Savannah was once described by a travel writer as “the intersection of gentility and avant garde, with back alleys of the just plain weird.” Of course, that was written after Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the bestselling…
There was a time 50 years ago when today’s 24-school Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) was only a smattering of vocational schools and courses were just about limited to auto repair for the boys and cosmetology in a hair…
Each day, Paul Van Wicklen shows up for work in an underground vault at the Richard B. Russell Library on the campus of the University of Georgia (UGA), where he stands guard over a cavernous collection of items so rare…
After a bouncing ride over the choppy seas of the recession and into a welcoming calm, economic developers in Macon-Bibb County can look back over the recent past to enjoy what 2013 brought them, and then peek ahead to a…
As 2013 was winding down, Atlanta was emerging from the Great Recession, bringing with it the city’s long-slumbering commercial real estate sector. At the end of 2013’s second quarter, Atlanta’s nearly 144 million square feet of office space was showing…
Nobody in Cordele seems to be in much of a hurry, unless it’s the tourists who zip by on I-75 on their way to Disney World or the sandy beaches of Florida. That’s probably a good thing because some of…
Major General Bob McMahon (U.S.A.F. ret.) is a 34-year Air Force veteran and the former commander of Robins Air Force Base, a powerful engine that drives the economy of Middle Georgia. On this day he is briefing a visitor to…
If there were a Georgia Commuter Hall of Fame, Bill Daniel would surely be a candidate for induction, for longevity if nothing else. “I’m a lifetime Atlanta resident,” says Daniel, speaking on his cell phone while driving on a business…
Camden County is where Georgia ends and Florida begins. It forms the intersection of the two states and the Atlantic Ocean. There is a popular notion that St. Marys is a quirky little village filled with eccentrics dressed in Hawaiian…
From Rabun County in the mountains to Cairo at the Florida line, Georgia has be-come the Land of OZ, the acronym for Opportunity Zone, the hottest thing going in economic development right now. There’s every indication the movement to OZ…
Meet the winners of this year’s competition, selected by Kennesaw State University’s Cox Family Enterprise Center.
Jackie Bryce is an Americus businesswoman who, with husband and partner George, traveled the world for 33 years sharing a love for speed, the kind produced by a motorcycle from their Star Racing company, the family business. She didn’t know…
There is a statue of a chicken mounted on a 30-foottall column in downtown Gainesville. It is a symbolic figure, designed to remind everyone that poultry towers over mere mortals in its importance to the local and state economies.…
Ron Tolley and his staff are not the swaggering kind, but they did seem to have extra bounce in their steps as summer was winding down. “We’ve had good growth in our industrial sector and in our distribution centers,”…
The waves of bank closures that washed over the state during the recession – many tied to toxic real estate loans – gave rise to predictions that recovery could be long and slow. But Georgia’s banking industry has proved…
Last March the Georgia General Assembly recognized Cobb County’s Cumberland Community Improvement Dis-trict (CID) on the occasion of its 25th year as a self-assessed taxing district, a political subdivision allowed under a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1984.…
A spreading euphoria can be found in just about every corner of Augusta and Richmond County, where government and economic development leaders not only came through the recent economic downturn without a scratch, but scored impressive growth in a…
It is a late spring afternoon, and the clucking chickens at Monte Stephens’ booth are getting restless and seem to yearn for their roosts. Stephens clearly has the noisiest of the 70-plus exhibits and booths in and around the…
When the 13th Heart & Soul of Georgia Tour embarked from Atlanta last spring, the 40 or so bus passengers were headed out on a three-day trip with nine scheduled stops in cities that had a number of common…
Black Sigatoka is a disease that strikes banana trees in Asia, Central America and South America, often destroying entire crops, a situation that resonates with one South Georgia manufacturer. In Atlanta, a small group of information technology experts investigates…
A rising tide of optimism has turned into a tsunami along the shores of Glynn County, where construction activity remains constant, retail sales are growing and tourism is flourishing. Brunswick’s island suburbia is sprouting hotel rooms like tropical flowers,…
Whence the Vidalia onion? That’s the question, and there seems to be a consensus that the famed local onion was not an indigenous vegetable, but one brought to Toombs County, where a combination of favorable climate and soil turned…
As 2013 was beginning, financial institutions were cautiously celebrating what seemed to be signs of recovery from a bruising five-year recession. Georgia’s credit union executives were publishing numbers they believe to be the clearest signs of sound financial footing…
There was a time when rising enrollments at Georgia’s tech-nical colleges were as predictable as azaleas in the spring, climbing annually by double digits. But the onset of a fading economy in 2007 led to across-the-board budget cuts and…
Back in April 2008, Savannah’s Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation began taking orders for its new – and highly touted – G650 jet, a 16-passenger marvel of modern engineering that had buyers elbowing each other out of the way in the…
