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Jeffrey Tapia to assume leadership role of the Latin American Association

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The Latin American Association has eliminated its CEO position and has streamlined its organizational structure, according to an announcement Oct. 19.

The restructuring includes making Jeffrey Tapia, the association’s chief operating officer, will become responsible for leading the organization. Tapia has been working for LAA for several years and has worked with other Latino organizations for more than 30 years.

“We are appreciative of the leadership that former CEO Millie Irizarry has provided the LAA during these last three years,” said Carmelo Alvarez, chair of the nonprofit organization and an agency field executive for State Farm. “With the economic challenges facing nonprofits,

Posted inDavid Pendered

AHA board hastens Renee Glover’s exit; elects Mayor Reed’s appointee as chair

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

This story has been updated.

Renee Glover will be gone from the Atlanta Housing Authority as fast as the lawyers can reach a deal, following a vote Wednesday by the AHA board of commissioners.

The AHA board elected Dan Halpern as chairman. Halpern, appointed to the board by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, has been a persistent critic of Glover’s management of the city’s housing authority.

The board adopted new procedures that require the board to vote on all firings; new contracts valued at $10,000 or more; and contract extensions of $10,000 or more.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Atlanta’s East Lake success exported to Indianapolis

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Friday, October 14, 2011

Purpose Built Communities, a nonprofit group founded four years ago by Atlanta businessman Tom Cousins and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and now led by former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, held its second annual Network Member Conference in Indianapolis in September where supporters could see firsthand one of its neighborhoods under construction.

Atlanta Business Chronicle contributing writer Maria Saporta was there. Here is her second of two stories reporting on the group’s work.

Back in the 1960s, the Avondale Meadows community in Indianapolis was one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city — a place where young professionals could raise their families on tree-lined streets.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Gov. Deal’s Transit Task Force shows it intends to create a regional governance entity

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

Gov. Deal’s task force to reform transit governance seems to be serious about getting something done.

The panel met in public for the first time Tuesday. One bi-partisan message that emerged clearly is that the committee intends to comply with Deal’s order that legislation establishing an entity to oversee regional transit in metro Atlanta be presented to the state Legislation in January.

Another clear message also emerged, this one delivered to transit operators – tell us what you want now; don’t wait until after we’ve written a bill and then tell us how to tweak it to suit.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Atlanta’s CFO out; COO Peter Aman says he can’t comment on city personnel matters

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

Atlanta’s chief finance officer is out, just 16 months after Mayor Kasim Reed nominated her with glowing remarks.

The departure of CFO Joya C. De Foor was announced to members of the Atlanta City Council in an email Monday evening. The email was signed by Reed’s chief of staff, Candace Byrd.

Peter Aman, Atlanta’s COO, said late Tuesday that he could not speak on the situation because it is a personnel matter.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Airport concessions: Proposals due soon after two firms botched paperwork

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

Atlanta’s clarification: See below

Botched paperwork by two corporations fueled the decision by Atlanta to rebid the entire concessions package at the airport, said to be the largest airport concessions procurement in North American history.

The new bids are due next week – on Oct. 25 and Oct. 26. Atlanta cancelled its airport procurement program Sept. 2 and required every company to submit new bids, regardless of whether their proposals were flawed.

One of the two companies is trying to break into Atlanta’s airport: Delaware North, one of the nation’s larger vendors. The other company is Great Atlanta Concessions, a new joint venture involving one of the country’s biggest Hispanic franchisees, and a company controlled by an Atlanta businessman with diverse interests including service on a board with former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.

Posted inLatest News

Woodruff Park protest should point to the elite businessman who gave back to community

by Michelle Hiskey

By Michelle Hiskey

The “Occupy Atlanta” protesters have set up in a downtown green space they call “Troy Davis Park.” For them, the recently executed Georgia man symbolizes how the strong oppress the weak.

