http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php/site/index/ en cheriwra@uga.edu Copyright 2013 2013-03-01T22:07:03+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2011/09/1257/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2011/09/1257/#When:18:30:11Z While others get up for a bathroom or cookie break, Nancy Mikell stays at the table looking at the Clinch County audit. In the first hour of a training class on financial reporting, Mikell has learned a lot about how to read an internal audit and has found some things in her county’s document that she doesn’t understand. “This (course) is providing me with a lot of questions to go back and ask,” says Mikell, a first term Clinch County commissioner, who took office in January. “I really don’t know how people can do their jobs effectively without this training.” More than 800 county officials gathered in Savannah in May for the annual meeting of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia. In addition to programs put on by the association, a big part of the three-day event was the training offered by UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government. Over the course of the event, county representatives, including elected officials and employees, learned about county government law, relationships between county commissions and their staffs, capital improvements projects and financial management. Trainers from the Vinson Institute also held sessions for county clerks and leadership programs. Derrick Ogletree, an information systems manager from Thomas County, took a basic financial management class on Saturday and then an advanced class on Sunday. “Today it’s all settling in,” Ogletree said Sunday during a short break. “I got a lot of information yesterday. I’m understanding a lot today. ” A retired public safety officer in Thomas County, Ogletree … Feature Stories 2011-09-01T18:30:11+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1790/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1790/#When:22:07:03Z From her office on the second floor of city hall, Riverdale       Mayor Evelyn Wynn-Dixon has a bird’s eye view of the rest of   the Town Center complex. To the left is the Riverdale Centre for the Arts, Business & Leisure Services—kids call it the spaceship because of its gently sloping, domed roof. To the right is a public plaza and amphitheater used for gatherings like the city’s Seafood & Beer Festival, held Labor Day weekend. The $18.5-million complex was built during Wynn-Dixon’s first term as mayor of Riverdale. It opened in 2010, with the government-civic buildings serving as the first phase of a three-part project planned for the 27-plus acre parcel of land. Future growth will incorporate a mixed-use commercial component as well as residential housing. From her vantage point, Wynn-Dixon (MSW ’95) can see the people of Riverdale arrive for city-sponsored events like concerts and free movies in the park (popcorn included). They also come for classes like Cardio Boot Camp and Nutrition 101. And they come to rent space in the Centre, which has a variety of facilities—meeting rooms, event halls, an entertainment lounge and a dance studio among others. The view from her office window is very different from the view she faced early in 1974. Then, evicted from her home and a single mother with four kids to support, Wynn-Dixon stood on the Pryor Street bridge, looking out over I-75. She was preparing to jump. After finishing her bachelor’s degree at Georgia State … Feature Stories 2013-03-01T22:07:03+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1789/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1789/#When:21:39:44Z The 2013 Georgia baseball team will debut some new, young talent this year and has several returning players who contributed to last year’s Diamond Dogs squad. But perhaps the two most important players on the team won’t take the field at all.  Chance Veazey and Johnathan “J.T.” Taylor are both confined to wheelchairs since suffering spinal cord injuries. Neither player had an at-bat last year. Neither threw a ball or ran the bases. But they bring the heart, passion and an uncanny knowledge of baseball strategy and motivational skills to Foley Field. “There is no place I’d rather be than here with my best friends, guys I love, guys who have bled together and cried together and have become like family,” says Veazey, who is paralyzed from the waist down. “No place I’d rather be than right here, right now.” Veazey, middle, and J.T. Taylor, right, chat with a teammate in the dugout at Foley Field. Photo by Louis Favorite. UGA baseball coach Dave Perno remembers the phone call he received in October 2009 while he was watching baseball on television. “It was game one of the World Series between the Yankees and the Phillies,” Perno recalls. “I’m a big Yankees fan, and Chance is a big Phillies fan. When I got a call from Chance’s phone, I figured he was just going to be ragging me about the game.” But it wasn’t Veazey. It was an Athens-Clarke County police officer, using Veazey’s phone. Veazey sustained a thoracic-level spinal cord injury … Feature Stories 2013-03-01T21:39:44+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1788/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1788/#When:21:10:37Z The deadline for early admission to UGA approached and Andrew Swicegood, a student from Macon, had already applied to civil engineering programs at Vanderbilt and Clemson universities. He thought to himself, “I better make sure Georgia doesn’t have this major, or I’m going to be kicking myself.” When Swicegood checked online and found civil engineering was a new major at UGA he quickly sent in his application to become a member of the College of Engineering’s inaugural class. He says other UGA students are surprised when he tells them his major. “When I say civil engineering, they haven’t heard of that before. I was intending not to come to Georgia because I didn’t want to be like anybody else from my town, but now I realize it’s super unique because civil engineering just started,” he says. The new College of Engineering—UGA’s 17th college or school—is a significant step toward keeping students like Swicegood in state for college and hopefully longer. Georgia has well below the national average of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in engineering and is trying to catch up to