Harrison County Development Commission

Leveraging NASA’s assets on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

jcohen — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:48:39 +0000

By DAVID TORTORANO – Special to the Sun Herald

STENNIS SPACE CENTER — What happened in Ohio a decade ago shows why Stennis Space Center guards its massive wooded buffer zone. In 2003, a multimillion-dollar, historic NASA rocket-engine test site was razed to make way for a Cleveland airport runway expansion.

That couldn’t happen at SSC, where facilities are buffered from encroachment.

“I think that is what really distinguishes SSC,” said Roger Simpson, rocket propulsion test program manager at Stennis.

Stennis is the most capable of the NASA sites where rocket engines are tested. It’s the last place in the country where NASA can test large, full-scale engines or whole rocket stages, and it’s involved in both federal and commercial programs.

Though much of SSC’s growth has been outside the realm of propulsion, engine-testing activities have increased recently. So have calls from companies interested in Stennis, the center’s director said. Now SSC is offering an intriguing new carrot: the E-4 facility.

“This is a great opportunity for a commercial company to explore partnership possibilities with NASA,” said John Stealey, Stennis engineering and test directorate associate director. “The test facilities at Stennis are among the finest in the nation, and the federal city shared-cost concept at the site allows a company to make the best use of its resources while accomplishing its mission.”

With the commercial space-flight industry playing a growing role, under-utilized NASA assets offer an opportunity at a time when resources are limited for both the federal government and companies. SSC is in the thick of it, and where it could lead is anybody’s guess.

SSC is part of a Gulf Coast aerospace region that runs between New Orleans and Northwest Florida. NASA’s Michoud assembly plant is just 40 miles from SSC, and both are involved in NASA’s Space Launch System. And SSC isn’t the only space activity in Mississippi. ATK in Iuka builds parts for Delta rockets, Mississippi State University trains aerospace engineers and the University of Mississippi has a center for space law.

“I think Mississippi is uniquely positioned to be incredibly important to the nation and the world because of all the complementary things it brings to the table with space flight,” said David Shaw, MSU vice president for research and development.

The new reality

It was big news in Florida in late 2011 when a NASA facility at Kennedy Space Center, facing an uncertain future with the end of the space shuttle program, got a new lease on life. Boeing decided to use it to build its CST-100 spacecraft. It will create 500 jobs.

NASA agreed to let Space Florida, an aerospace economic-development agency, take over the Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility and Processing Control Center and lease it to Boeing for 15 years. Boeing will build its Crew Space Transportation spacecraft there, and move the program’s headquarters there as well.

A November story in Time magazine likened the lease to an aristocrat selling off parts of the family estate. But with the shuttle program over and aerospace workers idled, Florida officials saw the buildings as a chance to attract the commercial space-flight industry.

That industry uses everything from rocket engines to launch pads, the infrastructure NASA has built up for 60 years. For many companies, it makes sense to tap into those resources.

SSC’s forte is propulsion test capabilities, a very exclusive club.

Stennis is one of just four NASA facilities that can test large rocket engines. The Department of Defense also has four sites, and a handful of commercial sites can test rocket engines.

The government’s rocket-testing sites work together through two groups. The SSC-based Rocket Propulsion Test Program Office manages all of NASA’s propulsion test assets and decides what testing is needed and where. The National Rocket Propulsion Test Alliance, formed by NASA and DoD, coordinates testing across all the federal sites. SSC’s Simpson is the RPT program manager and the NASA co-chair of the NRPTA.

Even in this select group, SSC and its $2 billion in test facilities stands out.

“There’s really not any places in the United States anymore where the government or commercial companies can come test 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year without having any fear of encroachment on surrounding communities,” said SSC Director Patrick Scheuermann.

SSC tests two engines that will be used in NASA’s Space Launch System: the J-2X, which will power the upper stage, and at some point the lower stage’s RS-25, which was the main engine in the space shuttle program.

But SSC is also involved in commercial test programs. The Rocketdyne RS-68 is tested on the B-1/B-2 stand for United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV, and the Aerojet AJ26 is tested on the E-1 stand for Orbital Science Corp. Blue Origin’s BE-3 engine-thrust chamber assembly, the engine’s combustion chamber and nozzle, will be tested soon on the E-1 test stand.

