High above the North Georgia mountains, Tom Gilliland is at the controls of his Cessna 182. On the not-too-distant horizon looms Big Frog Mountain. The plane quickly crests Big Frog, and Gilliland smiles knowingly. Another in a lifetime of hurdles deftly maneuvered.

Now the recently retired banker-lawyer confronts a challenge unlike any in his very successful business, government and civic careers.

Allen Sullivan/AJC (ENLARGE)

Tom Gilliland needs to relieve stress, he'll sometimes go fishing or hunting with one of his sons.

Allen Sullivan/AJC (ENLARGE)

Tom Gilliland and son Jason relax at Holcomb's Bar B Q in Greensboro. Today, Tom Gilliland will attend a Tenneesee Valley Authority function as the board's first appointee from Georgia.

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The U.S. Senate recently approved Gilliland's nomination to the Tennessee Valley Authority — the first Georgian to serve on the power and development agency's board. He'll attend the TVA's 75th birthday party today in Muscle Shoals, Ala.

Gilliland's appointment comes at a critical time for drought-bedeviled North Georgia. State legislators are demanding that the TVA, and the state of Tennessee, share the Tennessee River with Georgia. If not, they're threatening to sue the Volunteer State in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many Georgia officials look to Gilliland to push the state's claim to the bountiful waters flowing just a mile north of the border.

"It's obviously a front-page issue in the state," said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). "I trust Tom's judgment." Isakson asked that President Bush nominate Gilliland. "I can go to sleep at night knowing he'll make the right decisions," Isakson says.

Gilliland cautions not to expect miracles. "I'm a Georgian and if my home state has a crisis I'll do what I can to help — subject to the oath I took," he says, back on the ground. "I'm a TVA board member, not a Georgia-delegated board member. It's no time to be provincial. It's time to look at [the drought] from a regional perspective."

From 3,700 feet, North Georgia looks awash in water. Blue Ridge, Nottely, Burton and Chatuge lakes lap their shorelines, a welcome change from last fall's muddy tableau. The Toccoa River wends languidly through the mountains. In the distance, the mighty Tennessee River stretches east to west.

Drought, what drought?

"We've still got a long way to go," Gilliland says. "We're in a hundred-year drought. Georgia just can't stick a pipe in the river and pump it down to Atlanta."

Buckhead to Blue Ridge

Gilliland grew up in Buckhead and graduated from Emory law school in 1973. Jason Gilliland, his father, was general counsel for the Life Insurance Company of Georgia during the 1960s and 1970s.

Tom Gilliland and fellow attorney Pierre Howard started a law firm in 1976 in Decatur that focused on real-estate and banking.

In 1985, Gilliland opened, with other financial backers, Peoples Bank of Fannin County in Blue Ridge. The bank prospered because of what he calls the mountains' "organic growth" — second-home buyers, retirees, vacationers — into a network of branches across northern and coastal Georgia, eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It eventually merged with other banks.

He retired in January as secretary and general counsel of what's now known as United Community Bank Inc. UCB is the state's third-largest bank holding company.

"Tom is a brilliant individual," says Bob Head, the bank's chairman of the board. "He's got such a quick intellect and he's very witty."

Gilliland kept a toe in Atlanta political waters through his law partner. Howard spent 18 years as a state senator before serving two terms as lieutenant governor. Gilliland raised money for Howard and was his chief of staff from 1992 to 1994.

"Tom had a very important role in my political career," says Howard, a Democrat. "One of the reasons I carried all those mountain counties is because of the contacts he had. He's very diplomatic, too. But if he needs to get rid of somebody, he knows how to do it. He can be tough and throw the hammer down."

Gilliland says he's given more money to Democrats than Republicans over the years, but "votes right down the middle." Political neutrality helped him get elected to the TVA board: Republicans Isakson and U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss backed him for the job. Diplomacy also paid dividends with his eight-year run on the Stone Mountain Memorial Association: Gilliland was appointed by Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat, and reappointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican.

Bumps ahead?

That work served as preamble for Gilliland's next gig.

More than 129,000 households in 10 North Georgia counties rely on TVA electricity, according to the authority. Yet only 3 percent, or $204 million, of TVA operating revenues were generated in Georgia the last fiscal year.

Eight Georgia towns withdraw water from the Tennessee River system. Georgia's legislators overwhelmingly requested during the last session that Perdue negotiate with Tennessee's governor to bring more Tennessee River water to metro Atlanta. Perdue signed the joint resolution last week.

Georgia legislators, citing a map erroneously drawn in 1818, say the Georgia-Tennessee border is 1.1 miles north of where Congress intended it to be — just beyond Georgia's access to the river. The legislators are threatening to sue Tennessee if the border isn't fixed. The U.S. Supreme Court considers border disputes.

"It seems much more logical to go through the inter-basin transfer process instead of litigating the issue," Gilliland says. "Inflammatory rhetoric is worthless and counterproductive."

Tennessee law, though, renders almost impossible the approval of new transfers to Georgia, says Atlanta attorney Brad Carver, who's providing Georgia legislators with the legal firepower to attack Tennessee.

Gilliland, whose TVA term expires in three years, expects a bumpy ride. Relief, though, comes with his 50-acre homestead in Blairsville, or his 120-acre timber farm near Greensboro, or his 9,500-acre ranch in Colorado. Or he'll fish or hunt with his boys, Yale students both, or soar above his beloved Georgia mountains in his Cessna or Beechcraft Baron.

Gilliland reached the Tennessee River during a recent flight before heading home. A cloudless sky above and spring's bright green canopy below made for a perfect morning.

"It is a smooth ride," Gilliland says. For now, at least, it is.