Category: Meeting Announcements

The April meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday April 16th.  No RSVP is necessary.  Several days before the meeting you will receive an email invitation with instructions for joining the online presentation.  For those that want to test the connection before the meeting, we’ll have a casual session several days early so you can see Zoom.com work from your device.  

We’re pleased to have as speaker Polly Price, the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law and Global Health at Emory.  She will lecture on the current unpleasantness and the legal aspects of COVID-19.  We plan on a presentation of about 25 minutes, followed by Q&A.  We will adjourn before 1:00 pm.  

In 2017, Prof. Price was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and used the fellowship to research her forthcoming book, Plagues in the Nation, about the ways epidemics have shaped US law.  In 2019, she won the Hughes-Gossett Award from the US Supreme Court Historical Society for the best journal article.  

Before joining the Emory Law faculty in 1995, Prof. Price clerked for Judge Richard Arnold of the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals and then practiced law at King & Spalding in Atlanta and Washington, DC.  She has BA and MA degrees from Emory.  Her JD is from Harvard.

Notice: this meeting has been cancelled.

The March meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, the 19th at the downtown Capital City Club. 

We honored to have as speaker Dan Corso, president of the Atlanta Sports Council.  Mr. Corso will tell us about the council’s work in general and plans for hosting the NCAA Basketball Final Four in early April.

The Atlanta Sports Council’s mission is to facilitate the growth and development of sports in metro Atlanta by serving as a recruiter for major regional, national and international sporting events.  The council’s accomplishments include hosting the Superbowl, CFP football championship, NCAA Men’s and Women’s Final Four, MLB, NHL and NBA All-Star Games, and WrestleMania XXVII. 

Mr. Corso has been with the Sports Council for 21 years and has served as president since 2010.  He serves on the boards of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau and College Football Hall of Fame. Prior to joining the Sports Council, Corso was vice chair for the 1998 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.  He is a graduate of Florida State University.

NOTE: The Atlanta Sports Council has a promotion code for Roundtable members to attend the Final Four Fan Fest.

The February meeting of the Roundtable is at noon on Thursday the 20th at the downtown Capital City Club. 

We’re pleased to have as speaker Dr. Judy Monroe, President and CEO of the CDC Foundation.  The CDC Foundation was created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic resources to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s health protection work.

Dr. Monroe will enlighten us on the CDC Foundation, including how the Foundation interacts with the CDC, why it is a separate organization, and its projects and funding sources.  She will provide insights on key issues facing global health, including the Coronavirus and what the Foundation and other health organizations are doing to address the crisis.

Dr. Monroe currently serves on the board of directors for the Georgia Global Health Alliance and is a member of the Milken Institute’s Public Health Advisory Board. Additionally, she serves as a member of the World Health Organization Foundation’s Advisory group, as well as several national advisory committees and boards.

Dr. Monroe received her doctor of medicine from the University of Maryland and a bachelor of science degree from Eastern Kentucky University.

The next meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, January 16th at the downtown Capital City Club.

The topic for January is gambling in Georgia. As you may know, several gambling bills will be in play during the coming session of the legislature. We have two distinguished co-speakers, each presenting a differing viewpoint. We’ll give each speaker 12 minutes to present and then we’ll engage them in Q&A. The order of presentation was determined by a coin flip.

The first speaker is businessman, legislator and lobbyist E. Culver “Rusty” Kidd. From 2009 to 2017, Mr. Kidd was a member of the Georgia House, representing Baldwin County and a portion of Putnam County. He was the state legislature’s sole elected Independent. He is president of Middle Georgia Management Services and runs the lobbying firm, Kidd & Associates. Mr. Kidd attended the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship, graduating with a BS in finance.

The second speaker is University of Illinois professor Dr. John Kindt. Dr. Kindt has published a number of academic articles on gambling and is the co-author of the United States International Gambling Report. He was influential in the passage of the U.S. Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 and other federal and state statues. Dr. Kindt has a BA in Business from the College of William and Mary, an MBA from the University of Georgia, and an SJD from the University of Virginia.

The November meeting of the Roundtable is at noon Thursday the 21st at the Capital City Club downtown. 

We’re pleased to have as speaker Scott Frank, Founder, President and Chairman of the nonprofit Georgia Intellectual Property Alliance.  The Alliance’s mission is to provide the leadership, resources and advocacy to make Georgia a global model for the creation, protection, and enablement of intellectual property.  

Scott’s presentation is titled “Like the Air We Breathe, Intellectual Property is Critical to Every Company… Find Out How Your Company Can Breathe Easier.”  

Scott Frank is CEO of AT&T Intellectual Property, where he is responsible for the identification, development, protection, management, marketing, licensing and sale of all company-wide intellectual property. AT&T is the owner of one of the world’s most valuable intellectual property portfolios.

Scott has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech.  He holds an MBA and JD from Georgia State University.  

