Big businesses projected to bring jobs to North Mississippi

Mississippi residents who haven’t had any luck finding a job might discover that their luck has changed soon. 

The Mississippi Legislature just approved the development of two new plants that will operate in North Mississippi, including Calisolar and HCL CleanTech. Together Calisolar and HCL CleanTech are expected to bring an estimated 2,000 jobs to the area. 

Huntington Ingalls, a ship building company that has a site at Pascagoula, is also projected to bring around 3,000 to the area within the next four years. 

Having large corporations set up shop in Mississippi has become something of the norm in recent years. 

The first large company to come was the Nissan plant, which opened in 2003, and now companies like Toyota and Winchester are settling in the North Mississippi area, taking full advantage of the large workforce that is present here.  

In an Associated Press story, John Correnti, chairman of the board for Calisolar, told the State Legislature that he plans on utilizing this workforce. 

“The reason we’re coming here, and I’m going to be frank, is the Mississippi farm boys and the farm girls,” Correnti said. 

“I wouldn’t trade a Mississippi farm boy or farm girl for any Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, South American.” 

Associate economics professor Jon Moen believes having these large corporations will not only help by bringing jobs to the area but will also be good for the smaller towns where companies are locating their plants. 

“I think it will increase the demand on local services and higher paying jobs and help local businesses,” he said. 

“It will increase intent involvement in local schools.”  

Sophomore business major Rob Turnage agrees with Moen. 

“I think with the unemployment rates so high in Mississippi these companies are going to have a positive impact,” he said.

Sen. Gray Tollison serves in the Mississippi state senate for the Oxford area. Tollison was one of the senators who pushed to get these businesses to come here. 

According to him, developments like these didn’t happen often in the past. 

“This is something that you didn’t have 20 years ago,” Tollison said. 

“I recall, there weren’t those types of opportunities, there were some but not like there are now. There certainly wasn’t a Toyota or Nissan.”

“Those are the two that we passed and I think are real exciting -- we are in capacity, Toyota is coming along and going to have 2,000 jobs, we have the suppliers so that is a lot of opportunities for college graduates looking to stay in Mississippi,”  Tollison said. 

Calisolar is a Silicon Valley based company that will be silicon metal to be sold to the automotive, electronics and consumer industries. 

Calisolar plans to build its factory in Lowndes County Mississippi. 

Gov. Haley Barbour and the state have worked with Correnti in the past with a steel company in Columbus. 

“He has a proven record, he means business in terms of if he says he is going to do it, he will do it,” Tollison said referring to Correnti. 

HCL CleanTech is a company that has offices in North Carolina and Isreal and has plans to relocate its company headquarters to Olive Branch. While CleanTech plans on opening their facility in Grenada, it is also looking in the Boonsville, Hattiesburg and Natchez regions for future sites. 

CleanTech will transform wood chips into cellulosic sugars used in animal nutrition, cosmetics and fuel. 

One reason CleanTech decided to come to Mississippi is because of the abundance of pine wood. 

Senator Tollison thinks that having CleanTech here also means big business for the State’s timber industry.  

“It creates this new market for the timber industry and is also good for creating jobs for Ole Miss college graduates,” he said. 

“To me that is a big deal, to create these jobs that will have an average salary of $60,000.” 

There have also been talks of using the facility to be located in Grenada for research and development and have students who are involved in the Center for Manufacturing Excellence work there.  

Turnage feels that this could be a good opportunity to learn something. 

“I think working at these places could be a good life experience for students who are looking to go into that field.”