The Gulf Coast Business Council’s September 24 general membership meeting brought together leaders from business, government, transportation, defense, education and technology for a look at what is happening across Coastal Mississippi and what comes next. Alongside updates from regional partners, GCBC President and CEO Jamie Miller shared a preview of the Masters Leadership class’s regional priorities work and spoke with Dr. Kollin Napier of the Mississippi Artificial Intelligence Network (MAIN) about how organizations can put AI to work responsibly.
Recognizing Our Public Officials and Council Leadership
Miller opened by thanking Gulfport Mayor Hugh Keating; Jackson County Supervisor Ennit Morris; State Senator Daniel Sparks, who represents District 5 and chairs the Senate Economic and Workforce Development Committee; Win Ellington from U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s office; Chris Vines from U.S. Senator Roger Wicker’s office; and Star Chapman from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office for joining the meeting. He also recognized Executive Committee member Chris Rhodes of Coast Electric.
Miller announced a leadership transition for the Council. After two years as chairman, Jonathan Jones stepped away from the role following a job change that took his work to New Orleans. Roy Anderson has accepted Miller’s invitation to serve as the Council’s current chairman.
Updates From Around the Coast
Several regional leaders shared brief updates before the main program:
Joe Spraggins of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources announced that the oyster season is set to open October 1. He said it would be the first October 1st opening in 20 years and described a strong supply of three- to four-inch oysters.
Clay Williams shared news from Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport. Sun Country Airlines’ seasonal nonstop service to Minneapolis–St. Paul began September 11 and runs through Thanksgiving for its 14th year. Breeze Airways also offers nonstop flights to Las Vegas, Orlando and Tampa. Williams highlighted the airport’s new fleet maintenance facility, which opened in January, and improvements to other buildings on the maintenance campus.
Troy Frisby of Stennis Space Center introduced colleague Joseph Ladner and previewed an October open house marking 65 years since the center’s groundbreaking. Planned activities include site tours and activities for children at the INFINITY Science Center. More event details are forthcoming.
Andy Ratcliffe, representing the Mississippi Army National Guard, reported that Major General John Roach has retired as Assistant Adjutant General for the Army and Major General Brandon Haney has assumed the role.
Meeting Sponsor Highlights Transportation’s Role in the Workforce
Coast Transit Authority (CTA) sponsored the meeting’s breakfast. Executive Director Mike Reso described how transportation connects Coastal Mississippians to jobs and essential services. CTA provides approximately 822,000 passenger trips annually, including about 671,000 on fixed-route buses, 31,000 through demand-response transportation serving seniors, people with disabilities and others traveling to medical appointments and senior centers, and 70,000 through its Coast Commuter vanpool program.
Among fixed-route riders surveyed by CTA, Reso said 93% do not own a car, 83% earn less than $25,000 annually and 70% are employed. Those figures underscore how much reliable transportation matters to the workers who keep the Coast’s businesses and hospitality industry running.
Alan Patton of Commute with Enterprise, CTA’s vanpool partner, explained how employees can connect with fellow commuters, meet at a designated location and share driving responsibilities in a recent model SUV or van. The program includes vehicle maintenance, liability insurance and roadside assistance; fuel is included with the FLEX Subscription vanpool option. He encouraged employers to consider vanpooling to broaden their recruiting reach, help employees save on commuting costs, reduce parking and gate congestion, and support retention.
A New Name for the Masters Leadership Class’s Regional Priorities Work
Miller then turned to the Council’s guiding idea: “Leadership for regional solutions.” The GCBC Masters Leadership class has spent months developing what members have known as the “plan of plans.” The work now has a formal title: the Coastal Mississippi Regional Priorities Alignment Framework.
Drawing on roughly 60 plans, public documents and interviews with public officials, the framework identifies outcomes the region shares. Miller emphasized that a regional priority is a desired result or condition, rather than a broad topic such as “workforce” or “infrastructure.” Its findings are organized under five themes: workforce, education and the economy; transportation, site readiness and infrastructure; housing and quality of place; resilience and natural resources; and leadership and regional collaboration.
Miller previewed several lessons from the research. People and quality of place are as important to economic competitiveness as roads, utilities and development sites. Investment readiness depends on connected systems, resilience should inform projects and programs from the start, and regional approaches work best when they are practical and chosen for the issues where collaboration can have the greatest impact. The Masters Leadership class will present the full findings at the October general membership meeting.
