Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce Archives

Downtown Columbus Didn’t Disappoint

Saturday night in downtown Columbus was a perfect night for me. We have been trying for what seems like years to get dear friends, Doctors Janie and Danny King from Eufaula, Ala., to shoehorn us into their busy, busy schedules and come to Columbus for an evening of dinner and entertainment. These guys are really busy with their internal medicine family practice and a robust list of Eufaula social obligations. We love being with them and Saturday night was a perfect storm of perfect for me.

Even though they have been to Columbus many times over the years, they aren’t familiar with Columbus neighborhoods and many of the newest amenities that are coming online in our fair city. Until Saturday, Danny hasn’t even seen the inside of the Bill Heard Theatre at RiverCenter for the Performing Arts. My absolutely favorite thing to do is to get my hands on someone who isn’t familiar with Columbus. I get to regale them with stories of the people and places of our area, the public/private partnerships that have shaped our landscape, our river, the beauty of MidTown, the new west bank jewels in Phenix City, new restaurants, the longest continually-performing symphony orchestra in America, our hotels and venues, downtown shopping and the promise of many more great things to come.

The Piano Men show with our Columbus Symphony Orchestra was so damn good. I sang along and chair danced my way through the two and a half hour long show. The CSO provided the perfect backdrop to the timeless music of Billy Joel and Elton John, performed flawlessly by a Canadian dude, a couple of side men and a local sax player they added to the show for a few numbers. If CSO conductor George Del Gobbo was put off by having to play an evening of pop music, he didn’t show it. He hammed it up with the Piano Men performers and seemed to be having a great time. Doing shows like this makes our symphony so much more approachable by folks that aren’t so much into classical symphonic music and I think these shows help people connect with this hugely important cultural resource.

We ran into Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer Brian Anderson, his wife Heather and his sister, Whitney, from Charleston, S.C. twice during the evening. They had as much fun as we did, it seems, despite last night’s chilly and blustery weather. I was a little bit disappointed that the streets of downtown weren’t quite as busy as a usual Saturday night. Broadway is a vibrant, exciting place to be on most weekends.

Way to go, Columbus! Our Eufaula friends were wowed by what they saw here on Saturday. I’m sure this is a scenario shared by many who come here for a visit and fall in love with this bend in the river. I’d call this a Chamber of Commerce kind of night. Wouldn’t you, Brian?

Action Nashville

As I looked around the Nashville, Tenn. rooms, buses and sidewalks we inhabited yesterday, something struck me: We are an interesting group. From twenty-somethings to those with white hair on the fringes of their pates like me. Among us are bankers, insurance people, journalists, public servants, politicians, public relations professionals, arts mavens, real estate folks, retailers, shopkeepers, restauranteurs — you get the idea. We’re a walking, intellectually-seething microcosm of of Greater Columbus, Georgia, all willing to give up three full days of our business lives and even willing to pay for the opportunity to do it.

This is exactly what a Chicago attorney, Paul P. Harris, was aiming for when on February 23, 1905 his passion for bringing together the best and brightest of his day resulted in the creation of the Rotary Club of Chicago. Today, the 1.2 million-member organization has, among many other things, effectively wiped polio from the map. They’ve done it by carefully selecting a multidisciplinary group of thinkers and problem solvers to bring to bear their minds and energy to solve the problems of the day.

Back to Nashville. Yesterday, we sat in groups while the people responsible for implementing and successfully delivering Nashville’s stellar growth and reputation were paraded before us to tell their stories of their best practices. The Nashville of today was birthed from a Wall Street Journal article many years ago that basically said Nashville didn’t have what it took to be a great Southern city. A series of meetings from a wide swath of the Nashvillians of that day decided they were going to do something about that sad WSJ commentary. Now, six five-year plans later, Nashville is at or near the top in every indicator category and couldn’t possibly be doing more to hone her shiny Music City moniker. So far, the people who have addressed us have all hit on the same talking points. This jewel of a city has been carefully constructed by thoughtful, engaged citizens whose plans are being manifested in what we are seeing on this trip.

