All should work toward creating a better Atlanta

Reflecting on 17 years as president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC), I am overwhelmed by the growth of our region and the progress we have made together. So much of Atlanta’s success has been built by a persistent knack and relentless determination for tackling our biggest problems and pursuing our most audacious goals.

When I stepped into this role, it was 1996 and Atlanta was positively on fire with Olympics fever. Our great victory in hosting those games had engulfed us with optimism about our future. But the real challenges lay ahead.

Atlanta leaders had to face the fact that we weren’t going to be able to sustain the economic momentum and become a thriving business ecosystem unless we faced down the toughest issues standing in our way, like transportation, water, education and job creation.

We set out to take on our challenges and we took aim at fundamentally changing the way we marketed our city. Ultimately our business leaders laid a plan to create a city where people would want to work, live, build their companies, and have the quality of life that could not have been imagined in other places.

Through partnerships, through the tireless leadership of our business leaders and their relationships with our local and state political leaders, we scored big victories. Our region worked collaboratively to create the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, to change our state flag, to create the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, to fight the water wars and to save Grady Memorial Hospital from failure. Each of these milestone achievements was a building block for our future as a thriving region.

Together, we created enormous momentum for job creation and company recruitment. MAC’s main mission is to improve our economy by growing jobs. Our secret recipe for achieving this has always been our business volunteers. Over the last 17 years, our hard-working and devoted business leaders have helped recruit 700 companies, with 75,000 jobs, to support our economy. If you think about it, that’s 75,000 families impacted here in metro Atlanta – and that happened during the worst recession of our lifetime!

Along with our partners, the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Georgia Power, Invest Atlanta, suburban chambers and development authorities, we kicked regional economic development into high gear, and we have continued to build one of the strongest platforms in the country for business recruitment and economic growth.