Opinion: Growing ‘Blue Economy'

Some of the smartest investments happen along coastlines, and what better coast to invest in than Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. The coast has seen its share of disasters, and resiliency to come back. Mississippi’s maritime economy, known as the “Blue Economy, is perhaps larger than many in the Magnolia State appreciate because economic data is incomplete. Best estimates put the overall economic impact of coastal Mississippi between 33-to-50 percent of the state’s gross domestic product. Last summer, Gov. Phil Bryant challenged the state’s Ocean Task Force to create a roadmap for the Blue Economy based on high-paying jobs and a highly trained workforce. The task force recommended a master plan to use public-private partnerships to create a unique maritime technology environment for research and development (R&D), evaluation and testing. The list is long, and the need is great. The University of Southern Mississippi is doing major R&D research on autonomous sea-vehicles. There are firms already invested in unmanned maritime systems, such as Leidos in Long Beach, which will build Sea Hunter II with United States Marine Inc. of Gulfport. The task force’s vision is called Ocean Enterprise. Its centerpiece is a large R&D center in Gulfport with additional capacity for advanced development, testing and evaluation in Hancock and Jackson counties. In short, OE will change the game in South Mississippi by shifting economic development toward high-end engineering and advanced technology development. Instead of having the best and brightest high school grads leaving the state, we can give them a reason to stay. (Opinion: Dr. William “Monty” Graham serves as chair of Gov. Bryant’s Ocean Task Force. He is director of the USM School of Ocean Science and Technology. (Source: Sun Herald ‘opinion’ column 01/28/18)