Clinton, Mississippi

6 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 5 Lang explains, “We are collaborating with the Clinton Public School District and our industrial park tenants such as Continental Tire, Milwaukee Tool, Taylor Power, and McNeely Plastics. We’re connecting our 8th and 9th grade students with those companies, so they understand that when they get to be a junior or senior, they’ll have those opportunities to be able to work right out of school. Or they can go to Hinds Community College and get a trade degree in two years and start making very good money with one of our industrial park tenants. What I like about Hinds Community College is they can tailor whatever the company needs and train these students to work on the exact equipment they’ll see when they get out of community college. We’re tying in our industrial park with our education systems and it’s proving to be very beneficial to all parties involved.” When it comes to specific businesses, Continental Tire has around 1,000 employees, and their goal is to increase to 2,500 employees soon. In Clinton’s Industrial Park, McNeely Plastics is right next door to Taylor Power Systems and has CL INTON, MI SS I SS I PP I been in Clinton for 20-30 years among other industrial park tenants. Milwaukee Tool recently announced an expansion into the industrial park and the other companies are excited to have another member added to their family. It is very tight knit in the industrial park. Just like in the community, everybody knows everybody and strives to take care of each other. Another company called Ergon owns property in Clinton and they’re working on marketing that property for purchase. Lang notes, “The Greater Jackson Alliance is a fantastic partner and I’m thankful to be a part of their alliance with other economic developers in the metro area – Rankin County, Madison County, Vicksburg, Clinton, and Hinds County are all a part of this alliance. It allows us to work together, finding out how to recruit companies in this area.” Moving on to infrastructure development, the city is looking at expanding water and sewer capacity due to the large amount of growth that’s been happening. “Expanding to the Big