Category: Guest Column

By Guest Columnist PATTY DURAND, president and founder of Cool Planet Solutions and a candidate for the Georgia Public Service Commission District 2. As spring approaches, so does the in-service date for Plant Vogtle’s Unit 3, the first of two nuclear reactors under construction in Georgia, and the only nuclear plant under construction in the […]

By Guest Columnist HANS KLEIN, an associate professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. Atlanta is at a turning point for transit. With explosive growth in population, employment and traffic, our city is ready to renew its commitment to transit and reduce its reliance on privately-operated automobiles. The good news is that […]

By Guest Columnist MARK ALDREN, a member of the team that launched CNN and past president and current board member of the Atlanta Press Club. It feels like the loss of an old friend. Although it was common knowledge that the move had been in the works for years, when the official word came that […]

By ANTHONY RODRIGUEZ, executive director of the HUB404 Conservancy What is HUB404? Simply stated, it is a nine-acre, half-mile greenspace that will “cap” Georgia 400, adding additional park and recreation space in an area where it is scarce. Connecting to MARTA’s Buckhead station and PATH400, the nation’s first transit-oriented park will rejoin areas split by […]

By Guest Columnist LYNN DURHAM, Ed.D., President and CEO of Georgia CORE and a three-time cancer survivor. It’s unlikely that there are many of us who have not been touched by cancer in some way. Cancer is Georgia’s second-leading cause of death even though many of its devastating effects are preventable or controllable – sometimes […]

By Guest Columnist MELITA EASTERS, executive director of Georgia WIN List, a grassroots political action committee dedicated to recruiting, training, supporting, electing, and re-electing Democratic women. As the Georgia General Assembly convenes Monday, women will hold a historic 82 seats for the first time since the Supreme Court of the United States set aside a […]

By Guest Columnist NAN ORROCK, Georgia State Senator. Now that the runoff election dust has settled and Senator Raphael Warnock is returning to Washington, it’s clear that Herschel Walker’s inability to focus on the kitchen table issues cost the Republican support among our state’s most powerful constituency – older voters. I belong to that constituency. […]

By Guest Columnist ANDREA LAUER RICE, president of the Hungarian American Coalition and founder of the Atlanta Hungarian Festival. This fall, Millennium Gate Park became home to the first-of-its-kind female freedom fighter statue – a memorial to honor those who stood up for sovereignty no different than what we see going on in Ukraine today. […]

By Guest Columnist ROBERT KERR, audit and assurance partner at Deloitte and Touche. For some years now, many organizations have embraced community-minded environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives. These initiatives aim to improve the world and burnish an organization’s reputation in the community. No small business asset, ESG has been a strong signal on the […]

By Guest Columnist BOB WILLIS, chief investment officer at Willis Investment Counsel.  We do not know exactly what Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is thinking or how he evaluates our nation’s current spike in inflation. Nor do we know how he thinks about interest rates as the antidote to the highest inflation rate in forty […]

By Guest Columnist KIMBERLY BEAUDIN, president and CEO of the College Football Hall of Fame. As the first female CEO in the College Football Hall of Fame’s 71-year history, it’s important to reflect on my path, on those who championed and believed in me and on those who still present a very real challenge today. […]

By Guest Columnist BILL TODD, Georgia Tech professor of healthcare management. On Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, the life of the remarkable and humble Dorothy Marie Mallinson Todd was celebrated at her lifetime home church, St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in West End. It is the blessed congregation of mostly Black faithful that begs to […]

By Guest Columnist PETER DYE, assistant director of community and global engagement and TheDream.US scholar advisor at Oglethorpe University. Last month, Oglethorpe University hosted the inaugural “Coalition and Community Building: Supporting Georgia’s Undocumented Students in Higher Education.” The conference was sponsored by the Atlanta Global Research and Education Collaborative (AGREC) and gathered community leaders, higher education […]

By Guest Columnist JEFF JOSLIN, co-chair of the Resilience Building Action Team for the nonpartisan, nonprofit Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Another senate runoff. After a grueling election season, we must now endure the onslaught of four more weeks of negative political ads. Hopefully, we’ll all go back to the polls in what will be an expensive, […]

By Guest Columnist JOHN BARROW, former representative of Georgia’s Twelfth Congressional District. Twice in the last six months I’ve heard Andy Young tell an audience that any time the federal government offers to pay you 90 cents on the dollar to do something you ought to do anyway, it’s like being given “free money.” He […]

By Guest Columnist SUSAN NEUGENT, President Emeritus of Fernbank Museum. Known in archaic twentieth-century parlance as the unabridged Encyclopedia Britannica on two legs, Jeff Rader will conclude his tenure as a DeKalb County Commissioner at the end of this year, after sixteen years of public service. Rader first won election in the highly engaged district in 2006 […]

By Guest Columnist MICHAEL MINOR, Georgia Health Plan Chief Executive Officer at UnitedHealthcare Community & State Our health is influenced by more than just the care that we receive. In fact, according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, medical care only makes up 20 percent of our health influences. The other 80 percent consists […]

By Guest Columnist TONY ROBERTS, president and CEO of the Georgia Charter Schools Association. Georgia’s non-profit public charter schools strengthen the overall public school system by offering more children an opportunity to receive high-quality public education at a school that works best for them.  By law, charter schools are tuition-free and open to all students […]

By Guest Columnist JIM SCHRODER, project manager for Alex Garvin on The Beltline Emerald Necklace report in 2004. On a warm, sunny day on Sept. 10, 2004, Alex Garvin looked out of the helicopter at a massive granite quarry with the skyline of Midtown Atlanta only a few miles away in the background. Without hesitation, […]

By Guest Coulmnist ERNEST BROWN, chair of Abundant Housing Atlanta. I’m lucky. I got to grow up in South Dekalb County in the 90s, an enclave of Black excellence that prepared me to succeed in more ways than I can measure. I got a scholarship to attend Emory, a great job right out of college, […]