By Guest Columnist DOUGLAS B. AMMAR, executive director of the Georgia Justice Project
I believe that the business community should support House Bill 402. This bill will help thousands of men and women in Georgia who are struggling to find work and support their families.
With the unemployment numbers released last week we know just how challenging it is
By Maria Saporta
Friday, March 11, 2011
It was Jan. 3, 2007. Frank Blake, a relatively unknown executive at The Home Depot Inc., had just been named CEO following the sudden departure of the controversial Bob Nardelli.
Blake’s appointment caught many by surprise. Although he had been promoted to Home Depot’s vice chairman several months before, Blake had little retail experience and had never run a major public company.
Even Blake was caught off guard. When board members told him he had the job
By Maria Saporta
Friday, March 4, 2011
The National Center for Civil & Human Rights is closer to being realized.
On March 7, the center will hold three different events where it will provide an update to community stakeholders about the project’s funding, programming and the current status.
Most significantly, center officials are expected to announce they plan to break ground on the center this fall, which means that the new attraction would open in 2013.
Center leaders have said they would not break ground until they had raised at least 80 percent of the project’s construction costs. As of October, the center had raised $71 million out of the $85 million needed. It had just received a $1 million gift from Delta Air Lines Inc.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, March 4, 2011
Two of Atlanta’s most veteran technology investors, John Imlay and Sig Mosley, are passing the torch.
Melanie Bialko Leeth, who has been working with Imlay and Mosley for nearly 20 years, will be taking on greater responsibility in managing both Imlay Investments and the endowment of the Imlay Foundation.
Imlay will turn 75 in August, and Mosley will turn 65 in September. A year ago, the duo announced they would stop investing in new technology startups. But the investors are as busy as ever. Imlay Investments still has a portfolio of 37 companies, which it continues to nurture.
In a March 1 interview, Imlay described Leeth as “the heir apparent” to overseeing the investments for Imlay’s business and foundation interests.
By Eleanor Ringel Cater
I went all the way with Justin Bieber.
I not only attended the 3-D Director’s Cut (40 minutes longer) of “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” but I stayed through the whole thing.
I mean, to the very end. I even saw the sing-along rip-off borrowed from The Beatles’ “The Yellow Submarine.”
As any nine-year-old girl can tell you, the kid’s talented. He’s cute. What I didn’t
By Maria Saporta
The crème de la crème came out in force Thursday evening to wish Truett Cathy a happy birthday.
The Chick-fil-A motifs and mascots filled the Woodruff Arts Center as dignitaries and friends came to wish the King of the Chicken Sandwich their best wishes.
“It is certainly a great tribute to Mr. Cathy,” said Gov. Nathan Deal, while attending one of the receptions in the High Museum. “He is a great institution for our state, and it’s an honor to be here.”
During the reception, Coca-Cola executive Sandy Douglas announced a $90,000 check to Cathy’s foundation. Part of the goal for the event was to raise funds for the Truett Cathy Youth & Community Center in West End, about a mile away from when Cathy grew
By Maria Saporta
Monday, March 7, 2011
The National Center for Civil & Human Rights on Monday got a $1 million boost from The Arthur Blank Family Foundation and unveiled revised plans for a more affordable and efficient building.
The center now has raised $73 million to date. It still needs $12 million before breaking ground, which is set for October.
Center leaders have said they would not break ground until they had raised at least 80 percent of the project’s construction costs. Opening is planned for 2013.
By Maria Saporta
It soon will be a complete sweep — all of Georgia’s Fortune 500 companies will have at least one woman on their board of directors.
Martin Richenhagen, CEO of the Duluth-based agricultural company — AGCO, told the Kiwanis Club of Atlanta today that he intends to invite a woman to join his board.
The woman is Mallika Srinivasan, CEO of Chennai, India-based TAFE Ltd.
AGCO has owned a 23 percent stake in TAFE (Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd.) in India for several years. Srinivasan is the eldest daughter of industrialist — A. Sivasailam, who passed away in January.
It constantly amazes me that in the United States a 20-year-old dome or a 30-year-old stadium can be viewed as old and out of date. Our practice of tearing down relatively modern structures is the ultimate example of our throw-away society.
We tore down the original Omni Coliseum when it was only 20 years old. We tore down the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium — an open-air, multi-use facility — when it was 30 years old.
(Several local leaders — including my father — Ike Saporta, architect Cecil Alexander and consultant David Peterson — led an unsuccessful Save the Stadium movement. If we had kept the old stadium, we would have had a place to house multiple events including major league soccer).