On Tybee Island, an offshore suburb of Sav-annah, tourism entrepreneur Diane Kaufman manages 50 rental properties, historic cottages and houses built between the early 1900s and the 1950s. When she finished counting the 2012 receipts from her company, Mermaid…
Normally a soft-spoken man, Bill Forbes finds himself having to raise his voice a few decibels to be heard over the sounds of construction coming at him from all sides as he stands at the entrance to Valdosta’s South…
Providing good services while being re-sponsible stewards of the public’s money is always challenging, especially in a tough economy. The eighth annual Georgia Counties of Excellence awards program, sponsored by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) in partnership…
Truett Cathy presides over a $5-billion-a-year corporation built on the simplest of concepts, a boneless chicken breast sandwich covered in a seasoned coating and served on a hamburger bun. “People say there is nothing so great about putting out…
Bryan County leaders stop short of claiming their economy was recession- or depression-proof, but there is a widespread feeling here that the region fared much better than other parts of the state, thanks to two giant neighboring economic engines, the…
In 1975, the Georgia General As-sembly was under the control of largely rural and almost completely Democratic lawmakers, many of whom proudly labeled their chambers “The Home of Home Rule.” It was in such an atmosphere that enabling legislation was…
The story of one Coffee County company’s resurrection, saving jobs once thought gone forever, is a study in unyielding faith and a Job-like patience by an entire community, with those who lived through it still recalling the time as…
In many ways, Travis Joyce, Kelcy Newton and Carter Smith are typical high school seniors, yet the three seem more self-assured, armed with a clearly mature vocabulary and without any uncertainty about what’s next for them. They are veterans…
This year marks the 20th anniversary of a disastrous fire that leveled the D.L. Lee & Sons meat packing plant in Alma. The 1992 blaze, believed to have been caused by a lightning strike during a midnight storm, stopped…
In 1980, Robert Balentine, then a 23-year-old fresh-faced wealth manager, was sitting in the Atlanta Merrill Lynch office when a prospective client walked in with a suitcase full of bearer bonds, the equivalent of cash at the time, and…
Economic development wins come in all sizes.
Winners of this year’s competition, sponsored by Kennesaw State University’s Cox Family Enterprise Center.
It is late morning at the King’s Hawaiian football field-size bakery in the Hall County community of Oakwood, and the aroma of baking bread has tastebuds blooming and tummies rumbling. The minute-by-minute march to the lunch hour seems agonizingly…
Georgia’s Lake Country began taking shape in 1953 when the waters of the Oconee River were dammed to create the 15,000-acre Lake Sinclair. The local citizens who turned out on weekends to watch the water rise were anticipating a…
In several ways, B.J. Mathis is a pioneer of the modern age, arriving in Henry County with her husband in the early 1980s when the county’s population was just 36,309 and at a time when few women had broken…
It is mid-morning at the Great Dane trailers plant in Statesboro’s Gateway Regional Industrial Park. A workman is monitoring a programmable plasma cutter as it slices through steel. Nearby, aluminum sheets are being bent as another refrigerated semi-truck trailer takes…
When the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) launched its nonprofit organization, the Georgia Cities Foundation, back in 1999, the idea was to furnish a means of improving the state’s downtowns by offering financial assistance from a revolving loan program. In…
From his days as a missionary in Brazil to his time as an Atlanta minister, the late Wayne Smith held the notion that peace and harmony in the world could be achieved through the creation of one-at-a-time friendships. After…
It was a tree most notable for its misshapen form, a pecan tree and member of the hickory family, an ugly tree that, had it sunk its roots anywhere else, might not have lived so long. Some trees have…
Georgia’s credit unions managed to glide easily through what became difficult times for other financial institutions. Continuous expansions, membership growth and rising assets stand as testaments to conservative lending practices and a family atmosphere among the state’s credit unions.…
When Mark Grimaldi announced in December that his Albany-based Equinox Chemicals had acquired a 104-year-old Missouri company, Adco Cleaning Products, and was bringing it home, the move marked what seems to be just another step in a continuing growth…
The lunch hour has ended at the Smooth Café in the historic district of downtown Savannah. Café owner Katie Koller and her manager, Gregory Cooper, are alternately visiting with a rep from the company that roasts their coffee and…
Georgia’s Technical College System is one of only a few government entities that has the tools to generate revenues and the freedom to independently explore novel ways to cut costs, both important features in the down economy of the…
Back in 2007, word swept through Dublin that a stranger was in town, and there were suspicions that he meant business. His name was Josh Nichols, and folks learned he was bent on taking downtown buildings apart and putting…
For the seventh year, the Association County Commissioners of Georgia and Georgia Trend recognize counties with winning projects: Augusta-Richmond, Camden, Cherokee, Habersham, Gwinnett and Clayton.
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