What Business and Industry Members Said They Need
The Council also surveyed its private sector members to bring business and industry perspectives into the framework. Miller cautioned that these results reflect the participating GCBC members, rather than every business on the Coast. Eight priorities emerged:
- Unified regional leadership, coordination, and accountability.
- Workforce and talent development.
- Economic diversification and targeted business development focused on industries where the Coast has genuine strengths.
- Transportation, broadband, utilities and development-ready sites.
- Workforce housing, childcare, and the quality of life needed to support families.
- Insurance affordability, disaster preparedness, and coastal resilience.
- Regional marketing to attract talent, investment, and businesses.
- More modern permitting, regulatory processes, and business services.
The first two priorities stood well above the others. When asked if the coast was organized to act on economic and community priorities, only 2.33% of respondents described the Coast as “well organized,” and none said, “very well organized.” Another 58.14% rated the region “not at all organized” or “slightly organized.” Qualified worker availability was identified as a barrier by 63.27% of respondents, while 73.47% named labor availability as an investment factor. Employer training and earn-and-learn opportunities each drew 52.17%, and career and technical education drew 50%.
Miller stressed the connections among the responses: employers need workers; workers need housing, childcare and affordable insurance; employers and investors need ready sites and infrastructure; and all those benefits from coordinated leadership. The Council also sees an opportunity to market the Coast as a place to live and build a career, extending the region’s success in attracting visitors. On permitting, Miller pointed to the potential for technology and greater consistency across the Coast’s 12 cities and three counties.
The framework will document shared outcomes, but it will not prescribe projects. A select committee will review both the framework and the business survey and develop recommendations for action. Its members, announced at the meeting, are Roy Anderson of AnderCorp; Pedro Cherry of Mississippi Power Company; Greg Cronin of Citizens Bank; Dave Dennis of Specialty Contractors, Inc.; John Hairston of Hancock Whitney Bank; Angie Juzang of Memorial Health System; Kimberly Nastasi of Ingalls Shipbuilding; Chris Rhodes of Coast Electric Power Association; Alan Suddeth of Chevron Pascagoula Refinery; Chevis Swetman of The Peoples Bank; Susan Varnes of Treasure Bay Casino; William Yates of Yates Construction; Judy Young of Coastal Mississippi Tourism; and Angelyn Zeringue of SouthGroup Insurance.
At the October meeting, the Masters Leadership class will present its findings, and committee representatives are expected to offer initial takeaways and potential actions. Miller described two questions the region needs to answer ahead of the 2027 election cycle: What priorities does the Coast share, and which actions should come first? The framework will address the first question; the select committee recommendations will address the second. The Council intends to equip business and community leaders with those answers as they engage candidates for state and local office.
Putting AI to Work Responsibly
For the meeting’s featured conversation, Miller welcomed Dr. Kollin Napier, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer of MAIN, to discuss what rapid advances in AI mean for Gulf Coast organizations. Napier said AI has moved beyond answering questions toward completing multistep work: analyzing files, using software, and producing usable results. He described AI agents as tools people can delegate tasks to, while retaining responsibility for reviewing and approving the output.
Napier urged leaders to ask what information employees are entering into AI systems, who checks the results and what risks the organization could pass on to customers. Data privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, and inaccurate information all deserve attention, especially when employees are already using tools without a shared organizational approach.
His advice was to learn quickly and delegate carefully. Buying software licenses alone will not make an organization effective with AI; leaders also need to understand their data, workflows and staff readiness, set clear rules for use, and assign ownership for decisions and mistakes. Becoming “AI native,” he explained, means building that understanding across an organization and applying the tools to its actual goals.
Napier described MAIN as Mississippi’s statewide AI initiative, supported initially by Accelerate Mississippi and focused on workforce readiness across occupations and industries. MAIN offers no-cost training, education, planning resources and guidance for responsible adoption. He said more than 11,000 Mississippians have voluntarily used its resources. He invited attendees to complete a short survey so MAIN can better understand Gulf Coast employers’ needs and develop resources that address them.
In response to a question about whether AI could weaken people’s thinking skills, Napier returned to the importance of human accountability, critical thinking, problem solving, and communication. His hope for the years ahead is that Mississippi businesses become more productive; workers gain opportunities and communities share in the benefits of adoption that is responsible, ethical and strategic.
Miller closed by noting that GCBC is applying the same curiosity to its own work. Dr. Napier has helped the Masters Leadership class use AI as part of its regional research, and the Council’s Executive Leadership Academy with the University of Southern Mississippi centers around an AI-focused curriculum. GCBC will continue helping its members understand and use this technology while advancing the regional solutions identified by its members and partners.