The Stennis DNA

Finding alternative uses for Stennis seems to be part of the center’s DNA. The test site was created in the early 1960s to test rocket engines for NASA. The location was chosen because it was rural, had water access and could be enveloped within a large buffer zone. It made a name for itself testing the Saturn moon rockets.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2012/04/21/3897720_p2/leveraging-nasas-assets.html#storylink=cpy

Gulfport Ingalls workers deliver composite helicopter hangar

jcohen — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:42:20 +0000

Posted: May 07, 2012 10:47 AM CDT Updated: May 14, 2012 4:36 PM CDT

By Steve Phillips – bio | email

The giant helo hangar is headed for Bath Iron Works in Maine, where it will become part of the newest DDG 1000 war ship for the US Navy.

GULFPORT, MS (WLOX) -

A large helicopter hangar, built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Gulfport, is on the water headed for Maine. The 60 foot wide structure, made from carbon composites, took nearly two years to construct.

The composite helo-hangar, wrapped in white, represents thousands of hours of work. As the proud workers watched it float away on a barge, they felt some much deserved pride.

“Oh man, it’s a major pat on the back to see this thing go. It’s great. Feels good to see a big accomplishment like this,” said Ingalls worker Bill Mason.

Their accomplishment is headed for Bath Iron Works in Maine, where it will be attached to the newest Navy destroyer.

“A lot of veterans work out here too. So, we take a lot of pride in our work out here, building stuff for the Navy you know,” said worker Jerry Aubuchon.

The hangar’s carbon fiber construction offers several advantages over steel.

“A substantial weight advantage in using carbon fiber composites. Secondly, you have an erosion advantage that the carbon fiber does not rust over time,” says Program Manager John Fillmore.

A structure even larger than the helo hangar, the ship’s deckhouse, is being built in a large construction bay at the Gulfport facility. Weighing slightly less than 900 tons, it will be delivered later this summer.

“It’s a very, very large structure. In fact, it will be one of the largest composite structures ever to go to sea. Certainly the only composite deckhouse on any of the destroyers we have,” said Gulfport Site Manager Jay Jenkins.

The helo-hangar launch is a good warm-up for that deckhouse delivery.

“It took a lot of hard work. Yard wide commitment from everybody. A lot of weekends, not a lot of time off. But that’s what it takes to get this big accomplishment done for Huntington Ingalls,” said Ingalls worker Marcus Davis.

The lighter weight of the carbon composite structure enables the ship to travel faster. It also produces a smaller radar profile, making it less likely to be spotted by an enemy.

Huntington Ingalls Industries celebrates one year as standalone company

jcohen — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:42:02 +0000

By April M. Havens, The Mississippi Press
Published: Friday, March 30, 2012, 6:33 AM

PASCAGOULA, Mississippi — Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. is one year old this week, a milestone that President and CEO Mike Petters celebrated Thursday by ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

This time last year, the beloved Ingalls name returned to the 10,000-employee Pascagoula shipyard when HII spun off from defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp.

The shipyard had been operating as a segment of Northrop, but leaders said a spin-off would make the yard better able to focus on its customers and more agile in responding to the marketplace.

Huntington Ingalls now maintains two sectors: a Newport News facility and Ingalls Shipbuilding on the Gulf Coast, which oversees the Pascagoula yard, a composite yard in Gulfport and an Avondale, La., yard the company intends to close next year.

The fledgling company has met successes and challenges in its first year.

“I think the thing I’m most proud of is that the folks on the waterfront at each of our businesses have really risen to the challenges we put in front of them,” Petters said in a phone interview from New York on Thursday.

“We started out saying, ‘We’re coming out with a new company, and we’re going to be doing a lot of things for the first time, and we’ve got some serious risk items that we’ve got to go retire,’” Petters said.

All of the necessary filings, legal issues and financial reporting requirements for the new public company were handled during the year, he said.

“All of that went pretty well,” he said. “Now, it’s just a matter of doing what shipbuilders always do, and that’s once they figure out how to do something, let’s go figure out how to do it better.”

At the Ingalls yard in Pascagoula, the delivery of LPD 22 in 2011 marked a major milestone for the company, Petters said.

“It creates a path for us to get the rest of the LPDs delivered,” he said. “I’m really proud of that.”

Since the spin-off, company leaders have said the company’s profit margins are expected to improve once the under-performing LPD contracts and the LHA 6 are completed.

HII has learned how to make its newer contracts succeed, Petters said Thursday.

