COMMUNITY

Events & Opportunities

Feb. 8 – The 2010 Savannah Ogeechee Regional Science and Engineering Fair, sponsored by Georgia Tech Savannah, will be held this week on Feb. 10, and opens at 8 a.m. at the Coastal Georgia Center. More than 200 middle and high school students from 13 Georgia counties are again expected to compete in a broad range of categories. Cost is $15 per student. Student projects are judged on technical merit and creativity by science and engineering professionals from the local area.

The top 20 percent will go on to compete at the state level, the 2010 Georgia Science and Engineering Fair in Athens. Each year SORSEF motivates area students to apply creativity and critical thought to the solution of science, engineering and math problems; encourages the exchange of knowledge and ideas; and recognizes student achievement.

For more information about this event, including how you can be a part of SORSEF, contact Jan Siplon at Georgia Tech Savannah, 912-944-7941, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Business Buzzzz

1/11/2010 - Congratulations to The Mansion on Forsyth Park, which received some well-deserved recognition by Condé Nast magazine this month by being named to the Condé Nast Traveler’s Elite 2010 Gold List.  The hotel was featured in the January 2010 issue, marking the fifth consecutive year that The Mansion on Forsyth Park has been included on this elite list of top international properties.

“We’re deeply honored to be included on this leading list of the best hotels around the world,’ said Jeff McLaughlin, general manager at The Mansion on Forsyth Park. The Mansion on Forsyth Park is the only Savannah hotel included on the 2010 Condé Nast Traveler Gold List and one of only a handful of properties in Georgia to earn this distinctive honor.

The hotel is owned and operated by The Kessler Collection in Orlando, which also owns and operates the Bohemian Hotel Savannah Riverfront in Savannah

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Thunderbolt Fire Chief Carl Smith has thrown his hat in the ring to challenge Congressman John Barrow.  Smith, a Republican, appears to have the support so far of Rep. Ron Stephens and Tybee Island Mayor Jason Buelterman. In 1997 and again in 2005, Smith was elected to the Thunderbolt town council.

The Point South KOA Campground, owned and operated by William and Barbara Olendorf, has been recognized as being among the “best of the best” in the Kampgrounds of America system that includes more than 470 campgrounds in North America.

The Olendorf’s have owned the campground for 26 years and now operate it along with their daughter, Jennifer Mason, a part-owner/manager with the two-generation family business.

Located in Point South, S.C., in Jasper County, near Yemassee, the campground received the 2009 Kampgrounds of America President’s Award at a special ceremony recently at KOA’s Annual International Convention in Houston, Texas.

The KOA President’s Award is unique in the camping industry because winning campgrounds are being recognized by their own campers based on their Kamper Satisfaction Survey results, much in the tradition of KOA founder Dave Drum, who created the first KOA campground on the shores of the Yellowstone River in Billings, Mon., in 1962. Drum was famous for continuously surveying those first campers in order to learn where improvements could be made.
Interestingly, KOA’s annual national convention will be held in Savannah in 2010.


The Hauser Group, owned by Larry Hauser, has been named the agency of record for The Savannah Bank as of December.  While The Hauser Group is headquartered out of Atlanta and no longer has a Savannah office, Hauser, who lives on Wilmington Island, is handling his Savannah market clients from his home here.  

Also in ad agency news, Monroe Marketing, owned by Rick Monroe, has been chosen as agency of record for Wells Fargo Insurance Services’ Savannah operation.

The “Roy 2010,” Roy Barnes’ campaign for governor, announced that it raised over $2.7 during the last half of 2009.  Over two-thirds of Roy 2010’s donors are first-time contributors to Barnes, according to Roy 2010 Campaign Manager Chris Carpenter.

“Even though he joined the race late, during the last several months, Barnes has visited more than 60 counties throughout Georgia as a part of his listening tour of the state.   He has heard from local officials, teachers, and business and labor leaders about how they want to change the direction of the state and re-establish a clear vision for a better Georgia.  As a result, more than 90 percent of Barnes’ contributors are in-state donors, with more than half of those donors having contributed less than $500,” said Carpenter.

