Longtime Leader Retires After Years of Service
After serving in various aspects of economic development since 1972, Greenville resident and Port of Greenville Director, Tommy Hart, announced his retirement effective December 31. The move represents the ending of a career that has been one of the more prolific in the field of economic development in Mississippi’s history.
Hart leaves the Port of Greenville after serving as that important Delta/Mississippi transportation hub for eighteen years. In his time at the “Port City” Hart has overseen, and helped bring to fruition, some of the Delta’s—and Mississippi’s—biggest economic development transactions and moves.
Hart has located many of America’s leading industries to Greenville in his long-spanning career, including Schwinn Bicycle, Fruit of the Loom, Textron, Vlassic Pickle, Uncle Ben’s, Producer’s Rice, Boeing Military Aircraft, and many others.
“In the process of landing those companies over the years, I have to look at what their coming here to Greenville has done for this community. Especially Uncle Ben’s, where we won out over two other major markets in 1976. I’ve helped locate over 200 companies in Greenville, many that have come and gone, but all that have had an impact on job development and improvements to this city.”
The Blytheville, AR native who “grew up a mile from the levee,” says he has called Greenville home since 1972, after arriving to the Delta upon leaving his first job in Meridian, in the field that he would leave a lasting imprint upon.
“I started my career after college in Meridian at its Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Foundation as the assistant to the organization’s two directors there and stayed there for almost four years,” says Hart. “I came to Greenville in ‘72 to take the position of the city’s Chamber of Commerce and its Industrial Foundation and have been here ever since. Certainly I consider Greenville and the Delta my true home.”
Hart held those two aforementioned roles in Greenville for almost thirty-eight years, seventeen of those with both organizations combined before the city split the Chamber and Foundation into two separate entities in 1987, with Hart taking over as Executive Director of the latter. “I stayed with the Industrial Foundation and Economic Development District until September, 2008 before taking over at the Port of Greenville,” he says, assuming the role the late Harold Burdine had held.
“I actually got a port grant my first year of work at the Port,” recalls Hart. That waw the beginning of many grants to come. “I actually had announced my first retirement in ‘08 before deciding to step back into the arena. I officially took over as Port Director in October of the year because I agreed to fulfill my contractual obligations to the EDD.”
When asked to look back, Hart says “I’ve enjoyed my work, which is truly my life, and will advise my successor at any time as needed. (At press time, a new Port Director had not been named). Public incentive programs and financing projects and grants has been my calling. Since I came to the Port, I’m proud to say I’ve filed for sixty-eight grants, and been awarded, every one in the amount of $40 million.”
Hart says he’s had a “great time” over his career and credits the many Greenville, Washington County and state officials he has worked with throughout it in aiding his success in life. “The leadership that supported me along the way were among the best,” he says.
One such person Hart has worked with for many years is Peter Nimrod, Chief Engineer of the Mississippi Levee Board also in Greenville. “Tommy has a long and successful career as an economic developer in Washington County. And he has done an amazing job growing the Greenville Port. Tommy has been very successful in bringing in grants, Federal funds and State funds to make tremendous capital improvements to the Greenville Port and, in the process, has been a statewide leader in the Port industry.”
Even as his retirement date loomed, Hart was still working hard in December and talking about future projects coming to the Port that he helped initiate.
“By the time you publish we will have set a $2.4 million crane on our dock at the Port that will double the transloading capacity of the facility,” he says. “We’ve also totally modernized and added many features to the Port just in the past year—we put a lot of work into broadening the area and capacity of work the Port can accommodate. Everything has been totally rebuilt, restored and refurbished—everything—including sewer and roads. And I just filed an application, one of my last acts as Director, to resurface the last portion of road on Harbor Front Drive here that was the only piece of road that is not totally brand new and that work should be completed in 2026.”
In his retirement, at the age of eighty-one, Hart and his wife, Kathy, will be doing some traveling he says. “But I’ll never be but a phone call away if I’m ever needed to help the new Port Director or this city and county that I love in any way I can,” he states.
“I’m excited about the future here and I’m sure we’ll get a new Director with a whole lot more energy and a lot of new ideas. As they say, ‘a new broom sweeps clean.’ It’s a very different world out there today in economic development but, I can honestly look back at my career with satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment knowing that I did the best I could when I could. I’m thankful to Greenville and to my many friends and associated who have always supported me. It’s time for the next chapter, though.”