By Guest Columnist MICHAEL STOKKE, Atlanta office managing partner for Grant Thornton LLP
I often have the opportunity to speak with Atlanta CEOs on timely topics and have been surprised to find that the recent recurring theme of achieving sustainable growth is consistent among business leaders. CEOs who operate in varying environments are aligned on challenges and approaches to effective growth management.
No doubt enough will be said about this being James Gandalfini’s last leading role. But there’s more to “Enough Said” (you saw it coming, didn’t you?) than the late much-loved actor’s endearing warm-n-fuzzy-with-an-edge portrayal.
There’s also Julia-Louis Dreyfus’s delicate dance as a lovable yet credible neurotic who tellingly admits, “I’m tired of being funny.” It’s an observation that any woman over 30 who’s been tossed back into the red-wine (usually merlot) sea of the dating pool might say. It’s one way of mustering up that kind of youthful-seeming “brightness,” like you might have had at 20.
By Maria Saporta and Amy Wenk
The congregation of Friendship Baptist Church voted “overwhelmingly” Sunday afternoon to sell its building to make way for the new $1 billion Atlanta Falcons stadium.
Its vote was the last major roadblock in getting the stadium to be built on the preferred site south of the Georgia Dome. The congregation of Mount Vernon Baptist Church voted Thursday evening to sell its church for $14.5 million in a 116 to 16 vote.
Lloyd Hawk, chairman of the Friendship’s board of trustees, made the announcement saying the decision was made after careful and deliberate discussions.
By Maria Saporta
As the National Center for Civil and Human Rights reached its highest point in topping off point Friday, the Atlanta region was launching its One Region Atlanta initiative on Saturday at the fifth annual Neighborhood Summit.
The two events were interconnected with the keynote talk Saturday given by Doug Shipman, CEO of the National Center, which is scheduled to open on Memorial Day on 2014.
As Shipman sees it, Atlanta’s strength has been built through dialogue — with an exchange of ideas and respect for each other.
A new report on state funding for K-12 education raises some challenging questions about Georgia’s ability to provide a skilled workforce to businesses – especially in areas beyond metro Atlanta.
School districts are coping with funding cuts through measures including trimming days from the school year and assigning more students to each teacher, according to the report from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. School budgets are squeezed by shrinking state support and by the declining local tax base caused by the recession, the report states.
Even as school districts are strapped, the Georgia Department of Economic Development is touting Georgia’s workforce development policies including its support for charter schools, pre-K programs, HOPE scholarships, and strong public technical schools and universities. Georgia has adopted common core standards in math and language arts, and allocates extra funding to districts that provide gifted programs, according to DEcD’s webpage.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on September 13, 2013,
AID Atlanta, a 31-year-old organization with national stature, is in the midst of a major leadership transition.
The board is conducting a nationwide search for a permanent CEO to steer the organization through the potentially bumpy period of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act — and the future medical funding of treating people living with HIV and AIDS.
By Maria Saporta and Amy Wenk
One down. One more to go.
After meeting privately for more 90 minutes Thursday night, the congregation of Mount Vernon Baptist Church voted 116 to 16 to accept the $14.5 million offer from the City of Atlanta, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority and the Atlanta Falcons organization.
Mount Vernon’s positive vote is one of two church votes needed to make way for the new Atlanta Falcons stadium to be located on the site south of the Georgia Dome.
The congregation of the other church — Friendship Baptist Church — is scheduled to vote on its $19.5 million offer on Sunday.
By Maria Saporta
Sometimes its feels as though the Community Benefits Plan meetings set up by the City of Atlanta can veer from the ridiculous to the absurd.
The sixth, and supposedly the next to the last of these meetings, was held Wednesday night at the old Atlanta City Council Chambers of the historic City Hall. And the committee was still trying to figure out whether they were working on a Community Benefits Plan or a Community Benefits Agreement.
That debate has been going on since the very first meeting, and explanations by Mayor Kasim Reed (at a meeting I did not attend) and by City Councilman Michael Julian Bond, who has been chairing the last several meetings, have failed to totally satisfy the community. Their argument is that first they have to come up with a plan, and then it can become an agreement.
Cures for Restless Leg Syndrome abound on the Internet. Avoid snake oil salesmen by knowing which sources to trust.
By Maria Saporta
Long-time Atlanta search consultant Dale E. Jones is joining Philadelphia-based Diversified Search, one of the top 10 executive search firms in the United States, as its president and as a member of its executive committee.
Jones also will be rejoining forces with his former business partner — Veronica Biggins, who became managing director of Diversified Search’s Board of Directors practice in 2012, had worked with Jones at the Heidrick & Struggles search firm’s Atlanta office.
Jones spent 14 years with Heidrick & Struggles and nearly 20 years in the industry. Diversified Search, a woman-owned executive search firm, is known for specializing in senior level searches and corporate board searches.
Twenty years ago, the media gathered in Atlanta’s East Lake neighborhood likely would have there to report a homicide.
