Leaders from several sectors of the Tuscaloosa metro drank from the proverbial firehose as the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama's Benchmarking Trip to Mobile continued Monday.

Each year, the Chamber organizes an exploratory trip to cities roughly the size of Tuscaloosa, and the brightest minds in their governments, tourism agencies, schools and more share their success stories with the West Alabama crew, often with their direct counterparts back home.

On Sunday, the Chamber arrived in Mobile, Alabama for the 2024 Trip, and after meeting with Mayor Sandy Stimpson and a small group of business leaders, the learning began in earnest Monday with a flurry of discussions covering a wide range of topics.

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CONFRONTING DRAGONS

The day began with a pair of back-to-back panels about education in the Mobile area, first from a quartet of speakers from the fast-growing and high-performing Saraland City School System.

Their story is of particular interest because they broke away from Mobile County Public Schools in 2008, like the divorce from the Tuscaloosa County School Systems some leaders in Northport are suggesting.

Saraland residents voted in favor of a property tax increase to fund the new system in 2015. Voters shot down a similar increase for TCSS last year and residents of Tuscaloosa will vote on a proposed 22 percent increase to their own property taxes on September 24th.

The Tuscaloosa cohort also heard from Dr. Jeremiah Newell from the Mobile Area Education Foundation, who laid out the stakes for failing to prioritize these kinds of concerns.

"All the growth that has happened in Mobile didn't just happen. We had to be intentional about economic development strategy and now we have to be and stay intentional about education strategy," Newell said. "85 percent of jobs that are coming to Mobile now need a high school diploma, so we have to urgently close this skill gap or guess who doesn't get the job that comes to Mobile? The local child from Mobile."

Tuscaloosa has its own workforce shortages to address, and Newell warned that if leaders of the community don't inspire others and 'confront the dragon' of schooling needs, the very best jobs a community has to offer will end up getting outsourced.

"What can happen is folks come into a community and you need better-educated workers, so that's fine," Newell said. "But when your children are left at to work McDonald's, Chipotle, Wal-Mart, that's unacceptable."

Infrastructure, Innovation and Collaboration

Monday continued with lunch and a trio of panels about collaboration and innovation, and how so many distinct organizations in Mobile work together for its benefit.

Former Republican Congressman and current University of South Alabama President Jo Bonner welcomed the Tuscaloosa contingent to this segment of the Trip

"What Tuscaloosa did in the early 1990s when Governor Folsom was in office was to start something," Bonner said. "In 1997 when the first M-Class rolled off the assembly line at Mercedes Benz U.S. International, who would have ever imagined that just this past year, Alabama would become the leading exporter of automobiles in the nation?"

It took grit and leadership and real risk to get the industry off the ground, but Bonner called Tuscaloosa landing MBUSI the turning point that led to the state becoming the humming industrial hub it remains today.

"Think about that $250 million investment and how this past year, we had 11 billion dollars, with a B, in this state, not only from Vance, but from Lincoln and Hope Hull and now north of Huntsville with Mazda and Toyota," Bonners said.

Mobile pulled off a similar trip when it edged out bids cities in 46 US states and recruited Airbus. It began operations in 2015 and in less than a decade, Mobile has burst into the top 5 producers of airplanes in the world.

Bonner was followed by Oliver Charles from Bishop State Community College, who talked about how local industries rely on the HBCU to train their workforces. High schoolers who dual enroll there can land a $55,000 salary at Airbus nearly right at graduation. The Austal shipyard needs 2,000 workers in three years and a three-week certification at Bishop State can be a ticket out of dead-end jobs and into some serious income.

David Clark from Visit Mobile discussed the city's tourism draws, including its vibrant downtown, the seasonal Carnival cruises which leave from their Port and the poignant Africatown Heritage House, home to the last known slave ship to sail to the US.

A contingent from the Downtown Mobile Alliance wrapped up this second leg of the Monday programming by talking about the charm of that district, how their mission evolved throughout the COVID pandemic and the work they're doing now to keep the area beautiful and well populated with unique restaurant and retailers.

The Port City

After a long morning in conference rooms of downtown Mobile's Renaissance Mobile Riverview Plaza Hotel, the Chamber's Benchmarking group ended Monday with a two-hour tour of the Port there abord the Perdido Queen Paddlewheel dinner cruise.

The tour was emceed by Rick Clark, the deputy director of the Alabama Port Authority, who gave context at just how much business floats into and out of Mobile.

Clark said he had his staff prepare data from each of Alabama's 67 counties to demonstrate the local impact the port has in them.

According to the Port Authority, their water commerce is responsible for 17,000 jobs in Tuscaloosa County and more than $1,000,000,000 in annual port-related income - that's a billion dollars in our landlocked west Alabama county alone.

It's hard to overstate the money and labor flowing through the port - Clark said they create more than 350,000 total jobs moving goods through loading goods for import or export at 18 cargo facilities. Those goods constantly arrive or leave via nine railroads, on trucks moving north on I-65 or east and west on I-10, or through the air.

"Between the interstates, the waterways and the rail, it's just really unparalleled in just about in other port in the country," Clark said.

Clark said the port will export about 12 million tons of coal this year and a significant amount is coming from west Alabama mines and getting to Mobile via the Black Warrior River.

If you think the port, 200 miles away from the Druid City, isn't crucial to a lot of systems back home, just ask the tugboat and barge crews unable to get there right now because of the closure of the Holt Lock for repairs.

"We move over 500 barges of cargo up and down the river and a lot of those come from your area," Clark said. "We have small mines and large mines that don't have any other way to get down here, and so many jobs depend on it."

After a few wrap-up sessions today, the group will begin to individually return to Tuscaloosa and most should return by Tuesday evening.

For more coverage of news from around west Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.