NATCHEZ — Friday morning, the back room of Natchez Coffee Co. was packed with some 50 Friday Forum participants who heard from two of Natchez and Adams County’s economic development partners, including Chance McDavid, Mississippi Development Authority’s director of asset development and Chris Hinton, Entergy’s director of community development.

McDavid traveled from Clinton, Friday to update area stakeholders on how to put their best foot forward in terms of economic growth and explain his role with MDA and in the community.

McDavid said his job focuses primarily around asset mapping, which helps communities determine what social, geographical, historical or cultural features they have that could be used as tools for economic growth.

People, especially leaders within the community that are entirely separate from elected officials, are the No. 1 asset that communities have, McDavid said.

“One thing that I always emphasize is leadership and how important local leadership is to driving a community,” he said. “I’m not talking about just the traditional leadership — just the elected officials or just the Chamber of Commerce or the economic development entities. All of those are extremely vital but it takes everyone at the table to drive change and drive the economy forward.”

Hinton said he works within the economic development division of Entergy, which is charged with recruitment and retention of industries within Entergy’s service area and ensuring that there is a strong workforce to support them.

Entergy does this with a variety of programs and grants and through a collaborative effort with other economic development entities, Hinton said.

“MDA, as everyone knows, is the recruitment arm that helps local communities. They have project managers who come into your community and work with (Natchez, Inc.) to recruit industries … we do the same thing from an electric and utility standpoint,” Hinton said.

Hinton said in recent years Entergy leaned heavily into supporting educational programs such as “Project Lead the Way,” which is a non-profit STEM program that incorporates real-life workforce training in the classroom.

“We’ve focused more heavily on education lately and are helping to fund educational programs,” Hinton said. “… Education is something industries look at before they come into an area. … We have a lot of time and a lot of dollars poured into education all across our service area.”