Sam Williams file
68 years old. Recently married to Nancy Williams.
Became president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber in December, 1996
Previous Positions:
President of Central Atlanta Progress, a non-profit downtown business organization, 1994-1996;
With the Portman Companies, a real estate development and management firm, 1973-1994, in a number of positions including executive vice president.
Education: MBA from Harvard Business School; bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech.
Previous Metro Atlanta Chamber presidents include:
Gerald Bartels 1983-1996
Tom Hamall* 1974-1983
*Held title of executive vice president, which is equivalent to the chamber’s current position of president.
Source: Metro Atlanta Chamber; staff research
The next leader of the Metro Atlanta Chamber will likely be a local fixture with deep business and political ties who can juggle a sweeping agenda to rejuvenate the region’s business climate, people with input into the search said Tuesday.
Outgoing chamber president Sam Williams, who announced his plans to retire Tuesday, has been in Atlanta business for more than 40 years. He led the chamber for 17, taking on not only traditional business issues, but also topics as diverse as changing the state’s flag and saving Grady Memorial Hospital.
But he leaves after two bruising controversies: chamber support of Atlanta public schools leaders despite a cheating scandal and the failed campaign to get voters to approve a transportation sales tax last year.
Williams, 68, and several key business leaders told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is part of a succession process that started more than three years ago.
Williams’ retirement, they said, had nothing to do with his and the business community’s prior support of indicted former APS Superintendent Beverly Hall, or last year’s failed transportation referendum.
Williams’ successor will take the next steps in the chamber’s Forward Atlanta campaign to boost the region’s economic mojo and quality of life.
Launched last year, Forward Atlanta aims to foster startup business and growth among key Atlanta business sectors, pushing collaboration between business and higher education and promoting the region as a global center for such things as wireless telecommunications, clean technology and health care information.
The campaign is being launched with corporate commitments of $28 million over five years.
Williams said his contract had called for him to stay until March 2010 when he turned 65. It was extended three years, he said, and late last year the chamber board asked him to stay through the end of this year or into 2014 until a successor is found. Williams will remain an adviser to his successor as the chamber rolls out Forward Atlanta.
Recently remarried and a grandfather to three, Williams told the AJC the chamber is ready for new leadership.
“I don’t want to get out of here on a walker,” he said.
Williams received $778,000 in total compensation in 2011. The chamber is a non-profit business interest group, funded primarily by corporate memberships. It works with governments to recruit companies and speaks for corporations on a variety of issues.
Paul Bowers, president and CEO of Georgia Power and the chamber’s chairman for 2013, said Williams’ successor is likely to be local and that metro Atlanta has many talented executives from which to choose. But he did not rule out a broader search.
Carol Tome’, Home Depot’s chief financial officer and a past chairwoman of the chamber, said the organization will likely hire someone who already has a rapport with state and local leaders.
The next chamber head will be a visionary, not a caretaker, she said.
Asked if there was any damage to the chamber’s reputation to be repaired from APS scandal fallout and the T-SPLOST campaign, Tome’ said, “It’s about pushing the agenda forward, not looking back so much. That’s what we’re all about.”
John Brock, president and CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises and a past chamber chairman, said those issues should not obscure Williams’ contributions.
“He has had an incredibly positive record after 17 years of service to the chamber and the Atlanta area,” Brock said.
The metro chamber has had only three top executives in the past 39 years. Williams was hired in December 1996, after a two-year stint helping to redevelop downtown for the Olympics with Central Atlanta Progress. That followed more than 20 years with developer Portman Companies.
The chamber under Williams played a key role in removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Georgia flag, in passing water legislation for the city’s growth and in lobbying on behalf the region in water wars with Florida and Alabama.
The chamber said it has recruited more than 700 businesses to the region, creating more than 75,000 direct jobs during Williams’ tenure.
Grady, the ailing downtown public hospital, was close to closing before the business community - including substantial support from the Woodruff Foundation – pushed for a reform of its governance and management.
But Neil Herring, a lobbyist for the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club, said Williams’ retirement was “overdue.”
The chamber-backed T-SPLOST project list, he said, was bloated under a project selection process that was poorly designed. The chamber, Herring said, was cowed by the road builder lobby and former Gov. Sonny Perdue.
“I’ve got to lay the blame for that at the chamber,” said Herring, whose group opposed the tax.
Williams said the T-SPLOST campaigned raised the profile of transportation as a public issue and that the business community will continue to press for improvements.
State investigators in the APS cheating scandal - which originated with reports on testing discrepancies uncovered by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - said in a 2011 report that business and chamber leaders were more interested in attacking the “messengers” than finding the truth as the scandal unfolded because they wanted to protect the Atlanta “brand.”
Six months later, and still angry about the investigators’ chiding, Williams ran into Bob Wilson, a former district attorney and an author of the report, at an Atlanta hotel. Witnesses worried the argument that resulted might end up in a fight.
“I believe in Sam Williams’ heart, he was committed to Atlanta and tried to do what was in the city’s best interest,” Wilson said Tuesday. “I would not seek to make judgments on one specific thing. You have to look at someone’s career as a whole.”
Richard Hyde, one of the governor’s investigators, said, “undoubtedly, Sam’s done some great work. However he was flat wrong on APS and he was flat wrong on Beverly Hall.”
Hall, the former APS superintendent, and 34 other APS educators have been indicted in the scandal. All have pleaded not guilty.
“He tried to defend the indefensible,” Hyde said of Williams’ defense of a chamber-backed “blue ribbon committee” report prior to the final state report on the cheating issue.
Williams told the AJC Tuesday he wished he could do some things over in handling the chamber’s role in the APS scandal and the referendum.
“I wish we all knew then what we know now,” Williams said.
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