NAMED AMBASSADOR OF GOODWILL

OCEAN SPRINGS MAYOR CONNIE MORAN

 was named the AMBASSADOR OF GOODWILL FOR 2012 by Goodwill Industries of South Mississippi and its sister organization Mississippi Goodworks at the March 15, 2011 Awards Banquet in the Great Southern Club in the downtown Gulfport Hancock Bank Building.

The AMBASSADOR OF GOODWILL award is bestowed annually by Goodwill/Goodworks on an individual who has displayed leadership in the economic and social development of South Mississippi.

 Connie M. Moran was raised in Ocean Springs and was elected Mayor of her hometown in June 2005. Connie began her second term as Mayor of Ocean Springs in July 2009.  Previously, she was president of Moran Consultants, providing marketing and business development services. Connie has 20 years of experience in state and local government and as an Economic Development Professional. She served three years as Director of Jackson County Economic Development until March 1999. For the five prior years, Connie served as Managing Director of the State of Mississippi European Office in Frankfurt, Germany, recruiting new business to the State on behalf of the Mississippi Development Authority.

 Connie holds Masters’ and Bachelor’s degrees in Finance/Economics and International Commerce from Georgetown University in Washington, D. C., where she graduated cum laude.  She conducted graduate research at the Institute of World Economics in Germany under a Fulbright Scholarship and was an economist at the World Trade Organization in Geneva.  She is a former fellow of the Robert Bosch Foundation for German American Leadership, where she worked for the German Ministry of Finance.  Her Bosch colleagues voted her “Bosch Alumnus of the Year” in 2006 for her leadership in the recovery efforts on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.  She has spearheaded the recovery of Ocean Springs after Hurricane Katrina and following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill that affected the Gulf of Mexico and coastal towns.

 Connie is active in community volunteering and civic organizations and serves as a board director for Jackson County United Way, YMCA and Boys and Girls Clubs.  She is a member of Rotary International, the Gulf Coast Business Council, and is on the national Board of Directors for the Congress on New Urbanism.  She has also served on the Jackson County Port Authority Board of Commissioners, the Board of Trustees of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, and the Governor’s Commission on Developmental Disabilities.

Connie's family has been in business in Ocean Springs for over 140 years.  She has one daughter, Magdeleine, age 16.  She is a lifelong member of St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Ocean Springs