Author: Karen Kennedy

Engaged Innovation

Valdosta State University President Dr. William McKinney cited Engaged Innovation as his inaugural theme when he was named president in 2012. It’s a theme that resonates to this day with a new strategic plan that includes engagement as one of…

Digging In

Back in February 2012, the unemployment rate was 7 percent in Clarke County and 5.9 percent in Oconee County. While both of these Northeast Georgia counties could boast of lower unemployment than the state as a whole, neither did much…

Not Your Ma’s Bell

Communications behemoth AT&T unshackled telephones from the wall years ago. Now the company is working to integrate connections of all kinds back into the home – and into our cars – at two state-of-the-art technology studios in Atlanta. The AT&T…

Face-To-Face Teaching

Just beyond the only traffic light in Demorest, a pedestrian bridge crosses above the street, with a sign letting you know you’re at Piedmont College. The college chapel rises to one side, its hilltop setting making it seem even taller…

Organizations: Butler Street YMCA

An Atlanta First: The Atlanta police force was one of the first city government departments to be integrated in the 1960s by then-Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr. Back then, however, integration didn’t mean black and white officers serving side by side,…

Wilkinson County: Looking Beyond Kaolin

The story of economic development in Wilkinson County may start with kaolin, the white mineral that comes out of the ground along the fall line and makes it way into everything from toothpaste to tires, but area leaders are determined…

Cherokee County: Promising Partnership

Around Georgia and around the world, economic concerns are growing almost by the hour. But in Cherokee County, despite state budget cuts, falling tax revenues, and the housing bust, people are surprisingly upbeat. Located north of Atlanta up Interstate 575,…

Douglas/Coffee County: Lessons From the Past

The Douglas-Coffee County Economic Development Authority celebrates 50 years since its charter this year. It’s one of only three such entities in Georgia that have been operating continuously since the 1950s. To mark the occasion, county business, civic and government…

Rockdale County: Dynamic Vision

In this Olympic year, many people in Georgia were waxing nostalgic about the 1996 Atlanta games. Folks in Rockdale County, however, don’t have to reminisce. A trip to the Georgia International Horse Park, built for the 1996 Olympics and still…

Gainesville/Hall County: A Changing Landscape

Redevelopment is spreading like kudzu from one end of Hall County, about an hour northeast of Atlanta, to the other. Small towns in south Hall are reinventing themselves. The midtown area of Gainesville, the county seat, is being reinvigorated with…

LaGrange/Troupe County: The Kia Effect

Just a few years ago Troup County, the westernmost county in Georgia along Interstate 85, could claim the title of former textile capital of Georgia, and not much else when it came to major-league economic development. Now, although there are…

Harris County: The Spillover Effect

The small-town way of life is touted and respected in Harris County, which lies just north of Columbus and adjacent to the Alabama line. Several cities, none with a population much more than 1,000, give the county a fragmented feel,…

Douglas County: Continued Success

Twenty minutes to downtown Atlanta, 15 minutes to the airport, second lowest property taxes in the metro area. The question isn’t why is Douglas County booming, the question is, why hasn’t it been booming for decades? No one seems to…

Carroll County: Seeking Balance

Carroll County President of Operations Daniel Jackson has a theory about why the area west of Atlanta hasn’t seen the explosive growth other parts of the metro area have. And while it has to do with the commute, it isn’t…

Griffin/Spalding County: Changing Times

To hear residents and county officials talk, the face of Spalding County will change dramatically in the time it takes to describe what’s coming. Sun City Peachtree, an active adult community, and a University of Georgia campus evolving from a…

Jasper/Pickens County: In The Path Of Growth

About an hour north of Atlanta, I-575 becomes Highway 515 and the mountains begin. Here lies Pickens County, an area that’s looking south as it plans for the growth racing up the interstate. County officials recognize the challenges they face…

Sandersville/Washington County

With the decline in the number of kaolin employees and in mineral output, county, city and business leaders have forged partnerships to further efforts to attract other industry to Sandersville and Washington County.

Adding To The Mix

If Lake Oconee is “the engine that has driven the whole economy” of the area, as Roddie Anne Blackwell, president of the Eatonton-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce says, then Reynolds Plantation is the key that cranks that engine.