Author: Patty Rasmussen

Power Players: Engineering Success

Tim Lowe III knows the reputation engineers have. “Engineers aren’t considered the liveliest bunch,” he says. “The technical disciplines naturally attract people who tend toward introversion.” That being the case, Lowe, 58-year-old managing partner and chairman of the board of…

Speaking Up For Business

Despite standing front and center as senior vice president of communications for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (MACOC), Esther Campi, 36, claims she’s actually an introvert. “People who know me laugh when I say that,” she says. “I guess…

Writer, Vintner, Fund Raiser

In wine LINGO, Martha Ezzard could be described as “rounded,” a term defined as “well-balanced and complete,” but how does Ezzard describe herself? “By profession I’m a writer and lawyer,” she says, “Both [husband] John and I are risk-takers that…

Legislator And Road Warrior

One of the hottest seats in the Georgia House of Representatives during this year’s session belonged to Rep. Vance Smith, Republican from the 129th District. No surprise, considering that Smith chaired the House Transportation Committee, and transportation funding and governance…

From Lawyer To College President

It was a stealth visit to Mercer University’s campuses in Macon and Atlanta that soothed Bill Under-wood’s initial reluctance to become the university’s president. “I’d been contacted by [then president] Kirby Godsey about becoming the president, but I told him…

Banking On Economic Development

Immediately after Luke Morgan graduated from the University of Georgia in 1975 with his business degree in hand, he returned to Douglas, the small town in Coffee County where he was raised. “I’ve never regretted it,” says Morgan, executive vice…

Journalist, Ethicist, Teacher

His second year on the job in 2008, Culpepper “Cully” Clark, dean of the prestigious Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, bought a television station. Technically, the University of Georgia Research Foundation, a UGA-affiliated…

Bridge-Builder, Volunteer

In November 2004, Eric Tanenblatt helped launch Hands On Georgia, a network organizing community volunteer efforts statewide. The launch coincidentally followed a contentious electoral cycle, George W. Bush vs. John Kerry, and at the time Tanenblatt said he hoped promoting…

Giving Back

Sure it’s a tough time, but Bill Young, Jr., chairman of the University of Georgia Foundation, is optimistic. “We’re looking at things over the long haul,” he says. The foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, was created by alumni in 1937…

A Statewide Perspective

New Orleans native Joselyn Baker is an enthusiastic spokesperson for her adopted home state of Georgia, where she came to attend college at Oglethorpe University and never left. Baker, 39, currently serves as senior vice president of communications for the…

Elements Of Style

“From the time I was 10 years old, I knew I wanted to be an architect,” says Norman Davenport Askins, who fulfilled his childhood aspirations on an international scale, having designed and restored buildings from Atlanta to the White House…

Back In Action

It takes something awfully special to draw a guy out of retirement after a 40-year career in both the public and private sectors; at least that’s what Glenn Cornell thinks. “I always said, after I left the state in 2004,…

Holding Out Hope

Though Kristin Connor, executive director of CURE Childhood Cancer, interacts with families facing the dreaded disease on a daily basis, it’s difficult for her to view her life as anything but blessed. “I think I’m the luckiest person in the…

Attention To Detail

A plaque bearing a quote by Danish playwright Henrik Ibsen sits on Bill Huff’s desk. “Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel,” it reads. “It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health;…

Lessons Learned

The phrase “people power” routinely punctuates Tom Malone’s conversation. Malone, 69, is the retired president and chief operating officer of Milliken & Co., who in 1983 became the first non-family member to ever hold that job. He remains an enthusiastic…

Covering His Bases

Some years ago, attorney and part-time writer Abe Schear came to an unsurprising realization. “I figured out that my clients and friends would rather read about baseball than leases,” he says. Schear, 56, a partner in the Atlanta law firm…

First In Education

Eldridge W. McMillan, 73, a member of the State University System’s Board of Regents, tells a remarkable story regarding his first teaching job in Atlanta in 1954. “I was supposed to teach at Price High School,” he says. “But the…

Conservative With A Cause

Matt Towery, 48, defies pigeon-holing. He’s an outspoken semi-pundit who doesn’t socialize much with anyone, let alone political types. He’s a free-thinking conservative whose business partner, Pierre Howard, trounced him in the 1990 lieutenant governor’s race. He benefited from the…

Where The Art Is

A small – but high quality – gallery in Highlands, NC, found an unlikely arts patron in longtime Atlanta attorney and businessman Bob Fisher. After 25 years practicing law (five years at King & Spalding and another 20 years in…

Paper Trail

Robin Rhodes was the youngest of four children in her family, thus it fell to her to “Run, go get the paper.” Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that for the past 21 years, Rhodes has been involved in the business…

Road Stories

At 74, Wayne Shackelford just won’t slow down. Immediately following his retirement from Geor-gia’s Department of Transportation (DOT), where he served as commissioner from November 1991 until May 2000, Shackelford became senior vice president for business development at Gresham, Smith…

Drawn To Public Service

During the three days before Thanksgiving, Joseph “Butch” Thompson, 63, will roll out three smokers and spend hours hovering over some 900 turkeys. The former Cobb County commissioner and president and owner of Butch Thompson Enterprises, a site preparation contracting…

Making Ideas Reality

Tom Bell, CEO of Cousins Properties Inc., has a theory about why busy people seem to get more done. “I think it has to do with a person’s demeanor and skill set,” he says. “The more you do and the…

The Journey From Alma

There’s no substitute for a good story, and Jim Bishop’s life is a just that. A successful lawyer practicing in Brunswick for his entire career, Bishop was named by Gov. Sonny Perdue in late 2006 to the University System of…

Enhancing Global Learning

Kennesaw State's Dan Papp brings experience in international affairs to his new job A pair of oversized purple-framed glasses, homage to former KSU president Dr. Betty Siegel. Two sets of Russian nesting dolls: one representing former Soviet leaders from Lenin…