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Alabama Department of Commerce Secretary Ellen McNair’s first year in office has been spent developing the state’s new plan for economic growth.
McNair began her tenure as Commerce Secretary on Jan. 1, 2024, after Gov. Kay Ivey appointed her.
Before becoming the first woman to head the office, McNair served as chief economic development officer for the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce and had previously been president of the Economic Development Association of Alabama.
“The transition’s been, I think, very smooth. My career, you know, has been spent in economic development,” McNair said, when asked how she has adjusted to her first year as Commerce Secretary. “I’m very familiar with the organization and have of course worked closely with the Department of Commerce while I was at the Montgomery Chamber.”
McNair highlighted the release of a comprehensive economic development plan for the state as one of the most significant accomplishments of her first year in office.
The plan, named Catalyst, replaces the state’s previous comprehensive plan, Accelerate Alabama, released in 2012 and last updated in 2016.
Catalyst highlights eight “priority” industry sectors for planning the state’s economic development. These sectors include mobility, or the converging markets of automotive and aerospace, as well as defense, bioscience, metal and advanced materials, forestry and wood, agriculture and food and technology.
“These are where, you know, we’re gonna be really focused and aggressively marketing in these sectors. And, in that plan, we have a very deliberate, you know, strategy for each one,” McNair said.
Catalyst also highlights business services as well as logistics and distribution as two “enabler” sectors that should take priority.
When asked what sectors Alabamians can expect growth in during 2025, McNair pointed to the merger of the state’s aerospace and automotive sectors.
“You’ve really got the convergence of, you know, those two industries kind of blending together in some advanced air-mobility that’s really new and exciting and, you know, pretty…robust and really innovative,” McNair said.
McNair pointed to advancements in drone and flying vehicle technology as innovations Alabamians can expect to see integrated by the state’s automotive and aerospace businesses in the near future.
“You think that’s just so futuristic, but it really is happening now, and there’s so much change and innovation happening in that mobility sector not only for the shapes and sizes and types of flying, you know, flying equipment but also how it’s propelled,” McNair said.
McNair expressed the importance of collaborating with Alabama’s other key governmental and private business initiatives while leading the development of Catalyst.
Regarding Catalyst, McNair said, “Super excited about what we did there, and we incorporated not just the Department of Commerce, but we looked at how we could work with statewide economic development efforts.”
McNair said, alongside leaders from the Department of Commerce, Economic Partnership of Alabama President Greg Barker, Innovate Alabama Director Bill Poole and Retirement Systems of Alabama CEO Dr. David Bronner, all took leading roles in developing the plan.
“All three of those gentlemen are extremely, you know, have been very successful in economic development in very different ways, and I really just felt like they would be able to advise and counsel us on this,” McNair said.
The Department of Commerce also hired a team of consultants from McKinsey and Co. Consulting to help develop Catalyst.
Following the comprehensive plan’s initial development, McNair said Catalyst was presented to over 400 people across 17 focus groups, to gather feedback from key Alabama business figures.
“That includes economic developers, business leaders, elected officials that we listened to, and we, you know, presented what we had put together and got feedback from those groups and folks and made the changes and recommendations and then had a finished product by Oct. 1,“ McNair said.
Since Catalyst’s release, McNair said her department has been focused on examining the work necessary internally to deliver the plan’s goals in an effective manner.
McNair also said the department is focused on working with RSA and Innovate Alabama, as well as private entities such as EDPA and the Business Council of Alabama, to foster collaboration in executing the plan.
“The Retirement Systems of Alabama has tremendous research capability, and their analysts are highly knowledgeable in many, many sectors, and we wanted to be sure that those analysts were aware of the sectors we’re trying to recruit,” McNair said. “We can enjoy, you know, their knowledge and work closely with them, you know, on what companies might be great targets for our state.”
McNair pointed to the disparate economic policies championed by candidates of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election as a factor which cast uncertainty on how to best plan for Catalyst’s implementation in 2024. With the election over, McNair said she is hopeful her department can further develop and act on the plan’s goals in 2025.
“Obviously, with an election year sometimes there’s a lot of waiting and seeing and especially this year when you had such a very diverse philosophy between the two candidates. A lot of our projects where kind of like, ‘Okay we’re just gonna kind of wait and see here on what we’re gonna do,’” McNair said. “I’m excited that the beginning of 2025, hopefully, a lot of these projects will come to fruition.”
Tariffs proposed by President-elect Donald Trump, however, have been a source of contention among Alabama’s Republican leaders regarding their projected effects on state commerce.
Trump’s proposed tariffs have drawn support from key Alabama Republicans such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville R-AL, and Sen. Katie Britt, R-AL.
Ivey, on the other hand, has pointed to Trump’s tariffs as detrimental to Alabama’s auto and machining industries during his first term as president.
McNair said that, while she believes it is too early to speculate on the impact of proposed tariffs on Alabama, her department has been closely monitoring the president-elect’s proposals.
“There’s a wide spectrum of things that have been, you know, proposed and could or could not happen, so we are obviously tracking it very closely and we will have a response of how we handle it depending on what happens,” McNair said. “It could go from, you know, full on tariffs, to nothing happening, to, you know, here but not there, and so we really, you know, obviously are staying close with our Washington delegation and Kacey Rogers, who leads the Governor’s effort in the Washington area. We are staying close to Kacey and close to our folks up there to see what is going to happen.”
Trump’s election has also led to speculation regarding the U.S. Space Command’s headquarters being moved from its current site in Colorado to Huntsville.
In 2023, President Joe Biden reversed an executive order issued late in Trump’s first term to move the agency’s headquarters to Alabama. State Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Anniston said in November 2024 that Trump will sign an executive order to reverse this decision within his first week of office.
Regarding the potential move McNair said, “I think there is a lot of excitement about that opportunity, and, while I’m not gonna provide a lot of details there on that, but, yes, I think there is a—I think you could say there is a very good effort on the way to try to secure that project, and quite frankly some others that I think Huntsville and the state of Alabama would compete quite well for.”
