News & Events

No limits to growth, he says


Dr. Bud Hamilton

Professor Says county poised to be economic engine

By Jimmie Covington
Contact September 26, 2005
from the Commercial Appeal

As a congressional investigator, Bud Hamilton checked into the activities of the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and the Social Security Administration.

He spent time with air traffic controllers and at times was in Mission Control at NASA. He worked with what is now the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1985 to 1990 and was involved in writing a report about deficiencies in air traffic control computer systems that received national attention.

Hamilton also worked briefly in the Los Angeles Transportation Commission's budget department and experienced budget planning in a large operation.

Since September 2002, Hamilton's focus has been on business students at the University of Mississippi campus at the DeSoto Center in Southaven, and his eye has been on business growth and development in DeSoto County.

"My primary field is strategic management and entrepreneurship," said Hamilton, an assistant professor of business administration who holds a doctorate from the University of Georgia. He was the first full-time Ole Miss faculty member to be assigned primarily to the Southaven campus.

In DeSoto County, he has a fertile field to observe. He sees no limit to the growth that can occur here. He said what is happening in the county is "very exciting. ... I love this kind of environment." The county faces some "growing pains kind of issues," said Hamilton, almost 50. But after it wrestles with them, he said, "It can really be a major driver of both the Mid-South/Memphis economy as well as Mississippi as a whole. I think it already is to some extent, but I think it can even be more. ...

"I spent a lot of years in Southern California and a lot of years in the Atlanta area, and this reminds me of Southern California in the late 1970s and Gwinnett County (Georgia) in the late 1980s and early 1990s."

Gwinnett was one of the later counties in the Atlanta area "to go kind of urban so to speak, and there were some challenges with that," Hamilton said.

A lot of people were very successful and made a lot of money, but growth brought changes as in other locations, he said.

There is a tradeoff between economic growth, "a great lifestyle" and access to stores on one hand and the loss of farms and the need for four-lane roads on the other, he said.

Personally, Hamilton believes sidewalks need to be put in residential developments. "People don't want to put in sidewalks because they have this view that we are still rural," he said.

But without sidewalks, he said, "You are condemning your children to having no exercise as well as you having a hard time going back and forth."

Hamilton said DeSoto County is handling growth and development much better than Gwinnett did. "In Gwinnett, they were so in denial they didn't want to create four-lane roads and they have a lot of two- lane roads and no sidewalks," he said.

Hamilton is originally from Philadelphia, Pa. He received his bachelor's degree from a liberal arts college outside Boston and his master of business administration from Cal State Fullerton.

After receiving his doctorate in 1997, he taught for five years at Georgia State University before accepting the Ole Miss post.

Hamilton is particularly proud of a business- and accounting-oriented group that has recently been formed for students at the Southaven center. Students in Free Enterprise is a chapter of a national organization. The group will have both campus activities and community service projects.

Ole Miss at DeSoto Center now has more than 10 full-time faculty members plus many other faculty members who come up from the main campus in Oxford or who teach part-time. Videoconferencing, or distance learning, is used in a variety of courses. Enrollment is growing steadily at the center. This fall's enrollment is 760, an increase of 10.3 percent from last fall.