Alumni Magazine - Summer 2008 - (Page 15) Community Remembers Pat Crecine’s Passion John Patrick Crecine “wanted with a passion to help create the vision and energy to capture what he saw as Tech’s great potential.” Architect John Portman was among those expressing tributes to the late Georgia Tech president’s vision at a memorial service at the Alumni/Faculty House. Crecine died in May. Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young also paid tribute to Crecine, whose accomplishments include restructuring the Institute’s colleges, which embroiled his administration in controversy; initiating an exchange program with Metz, France, that has become a satellite campus, Georgia Tech Lorraine; and helping attract the 1996 Summer Olympic Games to Atlanta. “I used to say about Pat he did everything right and made everybody mad,” Young said to congenial laughter. Crecine “saw technology not just in intellectual terms, he saw it in economic terms. And he understood where the 21st century was going,” Young said. When Billy Payne proposed bringing the 1996 Summer Olympic Games to Atlanta, Young, who was then mayor, said most people thought it was “a pipe dream.” “When Pat heard about it, he said, ‘It’s good, let’s do it,’” Young said. “Very few people at that stage believed that it was possible.” Georgia Tech developed an interactive, multimedia presentation that gave dreams substance, Young said. “When we went to make our presentation, people thought we actually had the stadium, this Olympic village and everything that anybody could conceive of through the computer-aided design. We had put that down and it was fabulous. But it only existed in the minds and hearts of the people here. That was one of the turning points in the growth and development of the entire Southeast region.” Charles Liotta, Regents professor of chemistry, said some of the decisions that Crecine made “helped usher Georgia Tech into the 21st century as a leading academic institution. One of the important things that he did was to form three new colleges. “This was a visionary decision,” Liotta said. Portman recalled his initial meeting with Crecine. “I’ll never forget my first impression. There was no normal, idle chitchat. He fired one question after another. Pat was a prober, motivated and enthusiastic.” Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2008 15
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