During the past few weeks, I have been fortunate to have attended discussions about the creation of a minimum grid of roads and paths to connect the neighborhoods of Columbus. One of the slides NYC’s Gehl Studios showed compared Columbus’ growth over the past few decades with cities like Huntsville, Ala., Savannah, Ga., Athens, Ga. and a couple of others I can’t recall as I sit here in my hotel room at 5 a.m. writing this post. Columbus’ trend line is flat among a sea of rising lines representing these other cities.

Then yesterday, during Bill Murphy’s presentation about the Columbus Chamber’s Regional Prosperity Initiative, there was that shocking statistic: Columbus’s net jobs gain over the past 35 years is ZERO. Look around. We’ve got Aflac, TSYS, Synovus and all the power those huge corporations have brought to our city. Yet, and despite of all the fabulous strides we’ve made on the riverfront, all the streetscape renovations, all the retail, new restaurants that have come online, we haven’t made any headway in 35 years!

What is or are the reasons? Is it poverty? Is it our tax structure? That we’re not on a major interstate highway? Have we been spending too much time trying to lure the wrong business entities? Is a great local retailer on Broadway worth more than we think to our local economy? Is that honking, huge big-box retailer spewing smoke and mirrors that make us think they’re more important to our city than they really are?

The high-energy buzz that I have around me on this trip to Nashville says this group and the spinoffs that will occur when we get back home tells me this group wants to know the answers to these and other questions. I’m so excited to be a part of it. #iclcnashville #iclc2015

Change Requires Showing Up

I am proud to be known as a community supporter. Our jobs as magazine publishers mean we get to be out in the community in a big way. Shows at local entertainment venues, theater, public meetings to discuss changes in our community, news conferences, town hall meetings on various topics, educational conferences, Chamber of Commerce strategy sessions, downtown activities and any other activity that we feel we can support by a generous portion of our time, talent and the pages of our magazines. Because of the exposure our jobs bring, Jill and I are fortunate to almost always get a seat at the table.

What saddens me as we move through our lives is the shocking lack of depth among the numbers and types of people who show up when there is a job to be done. Because we go to so many things during the year, we have a well-educated perspective on the others in those rooms.

Let’s start with voting. With political unrest at unprecedented levels, one would think that folks would come in droves to the ONLY place where they have a real voice — the polls. Not so. I spoke a few days ago with Muscogee County Election Director Nancy Boren and asked her to send me some Muscogee County voter turnout data. With General Elections bringing out less than 50% of registered voters and Primary Elections turning out less than 20% of registered voters, these are sad commentaries on just how much residents of Muscogee County really care about who gets into office.

Even though this is the most telling symptom of public apathy, it goes much further. Recently Jill and I attended a public meeting put on by the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley and the PATH Foundation, an Atlanta consulting group that designs and implements green space/cycling/skating/running/walking solutions for cities.

A major effort was expended to get people there and the size of the crowd was disappointing. In a recent issue of the Ledger-Enquirer it was announced that city council had unanimously voted to accept the PATH Foundation’s designs for 25+ miles of trails that will tie into the RiverWalk and other existing trails in our city. PLEASE TAKE SOME TIME AND LOOK OVER THIS 40+ PAGE DESIGN PLAN. If this doesn’t excite you, it is highly likely you can’t fog a mirror.

Find something about Columbus that you love and get plugged in. If you don’t know how to make contact with the right person, send me an email and I’ll help. Use social media to put yourself out there. There is a cause out there that just might match your philanthropic interest. Or there might be a need that you have the passion and resources to fill. If everyone will use their time and talent we’ll be way further down the road to perfection than we are today. Pitch in, people! Here’s a great way to start: Like the Friends of Columbus River Link Facebook community page!

Ft. Benning Needs Your Voice

I have seen a little buzz on Facebook, especially from young entrepreneurs, who are advocating for Columbus to begin a weening process to minimize its dependence on Ft. Benning and to move toward attracting new big businesses and to support small- to mid-sized businesses instead. I understand why someone might make this point, especially if they view Ft. Benning as simply a military base.

