Jim provides consultation with the Grenada Afterglow Film Festival in all aspects of event planning, including logistics, marketing and advertising, staging and presentation, print and multi-media projects and promotion.  These inputs help to grow the audience that is coming to Grenada on a beautiful fall afternoon for a terrific event.

 

A lifelong enjoyment of film and the arts lead Jim to lend his support to Afterglow, but more so is his interest to help Afterglow succeed.  Jim has a great familiarity for small town Mississippi, through his business and personal travels and through his family history.  The inspiration of two home schooled high school girls launching careers in film and showcasing their talent through a film festival was innovation that Jim recognized and he now champions their cause.

 

Jim attained the rank of Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force as a jet engine mechanic on fighters before earning his B.A. (Philosophy & Religion, Mississippi State University).  Jim continued his aerospace career to include the position of Manufacturing Engineer for a Fortune 500 company, putting his industrial engineering training and F.A.A. Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic license to work on aerospace, marine, and defense hydraulics assembly for a product line of over 400 models.  Jim followed these successes with five years of various sales positions with increasing responsibility in the insurance and automotive industries until the passing of his parents, then launching the Jim Hatten School of Management, offering business, industrial, and marketing consulting services.  Jim completed his Associates of Applied Sciences (Marketing Management Technology, Hinds Community College).  All these skill sets have helped to build his current concern, Made in Mississippi Marketplace LLC, to grow an opportunity to promote all things Mississippi through his creation, the Mississippi BBQ Trail.