Business Recovery Center Model - Mississippi Gulf Coast

February 25, 2013

The Deepwater Horizon Oil spill has had far-reaching impacts for the entire Gulf Coast and beyond. Despite these impacts, the Mississippi Coastal Region has an opportunity to transform its future and develop strategies for a broader, more sustainable recovery. The course, speed and approach for implementing the recovery will always be driven by leadership. The goal after the Oil Spill was to develop county business recovery task force groups and centers using existing Chambers of Commerce to fuel small businesses to re-open their doors, recover, expand and hire more workers To complete this goal it was decided to develop a Pilot Model for a County Business Recovery Task Force & Center in Hancock County that can be replicated across the Mississippi Coast in two other counties: Harrison and Jackson This was tackled by Hancock Community Development Foundation / Hancock Chamber of Commerce, Mississippi Coast Chamber of Commerce (Harrison County) and Jackson County Chamber of Commerce whom developed the model which can be located in this report. Topics covered include: business recovery center benefits, business retention, expansion and attraction recommendations, economic diversification and resiliency, workforce development and education, and marketing & communications for tourism recovery

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RestoreYourEconomy.org provides resources and best practice information for public and private stakeholders who are seeking to rebuild their local economies after an economic disruption, be it a natural disaster or man-made crisis, as well as assist the business community in preparing for a disruption.