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

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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

Posted inLatest News

Atlanta Civic League pulls off another neighborhood summit

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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

Posted inGuest Column

The 2010 smog season remains up in the air

by Teresa Johnston

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.

Posted inMaria's Metro

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

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

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

Posted inLatest News

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

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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

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

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

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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

Posted inLatest News

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

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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

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

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

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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

Posted inMaria's Metro

Livable Communities Coalition reassesses its strategy with slowdown in metro growth

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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

Posted inGuest Column

Great cities embrace great public art

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist FRANK MANN, senior director at Cushman & Wakefield of Georgia.

I consider myself very fortunate to have traveled a great deal throughout my adult life both for pleasure and for business. I am continually impressed and even amazed that major cities all over the world have made such strong commitments to the display of public (and in many cases private) art.

This becomes evident regardless of the city one travels to including older cities in the United States, like Chicago and New York, where many wonderful paintings and sculptures adorn their streetscapes, building lobbies and outdoor plazas and fountains. Most often parks

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Ga. Chamber taps Chris Clark, state agency, as its president and CEO

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By Maria Saporta and Dave Williams
Friday, September 17, 2010

The next president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce will be Chris Clark, a “public servant” who has been commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources since November 2008.

As of Nov. 1, Clark will succeed George Israel, a former mayor of Macon who has been the business organization’s chief for the past seven years. Israel will stay on as president through the end of October.

Posted inLatest News

Case made for CEOs as urban statesmen at TEDxAtlanta

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By Maria Saporta

The nationally-known TEDx has sprouted roots in Atlanta.

On Tuesday, the latest TEDxAtlanta took place at Unboundary in the Northyards business park near Georgia Tech and had a theme of “Re-Solve.” About 1,000 people from 41 countries attended through the Livestream webcast.

Speakers were asked to give the “speech of their life” in about 20 minutes.

One of the speakers was Metro Atlanta Chamber Sam Williams, who spoke about “CEOs as Urban Statesmen.”

After giving a two-minute sweep of

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Column: Arts Center raises its 2010-2011 fundraising goal

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By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 10, 2010

Maybe the local economy is looking up.

When the Woodruff Arts Center kicks off its 2010-2011 fundraising campaign Sept. 14, its goal will be more than what it raised during the last two years.

The goal will be $8.8 million, compared with last year’s goal of $8.6 million, which it missed by about 2 percent. The year before, it raised $8.6 million, about $400,000 short of its $9 million goal.

Posted inLatest News

Fulton County mayors to say “no” to regional penny sales tax for transportation

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By Maria Saporta

The effort to pass a regional transportation sales tax has just become more challenging.

At 10 a.m. press conference this morning (Wednesday), all the mayors in Fulton County with the exception of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed will stand on the steps of the Georgia Capitol and announce their opposition to the proposed sales tax.

In a media advisory that I just received, it states that the “Fulton County Mayors from the north to the southern end of the county, have banded together to express

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

KSU governance center was ahead of its time

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By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 10, 2010

Corporate governance is a key term in today’s business vocabulary as the public has gotten to know the failings of Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Mark Hurd, Enron Corp.’s Kenneth Lay and WorldCom’s Bernie Ebbers.

That wasn’t the case 15 years ago when Kennesaw State University formed its Center for Corporate Governance.

Today, the Center has become a national resource on corporate governance issues by conducting research, by serving as an

Posted inLatest News

Reed’s choice for airport gm — Louis Miller — is a surprise

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By Maria Saporta

Well I really got this one wrong.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed named Louis Miller as his pick for general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport — a move that surprised me as well as people involved in the airline and airport industry.

Louis Miller is the former CEO of Tampa International Airport. He was one of three finalists that included John Clark, the current general manager of the Indianapolis airport, and Lester Robinson, the former general manager of the Detroit airport authority.

At different times, Clark and Robinson

Posted inMaria's Metro

Regional transportation sales tax doomed to fail in 2012 if MARTA issue isn’t addressed

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WARNING: To people who want voters to pass the regional transportation sales tax: Fix the inequities towards MARTA.

A regional sales tax will not pass without enthusiastic support from people living in the City of Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb counties. But if the language now included in House Bill 277 is not changed, residents in the MARTA counties will realize that the regional sales tax is not in their best interest.

For nearly 40 years, people living in Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb have been investing billions of dollars in a one-cent sales tax to establish the MARTA bus and rail system — the back bone of all transit services in the region.

HB 277 does call for an additional penny sales transportation tax for the 10-county region (of which as little as 15 percent or

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Column: Atlanta group rescues its 20,000th refugee

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By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 3, 2010

The Atlanta office of the International Rescue Committee will hit quite a milestone on Friday, Sept. 3.

On that day, the Atlanta office will welcome its 20,000th refugee — Raeda, a single, Catholic woman from Baghdad who escaped persecution against ethnic and religious minorities by fleeing first to Jordan.

Now she will begin her new life in Atlanta with the help of the local office of the IRC.

Posted inGuest Column

As cash gifts decrease, Hands On Atlanta sees increase in volunteerism

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist GINA SIMPSON, president and CEO of Hands on Atlanta.

Since I joinied Hands On Atlanta in November 2008, there has never been a dull moment.

We have seen a tremendous surge in volunteerism over the last year, a welcome development because the need is greater now than it has ever been.

With the economic downturn and increased unemployment, we saw a 30 percent increase in our volunteer efforts in 2009. Many people have chosen to volunteer as a means of networking with potential employers, while meeting critical service needs in the

Posted inLatest News

Who will be airport’s new GM? We will find out on Monday

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By Maria Saporta

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed intends to hold a City Hall press conference on Monday at 2 p.m. to announce his pick for a new general manager for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

It’s down to two finalists — Lester Robinson, former general manager of Detroit’s Airport Authority, and Louis Miller, former general manager of Tampa’s airport. The third finalist, John Clark, withdrew his name on Friday. Clark is the director and CEO of the Indianapolis Airport Authority.

Well, for what it’s worth, I’m putting my money down on Robinson.

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