By Chris Schroder
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Sally Bethea began her work with environmental conservancy groups in the 1970s, but it wasn’t until hearing Robert Kennedy Jr. make a stirring speech that she had a Moment that ignited her deep enthusiasm to focus her efforts on Atlanta’s waterway.
“I was looking for something that would get me involved in giving back and doing environmental advocacy in a more place-based and specific results sort of way,” Sally said.
The City of Atlanta has now become the center of gravity for a new deal on a proposed stadium for the Atlanta Falcons.
The city government was put in that position because state elected officials chose to bypass voting to raise the bonding capacity of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) because they were concerned about a possible political backlash.
Consider this statement Gov. Nathan Deal shared with me on Jan. 25: “I have tried my best to relieve the members of the General Assembly from difficult decisions that they have to make that have political consequences.”
Technology is disrupting nearly every aspect of the transportation industry — whether its state-of-the-art robotics revamping the automobile assembly line to a computerized conductor system navigating the railroad tracks or a mobile application providing real-time train and bus locations.
Nearly 250 technologists, planning students, professional experts and other transportation enthusiasts gathered at Georgia Tech for TransportationCamp South, an “unconference” organized by New York City-based Open Plans — a transportation technology and planning startup. Previous launch cities include San Francisco, New York City, Montreal and Washington, DC.
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition knows how to throw a party.
On Friday night, the bicycle advocacy group held its annual “Blinkie Awards” program at the Ponce City Market event space on North Avenue where it honored people, organizations and businesses from all over the community for being bicycle-friendly.
The highlight of the night came when Rebecca Serna, ABC’s executive director, gave the first award to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed for his efforts to improve cycling on Atlanta’s streets. Just a few days ago, the city approved $2.47 million for “high-quality Complete Streets-style bike projects” in 2013.
The latest act in the civic theater that is Fulton County began Thursday in a crowded room on the fourth floor of Georgia’s Capitol.
Republican lawmakers sat quietly while an hour’s worth of speakers protested Republican proposals to change what has been the natural order of the county – at least, it was the natural order before Republicans took effective control of the county’s legislative delegation this year.
The chorus in this case could do little to relieve tension, but the 75 who gathered certainly helped establish the mood. There were few smiles among the crowd of lawyers and lobbyists, community advocates and union reps, preachers and seniors – many of whom are familiar faces at meetings of the county commission and Atlanta City Council.
The city of Atlanta has at least four entities that could sell bonds to help finance construction of a new Atlanta Falcon’s stadium. The Atlanta Downtown Development Authority stands out as a likely candidate.
The DDA is beholden only to Atlanta City Hall – Mayor Kasim Reed chairs the DDA’s board, and he supports the new stadium; City Hall appoints or confirms the board members. State law sets no limit on the amount of bonds any DDA can issue.
The next Atlanta DDA board meeting is set for Feb. 21, if the board keeps to its routine schedule. Should the DDA be the chosen vehicle, this date would allow Atlanta to keep its proposed end of the project moving apace – which is in keeping with Gov. Nathan Deal’s approach to this year’s legislative session.
It seems to be a matter of widespread agreement that the best thing about this year’s legislative session is the pace at which it’s clicking along. The General Assembly is on track to adjourn on the earliest date in years, which gives citizen legislators more time to make a living and unnecessary, often bad bills less time to sprout and grow.
So how has this beneficial improvement come to pass? It’s hard not to credit it at least in part to one of the most widely deplored deals in years: the arrangement by which former Senate majority leader Chip Rogers left the legislature to take a job with Georgia Public Broadcasting at a salary of $150,000 — more than the yearly salary of the governors of 40 states, including Georgia. A pretty penny, but it was deemed to be the price of removing the logjam in the state Senate, paving the way for the speedy passage of the hospital bed tax and a short session.
By Chris Schroder
In 1979, Ken Thrasher was enjoying a successful career at what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers in Atlanta when he and his wife heard a Sunday sermon that prompted him to re-evaluate his life and to start his own business. Today, Bennett Thrasher is the ninth largest accounting firm in the city and its origins can be traced back to Ken’s Moment in the pews at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Snellville.
Ken and Cathy – then his wife of three years who was succeeding in her own career as a sales representative – were not unlike other couples: Busy climbing the corporate ladder without much perspective on their long-term paths.
As the couple listened to Pastor Fred Moore describe the importance of setting priorities in life, recounting how people often get so caught up in their careers that they neglect more important things such as family, Ken began to recall a Friday night during his high school years.
By Chris Schroder
Three weeks ago, Herb Nelson sat in the bleachers as he watched his 12-year-old son playing on his all-star basketball team when he had a Moment that changed everything – his son signaled to his coach that he needed to be taken out of the game. A minute later, his son slumped to the floor and didn’t get up.
“He took a shot, kind of looked like he was tired, and asked to come out of the ball game,” Herb said. “About a minute later, he collapsed on the sideline.”
Herb and other family members rushed over to Jeremy Nelson and worry struck, as it would strike any parent. They watched as a doctor – also in the stands that night – check Jeremy’s vital signs.
I seem to remember Moments. I can’t tell you the name of the movie I saw last week, but my friends look to me to remind them of scenes from our childhood and high school years. I also remember the day I came up with the idea for this Moments column that we’ve been publishing since last January.