On Tuesday, the media was there to cover Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and U.S. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan proclaiming the renewal of the once-blighted community as a national success story about public private partnerships.
The transformation of the old East Lake Meadows housing project is so profound that nearby homes are now priced at up to $775,000. Donovan said rising property values are a good thing in a city, and that the increased property taxes enable local governments – such as Atlanta’s – to provide programs that keep such neighborhoods affordable to households with a mix of incomes:
By Maria Saporta
Gov. Nathan Deal is considering taking a page from the successful Georgia Research Alliance’s eminent scholar program and applying it to the state K-12 public school system.
Deal, who attended his third annual Georgia Research Alliance board meeting Tuesday morning, told the high level group of executives and university presidents that he has asked his staff to explore the possibilities of developing a statewide program for elementary, middle and high schools.
“I’m going to give away a secret,” Deal told them at the end of his visit with them. “The eminent scholar program has been so successful at the college level, I have asked my staff to have an eminent scholar program for our K-12 system.”
Lindbergh can be credited for helping Atlanta develop a taste for aviation. On Oct. 11, 1927, Lindbergh was given a hero’s welcome by 20,000 people at Grant Field where Lind bergh called on Atlantans’ “good will” to be “generous” in their view of “passenger and freight air service” (yes, there would be costs) and to recognize that a new day was dawning for commercial aviation.
A new normal — combining green space in Atlanta with the blue-lighting of streams and storm water — is taking hold in our city.
The magical combo holds the potential of adding dozens if not hundreds of acres of parks and green space to our “under-parked” city while helping us address our flooding and storm water overflow problems.
And the development community is taking notice.
For a vivid picture of how Georgia’s fiscal priorities get fixed, let’s compare the state’s refusal to join in the Medicaid expansion with its determination to move ahead with the deepening of the Savannah River channel to the Port of Savannah.
The Medicaid expansion issue, aka the ObamaCare issue, is very controversial, with advocacy groups lining up on both sides to turn up the heat in the lead-up to Oct. 1, when the uninsured can begin signing up for health care exchanges, and Jan. 1, when the expanded Medicaid program begins. As much as they disagree on everything else, neither side would argue that the economic consequences are very high for the state. Tim Sweeney of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, an advocate for accepting the expansion, has estimated the cost for each month of delay to be between $240 million and $300 million.
The harbor dredging project also involves getting money from Washington, but in this case the lack of controversy is almost unsettling. When every important political leader in the state from Kasim Reed to Paul Broun is on board with something, you know it’s either a no-brainer, or nobody’s using any brains.
The strategic plan to renew blighted neighborhoods near the future Falcons stadium seems to address the issue of local hiring that some advocates hope the Atlanta City Council will include in its stadium funding legislation.
“At the heart of the plan is the provision of a road map to sustainable job creation and transformative human capital development for the residents of the Westside TAD neighborhoods,” the plan states.
The report predicts that jobs – other than as shop clerks – will be created in English Avenue and Vine City. Fields are to include environmental clean-up; culture, history and the arts; early childhood learning; and construction. The report, prepared for Invest Atlanta, also describes the role of a proposed training center to prepare future workers.
In this land of opportunity, we are constantly faced with competing political and economic interests that cause us to investigate our values.
In the coming weeks, Washington policy makers will debate how best to address the 11 million illegal immigrants living within our borders. Some say comprehensive immigration reform is analogous to amnesty. Others proclaim it is America’s moral obligation to welcome and support them.
We know the arguments for and against. The political right accuses Democratic backers of comprehensive immigration reform of doing this for political gain – assuming the political ideology of illegals align more with the Democratic Party.
By Maria Saporta
The new dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture — Steven French — was originally drawn to Atlanta in 1992 because he viewed it as a “great laboratory” for city planning and development challenges.
After having lived all over the country, French came to Atlanta to become director of the city planning program within the College of Architecture. In 2009, he was promoted to the College’s associate dean for research. And when Alan Balfour announced in August 2012 that he intended to step down in June 2013 to rejoin the architecture faculty, Georgia Tech embarked on a national search. In April, the College named French as its new dean.
French has been in his new role since July 1, and he sat down for an interview to talk about his vision for the College of Architecture, Georgia Tech, metro Atlanta, technology, architecture and planning.
Enlisting the help of a Realtor automatically provides an expert that is on your side, looking out for your best interests and contractually bound to do everything in their power to protect you.
When Fred Brown’s ex-girlfriend went to prison in 2011 and left their son in his care, he knew he had to change the pattern of his life. Brown was homeless and didn’t want Damari, then only 9 months old, to grow up like he did—seeing his first dead body on the street at six years old and getting so used to the sight that it “was no big deal” by the time he was an adult.
Last week, Brown told his story from the headquarters of re:loom, where he turns recycled clothing and textiles into rugs and other items. Re:loom is nonprofit that helped him find his way back by teaching him the ancient art of weaving, and it got a big boost when another grassroots Atlanta business—Spanx—began globally promoting re:loom.
