Career reboot has yielded positive results and many benefits for communities
Quentin Whitwell was by all accounts flourishing in Jackson when a life coach recommended he quit everything and start over. Whitwell followed his advice and has become successful in an impressive career reboot.
Co-founder of the lobbying firm The Talon Group, the law firm Gibbs Whitwell PLLC, and an author, Whitwell was serving a second term as a Jackson city councilman when in 2014 when he met Tommy Moore.
Moore was a life coach and planner from Greenville, South Carolina, who subscribed to the principals of the famous business guru, Ken Blanchard, author of the best-selling book, The One-Minute Manager, Lead Like Jesus, and a slew of other Christian leadership titles.
“Tommy came to my house in Jackson and spent a weekend at my invitation,” said Whitwell.
“Admittedly, I did my best to impress him with my accomplishments. Before he left, he asked to speak to my wife and me together, candidly… with the crux of the conversation being we had not reached our full potential and true selves. He even left us a post-it note on my office wall that simply read: ‘Stay or go.’ I took his advice very seriously.”
Soon after, Whitwell and his family took a vacation and had serious discussions about plans as a family and in business.
“Tommy had first seen me as a leader, but not in the role in Jackson I’d established,” Whitwell recalled. “The plans were deeper and wider.”
Whitwell also wanted to enhance his family’s quality of life.
“I felt the overall result led me to a call of action,” said Whitwell. “I learned through the process that life is greater than self, and you mustn’t get distracted outside your heart’s desire.”
Family time concluded with a unanimous decision.
The Backstory
Born in Memphis, Whitwell and his family lived in Southaven before President Ronald Reagan appointed his father, Bob, as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi. When the family moved to Oxford, Whitwell was 13. His mother, Martha, was a high school physics and chemistry teacher.
Whitwell thrived at Oxford High School. He was elected student body president and quarterbacked the football team that won the district title. Arriving in 1991, he also flourished at Ole Miss. Senator Trent Lott coached him in the election for student body president, which he won. He earned a history degree and served as then Congressman Roger Wicker’s first intern. Wicker steered Whitwell to former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander’s Republican presidential primary campaign, where he headed the logistics team in Iowa during the summer of 1995.
In December 1997, Whitwell married the former Ginger Gordon of Forest, a fellow Ole Miss alum, and in 1998 graduated from Ole Miss Law School.
“My first date at Ole Miss—and also my last!” he said with a laugh. “I think of those days at Ole Miss and Oxford in the mid-’90s as a type of golden era. It had a funky, literary vibe with a little grunge thrown in, along with all the university’s traditions.”
After marrying, the Whitwells decided to stay in Oxford.
“My mother called us while we were on our honeymoon in Mexico and said she’d already found us a house,” recalled Whitwell. “It was right off the Square, had been built in 1923, and we actually bought it sight unseen. When we got home, we refurbished the whole structure.”
Whitwell joined Farese Law Firm, where his father was practicing law. In 1999, he ran for state senator as a Republican.
“Looking back, it was a little premature on my part,” he said. “I didn’t win, of course, and so Ginger and I decided to move to Gulfport, where I went to work at another law firm. We stayed on the coast for a year before making the decision to move to Jackson.”
Whitwell joined Page, Kruger and Holland law firm, and in 2002, learned of an interesting job opening at the Mississippi Association of Realtors.
“I’d been doing all the grind work of a lawyer for a number of years by that point,” recalled Whitwell, who cut his teeth on litigation work. “But, this position, as the association’s first lobbyist, appealed to me. I was also to act as in-house counsel and handle government affairs. I got the job, and it was really fun. It showed me that I could do other things besides bill hours as a practicing attorney.”
Toward the end of 2004, Whitwell became friends with Chip Reno, who was volunteering for Haley Barbour’s gubernatorial campaign. Whitwell was doing the same for Amy Tuck who was running for Lieutenant Governor. Both were working through their respective trade associations.
“One day, I casually mentioned that we should start a lobbying firm,” said Whitwell. “Chip went on vacation and by the time he got back, I had a business plan written up, an operating agreement, the whole mapping out of a new firm. That’s how The Talon Group got started, which was very successful for us, conducting lobbying and public affairs work. I always kept my law license, though.”
