Mississippi State University alumnus and former U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker aide Kyle Steward assumed the role as executive director of external affairs Monday.
University Relations director Maridith Geuder said this is a new position at the university.
“One of [MSU President Mark] Keenum’s focus areas is external affairs and reaching out,” she said. “He’s very interested in reaching out to our alumni base and to donors, and he’s interested in external relations with federal agencies in particular that can benefit Mississippi State so it can in turn benefit the state of Mississippi.”
Steward said in the position he will be responsible for university, federal and state relations and the community action team.
“As the executive director, I’m going to hope to pull together the resources we have to coordinate the message that our new president is going to share far and wide,” he said.
Steward said University Relations will have MSU President Mark Keenum everywhere possible.
“We’re going to be aggressive in our efforts with the media,” Steward said. “Another component of my job is to work with the federal and state legislators to make sure that our interests are protected and our projects are funded to the fullest extent possible.”
Keenum said Steward will work with state and community economic developers in their activities in trying to attract business industries to Mississippi and in how the university can assist their efforts.
“We’ve seen over $2 billion invested in the state of Mississippi in infrastructure and manufacturing facilities,” he said. “They’ve generated over 7,000 brand new jobs just in the most recent few years, and Mississippi State has had a role in this in the resources that we bring to bear in our faculty, our talent that we have on this campus, the resources from a research standpoint and our computing capabilities.”
He said Steward has more than 30 years of experience working in communications and has knowledge of all of the different media sources.
“He has connections not only in Mississippi, but throughout the region and in the Washington area and the national press outlets,” Keenum said.
Steward said he worked for the late congressman Sonny Montgomery in his media relations and as his legislative director of activities before Montgomery retired.
He was also the northern region director for Wicker.
“I was basically in charge of office operations and also pretty much involved in economic development and activities and working with the communities and legislator on initiatives to try to brew some economic development and improve the quality of life,” he said
Steward said before Wicker was a senator, when he was a congressman, he worked as his press secretary and administrative assistant.
Allison Matthews, Greater Starkville Development Partnership vice president of membership and community development, said the partnership is looking forward to continuing with the relationship to university through Steward in his new job at MSU.
“We know he will work with us to foster the strong collaborative bond between the city and the university,” she said. “Maintaining a strong working relationship between the university and the partnership is very important in order to attain goals set forth by both MSU and the Starkville community.”