2012 Family Business Awards
Winners of this year’s competition, sponsored by Kennesaw State University’s Cox Family Enterprise Center.
Author: Patty Rasmussen
Power Players: Finding Better Ways
Future Products Corporation’s Patti Gilmer brought her company’s manufacturing jobs back home from China.
Honoring Ethical Leadership
In 1998, Synovus Financial Services Corporation, the Columbus-based company where William “Bill” Turner served as Chairman of the Executive Committee, was named the “Best Place to Work in America” by Forbes. A reporter from the magazine interviewed him, wanting…
Georgia Gold
This month we introduce readers to three more Georgia businesses that have been around for 50 years or more: Stevens & Wilkinson, an architectural, engineering and interior design firm in downtown Atlanta; Hatcher, Stubbs, Land, Hollis, & Rothschild, LLP,…
Power Players: Advocate For Elders
Marietta attorney Hap Smith is fighting the system he believes hinders good care for the elderly, and he may just have found a direction for the next phase of his career.
Birds Of A Feather
A modest attempt to supplement the family’s farm income on the part of Tommy Newberry and his wife, Ann, in 1960 has grown to a multi-million dollar operation for Kay and Paschal Brooks, the couple’s daughter and son-in-law. Quail…
University With A Mission
By definition, a university seeks to expose inquisitive, enthusiastic students to ideas and experiences that lead them to discover how they can contribute to society and build communities. Mercer University, a private university founded in Macon in 1833 with…
Power Players: Reviving A Classic Resort
Sea Island President Scott Steilen is courting a new generation of visitors from the Southeast.
2012 Power Women
Dr. Jennifer Frum Vice President for Public Service and Outreach, University of Georgia West Virginia native Dr. Jennifer Frum was bitten by the international bug after traveling and living, briefly, in Europe as a teenager. Later, with degrees in…
Power Players: Banking On His Hometown
Polk County’s Larry Kuglar spent his career as a community banker and community advocate.
Reinventing Business Education
One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to programs offering a master’s degree in business administration. Schools have long been tailoring their courses to fit the particular needs of their students and the state’s business community. But the sustained…
Power Players: A Study In Servant Leadership
Dr. Stuart Rayfield is director of Columbus State University’s Servant Leadership Program.
Southeast: Turning Around
The ports get the headlines in the Southeast region of Georgia, but local economic development authorities are persistent in efforts to further growth in other ways. In doing so, they’re exploring more and more ideas outside the box. Keith…
Northeast: Making Strides
The entire Northeast Georgia region got a big boost with the announcement that Caterpillar Inc., which makes construction and mining equipment, will locate a new manufacturing facility on the old Orkin site in Clarke and Oconee counties. The one-million-square-foot…
Manufacturing Success In DeKalb
What do a small manufacturing plant in DeKalb County’s Scottdale, a major automobile manufacturer in Japan and a business philosophy that sounds more like a diet plan have in common? If Bob Fisher has anything to say about it,…
Georgia Gold
A law firm in Augusta, a dairy farm in Clermont and a medical center in Hinesville – each one in operation for more than a half century – inaugurate a new Georgia Trend feature, Georgia Gold, that will run…
Climate Of Leadership
Many people know that North Georgia College and State University, founded in 1873 and located in Dahlonega, is the second oldest public university in the state. A liberal arts college, North Georgia has also maintained a military instruction presence…
Power Players: Taking Over At Cobb EMC
Chip Nelson’s goal as CEO is to create a culture of transparency in operations and governance.
Power Players: A Passion For Golf and Good Works
Todd Rhinehart, executive director of the TOUR Championship at East Lake, says the whole season comes down to this one tournament, and he relishes its elevated status.
Destination: Kennesaw State
Anyone subscribing to the notion that Kennesaw State University is a place where students go to college when they can’t get in anywhere else needs to wake up and smell the fair trade coffee served at The Grind Coffee…
Plying The Pearl Trade
If necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps recession is the mother of re-invention. One thing that’s come out of the great recession and the glacially slow recovery is the need for businesses, large and small, to give their…
Power Players: Back In The Game
Longtime hospital executive Reynold Jennings was lured out of retirement to lead WellStar Health System.
Power Players: Building For The Long Term
Cousins Properties’ President and CEO Larry Gellerstedt III has helped the company to a renewed focus on leasing.
Power Players: Cultivating A Legacy
Deen Day Sanders says her roles as philanthropist, wife, mother and gardener are all connected. She feels strongly about being “a steward of what you have been given.”
