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January 2009
CEO changes with the times
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ben Treadway remembers when Doraville was considered the outskirts of Atlanta. This was before the silly discussions about whether to live Outside The Perimeter or Inside the Perimeter. When there was no Spaghetti Junction, no I-285.
“I-285 was being built,” said Treadway, a 1975 graduate of Sequoyah High who played football and ran track. “We used to hunt where Spaghetti Junction is.”
He attended Auburn University, where he majored in industrial management. He’d always wanted to go into business for himself, a nod in many respects, to his late father. He owned Glenco Jeep in Decatur for decades.
Treadway oversees Fulton Communications, a Norcross business on Reps Miller Road that specializes in integrated communications systems. The 32-person firm sells business phone systems, and everything such a network involves — “from data switches to security systems,” said Treadway, the company’s president and CEO. “And anything that has to do with low-voltage requirements.”
When we talked, I rattled off a few of the week’s most disturbing economic stories — Home Depot’s 7,000 job cuts, the 20,000 cuts at Caterpillar, and 8,000 jobs at Sprint Nextel.
Companies big and small are reaching for the saw, weighing drastic measures in a toxic economy. Yet Fulton Communications, acquired by Treadway in 2006, is expanding, growing jobs. Four weeks ago, the company opened an Orlando office. A Central Florida telecom company was downsizing.
“We had an opportunity to hire an office full of people,” he told me. “They’d all gotten laid off. Now we’re selling to the Florida market, the same thing we do here. All the markets are pretty similar these days. It’s tough going, but we are off to a good start.”
A company downsizes. In some cases, its owners want to sell or seek to bring in another partner. In steps Treadway. He may acquire the business entirely, or buy a stake, if an agreement can be inked out. It’s a scenario he expects to repeat itself in Phoenix and Los Angeles, two markets of interest. “This is exactly what I do,” the Marietta resident said. “The L.A. guy came in yesterday.”
Treadway admits it is harder these days to acquire new clients. The difficult part is getting in a company’s door, landing an appointment and, it is hoped, making the sell.
“You have to have the right people on your staff,” he said. “A lot of times companies have older technology, old-fashioned dial tones and phones. We are trying to get someone to change from a competitor’s system to our system. What we try to do is get in, take a look at the money that is already being spent on maintenance, and reallocate those funds. A lot of times, we can get companies better, more efficient technology for the same amount of money, and a lot of time put money into their pockets.”
And Fulton Communications’.
In 2006, when Treadway became president/CEO, Fulton Communications had an estimated $1.2 million in revenue. Last year, that figure surpassed $7 million, according to the company Web site. The company has installed and maintained communications systems for Atlanta anchors like the Georgia Dome and Centennial Olympic Park. “At this point, it’s all about working hard and doing the things we do best,” Treadway said. “As long as we do that, we will be fine.”
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Better traffic on Jimmy Carter Boulevard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you travel Jimmy Carter Boulevard like me, you become accustomed to the bottleneck that takes place as motorists try to get on northbound I-85.
Not anymore.
Traffic flow has improved greatly, thanks to an additional lane for westbound traffic on JCB that wants to head north on I-85. Chuck Warbington, the executive director of the Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District told me he’s heard nothing but positive comments about the $2 million “quick-fix project” since it opened to the public Jan. 12.
“In regards to moving traffic, coupled with the synchronization of the traffic lights, it has reduced traffic (gridlock) 30 to 40 percent, Warbington said. “This is helping traffic on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, Oakbrook Parkway and Indian Trail Road because folks going north on Oakbrook were having to use Indian Trail.”
The Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District, which covers 14 square miles, is a business-supported special taxing district. Its goal is to increase property values, promote businesses and improve the quality of life in southwest Gwinnett.
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Tutoring rewards all involved
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A blurb in a church bulletin caught Sandra Knighton’s eye.
Her church, Tucker First United Methodist, was in search of some folk willing to take 30 minutes out of their day to read with students at Nesbit Elementary, a Gwinnett County public school in Tucker, near Lucky Shoals Park.
Knighton, a retiree, met the most important criterion: she enjoyed being around children. “I have a lot of nieces and nephews and grandnieces and nephews,” she told me.