But for a more creative, stronger message, they should play up their site’s name. Woodruff Park was named for a rich, powerful Georgia man who used his wealth to empower the weak – and the rich and powerful today could use a role model like Robert Winship Woodruff.

Robert Winship Woodruff’s name is on our main arts center, all over Emory University (including the main library and the Health Sciences Center) and his money seeded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Posted inLatest News

Atlantan Doug Hooker top choice to head the Atlanta Regional Commission

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The Atlanta Regional Commission’s search committee has selected long-time Atlantan Doug Hooker to be the new executive director of the regional planning agency.

The ARC board will vote on Hooker’s nomination in the next couple of weeks, possibly at a rescheduled board meeting to permit a 14-day advance notice.

Hooker currently is employed as vice president and director of Southern States for Atkins engineering and services firm that was formerly-known as PBS&J.

The search committee, chaired by Cherokee County Chair Buzz Ahrens, conducted a national search before unanimously picking Hooker as its lead candidate.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Retired band director guided regional roundtable to finale

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

No one thought they could do it.

Reaching concensus on a plan to build roads and transit across 10 counties in metro Atlanta was just too tough a task.

In the end, a retired Georgia Tech band director got 21 elected officials to play the same song. The region now has a 10-year plan to spend $6.14 billion to improve mobility. Voters next year will decide its fate.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Women pass major milestone – now on 56 percent of Ga.’s public company boards

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Friday, Oct. 14, 2011

A majority of Georgia’s public companies now have at least one woman on their boards, the first time that the percentage has topped 49 percent.

The latest study by the Board of Directors Network, which will be officially released at the organization’s annual meeting on Oct. 20, shows that 56 percent of Georgia’s 136 public companies now have a least one woman director.

Last year, 49 percent of Georgia’s public companies had one or more women on boards (at the time Georgia had 150 public companies), the highest percentage that had ever been reached in the 19 years that BDN has been keeping track. In 1993, the first year that BDN did a study, only 27 percent of Georgia’s public companies had women directors.

Posted inGuest Column

Sandy Springs/Perimeter area fosters international business

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist DEBBIE GOLDMAN, past chair of the Sandy Springs/Perimeter Chamber of Commerce and chair of Global Gateway

As metro Atlanta makes strides towards becoming a major international city, one of the leading centers of that movement is Sandy Springs.

In 2010, the City of Sandy Springs had a record year of international business activity, with companies like TransGaming making its North American headquarters there and AJC International expanding its headquarter operations.

Posted inMaria's Metro

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and AHA’s Renee Glover never built a workable partnership

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

The relationship between Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Atlanta Housing Authority CEO Renee Glover may have been doomed from the start.

The two never did get an opportunity to forge a working partnership — unlike Glover’s relationship with her predecessors. The estranged situation further unraveled earlier this month when the authority announced that Glover and the AHA board were negotiating her departure.

Questions now revolve on how and why the relationship between Glover and the mayor got so off track and what impact it might have on the housing of the poor in the City of Atlanta.

Posted inLatest News

Former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros lavishes praise on AHA’s Renee Glover

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

In 1994, the Atlanta Housing Authority was one of the worst in the country.

“It was basically managing substandard housing units in a substandard way,” recalled Henry Cisneros, who was secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development at the time. “It was one of those authorities that HUD was considering taking over under my watch.”

That’s when Renee Lewis Glover, who had been serving on the AHA board, agreed to quit her job as a corporate attorney to become CEO of the troubled authority.

“Renee brought excellence,” said Cisneros, who was in Atlanta on Oct. 7 to participate in a national conference. “She did what I would assert is the best job running a housing authority in the country.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Occupy Atlanta remains planted Downtown in Woodruff Park

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

Occupy Atlanta showed no evidence of shutting down Sunday afternoon.

The group has until the adjournment of the Atlanta City Council meeting on Monday, according to an executive order Mayor Kasim said in an Oct. 12 statement that he signed. A copy of the executive order was not evident on the city’s website.