“It really all starts in the contract,” he said. “We are negotiating the contracts based on what our experience with this new workforce has been as sort of a cost baseline for the contracts, but also with an eye toward the improvements we see out there we can make, given the operating systems that we’ve put in place and the leadership things we’ve done.”

That creates “a much more realistic perspective on what the target for the ship is and how we go with negotiating the contract,” he said. “(We’re on the very front end of) the contracts we signed last year — the two destroyer contracts and the LPD contract — but we’re doing very well with that.”

Petters is also preparing for and looking forward to the upcoming competition for up to nine destroyers, which would be split between Ingalls and Bath Iron Works in Maine.

“I’m not going to go into what we’re doing because it’s a competition and we want to keep that to ourselves, but the fact that we went through a competition in the fall was very important,” Petters said.

The company had not been through a competition since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or perhaps longer, he said.

“We needed to go do a competition to see where we stood,” he said. “That gives us a chance to go address some of those things that we need to address to be competitive in the future.”

The DDG program “has been a great program for the Navy and for the folks at Ingalls and Bath for 20 years, and we believe that success in this program will lead to more success for all of us stakeholders,” he said. “We’re going to be as competitive as we can be, and our mission is to win.”

Triton Systems Moves ATMGurus Operations to Long Beach

jcohen — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:35:34 +0000

From http://www.tradeandindustrydev.com

Officials from Triton Systems, global manufacturer of automated teller machines (ATMs), have announced the company is consolidating its rapidly growing ATMGurus operations, now located in Bartlett, Tenn., into its Long Beach, Miss., manufacturing and headquarters location. The project represents a company investment of more than $200,000 and will create at least 30 new jobs.

Triton has been based on the Mississippi Gulf Coast since 1979 and is one of the largest employers in Harrison County. In addition to housing Triton’s corporate headquarters, the Long Beach facility is home to Triton’s manufacturing, engineering, warehousing, sales and administrative functions.

“I am pleased that Triton selected Long Beach as the site of its ATMGurus facility and that the company is creating these new jobs for the area’s residents. The company has been a staple of the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s business community for years, and this move reinforces Triton’s confidence in our state’s business climate and its commitment to our dedicated workforce,” said MDA Executive Director Leland Speed. “I thank the company for its continued investment in Mississippi.”

The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) worked closely with company and local officials to help facilitate the project, providing assistance through the Momentum Mississippi Incentives program.

”We are pleased to be bringing this successful growing portion of our business back to Mississippi,” said Triton Chief Executive Officer Daryl Cornell. “Triton’s parts and service division moved to Tennessee in 2006. Rebranded as ATMGurus in 2009, the business has grown five fold in the last few years by expanding its offering to multi-brand parts, repair and training, smart safes and refurbished ATMs. We have no doubt the ATMGurus operation will continue to grow at its new home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”

Triton has been a trusted name in the ATM industry, providing reliable and affordable ATM products, for more than 30 years. Today, Triton manufactures and sells a complete line of ATM products specifically designed for the needs of a number of markets worldwide including financial institutions, convenience stores, airports, hotels, resorts, restaurants, shopping centers, casinos and many other non-traditional locations. Triton today has over 200,000 installations in over 24 countries worldwide. Triton’s software development center offers customers product differentiation through custom ATM software development based on TDL, the retail ATM software standard. In addition to manufacturing ATMs, Triton offers customers hardware and software development along with custom manufacturing solutions.

ATMGurus features multi-brand parts, repair and training for multi-brand ATM estates of all sizes. ATMGurus stocks a large selection of new, refurbished and closeout parts and provides repair and training for multiple ATM brands including Triton, Hantle, Tranax and Nautilus Hyosung machines.

To learn more about Triton, please visit the company’s website at www.triton.com. To learn more about ATMGurus, please visit www.atmgurus.com.

Trinity Offshore Selected to Build Harvey Gulf LNG-fueled OSV’s

jcohen — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:28:58 +0000

From MarineLog.com

Trinity Offshore, LLC, Gulfport, Miss. is the shipbuilder selected to build the two U.S.-flag, LNG-fueled offshore support vessels approved by the Board of Harvey Gulf International Marine at the end of July.

Trinity Offshore is the sister company to Trinity Yachts and specializes in construction of aluminum, steel and composite commercial tugs, offshore vessels and patrol craft.

VP and shareholder Billy Smith told Marine Log today that the Harvey Gulf order will likely see a transfer of LNG technology to the mega yacht sector that is Trinity Yachts’ specialty, with one mega yacht customer already showing keen interest.

