I spent most of my adult life in Orange County in southern California. My husband and I raised our daughter there, and that’s where I built my career. We were well-connected with lots of family and friends. But last fall, I was offered an opportunity to move to Atlanta to lead the Georgia operations for Kaiser Permanente, the company I’ve worked with for more than 35 years.
As we were considering the move to Atlanta, Kaiser Permanente was making a similar decision. Our national information technology team was exploring locations for a significant expansion — one that would bring nearly 1,000 jobs to a new city. They had gone through an exhaustive process and had narrowed the choices to a handful of areas, including Atlanta. They were looking for a location that was business friendly and would have a healthy supply of technology-savvy job candidates.
Just four months into my new job, I had the pleasure of standing next to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, Invest Atlanta, state and local representatives and other KP officials to help deliver the good news that our IT team had chosen Atlanta as the best site.
Kaiser Permanente has signed the lease at Pershing Point Plaza in Midtown. The campus is being established and the hiring process, which will extend over the next few years, will begin in early 2016.
This is the second time our city proved to be the right choice for Kaiser Permanente. In 1985, when we wanted to expand to the East Coast, Atlanta was an obvious decision for many of the same reasons that still make it attractive. Among those are Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and an abundance of highly respected colleges and universities.
Today, Georgia is increasingly known as the “Silicon Peach.” It’s developing into a technology hub and is one of the fastest-growing cities for health tech jobs. It has the fourth-largest concentration of IT jobs in the U.S. and is the sixth-fastest growing city for IT jobs, with many of those in the health care sector.
Metro Atlanta also is the home of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the world’s leading authority in disease eradication and prevention; the Emory and Morehouse schools of medicine, and the American Cancer Society, to name a few institutions. It’s a growing health care hub and a place Kaiser Permanente wants to be.
There are many other reasons Kaiser Permanente found Atlanta attractive: an affordable cost of living, reasonably priced housing options and superb weather.
Personally speaking, Atlanta offers a great quality of life. It is a vibrant city with many amenities. My husband and I love eating out, and we’ve already immersed ourselves in Atlanta’s diverse restaurant scene. There’s access to recreation areas, cultural and sports events and the Atlanta Beltline. I’ve also grown particularly fond of MARTA and ride it as often as I can.
Like all major metropolitan areas, Atlanta has its challenges. There’s much to be done, and there is a will to do it. As a newcomer, I’ve observed an optimistic spirit and a desire to move our community forward. At Kaiser Permanente, we are taking advantage of what’s great about Atlanta now and want to do our part to help make it even better in the future.
Julie Miller-Phipps is president of the Kaiser Permanente of Georgia.
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