Monthly Archives: September 2010

Column: Olympics’ ‘Atlanta Nine’ hold 20-year reunion

Date: September 28th, 2010, 7:43 am

By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 24, 2010

It was the 20th year reunion of believers. Every member of the “Atlanta Nine” was present. These were the nine Atlantans who believed that a Southern city could win the top prize in international sports — the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

The believers met Sunday evening, Sept. 19, at STATS sports bar — itself part of Atlanta’s Olympic legacy. Continue reading →

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Hartsfield-Jackson’s Louis Miller can claim victory on his first day on the job

Date: September 27th, 2010, 3:15 pm

By Maria Saporta

Talk about a great first day on the job.

Louis Miller started his new job as general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Monday morning.

And almost at the exact same time, the news came out that Southwest Airlines had entered into “a definitive merger agreement” to buy AirTran Airways.

For years and years and years, those who favored increased competition at Hartsfield-Jackson have been hoping to figure out how to lure Southwest to Atlanta.

But hometown Delta Air Lines Continue reading →

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Atlanta Civic League pulls off another neighborhood summit

Date: , 12:32 am

By Maria Saporta

The Civic League for Regional Atlanta managed to get 600 citizens from all over the metro area to spend most of Saturday working on building communities.

It was the Second Annual Neighborhood Summit, which attracted a hundred more folks than last year’s Neighborhood Summit.

After just two summits, it has become one of the signature regional events of the year by capturing the involvement of mostly ordinary citizens dedicated to improving their individual communities.

Atlanta has never quite figured out how Continue reading →

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The 2010 smog season remains up in the air

Date: September 26th, 2010, 10:37 pm

By Guest Columnist KEVIN GREEN, executive director of the Clean Air Campaign

Since breathing is one of the great pleasures in life, we thought we would take a minute to assess how this year’s smog season has gone, how it compares to years prior and where we may be heading.

To start with the obvious, this summer has been HOT – one of the warmest Georgia summers on record. And the heat affects more than just our thermostats. Ground-level ozone is formed when pollutants mix with heat and sunlight, which is why we have a “smog season” in Georgia, the five-month period from May 1- Sept 30. As cooler temperatures and shorter days move onto the horizon, so too does the end of when we are most likely to see days of increased air pollution.
Continue reading →

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A sad farewell to the 45 Virginia-McLynn; MARTA’s cuts erase links to history, future

Date: , 10:01 pm

For as long as I can remember, there has been the 45 Virginia-McLynn — until Sunday.

MARTA, faced with operating deficits, implemented a host of service cuts this weekend — further streamlining our already meager public transit system.

And this time, the cuts really hit home. No more 45 Virginia-McLynn.

The 45 bus line initially followed what had been the No. 15 streetcar line — one of dozens of streetcar lines that had made Atlanta a hub of rail and transit.

That streetcar line, and later the 45, started downtown and went north along West Peachtree Street until Fifth Street where it meandered the heart of Midtown going along Argonne Avenue, 8th Street and on towards Virginia-Highland.

Back in the late 1960s, I started riding the 45 to get to Grady
Continue reading →

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Paula Rosput Reynolds shares views on what makes places best, worst places to work

Date: September 24th, 2010, 3:02 pm

By Maria Saporta

In her 11 months working on the restructuring of AIG, Paula Rosput Reynolds said she learned a great deal about what makes a company not a great place to work.

Reynolds was the keynote speaker Friday morning at the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Best Places to Work” breakfast at the Loews hotel in Midtown.

“People were highly siloed,” Reynolds said of her time at AIG, which began in October, 2008. “There was no transparency between the silos let alone transparency to the world. There was an Continue reading →

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Column: United Way’s 2010 campaign goal: $80.2 million

Date: September 23rd, 2010, 3:21 pm

By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 17, 2010

The 2010 campaign goal for Metro Atlanta’s United Way has been set — $80.2 million.

The campaign goal will be announced officially at United Way’s campaign kickoff on Sept. 22. But 2010 Campaign Chairman John Somerhalder, CEO of AGL Resources Inc., gave a recent interview with Atlanta Business Chronicle explaining his rationale behind
Continue reading →

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NCR’s Bill Nuti tells Georgia Tech students to work hard

Date: September 22nd, 2010, 8:43 pm

By Maria Saporta

One of Atlanta’s newest Fortune 500 CEOs spent more than hour with Georgia Tech students Wednesday afternoon in a wide-ranging talk about his views towards business and life.

Bill Nuti, CEO of NCR Corp., attributed much of his success to hard work, mixed in with a bit of luck.

“I grew up in the Bronx, in the projects. I lived in a one bedroom tenement with a very hard-working mom and dad,” Nuti said. “I was the minority.”

Nuti also said he was an over-achiever who Continue reading →

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Louis Miller jumped at chance to run Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport

Date: , 2:19 pm

By Maria Saporta and Ben Smith
Friday, September 17, 2010

As the new general manager of the world’s busiest airport, Louis Miller will earn less than many of his counterparts in the industry, including his predecessor — much less.

Miller’s $221,000 salary for managing day-to-day operations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will be $32,000 less than his former salary at Tampa International Airport. Tampa, the nation’s 27th-largest airport and the 80th-largest in the world, handles as much passenger traffic as just one of Hartsfield-Jackson’s concourses. Miller’s Continue reading →

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Livable Communities Coalition reassesses its strategy with slowdown in metro growth

Date: September 19th, 2010, 9:57 pm

When the Livable Communities Coalition was formed five years ago, metro Atlanta couldn’t contain all its growth.

The coalition was an offshoot of the Quality Growth Task Force that had been formed a year earlier by the Metro Atlanta Chamber to help figure out how the region could accommodate as many as 2 million more people by 2030 and manage all the development that the population growth would bring.

The coalition represented the coming together of about 50 member organizations all focused on growth and development issues in the Atlanta region. The goal was to help the Atlanta region grow in a sensible, sustainable way.

Among the many ideas promoted by the coalition included preservation of green space, increased density around town Continue reading →

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