It was on September 7, 2011 – just a few weeks after Maria Saporta asked me to join in the fun and contribute a weekly column to this increasingly popular journey in journalism that we call SaportaReport – that the idea first struck me. I was sitting quietly at a table at On the Border restaurant in Buckhead as my Friday Morning Men’s Fellowship group. My weekly table-mates were discussing the Bible passage in which Saul was struck by lightning – and blinded – while on the road to Damascus.
The front third of the Crum & Forster building in Midtown will be saved, and the rest of the building razed, according to a consent order signed Tuesday by Fulton Superior Court Judge John Goger.
These terms were reached Tuesday in an amended consent order negotiated by lawyers for the Georgia Tech Foundation and two defendants – the city of Atlanta and its Board of Zoning Appeals. The ruling appears to end a preservation battle that has raged since GTF filed a request for a demolition permit in April 2008.
Goger denied a motion to allow five interveners in the case, a ruling that affirmed a comment from a lawyer for the city who said all concerns of the proposed interveners were resolved by the consent agreement.
I have been struck by polls showing the declining faith of Americans in capitalism. I studied Economics in college and graduate school, and have always believed that the capitalist engine will always prevail in the long run. The US economy’s recent performance has made our citizens less optimistic about economic growth and job creation. Even […]
For two metro Atlanta natives, Jessyca Holland and Joe Winter, their employer’s downsizing forced them to the drawing board. Just hours after getting the boot, the two met for coffee and drafted a business plan for an arts services organization that we now know as c4 Atlanta.
The organization is one of nearly 2,000 cultural non-profits in metro Atlanta that generate more than $502 million in revenue, according to a recent Atlanta Regional Commission analysis. The Great Recession shook the foundation of many arts-related organizations with inevitable downsizing of programming and staff, and for some, shutting the doors.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, December 21, 2012
As this year comes to a close, several key Atlanta civic leaders will be retiring from positions that have permitted them to make an imprint on our community.
Although they might be retiring, it is expected that they will continue to contribute in their post-retirement.
One of the most enthusiastic civic players — Ann Cramer — is retiring as IBM’s director for corporate citizenship and corporate affairs for the Americas. Cramer has been involved in almost every major community initiative that has been underway in metro Atlanta and Georgia for decades — from education, economic development, the arts, social services and public policy.
So much of the South is misunderstood by outsiders, and a trustworthy guide like Susan Puckett helps the rest of us understand where we live. Her new book, “Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler’s Journey through the Soul of the South” (University of Georgia Press), takes readers on a trip into the complicated culture and food of a strip of Mississippi often maligned for its poverty, obesity and backwardness.
Her ground-level stories of the people and crops, their traditions and dishes, bring to life the coexistence of different races and classes in one of America’s most fertile areas. The Delta is synonymous with blues, and Puckett, a Decatur author of six previous books who served as food editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 18 years, explored the connection between the hard stories and soulful food.
By Maria Saporta
An amazing array of leaders and followers paid homage to Jesse Hill Jr. Friday at his memorial service at Big Bethel AME Church on Auburn Avenue.
Hill, 86, passed away on Monday, Dec. 17 after a long illness.
But Friday’s memorial service demonstrated that Hill’s contributions to Atlanta, Georgia and the nation will continue to live on.
By Maria Saporta
Updated with memorial service information (see below)
One of Atlanta’s most influential business leaders — Jesse Hill Jr. — passed away Monday morning.
Hill, 86. was the retired CEO of the Atlanta Life Insurance Co. for decades. During his leadership, Atlanta Life became the largest black-owned life insurance company in the nation.
Hill also was one of a handful African-American businessmen who helped set the non-confrontational tone of race relations in the Atlanta business community.
By Chris Schroder
Retired CEO and Chairman of financial firm Montag & Caldwell, Solon Patterson’s Moment led him and his wife to dedicate the rest of their lives to trying to reunite two Christian religions that split nearly 1,000 years ago.
Solon and his wife, Marianna, married in 1960 – he was Greek Orthodox and she was Roman Catholic. That difference would present challenges to their new life together, although on their wedding day, they didn’t realize how many challenges there would be.
As Solon told us, the vision of the two churches coming together will probably not happen in his lifetime. But his Moment when he and Marianna met the Catholic Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople, he knew it was something that would ultimately happen and that he had to commit his life to doing whatever he could to ensure others saw this reality as well.
Of all the instruments, one of the biggest and heaviest, most expensive and most exotic is the harp. A performer must play each foot and hand separately, using everything but pinkies to create the ethereal notes.
That is the muscle behind the dreamy soundtrack of the Atlanta Urban Youth Harp Ensemble. Most of these young musicians have overcome major disadvantages to master the instrument’s complexity, earn gigs at local weddings and events, qualify for college scholarships and position themselves for professional music careers.
By Chris Schroder
Real Estate Developer and Founder of Ackerman Security Systems, Charles Ackerman, had his Moment on a trip to a remote mountain range when he happened upon a third-world village.
While preparing to take a flight from London, Charlie came across a book on the Zanskar Range in India and became intrigued. In recorded history, only 100 people had been to the mysterious mountains. Upon asking others about the mountains, he found that it was even more elusive than he originally thought.
“We’ve asked people, ‘have you ever heard of Zanskar?’” Charlie said in our accompanying Moments video. “And they would say, ‘No, there isn’t such place.’ ”