It makes more sense to see Ft. Benning as a defense industry. COL (Ret) Gary Jones, executive vice president of military affairs, puts it this way: “The state of Georgia has a $22B (yes, billions) industry. It is the United States military.” Columbus’ piece of that ginormous pie is $5B, as a local “employer” (direct jobs and support jobs) of 41,000 people! This latest Sequestration issue could cost Ft. Benning 14,000 jobs.

Want to get a good local feel for what losing 14,000 would look like? I can’t do that, because I don’t have the math at my fingertips. But I can show you what losing 9,200 jobs would do to us. Imagine losing Aflac, TSYS and Columbus State University by September, 2017. Can you even fathom the amount of money, effort and time that would have to be invested to replace those three companies in a market the size of Columbus, Ga.?

I asked Gary Jones about the last time there was a significant draw down at Ft. Benning. It was right after the Vietnam War that the Department of Defense drew down the uniformed services. After a time the numbers stabilized and beginning in the late 80s and through the 90s till today, the military industry has grown. “In 2006, I briefed the governor and representatives from what is now called the Georgia Department of Economic Development on the importance of our state seeing the military as an $22B industry.”

Unless you were alive and in business in our region in the mid- to the late-70s, there is no way to get a feel for what a substantial reduction in force at Ft. Benning would bring. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to ever see that reduction take place. Losing a big chunk of Ft. Benning couldn’t be replaced in my remaining lifetime. Everyone’s businesses would suffer. Just as a rising tide floats all boats, a falling tide sends them all down. I want to look back at myself after this is all said and done and to judge whether I did everything within my power to do my part to keep Ft. Benning intact.

This is my first effort, on this subject, to earn my own respect — my personal affirmation when I look into the mirror every morning to shave. Regardless of your political leanings, having a thriving community of a few mega companies and a swelling legion of cool, new businesses (retail, restaurant, arts, entertainment and sports) is something I hope we can all get our head and our arms around. A healthy Ft. Benning would all but guarantee that.

Last night Jill and I attended the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s “Christmas in July” party hosted by the Hall Booth Smith law firm. It was a great event! The firm’s great, new offices on Front Avenue in the historic W. C. Bradley Co. building were on display as was a healthy dose of enthusiasm from Chamber staffers, executives and attendees. We got a chance to talk again with new Chamber President Brian Anderson and to reaffirm to him our commitment to keep selling this community in the pages of our magazines, our social media, my blog and our web pages.

If ever there was a time to speak out, the time is now. Yes, I would like to see our region attract new industries and businesses and lessen our dependence on the huge industry that is Ft. Benning, but I would hate to try and do that without the dollars and the culture that Ft. Benning brings to our region. Those dollars add up to a staggering $627,000,000 per year in this market. I hope you’ll do your own research and ultimately be able to get behind our Chamber, our city and the businesses we all own and support by speaking out, signing a petition and encouraging others to support our largest industry.

“Why I Changed My Mind About Weed”

I’m in a weird place. I have lost almost 75 pounds since mid-November, 2012. On average, almost two pounds per week for every single one of the weeks that have passed since I took my first dose of Votrient, an oral chemotherapy. Jill and I are going to a wedding on Saturday and until yesterday, when I picked up a new suit from Chancellor’s Men’s Wear, I didn’t have a single suit, sport coat or tuxedo that I could wear. I’ll admit that when I was younger, I was a major clothes horse. I was reminded of that yesterday when Roger Stinson handed me my new suit pants and sent me into the tiny freezer — which is the infamous Chancellor’s changing room — and I emerged and had him slip on the new suit coat. The feel of a new suit of clothes that REALLY fits is a thrilling thing! I have worn fat clothes for so many years that the complete and utter thrill I got seeing myself in that incredible suit made me want to dance. Roger turned me down though.

This rampant weight loss is hammered home all during the day, as I witness people looking me right in the eyes and knowing that they don’t recognize me. Today at the Chamber Lunch and Learn, our office mates went to support Helena Coates of Media, Marketing and More! as she was today’s presenter. I haven’t been to any Chamber events lately, so I saw a good number of people there that I haven’t seen in months and months. Kat Cannella was one of the folks who I spoke to who didn’t have a clue who I was. She came over at the end of Helena’s presentation and we talked about my shocking weight loss and the loss of my hair color. I look very different, and Lord knows, I sure feel different.