When he started the campaign, Barnes said he would not accept contributions from registered Georgia lobbyists, and “the $2.7 million raised includes no such money,” Carpenter affirmed.

Congratulations to the management team and board of directors of Union Mission who hosted a dedication ceremony on Jan. 7 to celebrate the opening of its Dutchtown Campus Apartments, located at 9611 Middleground Road.
Dutchtown is a 48-unit apartment complex that will be the home to over 100 men, women and children who were previously homeless in Chatham County, according to Keller Deal, Director of Community Affairs. 
The campus has an onsite health clinic, computer lab and fitness room, and is the first of its kind in the state of Georgia.

The facility is also received the state’s largest allocation to a project of this kind, $5.4 million.

Working to prepare local students for employment in the future and to gain an understanding of urban planning, the freshman Early College students of the Savannah-Chatham public schools will participate this week in an innovation educational program –  a “box city” activity.

The activity is the culmination of the students’ study of urban planning and architectural features and styles. The students will construct replica domestic and commercial buildings emphasizing specific architectural features and styles and will also learn about zoning and urban planning and place their structures on a model of a city design.

Several members of the Historic Savannah Foundation have volunteered to help facilitate the activity.
For more information about the Early College program, parents can call 912-395-2535.

Opinion & Editorial

Commentary by Joe Wilson

Guest Columnist

1/11/2010 - We all remember the Wendy's ad campaign, "Where's the beef?" This iconic campaign triggered fast-food consumers across the nation to take notice of the product – or lack thereof – they were receiving at the drive-through. Sometimes it takes creative campaigns like this to get people to notice they've been shortchanged.

Borrowing from the Wendy's playbook, I've started asking, "Where's the jobs?" because I believe the American people have been shortchanged when it comes to job-creation policies. Congress has spent plenty of time and plenty of your money debating health-care takeovers, energy taxes and spending increases – but no real policies to jump-start America's economy.

Just last month, South Carolina's unemployment rate hit an all-time high at 12.3 percent. How high will unemployment numbers have to rise before the majority party finally straightens out Congress' misplaced priorities? Since Nancy Pelosi has been in the speaker's chair, 8.7 million more people are unemployed. What's more frightening is that 3 million of those jobs have been lost since the misnamed trillion-dollar stimulus was rammed through Congress less than a year ago.

Adding insult to injury, lawmakers cannot account for the stimulus jobs that your hard-earned tax dollars were supposed to create. The federal government's official Web site was reporting fake jobs in fake congressional districts. For example, it showed that $3 million couldn't produce a single job in South Carolina's 43rd District – which doesn't exist. Somehow, $1.8 million was spent for 1.4 jobs in the nonexistent 00 District. This might be funny if it weren't the taxpayers' money.

Recently, reports have gone from bad to worse. The Government Accountability Office reported that one out of every 10 jobs created by the stimulus is also fake. Reports show that Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, received $6 million in stimulus money to preserve three jobs. I cannot fathom how a pollster could receive enough stimulus money to sustain dozens of S.C. families for decades.

After weeks of reports on blatant inconsistencies in stimulus spending, the administration has yet to provide adequate answers as to the whereabouts of stimulus funds. In response, I have called for an outside audit of all stimulus dollars appropriated.

My legislation, the National Commission on American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will create a bipartisan commission to audit all money that has been spent by the "stimulus" bill. The 10-member panel, appointed by the president and Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate, will investigate how many jobs actually have been saved or created by the stimulus bill. It also will examine the circumstances in which those jobs have been saved or created and the effectiveness of measures taken to prevent the improper use of funds.

It's important to find out where your hard-earned dollars are being spent. At the same time, we must keep asking, "Where's the jobs?" to get congressional leaders focused on long-term job creation to give this economy the jolt it needs.

When I visit business owners and employees, I am reminded of our state's remarkable work force and strong industries that can create and keep jobs in our communities. But South Carolina needs Congress to stop hindering and start helping small businesses and individuals get the job done.

