Twenty years ago this month on Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast, destroying thousands of homes and much of the government infrastructure that provided critical public services to one of the state’s most populous regions.

Then-Gov. Haley Barbour, understanding the necessity of a well-organized, coordinated effort to clean up and plan to rebuild the coastal counties for the long-term future, tapped one of the state’s most successful business leaders Jim Barksdale to chair a special commission.

Barksdale, then 62 years old, had recently sold his company Netscape to AOL. He accepted the appointment to lead the entity tasked with deciding how hundreds of millions in federal and state recovery funds would be spent. Just a few days after the storm hit, he and

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