So she signed up.
Last year, she was matched with a second-grade girl. The experience was so rewarding she asked if she could add another student. “You know, I was already down there anyway, spending 30 minutes with one child,” she said.
This year, Knighton has returned to Nesbit, one of 17 volunteers who reads to about 25 students Monday through Thursday. They comprise a program called Reading Partners, a community outreach initiative created by Tucker First. Church member Sally Crawford, an educator who has worked at Nesbit since it opened in the mid-1990s, oversees the program, one she deems inspirational and vital.
“This is not an original idea,” she told me, “but it’s tried and true. It’s even more poignant in this day and time when we need to reach out to everybody, and if we can do it through the children, that’s great.”
All too often people tend to sit back, moan and groan about this, that and the other, yet not lift a finger — in this case, a book — to effect change. Comfort, for them, comes through complaining, in being smug and self-righteous. Always on the right side.
Naturally, Reading Partners serves an academic purpose. Marginal students, it is hoped, will expand their vocabulary and sharpen their sense of comprehension. In essence, they’ll become better readers. But the residual effects are just as worthy though immeasurable by the usual means, standardized tests and such.
“Some of these children have parents who are struggling from an economic standpoint,” said Crawford, who’s retired but works part-time as Nesbit’s parent instructional support coordinator. “It’s hard for the parents to spend time with the children because they are working long hours and are tired and exhausted. The volunteer is not a parent or a teacher, but just a friend who sits with them, talks with them and serves as a tutor, and in many instances, a mentor. We are out there thinking we are going to do all these academic things, but the true power is in the relationship these children have with these adults.”
And in Knighton’s case, the relationship is strong.
One day Crawford was in a third-grade teacher’s classroom when a little girl approached her. She wanted to know if Knighton — who’d been her reading partner last year — would be visiting the school again this year.
“When I told her yes, she started jumping up and down,” Crawford said. “Both girls seemed very excited.”
What the girls didn’t know was that Knighton had asked if she could continue working with them. She reads to them one at a time when she visits on Wednesdays, and she makes sure they are comprehending what they are reading.
“Since they are Hispanic, I ask them certain words,” Knighton said. “They are very honest. They’ll say they don’t know if they don’t know. I get hugs and smiles from both girls. With children, it’s very rewarding. It doesn’t cost you anything but your time and the little gas to get there. This doesn’t take a whole lot of effort.”
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Snellville Pettiness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Our good friends in Snellville are at it again.
This time, the issue stems from a flier for the Snellville Commerce Club — a private civic organization - that was placed in a recent mailing of business license renewals sent out by City Hall.
Mayor Pro Tem Warren Auld took issue with the fliers being placed in the mailings, saying they made it look like the organization is a city function. Councilwoman Kelly Kautz found the inserts inappropriate, too.
City Manager Russell Treadway approved the fliers’ inclusion on the grounds that the Commerce Club is the closest thing to a town chamber of commerce. Make sense to me. Moreover, the civic group is to pick up the additional mailing costs.
Then again, this is Snellville, home to a city government that has fast become the laughing stock of Gwinnett County. Snits and tension run high.
If you’re ever in the mood for a laugh, please attend a Snellville council meeting. Decorum has long left the building.
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Hope & History
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a beautiful day. Inauguration 2009. ‘Nough said.
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As I honor Obama, King, I’ll miss queen
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s hard to imagine how elated Robbie Susan Moore would be about the historical significance of the coming days.
On Monday, the nation observes the 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. A day later, President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony plays to a worldwide stage. Gwinnett, like Atlanta and surrounding municipalities, will host numerous events to honor the slain civil rights leader. If she were alive, Moore would have been in the thick of the action in Gwinnett, where she lived. Actually, she would have been running things — the holiday parade that winds from the courthouse to Central Gwinnett High; the program that succeeds the march will take place there.
If it weren’t for Moore, there might not be a Gwinnett King Day observance. As president of the United Ebony Society of Gwinnett County Inc., organizing events surrounding the holiday was her baby, her mission, though she got by with a little help from friends.