The act of eating, finding things I can eat, the timing of meals and the difficulty of keeping food down are consuming larger amounts of attention in every one of my days. For instance, the very nice luncheon that was prepared for the Chamber event didn’t include a single item that I could eat. So, I sat with my peeps while they ate and after I dropped them back at the office, I visited Freeze Frame on Broadway and ate a nice cup of my favorite swirled orange/vanilla frozen yogurt with toasted almonds. It filled me up and made me smile all at the same time. Some days I just can’t eat. The very thought of putting something in my mouth makes me want to heave. For someone who has spent hours in a kitchen preparing the perfect meal for guests, running a competitive barbecue cooking team, organizing wine tastings and being something of a self-proclaimed talking head on food/wine pairings, the fact that I am having such a difficult time getting nourishment and stanching a precipitous slide in my body weight is just a shocking thing.

My doctors are concerned, my wife is concerned, my mother is concerned and I’ll admit, lately I’m really starting to get worried about where this might be going. Cachexia is the official medical term for this wasting away of one’s body/muscle mass. My skin has become very thin, my muscles are atrophying and the worry about whether or not I can eat is causing stress that I didn’t anticipate. Although becoming empty will almost always make me sick, sometimes the indecision over what or whether I can eat keeps me from doing what I know I have to do and just put something in my stomach.

I’ve reported in this blog that Dr. Andy Pippas prescribed Marinol, which is a man-made version of the active drug that is in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol. My prescription contained 30 pills with instructions to take up to two per day. I’m about three weeks into the prescription and although I have suffered from some level of food trauma every day, I have only taken about half of the number of pills prescribed for the 30-day period. I’m not sure why I would be given 30 twice-per-day pills and be expected to have them last for 30 days, other than maybe this was a test firing to see if the pills work for me when testing for drugs. The Marinol does work to some degree, although the appetite stimulation part of the expected drug action seems less than adequate. It does seem to help with the nausea, but it hasn’t done much to make me want to eat.

The Marinol doesn’t work as well as the real thing. Back when I started taking the Votrient, someone brought me a marijuana laced chewable. It was a four-dose chunk of chocolate that tasted like a Tootsie Roll. I was warned that if I hadn’t partaken of any pot recently (and, I hadn’t) that I should be cautious and maybe treat it like an eight-dose item. What I realized right away is that my nausea dissipated in about 15 minutes and that I was definitely more inclined to eat. So, not only did I want to eat, but I was more likely to keep what I ate down. If some combination of Marinol and the occasional dose of self-prescribed medical marijuana or can stop this weight loss and allow me to develop enough strength to begin some kind of exercise, then I might have a chance to actually be able to become fairly healthy again in spite of living with a deadly, incurable stage IV cancer. The info on www.sacredkratom.com/ about this is clear, the hard chemicals we use as medicine are often more damaging than they should be.

It is the side effects of the chemo — diarrhea, vomiting, weakness, numbness in extremities, dizzyness and lack of strength that make some people give up. “I just can’t deal with this anymore!” Finding something that will restore as much of a normal life as possible in combination with a great wife, incredible children, an awesome family, good church friends, kind co-workers and a good network that give cancer patients the continued ability and will to fight the disease that is trying to kill them.

Today I read an article written by CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The piece, “Why I Changed My Mind About Weed,” was interesting. There is apparently way more data than was originally thought to back up the notion that not only is marijuana, aside from its recreational activities, is not highly addictive, but it is also quite helpful for many medical issues without most of the side effects that come with powerful narcotics and other classes of drugs. According to the cannavapos twitter, citizens in some 20 states and the District of Columbia have ratified some form of legislation that makes marijuana available for medical applications. It is time for this to happen on a much broader scale. Cancer patients who avail themselves of a tried and true, natural form of relief from their misery should not have to feel like criminals! If this discussion makes you uncomfortable, I’m sorry. This will not be the last you hear from me about this.