The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Entergy Corporation has been named one of the nation’s Top 10 utilities in economic development by Site Selection magazine for its 2013 efforts to help attract nearly $21 billion in projects that could create more than 9,200 jobs in its four-state service territory.

It is the seventh straight year Entergy’s utilities have been named to the magazine’s list, which appears in the September 2014 edition and online at www.siteselection.com.

“We’ve dramatically stepped up our economic development efforts through the formation of a corporate-level business and economic development department that reinforces and supports the efforts our local economic development employees are making in attracting new business, retaining existing companies and helping them grow,” said Mark Kleehammer, vice president of Entergy’s Business Development Services.

Site Selection chose the top utilities based in part on jobs created and investments made in their respective service areas. In addition to economic development successes in Arkansas and Mississippi, Texas led the way with 3,183 jobs, while Louisiana led in corporate capital investment activity with more than $17 billion planned.

“We are very pleased that in Southeast Texas, our economic development team was involved in helping create 3,183 jobs,” said Steve Pilgrim, director, business and economic development, Entergy Texas, Inc. “Besides that, we were also active partners in efforts that resulted in $1.57 billion in capital investment.”

The magazine praised Entergy for its major system-level initiatives that include the team's Strategic Sites Initiative; Entergy's Certified Sites Program; and a planned rebuild and redesign of the Entergy Site Selection Center – the team’s GIS buildings & sites database. To aid customer speed-to-market, a team of project managers with engineering backgrounds also was created.

More information on Entergy’s economic development efforts can be found at entergy.com.

Entergy Texas, Inc. delivers electricity to more than 426,000 customers in 27 counties. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including more than 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power, making it one of the nation’s leading nuclear generators. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $11 billion and approximately 14,000 employees.