The October meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, October 17th at the downtown Capital City Club. 

We’re pleased to have as speaker Jim Durrett of the MARTA Board of Directors. Jim will present on MARTA’s transformation, with a focus on plans for expansion, renovation and placemaking.

Jim Durrett is the Executive Director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District, an organization dedicated to making Buckhead a more walkable, livable urban environment through projects, plans, initiatives, and studies. Founded in 1999, the BCID’s active projects include the “Park over GA400”, a greenspace being constructed over GA 400 and the Buckhead MARTA station.

Jim is an Atlanta native and has promoted smart growth development and livable communities since 1996, when he left his hydrogeology practice and went to work at the Georgia Conservancy. From there he joined the Metro Atlanta Chamber where he was VP of Environmental Affairs.  Jim then worked for the Urban Land Institute, where he was founding executive director of ULI Atlanta, and the Livable Communities Coalition, where he was founding executive director.

Jim has a BS degree in economics from the University of Virginia and an MS in geology from the University of Georgia.

The September meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, September 19th, at the Capital City Club downtown. 

We’re honored to have as speaker the author, lecturer, NFL player, ESPN analyst, and college coach Bill Curry.  The title of Bill’s talk is “Football, Beyond the Obvious”.

Bill was a multi-sport star at College Park High, played football at Georgia Tech, was a ten-year NFL player, and appeared in two Super Bowls and two Pro-Bowls.  He was head football coach at Georgia Tech, Alabama (where he was SEC Coach of the Year), and Kentucky.  In 2008, Bill started the Georgia State football program from scratch, building the foundation for GSU’s recent miraculous win over Tennessee.

Curry’s book “Ten Men You Meet in the Huddle” is highly recommended.  Pat Conroy wrote “Bill Curry has a wonderful gift for portraiture. This is by far the best book about the NFL I’ve ever read.”  The Avondale Book Club rated the book “must read”.

The May meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, the 16th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

Our speaker is John Avery, the new Director of the Advanced Technology Development Center. Founded in 1980, ATDC has developed a global reputation for fostering technological entrepreneurship. Forbes named ATDC to its list of “Incubators Changing the World” in 2010 and 2013. The center has graduated 170 companies, generating $12B of revenue in Georgia.

John Avery is a serial entrepreneur who was part of four startups. With broad experience in data and wireless voice technologies, John was co-founder and chief technology officer of Convergence Corp., a maker of software that connects wireless devices to the Internet. Amazon acquired the company in 1999 and John then served as an engineering manager with Amazon. Before joining ATDC, he was engineering group manager of Panasonic Automotive Systems’ Panasonic Innovation Center at the Georgia Tech campus.

John is a Georgia Tech graduate with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. He holds six patents.

The April meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, April 18th, at the Capital City Club downtown. 

Our speaker is Ed McBrayer, the irrepressible Executive Director and co-founder of the PATH Foundation.  Established in 1991, the foundation has built over 285 miles of trails for walkers, runners, skaters and cyclists in the Atlanta area.  The PATH trails are transformative, making Atlanta greener, more pedestrian-friendly and a more livable city. The foundation is one of the key partners of the popular Atlanta Beltline.

Ed will tell us about the history and overall mission of PATH, acquaint us with existing PATH trails, and reveal plans for exciting new connections that will make Atlanta the most trail-connected city in the U.S.

Ed McBrayer is a Georgia native and graduated from Georgia Tech in Aerospace Engineering.  He worked for NASA and  then entered the construction industry, building over 1000 homes in the Denver area.  Ed also serves PATH as a construction manager;  he oversaw development of the Silver Comet Trail (one of the longest paved trail systems in the U.S), the Island Trail system in St.Simons, the Carrollton Greenbelt in Carrollton, and the Spanish Moss Trail in Beaufort S.C.

The March meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, the 21st, at the Capital City Club downtown. 

Our speaker is Louise Wasilewski, CEO and founder of Acivilate.   Established in 2014, her company’s mission is to improve outcomes for those involved in criminal justice, from law enforcement and the courts, to correctional and supervision officers, human service professionals and faith-based volunteers, and most importantly, the returning citizen and their family.  

Ms. Wasilewski will talk about the challenges related to hiring individuals with a record. She is passionate about improving criminal justice outcomes because it is an issue that has affected her family.  

A former inmate in the US has a 68% chance of returning to prison within three years.  Acivilate is working in Gwinnett County and across the country to create the conditions for returning citizens to be reliable employees. The company connects individuals with support services, provides reminders for appointments and makes it possible for them to stay in touch with their probation officers.  

Louise Wasilewski is a member of the Greater Gwinnett Reentry Alliance, the Metro Atlanta Reentry Coalition, the Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute, the American Correctional Association and the National Criminal Justice Association.  She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Aerospace Systems Engineering from Southampton University and an MBA from Emory University.  She has five patents.