If it weren’t for Moore, there would still be municipalities in Gwinnett that open City Hall on this national holiday. She, methodically and gracefully, led the holdout towns of Duluth, Norcross, Lawrenceville, Snellville, Grayson and Lilburn into the 21st century. She did so free of bitterness, resentment, threats.
And for the first time in 2007, all 14 city governments in Gwinnett were closed to recognize the slain leader. That was no small feat. Yet Moore, always diplomatic, said otherwise in a March 2008 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“It’s been easy for me to do the things that I’ve done in Gwinnett,” she said. “That’s amazing, but it’s the truth.”
Lois Solomon, the Ebony Society’s secretary, provided context.
“She would get discouraged sometimes, but she didn’t have a spirit that stopped, regardless of the obstacles that got in her way,” she told me. “She had a lot of strong people around her, and in turn, she would be that encouraging factor. Robbie knew a lot of these politicians when they were wannabes, and she knew a lot of their parents, so that gave her an inside track. She had an insight with a lot of the movers and shakers, and she had a pleasing, non-threatening type of personality.”
I once had a reader e-mail me to say that he would never attend any event hosted by a group with ebony in the name. That in itself, he said, reeked of divisiveness, separation. Perhaps. Then again, he didn’t know Moore, a founding member of the 25-year-old group and its president until her death last year. She had love for everybody.
That’s why, if she were alive, my phone would have rung weeks ago. “We’re getting ready,” she’d say, and immediately I’d know what she meant: Gwinnett King Day Celebration 2009.
In recent years, Moore had begun truly emphasizing that folk of every hue and socioeconomic stripe were invited to partake in the county observance. One year, she e-mailed invitations to more than 50 predominantly white churches — twice.
“With her spirit — and truly she was a religious woman — she looked for justice and equality and believed that everybody is the same,” Solomon said. “That’s where her drive came from — her strong relationship with God and the beliefs that her parents instilled in her.”
Next week, when I take in events up close and watch them unfold on TV, I’ll think about Moore, and exult enough for the both of us.
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Talkin’ trash in Gwinnett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sometimes, it’s simply best to leave things be.
I say this as the Gwinnett garbage fight heads to court.
Representatives for Waste Pro - one of two companies that had been granted exclusive rights to pick up and haul garbage in the county - are scheduled to appear in Gwinnett County Superior Court today to argue that it did not violate a judge’s ruling by soliciting business.
Their appearance is due to a suit filed by Robertson/Allied Sanitation, which operates in Gwinnett. The suit charges that Waste Pro has continued to solicit business despite a ruling by Superior Court Judge Michael Clark. He put the brakes on the county’s new waste collection plan, saying it violated state law by delegating governmental functions to a private entity - Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful Services. (That agreement has since been dissolved.)
The county had to resort back to letting any licensed hauler do business in Gwinnett till a waste removal plan is worked out that’s bullet proof from legal challenges while still true to the mission of making Gwinnett cleaner and more beautiful.
Stay tuned.
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Gwinnett to Hartsfield — Will it fly?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
All it takes is one good idea to hit pay dirt.
Wings Air, the Lawrenceville-based company that’s set to launch flights from Gwinnett’s local airport to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, may have one. For a flat rate of $79, a person can catch a one-way flight from the Gwinnett airport to the Atlanta one.
Wings Air President Charlie Mintz has said the service will appeal to businessmen and women who can afford the fee and dislike sitting in metro Atlanta’s maddening, unpredictable traffic.
But you know, I suspect there are plenty of everyday folk who would have no problem shelling out cash for a 15-minute ride to the airport, especially if Wings Air is able to arrange for security check points at the local airport. The company is working with the Transportation Security Administration on that.
The air shuttle service, which debuts with four flights daily, starts Feb. 1.
What do you think of this idea?
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Airmen honored at inauguration
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Tuskegee Airmen have been invited to the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
The invitation came from Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.
It’s considered a way to pay homage to the black elite U.S. fighter pilots who flew in World War II for a segregated military. These men, along with their ground crews, helped pave the way for the Illinois Democrat to become the country’s first black president.
It’s unclear how many of the remaining 300 or so fighter pilots will attend the Jan. 20 event. The International Herald Tribune has reported that most of the veterans are frail, in their 80s and 90s.