Right before Thanksgiving, I was thankful to welcome Four Star Industries to Allendale County. The $2.75 million investment that will create 50 news jobs is appreciated, as Allendale County's jobless rate was the highest in the state. Last month, I joined Ameresco's CEO George Sakellaris in Aiken as ground was broken on the largest energy efficiency project in the federal government's history. The state-of-the-art renewable energy facility is a $795 million project that will create jobs in our state while reducing air emissions and energy and water consumption nationwide.

The recent economic commitments in our state from Four Star Industries, Boeing, Scotsman Ice, Dixie Narco and Ameresco came about because of incentives that the state of South Carolina has offered. The combination of low taxes, worker training, right-to-work protections and less regulatory red tape is a sound recipe to attract business. This common-sense approach must be applied at the national level.

We cannot stand by and watch more families cope with layoffs, survive on smaller paychecks or lose their homes while some in Washington are jeopardizing America's future by spending more  and increasing our nation's debt.

Joe Wilson, a Republican, represents South Carolina's 2nd Congressional District.

Columnists

Building Future Leaders

By Dennis Hooper

I love helping leaders excel People who are willing to improve their leadership competencies usually have already shown that they genuinely want to grow. They’re not satisfied with the status quo. They know there are so many things that could be better: relationships at work and at home, their health, their skills, the cultures and processes in their operations and the results they are able to achieve.

Too many people believe the myth that leaders are born with whatever talent and capabilities they need to lead. Sure, some individuals have a propensity for leadership, just as some individuals have natural athletic ability and some people are gifted with beautiful singing voices.

Leadership is not, however, some indescribable charm that can’t be defined. On the contrary, I use resource material that identifies over 65 attributes of leaders. Every one of those characteristics has a clear and distinct description, and any given individual can potentially make improvements in every one.

When I begin a self-assessment with an individual, often he or she is surprised to be evaluating skills in so many different attribute areas. Yet individuals have no problem deciding whether each characteristic is a strength or a limitation or somewhere in between. After working through this experience with hundreds of individuals, I’m convinced that many of them have discounted their strengths and previously blinded themselves to their weaknesses.

For example, I worked recently with an individual who considered himself barely adequate as a leader. Yet the people under his authority respect him highly. So do those in authority over him. I felt quite certain that we would discover some interesting insights as we conducted his self-assessment. As I expected, this leader had no problem identifying many clear and significant strengths.

As I explored with him why he gave himself so little credit for those activities where his skill clearly excels, he merely assumed that everybody is good at those abilities. He didn’t consider himself to have anything special to offer. The key with an individual like this is to help him see new ways in which to apply his existing competencies and perhaps offset some of his limitations with compensating strengths.

Once we complete the self-assessment, we look at the person’s current and anticipated future responsibilities. We imagine the capabilities that the perfect candidate would have to fill that role and to execute those responsibilities precisely and effectively.

Next, we look at the gaps that exist between what the individual actually possesses and those attributes desirable in the role being filled (or soon to be filled).

The obvious need is to strengthen any weaknesses that might limit the person’s success in that role. But I always have the leader also consider any strengths that would benefit from enhancement. After all, each of us has gotten to wherever we are in our lives based on the strengths that we have. If a person can improve his or her value by boosting skills through a little additional energy, why not capitalize on such an opportunity?

Once we’ve selected the areas in which the leader would like to improve, then we identify potential action steps that will allow the leader to learn in as many different ways and from as many different experiences as possible. I have resource materials that help with this step, but the more creative the leader can be in thinking about real possibilities applicable in the existing workplace, the better off he or she will be.

Together, we generate a plan that allows the leader to focus on skill improvement over the next year. The developmental work is not done independent of his “real work,” but in conjunction with it. Described another way, the same work is done, but the individual experiments with different ways of doing it. I love this step, as I love helping people creatively consider ways to enhance their God-given abilities.

If you would like to spend an hour evaluating your own leadership skills, contact me. The experience will likely raise your awareness significantly and generate an enthusiasm for growth in ways you’ve not felt in a long time.

Dennis Hooper is a leadership coach, helping leaders build organizations of excellence and future leaders. Contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call him at 478-988-0237. His Web site is www.buildingfutureleaders.com.