Here are photos and videos of some sights and sounds of the Occupy Atlanta event.

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

Actors in ‘Ides of March’ outshine the movie’s script

Avatar photo by Eleanor Ringel Cater

By Eleanor Ringel Cater

“The Ides of March” doesn’t deserve burying.

But it doesn’t exactly deserve praise, either (thank you, Marc Anthony).

The title is somewhat misleading. Anyone who knows the “Julius Caesar” reference, “Beware the Ides of March,” will be expecting something dire done to the movie’ main politico — a Pennsylvania governor named Mike Morris (George Clooney) who’s in a tight race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The battleground: a make-or-break Ohio primary.

Then again, anyone who really knows Shakespeare’s play also knows that Caesar is more of a supporting character. The focus is on his underlings — here embodied by various campaign managers, strategists and media advisors.

Posted inLatest News

Arthur Blank accepts Georgia Conservancy award on behalf of his family and foundation

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

All eyes were on Arthur Blank at the Georgia Conservancy’s annual “ecoBenefête” dinner Thursday, Oct. 13 at Puritan Mills.

Blank, the co-founder of the Home Depot and the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, was accepting the “Distinguished Conservationist” award on behalf of his family and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.

The Georgia Conservancy had made the decision to honor both Arthur Blank and his wife, Stephanie, before the couple announced that they were separating after 16 years of marriage.

A video tribute to the Blanks highlighted all the contributions that the couple and the family foundation had made to the environment.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Transportation roundtable celebrates final vote on $6.14 billion plan: 51.5 % for transit

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

Thursday was a day for celebration.

The elected officials who served on the Atlanta Regional Transportation Roundtable savored the moment after casting their final vote to create a $6.14 billion program to improve the region’s roadways and transit. Thursday was not the day to dwell on the task of convincing voters to agree to pay for the plan through a 1 percent sales tax.

“We’re not going to get bogged down in any of those issues,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in response to a reporter’s three-pronged question: Whether to move the sales tax vote from July to November; the duration of the tax; and who will govern the region’s transit.

Here, in their own words, is a snapshot of Thursday’s celebration.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Column: Atlanta Equity investment group buys physician services firm

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Friday, October 7, 2011

Atlanta Equity Investors has just sold one of its five portfolio companies, but it has turned right around and invested in a health-care services company based in Lexington, Ky.

“The summer usually sucks in the private equity business, and we are bucking that trend,” said Gerry Benjamin, who is an Atlanta Equity partner along with former Georgia-Pacific CEO Pete Correll and David Crosland, formerly with Arcapita.

On Oct. 3, Atlanta Equity sold its interest in Richmond Cold Storage, which it had bought in April 2009 for $15 million, to Southeast Cold Holdings, a unit of Bay Grove Capital.

Posted inLatest News

Regional consensus reached on transportation projects; now focus turns to state

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Two sentiments dominated Tuesday’s Atlanta Regional Transportation Roundtable meeting.

First, there was a feeling of relief and exhilaration that the diverse interests in the region were able to find consensus.

And the second feeling was that now it was up to the state to become a full partner in the development and funding of transit in the Atlanta region.

“It feels good,” said Tim Lee, chairman of the Cobb Commission after the roundtable was able to agree on a strategy for the remaining four amendments to the draft list of transportation projects.

Posted inDavid Pendered

State chamber affiliate hires transportation advocate

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce has hired a seasoned transportation advocate to serve as executive director of a chamber affiliate that will focus on long-term transportation strategy – including passage of the transportation sales tax.

Doug Callaway will lead the Georgia Transportation Alliance. The state chamber formed GTA in April to promote a new effort to improve the mobility of freight and people through Georgia.

Callaway now serves as president of Floridians for Better Transportation. He joined FBT in 2003, following his work with Carter & Burgess, a national engineering consulting and management firm.

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