Harvey Gulf orders two more LNG OSVs from Trinity Offshore

Harvey Gulf International Marine, New Orleans, LA, ordered two additional 302 ft X 64 ft, dual fuel Offshore Supply Vessels from Trinity Offshore, Gulfport, MS. Harvey Gulf now has four dual fuel OSVs on order at Trinity Offshore. The contract signed today with Trinity Offshore is a follow on to the first two vessel order placed in October of 2011. Trinity will build all four vessels at its Gulfport, MS, shipyard where the first Harvey Gulf Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) powered vessel hull fabrication was started last week.

In addition to being powered by cleaner burning natural gas, the vessels will achieve “ENVIRO+, Green Passport” Certification by the American Bureau of Shipping. The requirements for this certification include, among others, that the vessels be continuously manned with a certified Environmental Officer, be completely constructed with certified environmentally friendly materials, and have advanced alarms for fuel tanks and containment systems. Along with Harvey Gulf’s other vessels under construction, these will be the first OSV’s to achieve this certification, making them the most environmentally friendly OSV’s in Gulf of Mexico.

Harvey Gulf CEO Shane J. Guidry, says, “Harvey Gulf’s decision to become the leader in ‘Clean’ Gulf of Mexico operations has been enthusiastically accepted by oil company executives and was the impetus for adding two additional LNG dual fuel vessels to the fleet. These vessels, like their two sister ships, will meet the highest emissions standards that exist today and even higher standards that haven’t been created yet. We recognize the strong stance on environmental protection by the administration in the wake of the oil spill and are doing our part to respond to it and provide our customers support for their environmental commitments.

John Dane III, Trinity’s President and CEO, stated “This follow on order is a significant milestone for our shipyard and will increase employment by hundreds at its peak during the next 36 months.”

USM Plays Role in State’s Emerging Film Industry

jcohen — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:16:10 +0000

By KAREN NELSON of the Sun Herald

OHN FITZHUGH/SUN HERALD University of Southern Mississippi film school graduate Francisco Gonzalez shoots video for the History Channel show ‘Picked Off’ at the Gautier Antique Fair.

The University of Southern Mississippi has had a film school for more than 35 years. It’s the only four-year program of its kind in the state, and it’s located in Long Beach.

Students learn to write scripts and shoot, edit and produce a film. They also learn the academic skills of film history and criticism. And they get a taste of what it’s like to be in the industry.

There are no graduate classes.

“We are a very small program,” said Dixon McDowell, who heads it with one other professor. They have 50 students enrolled at a time.

“A lot of people don’t know we exist,” he said.

But it has been producing 10 to 15 graduates a year for decades and they have come to populate the film industry in Mississippi at a time when the state has recognized the potential of the that lucrative industry and made moves to attract it here.

With new film incentives in place and the state’s understanding that filming “The Help” brought $13 million in economic impact to Greenwood is looking for new prospects.

The school could be considered a key piece in the state’s hopes to grow film into a true industry here, McDowell and others say, but other important considerations are training skilled, experienced local crews and building infrastructure, as well as promotion and marketing.

A USM film graduate is running the new film crew-training program at Hinds Community College, McDowell said. A USM grad, Nina Parikh, works in the Mississippi Film Office.

“Major production companies in the state are heavily populated with USM graduates,” he said. “They are successful and out there. You could say they are driving this expansion.”

On the ground

Fancisco Gonzalez has been shooting with the History Channel for about two weeks and has two more weeks of work to go.

For this production, he’s a camerman. They have filmed in Louisiana and Florida, and on Sunday, he was in Gautier as they shot a segment for “American Pickers.”

Gonzalez is a 1982 graduate of USM’s film school and lives in Biloxi.

“I try to stay busy here,” he said. “It’s not easy.”

He travels where the business takes him.

He makes independent films and works on television commercials and documentaries. He was director of photography on a film from Venezuela that received Academy-Award consideration, and he has a documentary at the Cannes Film Festival this year, he said.

But while working with a production that came to Mississippi recently, he noted that only three in a crew of 50 were from Mississippi. The others were brought in from Louisiana, which has a bigger pool of skilled workers.

Gonzalez said he’d like to see that change, and hopes Mississippi’s efforts will make a difference.

“I think incentives are excellent, but we need to train and train and train some more,” he said. “I want to see us prosper because we have an incredible amount of talent here.”

