Peresich’s toughest deal was the one to bring pro baseball to South Mississippi

Sept. 28--BILOXI -- Landing a minor league baseball team was the toughest project attorney Ron Peresich encountered in two decades of working with the A.J. Holloway administration.

"There were a lot of competing interests, a lot of parties had to be brought together," Peresich said. "a lot of contractual agreements and whatnot, but ... A.J. can be stubborn when he wants to be and he wanted a team. It took 10 years but we got it."

That's quite a statement coming from a calm, but tough, negotiator who heads the legal powerhouse Page, Mannino, Peresich & McDermott law firm. He's had tons of big deals in those 20 years, including helping secure a unanimous vote in both the state House and Senate to revamp the insurance wind pool, possibly keeping that segment of the industry from collapsing.

"We could have lost most of the property insurance," he said. "Companies just really didn't want to be here."

He also has been in the middle of a decades-long quest to get a four-year university on the Coast, one that has required finding common ground among competing interests in Hattiesburg and the Coast.

"It needs to be seen as we're all part of the same unit," he said. "The better they do, the better we do. The better we do, the better they do. And, we've had successes in expanding the course, the curriculum down here. It needs to move a little faster."

As chairman of the Gulf Coast Business Council, which Biloxi spokesman Vincent Creel calls the uber chamber of commerce, Peresich pressed for legislation that created a regional tourism bureau.

"And now we have a Gulf Coast tourism bureau," he said. "Not one in Pascagoula and one in Harrison County and one in Hancock County. All three counties are together.

"That took a lot of work but as a result of that, I think we are now seeing, or will continue to see, greater advertisement and visibility of what the Coast has to offer that will be transmitted throughout the country, not just in this region."

But no project has had a higher profile than cutting a deal to finance a stadium with $15 million in BP money and $21 million borrowed by Biloxi. And although the stadium is going up in the heart of Biloxi, Peresich said the games will be another tourism draw for the whole Coast.

"I respect the job he's done in putting together this baseball deal," said Cliff Kirkland, a development consultant and a backer of the project who's also quick to point out he doesn't always agree with Peresich. "It was difficult for a lot of reasons. There were many angles to this. It was a very fluid situation. I know there were critics of it as there are with anything that involves city money, city finances and tax dollars, but I certainly believe having this stadium in that location and a minor league team are huge benefits to Biloxi and the Coast. Ron negotiated some very difficult territory there."

Mr. Baseball

Peresich gives the credit to Holloway, who played football, not baseball, at Ole Miss.

"I've had the pleasure of working with him but it's been difficult," said Peresich, who pitched in a College World Series for the Rebels. "It's a tough market. We've probably had 10 groups look around but for one reason or another, we either didn't have the right location or it wasn't the right time, or they thought another place would be more successful, but AJ was pushing, and Barry Lyons was also instrumental, they just kept at it."

Creel said Peresich is being overly humble.

"It was Barry Lyons who brought up the idea, but Ron Peresich became Mr. Baseball because he was the most passionate about pushing it through," Creel said. "That stadium wouldn't be where it is today without Ron."

Mr. Politics

Peresich is so effective not just because he is a meticulous lawyer with an eye for detail. He also can call on the connections he has built through decades of political activity, which like much of his work is behind the scenes.

He built those connections with a fairly simple formula for picking candidates.

"You want a good person," he said. "Someone who has good values. Someone who's wiling to work hard. And you want somebody who loves the area. If you want someone for mayor of Biloxi, you want someone who loves Biloxi. If it's a supervisor of the county, you want them to love the county."

Recently, his candidates include a couple of Harrison County supervisors -- Windy Swetman, who's rumored to want Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway's job should the mayor decide six terms are enough, and Connie Rockco. He hosted Swetman's fundraiser in the summer and was a key sponsor of one for Rockco held last week.

But as important as politics is to his success, he said he hasn't so much as thought about running for public office for years.

"I thought about it," he said. "But I really like being a lawyer, and I like practicing law and you can't really be ... it's hard to be a public official and work hard in the private sector."

Peresich said his love for Biloxi doesn't blind him to the interconnectedness of the Coast.

"Nothing goes on in Biloxi that doesn't benefit everybody on the Coast," he said. "And the same is true ... it's a rare person who doesn't have interests in all of the Gulf Coast."

Peresich acknowledges he's been rewarded handsomely for his work on behalf of the Coast but he said giving back, to charity, is the most rewarding aspect of this life.

"People who have been fortunate enough to make a good living really have an obligation to help others," he said. "And as our business has grown and we've done better financially we've certainly contributed a lot more than we did before. My wife and I do it a lot personally. I believe in that. I've always believed in that. I think we should do that and so do thousands of others along the Gulf Coast."

Mrs. Peresich

And then his humble side surfaces again, giving his wife as much credit for his success as anyone.

Looking back at his days at Ole Miss, he said he was an average student with mediocre grades who was more interested in baseball, but the future Ramona Peresich changed all that.

"I couldn't believe my luck," he said of that meeting 50 years ago. He keeps Sept. 27, the date of their first date and his daughter's birthday, marked on his calendar. "Even on our wedding day, I was sure she wouldn't show up."

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