New Tenn-Tom Waterway Development Council Chair Named
The Tennessee-Tombigbee (Tenn-Tom) Waterway Development Council has named Josh Tubbs as the group’s new chairman. Tubbs, from Marshall County, Ky., will serve a two-year term, which began January 1. He has previously served as vice chairman, treasurer and secretary for the council.
Tubbs is founder and CEO of Kentucky Lake Economic Development, a Marshall County-based economic development group aimed at retaining, growing and attracting manufacturing, distribution and service industries to the area. Tubbs has led the economic development endeavors in Marshall County since 2008.
Tubbs’ family history in western Kentucky stretches back generations, predating even the Jackson Purchase of 1818, when the Chickasaw peoples ceded the area east of the Mississippi River and north of the state of Mississippi to the United States. Continuing that commitment to the region, Tubbs has also served as secretary of the organization A Soldier’s Heart: Bluegrass & Muddy Waters; director of the Benton, Ky., Central Church of Christ’s administrative committee; and member of the board of directors of the Kentucky Association of Economic Development.
Tubbs is a 2006 graduate of Murray State University and holds a master of public administration. Tubbs and his wife, Kacey, live with their two children on a homestead in Marshall County.
“It is a tremendous honor to serve as the incoming chair of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Council,” Tubbs said in a statement. “I look forward to advocating for the industries and opportunities along the waterway with my colleagues throughout the southeastern United States. Our work is important and impactful to the future growth of our nation as the waterway offers a tremendous logistical asset to numerous users across the country.”
For this term, the council will also include Mike Williams, vice chairman, from The Westervelt Company in Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Will Sanders, treasurer, from the Lowndes County Port Authority in Columbus, Miss.; Matt Arnold, secretary, from the Marshall County Economic Development Council in Guntersville, Ala.; Kevin Stafford, immediate past chairman, from the Columbus, Miss.-based firm Neel-Schaffer; and Mitch Mays, president of the council and administrator of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority.
The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority is a four-state body made up of members appointed by the governors of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky, whereas the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Council is the membership-driven nonprofit organization that advises the authority and serves as a liaison between commercial users of the Tenn-Tom and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Coast Guard.
The organizations hold an annual conference at the Grand Hotel Marriott in Point Clear, Ala. This year’s conference is scheduled for August 11–13. For more information, go online to www.tenntom.org.
