In 2007, AngelouEconomics was hired to develop an Economic Development Marketing Plan to guide the marketing efforts for five parishes in Southeast Louisiana: Livingston, St. Helena, Tangipahoa, Washington, and St. Tammany. These five parishes, suburbanized by the gradual growth of metropolitan neighbors to the South and West, decided to unite as a region to market themselves to potential businesses and develop the region’s economy using one of the area’s major transportation arteries – the I-12 Corridor – as a focal point to form a regional alliance to accomplish that economic goal. The I-12 Corridor comprises a portion of the interstate highway system that runs between Baton Rouge and Slidell. In addition to the considerable economic assets already in the I-12 Corridor region, another set of transportation and technology resources available to the area included Interstate 10, which runs through St. Tammany Parish into Mississippi on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. The project aimed to leverage both transportation corridors, including the transportation routes themselves as well as the business and industry clusters around them, to market the region.

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The resulting plan outlined initiatives that will help develop the regionally collaborative mechanisms needed to effectively attract businesses. It also outlined marketing strategies to help the region effectively promote itself, as well as target industries, Advanced Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing, Material Supplies, International Trade, Logistics, and Distribution, and Energy, Petrochemicals, and Plastics Equipment and Services, on which the region should focus its attraction efforts and resources.