Veteran industrial recruiter Jimmy Heidel will remain on the job as executive director of the Warren County Port Commission following a vote by commission members Monday.

The commission also awarded raises to two other commission employees and voted to sell an acre of land at the Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex at Flowers.

Heidel had retired as executive director of the port as of April 15, 2004, with 31 years of service under the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi. Six months later, he had been re-employed at a rate of $42,500 for six months of part-time work as director.

Under the change, his pay will be $85,000 per year, the six-month rate doubled.

When first employed in Warren County, Heidel was executive director of the port, executive director of the Warren County Economic Development Foundation and executive vice president of the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce.

The positions were combined to create a pooled salary fund. Although the EDF and Chamber are private groups, the entire salary was paid through the port commission so Heidel could qualify for state retirement benefits.

Starting with the inauguration of Kirk Fordice as governor in 1992, Heidel served eight years as the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Economic and Community Development, now called the Mississippi Development Authority.

When he returned to Vicksburg with the three titles, his pay was set at $150,000.

He has won top regional and national awards as a recruiter and developer and was instrumental in the creation of Ceres Industrial Interplex at Flowers in the 1980s. The complex and the Port of Vicksburg and E.W. Haining Industrial Center are the two major Port Commission responsibilities. Commissioners are appointed by county supervisors to manage the properties and engage in job-building efforts. Major employers on commission sites include Ergon, Tyson Foods, two tier one suppliers to the Nissan plant at Canton and others. The commission voted to increase the compensation of Linda Watts, assistant port director, by $2,334.60 a year and Jim Pilgrims by 3 percent.

The land sale will be to Go Figure, a company now based in Vicksburg that makes fitness equipment, at $15,000 for the acre. The board authorized board attorney J. Mack Varner to prepare the deed and board President John Moss to sign it.

The company wants the land to build a 9,000-square-foot factory building.