Jesse L. White, Jr., Ph.D.
is the former Director of the Office of Economic and Business Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an office he founded in the spring of 2004. He has significant experience in the complex relationships between policy, institutions and programs, at the state and regional levels. He served for almost nine years as Federal Co-Chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission and also led the Southern Growth Policies Board as its Executive Director. He was Chief Policy Planner in the newly created United States Department of Education. Jesse served as a Staff Assistant to U.S. Senator John C. Stennis and was Secretary of the Mississippi Senate. He is a nationally recognized authority on regional economic development. Jesse is Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, recipient of the Phillips Medal for Public Service from Ohio University and a member of the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C.