In many endeavors, results are what count in the end. That realization makes even more noteworthy the coming change at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, as President Sam A. Williams prepares to retire at year’s end.
His successor, Hala Moddelmog, will assume the leadership of an organization that’s long worked to gain measurable results for the Atlanta region.
The Metro Chamber’s impact is considerable across this broad, diverse metro area. The MAC has held a seat at the tables where many of Atlanta’s largest problems have been considered. It can be argued that, at times, the chamber even set up those tables to begin needed civic conversations.
Such work has helped produce the Atlanta we know today. Chambers of commerce in other cities are often known mostly for acting as behind-the-scenes brokers of business-friendly policies and as recruiters of companies seeking a new zip code to call home.
The Metro Atlanta Chamber has worked to fulfill those traditional roles, too.
Yet, average folks in other cities are likely hard-pressed to even recite the proper name of their town’s chamber.
That’s not the case here. The Atlanta chamber is well-known by the general public for its willingness to step well beyond business recruitment to embrace many of the biggest public policy issues that have faced this region and state.
That’s a unique element of the Atlanta Way, and we believe this metro area and state have realized substantial benefit as a result.
That brings us back to Sam Williams, who’s ending a 17-year tenure that certainly did not lack for either tough challenges or excitement. His leadership planted the Metro Chamber at the forefront of issues that stood to affect both the economy and quality of life in this place we call home.
Williams and the chamber energetically rallied resources — human, financial and otherwise — to apply toward chosen goals. From changing the state flag, to preserving Grady Hospital to developing strategies to solve regional water issues, the MAC has stepped up.
And, yes, we all know the chamber’s efforts were not without controversy during Williams’ tenure. This newspaper’s Editorial Board has both praised and chastised chamber efforts during Williams’ watch. Other groups or leaders did likewise.
Yet, agree with the MAC’s position or not, no one can discount that the business group has been out there many times on the leading edge, bringing a pragmatic vitality to important civic debates. The chamber often brought forth innovative ideas honed by business acumen. That’s an attribute that remains as valuable today as it was during the era when business giants such as Robert Woodruff applied their influence and resources to help grow a better, more-prosperous city.
In our estimation, the chamber’s role – and the need for it — is perhaps best seen by taking an honest look at this metro’s 28 counties that represent widely varying interests, needs and priorities. Ours is a fractious metro area that is largely reluctant, if not resistant, to acting across borders to resolve regional problems that hobble all of us.
With no regional governance structure in place to cooperatively address issues such as transportation, we would suggest that the chamber has come to play a key role in efforts to work around that vacuum. In a very real sense, the MAC has helped grow and reinforce what fragile connective tissue there is that keeps together the fragmented megalopolis that is Atlanta.
More importantly, the chamber has coordinated, financed and carried out action plans on many of our pressing problems.
Our transportation woes provide a great example of this work. The chamber played a large role in lobbying the Georgia General Assembly to pass the law creating statewide T-SPLOST votes. The MAC then led the Atlanta marketing campaign that urged voters to pass the penny transportation tax. That work required courage and skill. Few other cities’ roundtable of business leaders would lobby hard for passage of a sales tax in a tax-averse state. That took guts, plain and simple. The T-SPLOST’s ultimate defeat doesn’t alter that assessment.
It’s clear that the chamber’s skillset and energy remain needed around here, even as Williams climbs down from the group’s pulpit. We wish him a long, healthy retirement.
And we welcome his successor to a civic hot seat and trust she will hit the ground running hard and smart. For Atlanta has a lot left to do still.
