Thank You For Your Membership in PEP

On behalf of the Board of Directors, we want to thank you for your consistent support and membership in PEP. Decisions on how to best utilize your company’s resources are difficult during good times. Your decisions are even more challenging with increasing inflation and the threat (or reality) of a recession. We recognize and truly value your decision to invest in PEP’s mission of economic growth in balance with a healthy environment.

In 2022, we regained our pre-Covid momentum, returning to all the usual education and networking events and adding some new ones. PEP is the voice of reason that local elected officials, community leaders, and the industrial business community seek. Led by an active Board of Directors and committees consisting of member volunteers, we have focused on growing PEP’s influence and impact. Here are some of PEP’s achievements in 2022:

PEP Gulf Coast Environmental Foundation. During its first year of operations, the PEP GCEF, an IRS 501(c)(3) charitable organization, has already received several donations from member companies and grants from donors, such as the Hilton Foundation, to support the A Cause to Clean initiative and the PEP Scholarship program.

PEP Science and Technology Scholarship. The PEP Scholarship Fund continues to grow through generous charitable donations from member companies, local foundations, and participation in our Continental Shoot. PEP’s 2022 Scholarship recipient, Blakely Parker, an employee at Performance Contractor, is pursuing her master’s degree in Engineering Management with a focus on Occupational Safety and Ergonomics at Auburn University. The $2500 scholarship is provided to the employees and dependents of our member companies. Applications open on December 1, 2022, for the 2023 scholarship.

Business Networking. After two years of Covid, our members are eager to meet face to face. In April, we hosted a special membership social at Old Majestic Brewing Company that drew more than 90 members and several potential members. We plan to host more of these informal networking opportunities in 2023. Please plan to join us.

Reducing Carbon Footprints: PEP Awards. PEP calculated the combined reduction in Green House Gas emissions from our 2022 PEP Environmental Stewardship Award winners for the first time. Through their innovation and refined processes, these seven companies now avoid 66,447 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually. This is equivalent to removing 14,466 cars using fossil fuels from the road, which is 3.7% of all the vehicles registered in Mobile County.

Reverse Trade Show Seminar (RTS). During PEP’s Reverse Trade Show Education Seminar on October 20 titled “Reducing Carbon Footprints: Case Studies on Zero Waste and Sequestration,” member companies Airbus, Outokumpu, and SCS Engineers shared their sustainability improvements. We have received excellent feedback from the audience about ideas they have learned and plan to implement within their own companies.

The Business View Article. The Mobile Chamber provided PEP with an excellent opportunity to educate the business community on ways to reduce their environmental impacts. With a guest editorial in the September 2022 issue of the Business View, Jennifer Denson, PEP’s Executive Director, highlighted specific PEP member companies’ initiatives to inspire others to review their processes and reduce their environmental impacts by recycling, reducing single-use plastics, re- purposing cardboard and wood, and encouraging a company culture committed to innovation and environmental stewardship.

A Cause to Clean. When PEP Member, John Barton with TC Boiler, asked us to help him organize a litter cleanup of the Mobile section of the Causeway, we jumped right in. During the A Cause to Clean event, 50-plus volunteers from Austal, and a dozen other member companies, along with the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, collected litter, abandoned tires, and other interesting, discarded items to prevent them from degrading the Causeway corridor between Mobile and Baldwin counties and continuing to pollute Mobile Bay. We are currently planning the next cleanup event along Highway 43.

Strategic Plan 2023-2025. This year, the Board developed a new Strategic Plan to guide our work through 2025. Our goals focus on finding and promoting innovative solutions to help our members and communities become more resilient, sustainable, and great places to live and work. Specific details will be shared in the next month.

Next week, you will receive your 2023 Membership Dues Renewal Invoice. Our Membership dues, which continue at 2019 rates, provide more than a third of PEP’s annual revenue. I hope you will remain steadfast in your decision to support PEP and protect our local natural resources by renewing your Membership before February 28. Thank you!

We wish you and your family a Blessed Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!

Spencer Wiggins, President, Board of Directors
Sr. Vice-President of Commercial Banking
Hancock Whitney Bank

Jennifer Denson, PEP Executive Director