Terry College of Business - Fall 2008 - (Page 34) The value Steve brings to the table is getting all the various stakeholders to agree, and to insure the process is as transparent as it possibly can be. — Curtis Folz, COO Georgia Ports Authority mist for Standard & Poor, to assess the state of the state’s economy. Using Humphreys’ detailed economic analysis, Sumichrast noted that “Georgia’s ports are poised to set another in a long series of new cargo volume records,” a forecast that has begun to materialize. Savannah is the only U.S. port to chart double-digit growth for the last five years, at rates nearly twice those of its nearest competitors. Perdue characterized the state’s twin deepwater ports as “a heart, driving development and pumping commerce.” Noting that the ports have outperformed his most optimistic projections, Humphreys was surprised at how quickly Georgia’s ports took advantage of labor problems at West Coast ports, snaring significant percentages of their business. “They turned on a dime,” he says. “I learned that the loyalty to the port is not the bottom line — it’s not the warm and fuzzy personal relationships. The pace of globalization doesn’t allow for that. And it cuts both ways — business can be lost just as quickly if you don’t keep up with your competitors. If you’re not keeping up, you’re falling behind.” at the authority’s offices, upriver from Savannah in Garden City, GPA Executive Director Doug Marchand is being interviewed in a conference room overlooking a nonstop stream of trucks entering and exiting the multi-laned port entrance. The day before, Green and other GPA leaders had led U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on a tour of the port, outlining their harbor deepening plans. “It went well,” says Marchand of the meetings with Gutierrez. “He was very interested. He recognizes the strong role we play.” Marchand’s decade-long tenure and career port management experience are often cited as essential to the port’s success. But there also seems to be near-unanimous consensus among observers that the port’s prosperity is also the result of a secure and unified network of supporters from across the political spectrum, crafted through the efforts of past GPA boards going back decades, and filtering out to the business community and the state capitol. In addition to top-notch professional management, GPA’s long-range stewardship came about because civic-minded businessmen and politicians from other realms used their connections and expertise to make the port’s success a priority. A Southern drawl and a self-deprecating sense of humor are also assets when they’re wielded by someone like Steve Green, who displays both down-home political savvy and man-about-town style. Green is likely to dismiss a too-simplistic analysis with “as my dad used to say, it’s a thin slice of ham that doesn’t have two sides.” Or he may criticize the herd mentality with “as my mother used to say, don’t follow the bell cow.” Green first made his mark in the family business, a Frito-Lay distributorship, and later entered politics as chief of staff and campaign manager to former congressman and Sigma Nu fraternity brother Lindsay Thomas. Green returned to the private sector, founding a real estate investment and development company. (“In a moment of lunacy, I got in the inn business,” he says of his newest venture, the President’s Quarters Inn in Savannah’s historic district.) In addition to his GPA post, Green is returning to a stint as board chair of the Savannah Chamber. He was a founding organizer of the First Chatham Bank, where he is vice chair of the bank’s board and holding company. He is a commissioner of the Savannah/ Hilton Head International Airport, and recently joined Georgia Power’s board of directors. When you add volunteer stints with the American Heart Association and Armstrong Atlantic State, it’s a level of civic involvement that would exhaust many twentysomethings. “As a Yankee in the South,” says Hubbard, “I wasn’t used to this kind of business person. There’s a kind of personal warmth here, even in business — people genuinely care for one another. The first thing they’ll ask about is your father or your son — and they remember how old they are! Steve really brings that, and yet he marries it with a real get-things-done point of view.” County commissioner Patrick Shay, a Democrat who wants the port to be “as green [sustainable] as we can make it,” wholeheartedly supports the channel-deepening project as efficient, ecologically sound, and economically important. And he notes that Republican-leaning Green puts aside parTerry College oF the Port aNd GeorGia’s ecoNomy According to Jeff Humphreys, director of Terry’s Selig Center for Economic Growth, the Georgia ports are an economic powerhouse for the state. Based on fiscal year 2006 figures, released in a March 2007 report, the ports’ economic impact is as follows: 34 • Fall 2008 34 • Fall 2008 Business inFOGraPHic: cHriS taylOr
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