Film culture

McDowell has been teaching at USM for 22 years and his career is interspersed with freelance film work and documentaries.

“Mississippi is not known for being a film place,” he said. “But a lot of good films have been shot here.”

He said his students are given a chance to discover what it feels like to do a job before they pursue it as a career.

They leave having finished two short films and completed a screen play.

“But a film degree and $5 will get you a cup of coffee as Starbucks or some other fancy coffee place,” he said. There’s a lot of work ahead.

And remember, film is not just about shooting pictures, editing and acting, he said. “It has to be financed and marketed.”

His graduates work as crew members on films, he said. Some have started production companies for commercials and businesses. Some work their way up through the Hollywood system as assistant directors or writers.

Diego Velasco graduated in the late 1990s, McDowell said, worked consistently in Hollywood in cinematography and at various crew positions then developed a script, produced and directed a movie in Venezeula in 2008 and 2009.

“La Hora Cero” or “The Last Hour” became the highest grossing film in that country, McDowell said. It’s on HBO Latin now and is out on DVD.

That film will play at the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center in Ocean Springs in two weeks as part of USM’s film series. USM and the Mary C. are working together to screen films the community wouldn’t normally be able to see and to grow a culture of film on the Coast, he said, a Coast Film Society of people who are interested and want to see films produced in Mississippi.

“We need to develop a film culture here as well train technicians,” he said.

McDowell sees US’s film program as setting the ground work.

“It used to be you get a degree and go to California,” he said. “Now I encourage them to look at Louisiana first. Hopefully, I’ll be able to say, don’t move, you can do it right here.”

Global Axis Industrial Park is Certified Site Ready

cdugger — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:53:17 +0000

Harrison County, Miss. – Harrison County Development Commission (HCDC) proudly announces that they have earned certification as a Project Ready site for the new Global Axis Industrial Park in Saucier. HCDC and Mississippi Power invite the public to attend the certification announcement ceremony on Wednesday, March 23 at 1:15 p.m. in the Sunset Beachside Room at Great Southern Club, Gulfport.

Project Ready is an industrial site program formalized by Mississippi Power’s economic development department in 2008 to attract new industries to Southeast Mississippi.

One of the fastest growing trends in the site location business is the demand for “Project Ready” industrial sites. Companies move much faster today than in the past when making site location decisions. These companies want sites ready-to-go and relatively “risk free.” Harrison County has already passed the qualifying steps to meet this growing demand.

“This important certification puts us one step closer to bringing business into our newest industrial park,” said Larry Barnett, executive director of HCDC. “With our Project Ready status and Harrison County’s tremendous business amenities, we have a complete package to offer site selectors. We appreciate the role Mississippi Power has taken as a leader and partner in economic development.”

Certification indicates that the local economic development agency has done all of the pre-work on their site. They understand ownership issues, engineering issues and any obstacles to development – and they have a plan for addressing them. Plus, they know what it will cost and how long it will take to bring infrastructure to the site.

“Across the country, we’re seeing that certified sites are a proven advantage to lure industry,” said Mississippi Power Economic Development Director Arnie Williams. “We have seen how certified sites have brought major projects to other communities and the positive impact they have on the regional economy. We want Harrison County to see its share of this kind of growth.”

Mississippi Power has retained McCallum Sweeney Consulting (MSC), a site selection consulting firm based in Greenville, S. C., and Waggoner Engineering Inc., based in Jackson, Miss. The MSC team is responsible for providing the site criteria, preparing the request for information and conducting site visits. In the process, they provide the Harrison County Development Commission with feedback on site strengths and weaknesses, suggestions for site improvements and marketing recommendations.

Next steps include a coordinated marketing program under the Project Ready brand.

2009 Statewide Governor's Cup Winners Announced

marcia — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:25:48 +0000

DuPont DeLisle of Pass Christian is the 2009 statewide Governor’s Cup Award winner in the category of Big Business. Thomasson Company of Philadelphia won in the Small Business category. The winners were announced at the Mississippi Economic Development Council’s awards banquet held July 22, 2010 in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Export Mississippi July/August 2010

marcia — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:07:16 +0000

A newsletter of the U.S. Export Assistance Center in Jackson, MS

DuPont DeLisle wins South District Governor's Cup Award

marcia — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:04:57 +0000

“Governor Haley Barbour has announced this year’s district winners of prestigious Governor’s Cup Award, which recognizes private-sector businesses that have made a significant impact within their communities”