Somehow during that time, Whitwell, who also chaired the Mississippi Torts Claim Board from 2004 to 2008, found time to pen his first book. In 2009, Coldwater Press published If by Whiskey, his fish-out-of-water comedic novel.
Eventually, the Brunini, Grantham law firm acquired The Talon Group, which lead to another significant meeting.
“Robert Gibbs, who had been at Brunini, as well as president of the Mississippi Bar and a former Circuit Judge, decided to start the Gibbs Whitwell law firm together with The Talon Group, which we had reacquired,” said Whitwell. “That was 2011, the same year I ran successfully for a seat in Ward One of the Jackson City Council. It was a whirlwind year. And, looking back, Robert and I started one of the first law firms that equally partnered a prominent black and white lawyer together, which was very important at the time. Improving race relations in Mississippi was a priority for both of us.”
But by 2014, Whitwell was disillusioned.
“While I was on the council, the city of Jackson went through four mayors,” he said. “I made the decision that I’d done all I could do in that role. It was time for my family and me to move on and expand our horizons.”
The Reboot
The family’s unanimous decision in 2014: relocate to Oxford.
Once settled, Whitwell acquired Life Bible Study, a Christian publishing company with author and publisher Barry Sneed. The company provides content and curriculum to churches around the world.
He then became Chief Operating Officer of Progressive Medical Management, a Holly Springs-based company.
On March 1, 2019, Whitwell acquired what is now named Progressive Health of Batesville, and on the same day, Ginger bought Frock (now Ginger G), a popular boutique on the Square in Oxford.
“We put all our eggs in one basket on the same day,” Whitwell said with a laugh. “And we turned the Panola hospital around from carrying a serious deficit to a tidy profit in 2021. Progress was being made on all fronts.”
In 2022, the same year he sold his interest in The Talon Group, he joined former Governor Ronnie Musgrove in law practice, as Musgrove Whitwell PLLC. The pair also started a business which evaluates cannabis to ensure its safety in time for the state rollout of the medical marijuana initiative. Musgrove had become interested in therapeutic treatments during the time of his late wife’s illness.
“We created Magnolia Tech Labs to fill that space and provide a much needed service,” explained Whitwell. They also recently acquired the medical marijuana testing facility in Natchez, formerly known as Rapid Analytics, and are close to opening the first cannabis testing lab in North Mississippi.
Since moving back to Oxford, most of Whitwell’s time has been spent in his role as CEO and owner of Progressive Health Group LLC (PHG), a healthcare company that acquires and manages hospitals. Properties the company owns include hospitals in Batesville, Houston, Marks, and Helena, AR. PHG manages Tunica County clinics and a hospital in Irwin County, GA.
PHG’s mission is to rejuvenate the nation’s rural hospitals, and that is reflected in the company motto: “Feel Good. Live Better.” Recently, PHG partnered with the Mississippi Federal Credit Union and is looking to expand other benefit opportunities for its 1,000 employees.
“We seek to serve primarily rural communities who desire to grow and prosper their economic development and be medically served when others pass them by,” said Whitwell. “As a result, numerous opportunities are coming our way to advance our mission in larger markets.”
Whitwell plans to not only turn these rural hospitals around financially, but to aesthetically improve their image in the communities and redefine culture internally as well. One way he plans to achieve this is by creating healthier environments for hospital patients through subtle, yet important changes.
A member of the Ole Miss Hall of Fame, Whitwell is also on the board of the William Magee Center, a foundation dedicated to transforming students’ lives by providing education, intervention, and support services to foster success at the University. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for Oxford University United Methodist Church and is founder of Quentin Whitwell Enterprises. In yet another venture, his motivational videos can be viewed at quentinwhitwell.one.
“That’s my modus operandi,” he said, “and always will be, in all my endeavors to leave things better than I found them.”
These days, the Whitwells find time to travel, often to London, England where their daughter, Davis, 24, works as a graphic designer for a boutique record label. They also travel with the Ole Miss men’s tennis team to watch their son, Gordon, 21, play competitively.
And Whitwell stays in touch with Moore, who visited last winter and re-established his life plan.
“We had a great reunion together,” said Whitwell. “Tommy thought I had become a leader, now sourcing the power from a true vision—one for my family, for my community and myself,” he said.