Moreover, the logistics of the inauguration, coupled with the weather, accommodations and expected huge crowds, will put attendance out of reach for some pilots.
But the airmen who live in metro Atlanta — 13 belong to the Atlanta chapter of Tuskegee Airmen — have also been invited to a local event that takes place two days after the inaugural event. It, too, is meant to honor their bravery, just like those tickets to the swearing-in bash in D.C.
On Jan. 22, the Gwinnett Veterans Memorial Museum is to host a ceremony that recognizes the airmen for what they did, what they went through, the symbolism of which came full circle for this country on Election Day.
The ceremony is being held in memory of the late Lt. Col. Charles Walter Dryden, a Tuskegee fighter pilot who lived in Atlanta. He died in June 2008. Dryden’s wife and son are expected to attend the ceremony, along with four area Tuskegee Airmen — Earl Martin, Hiram Little Sr., Thomas Bristow Sr. and Donald Summerlin.
While there, they can browse a display on the history they made, conceived by museum volunteer Bob Hill. Way back in July, he gave me a heads-up that an exhibit was in the works. Little did we know the museum’s nod to the Tuskegee experience would be so resonant, so symbolically apropos in light of Election Day 2008.
“No, I never rode in the back of the bus or walked in a [civil rights] march, but I have come to the feeling that what is happening now in this country [with the Obama victory] is saving it from absolute ruin in the way of racial strife,” Hill said. “To the Tuskegee Airmen, this is a way of saying it was tough, but you did it. This is important — the election of Obama notwithstanding — to say ‘thanks. It was tough what you did.’ “
At the ceremony, Norcross’s Robert Sample, a former paratrooper and military history buff, will speak briefly on what the Tuskegee Airmen have meant to his life, both in and outside his military career. Then, a few minutes of the film, “The Tuskegee Airmen,” will be shown.
“This is tremendous,” said Travon Dennis, who handles publicity for the Tuskegee Atlanta chapter. “It falls right along with the educational initiatives chapters across the country are promoting to tell the story of these giants.”
The museum’s quarters are small — they might hold 100 or so people. Hall hopes he doesn’t get an overflow crowd on Jan. 22, and emphasizes that the Tuskegee exhibit will be on display through Black History Month.
“We’ll keep the display up as long as the public shows an interest,” he said. “We should have done this this same time last year. If we had, I would have been able to meet Lt. Col. Dryden.”
The Gwinnett Veterans Memorial Museum is located in downtown Lawrenceville, 185 Crogan St., on first floor of the Historic Courthouse. Online: vetmemorialmuseum.tripod.com. For more information, contact Bob Hill at 770-401-9455.
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Gwinnett schools free to experiment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The State Board of Education has granted the Gwinnett public schools system its wish. Georgia’s largest school system will be the first in the state to operate free of state regulations.
The School Board approved the county’s five-year plan, which will allow the district to bypass laws that govern things like teachers’ pay, certification and class sizes. The school district, in return, has pledged to raise academics, higher even than those outlined in the federal No Child Left Behind Act, according to an article by AJC Gwinnett News reporter Aileen Dodd.
Say what you will about Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks and his cabinet, but they have a well-respected record, and reputation, for meeting as well as exceeding standards.
It remains to be seen what impact parental and teacher input will have on changes that will be implemented at individual schools. Gwinnett administrators, teachers, parents are to devise plans on how schools will operate over the next several months.
I wish them well.
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Take my raise, please
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hey folks.
Happy New Year. Let’s hope the first quarter of 2009 fares better than some of the predictions about retail stores, and in some cases, entire strip malls shutting down.
On another note: How ‘bout that Fayette County School Board?
On Monday night, school officials talked about asking the county’s teachers to decline their 2.5 percent raises. The give-back would help the financially-strapped school system stay solvent for the current school year.
The next day, a clarification was issued: The give-back would have to be accepted unanimously by 100 percent of all school employees - not just teachers - to even be considered. The request will be presented in a survey that will be distributed soon.
It appears this isn’t a new idea. In early December, the Montgomery County, Md., teachers agreed to forego a promised 5.3 percent raise in light of the economic malaise.
So what say you?
Would you return a raise to an employer for the good of the company or - in Fayette’s case - the community?
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