Power Players: Overseeing Atlanta’s Animal House
Zoo Atlanta President and CEO Raymond King gets bonus points for his sly pop cultural reference, paraphrasing lyrics from Paul Simon’s At the Zoo, in answer to a question about whether his workplace is, in fact, a zoo. “It…
Power Players: Growing Georgia's Technology
Tino Mantella’s career has taken him from parks and “rec” to high tech. The Cortland, N.Y., native thought he’d coach or work in athletics when he graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with a degree in Urban Recreation. Instead,…
From Modest College to Thriving University
Thirty years ago, a key decision put Georgia Southern College, as it was then known, on a remarkable growth trajectory. Against vocal opposition from faculty and students, then-president Dale Lick managed to drum up support for reviving the institution’s football…
Power Players: Working On The Wild Side
Combine intellect, curiosity, a degree in finance, a love of painting and a passion for nature and wildlife and the result is Steve Hein, director of the Center for Wildlife Edu-cation and Lamar Q. Ball, Jr. Raptor Center, located on…
Power Players: Sharing Nature With His Guests
Joel Meyer, general manager of The Lodge on Little St. Simons Island, laughs while telling the story of how he came to be interested in the hospitality industry. “I remember watching an old movie when I was about 12 years…
Power Players: The Business Side Of Law
A native of Mooresville, N.C., Steve Lewis was in high school when family friends, two accountants and one attorney, piqued his interest in the professions. He decided he wanted to be a tax lawyer. “I’m probably the only kid in…
Power Players: Connecting Food And Community
Innovation is a popular business buzzword, but Danah Craft, the first paid executive director for the Georgia Food Bank Asso-ciation (GFBA), believes some of the greatest innovators are in the nonprofit sector. “There’s so much creativity and innovation in nonprofits,…
Power Players: Connecting Man And Nature
It would be difficult to find an office view more pristine than the one en-joyed by Tim Chason, executive vice president of Callaway Gardens Resort, Inc. But the 13,000-acre property founded in 1952 by Cason and Virginia Hand Callaway to…
Checking In With Georgia Cities
We wanted to know how municipalities around the state are faring, as the effects of a long, painful recession seem to be taking their own sweet time to dissipate. So we selected eight cities in eight different parts of the…
Power Players: A Passion For Government
Pete Robinson was as surprised as anyone when he was contacted by folks inside Gov. Nathan Deal’s inner circle about serving on Deal’s transition team. Chair-man of Troutman Sanders Strategies (TSS), a lobbying firm, Robinson said he’d never thought about…
Power Players: Making Connections
Working as a tour guide fresh out of college might not seem like a dream job, but for Tom Hughes, now senior vice president at Hope-Beckham public relations and marketing agency, it was ideal. “I was on the front lines…
Power Players: Changes In Attitude
Rick Allen of Augusta, founder and chairman of R.W. Allen, a successful commercial construction firm, marvels at the population shift in his neck of the woods. “I grew up living on Hereford Farm Road in Evans, Ga.,” he says. “That’s…
2010 Best Places To Work In Georgia
For the fifth year, we asked Georgia Trend readers to tell us why their company deserves a place on our annual Best Places to Work roster. And tell us they did. We take it as a given that people truly…
Power Players: A Promise, Not A Product
Paul Amos II can sum up his passions with three words: A duck, a Dawg and Duke. The duck refers to the popular advertising icon for Aflac, the insurance giant and family business where Amos serves as president of Aflac…
Power Players: Leading The Leaders
Though fully grounded in reality, Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (MACOC), tries to see things as they can be, not as they are. Take his hobby of creating hand-turned wood bowls, for example. He scours…
Power Players: The Business Of Government
Politicians love touting success in business as a reason to vote for them, saying operating philosophies and practices that work in the private sector will work in government. But is it really true? Jim Lientz thinks so. “An awful lot…
Power Players: A Collaborative Effort
Ten years ago Michael Hightower, now 53, was an energetic Fulton County commissioner known for his ability to work with people across the political spectrum to get things done. But in 2000, he was caught up in a corruption scandal…
Power Players: Preparing For The Up-Cycle
The times, they were a-changin’ when Tom Land-rum arrived at the Univer-sity of Georgia in 1968. “The 1960s leading into the mid-1970s was an exciting, extraordinary time to be on a college campus,” he says. “I felt like a firsthand…
Power Players: Speaking Truth To Power
In 1970, Bob Lewis was a 20-year-old Georgia State college student who had just lost his job, one he described as “the best job ever.” “I was a tour guide at the Carling Brewery in Atlanta,” he laughs. Since his…
2010 Family Business Awards
The satisfactions of running a successful family business far outweigh the challenges, this year’s winners say. It helps to be enthusiastic – even passionate – about what you do. The 2010 Family Business Award recipients were selected by the Cox…
Power Players: Bringing History To Life
When Suzanne Doonan, managing director of the Historic Riverside Cemetery Conservancy, looks outside her office, she sees and senses peace. “There’s nothing spooky about this place to me,” says Doonan. “I have a sense that the spirits here are completely…
Power Players: Portrait Of The Artist
Steve Penley has a bias that shows up in his art, but he is unapologetic. “My bias is toward the greatness of America rather than cynicism,” he says. “As an artist, I give my perspective. Perhaps it’s over the top,…
Power Players: Back To Basics
With 54 years of experience in the food distribution business, Gene Sutherland, 74, president and owner of Sutherland’s Foodservice, Inc., doesn’t need economic forecasts to know what’s going on with the economy. “In tough times people buy more eggs and…
Power Players: L.E.A.D.ing the way
C.J. Stewart was overcome by emotion as he introduced Jason Heyward, the highly touted Atlanta Braves pros-pect, at a November 2009 luncheon. Choking back tears, Stewart described Heyward’s accomplishments on the field but more importantly the young ballplayer’s commitment to…
Power Players: Knowing What People Want
Give Johnny Lastinger credit, the guy knows how to find a need and fill it. Case in point: Lastinger’s publication, Valdosta Magazine, mailed quarterly to 2,500 regular subscribers to update them on the interesting people, places and goings-on in Valdosta,…
Power Players: Point Of Contact
On the surface, it appears incongruous: a correlation between sculpting and commercial real estate. But as sculptor and commercial realtor Frank Mann explains it, it makes good sense. “From sculpting, I know I’ve become a better listen-er,” says Mann, a…
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