By Guest Columnist BRIAN GIST, a senior attorney and transportation specialist for the Southern Environmental Law Center
Atlanta’s transportation system is already bursting at the seams. And the bad news is that if something doesn’t change soon, those seams are going to break. The numbers speak for themselves:
• Increase in metro Atlanta’s population
By Maria Saporta
Sometimes it seems as though Georgia is its own worst enemy.
State and regional leaders have proclaimed that Georgia’s top economic development priority is the deepening of the Port of Savannah. They say it is essential to the state’s future to deepen the port and the 33-miles of the river that connects the port with Atlantic Ocean.
Georgia leaders — including Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed — have been lobbying the federal government and the Obama administration for $105 million to help pay for the deepening of the port.
But last month, Georgia got word that the federal government was only allocating $600,000 in pre-construction and planning
By Maria Saporta
Friday, February 25, 2011
With several metro Atlanta public school systems seeking new superintendents, community leaders sought answers from national education experts during a panel discussion hosted by The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation on Feb. 21.
Several questions were asked. Should a board be elected or appointed? Should a superintendent be an education professional or a nontraditional executive? Should a local school system be under the mayor’s control, should it be under the governor’s control or should it be independent?
By Maria Saporta
Friday, February 25, 2011
Waste Management Inc. is increasing its presence in metro Atlanta.
After considering several locations in the Carolinas and Georgia, the Houston-based company (NYSE: WM) selected Cobb County’s One Parkway Center to house its South Atlantic Area’s newly consolidated area office and call center.
The 20,000-square-foot facility is being called the Grand Central Station for Waste Management’s customer service and operations business in the three-state South Atlantic area.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, February 18, 2011
A public-private partnership wants metro companies to put Atlantans back to work.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced the new metrowide initiative — Hire One Atlanta — aimed at challenging employers to hire at least one new employee this year.
In return, Atlanta Business Chronicle will spotlight all companies that have hired a new employee in a special ad that will run every week in its publication throughout the year.
“Hire One Atlanta is a campaign
By Guest Columnist HATTIE B. DORSEY, president of HBDorsey & Associates and former president of Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP).
As we watch the toppling of leaders through civil unrest and violence in the Middle East, our thoughts must turn to what is happening at home.
For the first time since the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war demonstrations, our country is witnessing
It all comes down to this.
A regional transportation sales tax in metro Atlanta will not pass unless MARTA and transit are treated fairly.
And there’s no way MARTA and transit will be treated fairly unless House Bill 277 fixed of its anti-MARTA flaws or unless a regional transit governance bill is passed in this legislative session.
Legislative leaders have said there’s no way they will reopen HB 277 this session.
So that really leaves only one option. Pass a regional transit governance bill during this legislative session.
Let me explain my reasoning.
By Maria Saporta
An implosion is festive in a twisted kind of way.
We gather to see a man-made structure that took months to build bite the dust in matter of seconds.
Sunday morning’s implosion of the Roosevelt House did not disappoint.
Hundreds of people gathered around a tent that had been set up in the back of Centennial Place Elementary School and the adjacent YMCA. People from all over the neighborhood also were well positioned to watch the moment of explosive impact.
Standing in the middle of a crowd was Dovie Newell, a former resident of the now-demolished Techwood Homes who had
By Eleanor Ringel Cater
The Oscars are upon us…
Again.
This year, the show, like everything else todayl, is desperate to skew young. Not an easy act for an event that’s been around 80 years.
I remember when the Oscars used to matter. Well, to me, that is. Sometime between the late ‘50s and late ‘60s. Then I went to college, the sixties happened and the only
By Maria Saporta
Advocates for the Georgia Research Alliance are working behind the scenes to make sure that the state’s new leaders understand the value of this unique public-private partnership.
But they also are beginning to realize that there’s a learning curve needed so that the state’s elected officials can fully recognize and appreciate the significance of their 20-year investment.
As GRA leaders see it, the alliance has brought Georgia’s business, civic, academic and government leaders together to work on a common goal of bringing cutting edge research and economic development to the state.
Two recent events, however, show that GRA
By Maria Saporta
Long time Atlanta observer Jeff Dickerson is taking a leave from the popular weekly television show — the Georgia Gang.
Dickerson, who has been on Fox Five’s Georgia Gang for more than two decades, taped his last show 10 days ago. The official word is that he’s taking a leave of absence. But it is an open question about when or if he’ll be back on the show.
Dickerson had been an editorial writer and journalist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution until 11 years ago when entered the public affairs world and founded his own crisis communications business.
He continued to dabble in journalism, writing columns in the Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Atlanta Tribune as well as providing
