News

Mississippi partnership wins BREI award

June 18, 2008 — A partnership consisting of the Community Development Foundation (CDF), Itawamba Community College, and Mississippi State University has been honored by Business Retention and Expansion International (BREI) for its workforce training and development program targeting the North Mississippi furniture industry.

BREI is an international nonprofit association of economic development professionals who work to advance business retention and expansion as part of an economic development strategy. The Tupelo-based partnership won the organization's Multi-Community/Regional Award in the under-200,000 population category.

The program, funded by a Department of Labor grant, was designed to help the furniture industry stay competitive in an increasingly intense global marketplace by providing training courses to employees from companies throughout Northeast Mississippi. The objective was to train and develop employees and make them as much of a commodity as the high-quality products they produce.

“This unique program has brought much-needed training to over 1,000 employees in North Mississippi and continues to fill a great need in our area,” said Mitch Waycaster, CDF Chairman.

Shown in the photo above from left to right are Greg Giachelli of CDF, Amy Garrard of Mississippi State's Franklin Furniture Institute, BREI President Amy Bunton, Todd Beadles of CDF, and Denise Gillespie of Itawamba Community College.