The Mississippi Economic Council (MEC) operates within the state to deal with issues and solution related to business through advocacy, research, resources and leadership.
With over 11,000 members and 1,100 member firms, the MEC represents a large portion of Mississippi businesses, and they recently elected officers for the Board of Directors for 2018-2019. Elected officers include:
- James Daniel “Dan” Rollins III, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of BancorpSouth Bank, as MEC’s 2018-2019 Chair.
- William A. “Lex” Taylor III, President and Chairman of the Board of The Taylor Group, Inc., as MEC’s 2019-2020 Chair.
- Anthony L. Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO of Mississippi Power, as MEC’s 2020-2021 Chair.
- Rebecca Wiggs, Attorney at Watkins & Eager, as MEC’s Treasurer. Wiggs will also serve as Treasurer of the Mississippi Economic Council’s subsidiaries, the M.B. Swayze Foundation and the Public Education Forum of Mississippi.
“MEC strives to be the voice of business as we work together with state and local leaders to make Mississippi a better place to live and do business,” said Rollins. “Our membership, along with our newly elected board leadership, will help enhance our state’s opportunities and create an economic climate that benefits all of our citizens.”
In a news release, the MEC included a bio of each new board member.
Before joining BancorpSouth, Dan Rollins served as President and Chief Operating Officer and as a director of a regional financial holding company with locations in the Southwest U.S. Rollins’ financial services career spans 38 years, beginning in 1978 as a college student and continuing upon graduation from the University of Texas when he joined a local community bank in Port Lavaca, Texas.
Rollins received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in finance from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983. He is a 1989 graduate of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from the National Commercial Lending School in 1993 at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma.
Active in community and industry activities, Rollins serves on the board of directors of North Mississippi Health Services and is a member of the finance committee and major gifts committee for the Healthcare Foundation of North Mississippi. He leads BancorpSouth’s volunteerism, serving as the co-chair of the recently completed Hope and a Future capital campaign for the Salvation Army in Tupelo. He has been elected to a three-year term on the Mississippi Bankers Association board.
Rollins and his wife, Rebecca, have two children.
Lex Taylor has been involved all of his life in the family-owned business, Taylor Machine Works. He learned all aspects of the heavy lift equipment industry before entering into the company’s management trainee program. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in General Business from Mississippi State University in 1977. He worked as a Systems Coordinator and as the Assistant to the President of Manufacturing. In 1982, he was promoted to Vice President and General Manager and was elected President on July 14, 1982. Elected to the Board of Directors in 1981, Taylor was named Chairman of the Board in July 2008. Under his leadership, Taylor Machine Works has followed a course of diversification resulting in the formation of The Taylor Group, Inc.
Taylor is Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Business & Industry Political Education Committee, Board Member of the following: Mississippi Manufacturers Association, College of Business Advisory Board Mississippi State University, Winston Medical Foundation, and Treasurer of Mississippi State University Foundation.
Taylor and his wife, Margaret, have three children.
Anthony Wilson serves as Chairman, President and CEO of Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company – one of the nation’s largest electric and gas utilities.
Wilson has worked his entire professional career for Mississippi Power and the Southern Company system, starting in 1984 as an engineering cooperative education student in Biloxi. He moved to Georgia Power in 2002 and held several executive leadership positions before returning to Mississippi Power in 2015.
An avid supporter of economic development and education, Wilson serves as Chairman of the MEC’s M.B. Swayze Foundation, which annually honors the state’s top high school students and teachers. He also is Vice Chair of the Gulf Coast Business Council board of directors and is a director on the boards for the Mississippi Energy Institute and Mississippi State University Foundation.
Wilson earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Mississippi State University and an MBA from the University of Southern Mississippi. He is also a graduate of the Oxford University Advanced Management Program.
A native of D’Iberville, Wilson and his wife Tonya have three daughters – Meghan, Katie and Natalie.
Rebecca Wiggs practices law with Watkins & Eager PLLC which she joined in 1985. A graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Virginia School of Law, she completed mediation training with the American Arbitration Association and mediation.org. She has served two terms as a Commissioner of the Mississippi State Bar and is also a member of the North Carolina Bar. Her experience spans from general product liability and medical malpractice to labor and employment, consumer finance and appellate advocacy.
Wiggs served MEC previously as chair of its M.B. Swayze Foundation. She is a member of Leadership Mississippi Class of 1995. The Mississippi Women Lawyers Association named her its 2016 Lawyer of the Year and she received the Mississippi Bar’s Lawyer Citizenship Award in 2012. She serves on the Governing Board of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Board of Visitors of the Wake Forest Divinity School.
Wiggs and her husband, Mark, live in Jackson.
