involved, is it tightly connected to industry, research, or workforce outcomes and financed primarily by private capital?
What’s Next
Miller intends to advocate for a shorter list of larger, higher-impact recommendations: “It’s my intent as chairman of the advisory board and as President of the Business Council that we would advocate and help hopefully lead recommendations to just a few projects.”
The goal is simple: align leaders, sharpen the criteria, and invest remaining GCRF dollars where they will generate the greatest long-term, region-wide return.