meet the existing demand from Georgia companies—and attract new opportunities. Georgia has nearly 3 percent of the national population, but only 1.84 percent of national jobs for civil engineers, 2.26 percent for electrical engineers and 1.22 percent for mechanical engineers, according to data by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Labor. From left: Matt McCue, a bio-engineering major from Augusta; Peter Kner, an assistant professor of engineering, and … Cover Story 2013-03-01T21:10:37+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1787/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1787/#When:20:28:12Z The Bulldog 100, a signature event of the UGA Alumni Association since 2010, recognizes the 100 fastest-growing businesses owned or operated by UGA alumni. Companies must have a UGA alumnus as CEO, president or managing partner, or an alumnus who owns more than 50 percent of the business. Companies must have been in business for five years, have minimum verifiable revenues of $100,000 for the first of the three calendar years of business measured and must operate in a manner consistent with the university’s “Pillars of the Arch” character statement. Nominations are open each January. For the full list of Bulldog 100 companies and more information on the program go to http://www.alumni.uga.edu/b100. 1: Hitson Land and Timber Management Inc. Port Orange, Fl Greg Hitson (BSFR ’94) Established in 1997, Hitson Land and Timber Management Inc. is a full-service forestry consulting and land management firm that helps landowners maximize profits from their natural resources while protecting the recreational use and beauty of the forests. Hitson also was the top fastest-growing Bulldog business in 2010. Hitson             2: Mom Corps Atlanta, Ga Allison O’Kelly (BBA ’94) Mom Corps is a staffing company for flexible employment. O’Kelly founded the company in 2005 in an effort to draw more women back into the executive work force. O’Kelly and Mom Corps won the 2006 Working Mother magazine Entrepreneur Mom Award and the 2007 UGA Terry College of Business Outstanding Young Alumni Award. O’Kelly                 … Feature Stories 2013-03-01T20:28:12+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1805/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1805/#When:20:22:09Z “They really play off each other and in a way teaching is similar to performance. You have to plan, you have to be prepared, but you also have to make that connection in real time. You have to be flexible…. I can’t imagine one without the other. I think my performing would be more lackluster, my teaching kind of dull if I did one without the other.” —Jean Martin-Williams on her dual career as a professor and as a professional musician, performing with the Georgia Woodwind Quartet as well as with orchestras throughout the world.   Jean Martin-Williams Professor, Hugh Hodgson School of Music Director, Lilly Teaching Fellows B.A., M.A. and D.M.A. in Horn Performance, Manhattan School of Music, New York Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship   Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker, shot on location at the Whitmire Farm in Bishop, Ga., with horses, riders and assistance from the UGA Equestrian program. The horn she is holding is a historical reproduction of a natural, or valveless, horn handcrafted by Richard Seraphinoff. A natural horn was used to signal the start of the hunt and is the predecessor to the modern horn. Back Page 2013-03-01T20:22:09+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1804/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1804/#When:20:20:05Z Curtis “Coot” Beall (BSA ’47), UGA’s oldest-living cheerleader, died Jan. 10 after a battle with prostate cancer. Hailing from Dublin, Ga., Beall was the first of his family to graduate from college. His education was interrupted by service with the Marine Corps during World War II, but after earning his degree he returned to UGA to cheer on the sidelines at nearly every homecoming game, missing last fall’s due to illness. He is the author of Memoirs of a Marine Dawg: From Rose Bowl to Pacific Theater. The book raised more than $10,000, all of which was donated in support of the UGA cheerleaders. 0 0 1 30 175 UGA 1 1 204 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Editor’s note:  After Georgia Magazine went to press, we discovered that Curtis Beall’s older brother, the late Millard Fillmore Beall (BSA ’40), was the family’s first UGA graduate. We regret the error.   Class Notes Extras 2013-03-01T20:20:05+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1803/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1803/#When:20:17:50Z Few people can say they’ve been to each of the seven continents. Even fewer can say they flew there themselves. Maj. Brian Dodson (BBA ’02) is one of the few. A pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Dodson flies Boeing C-17s, large military transport planes. Dodson was commissioned into the Air Force as a second lieutenant the day he graduated from Georgia. He graduated in the top 10 percent of his class from flight school and was able to choose which aircraft he would fly. “My dad was in the Air Force too, and I remember him telling me that if I chose to go fly for Air Mobility Command, I would get to see the world,” Dodson says. He started his first C-17 assignments in Charleston, S.C., completing missions that took him across the Atlantic. He also worked as an executive officer for a squadron commander, taking on leadership roles and responsibilities. After five years in Charleston, Dodson was reassigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Wash., where he flew similar missions, serving the Pacific area and working as a flight commander. As his father told him, he has been able to see the world. “I’ve done everything you can possibly think of in a C-17, and it’s taken me all around the world,” he says, noting his favorite stops—Argentina, Kenya, South Africa and New Zealand. He’s even been to Antarctica, where he runs supply missions for Operation Deep Freeze, flying in equipment, supplies and personnel. “It’s a surreal moment … Alumni Profiles 2013-03-01T20:17:50+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1786/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1786/#When:20:15:58Z When the Powerball lottery reached its peak in November 2012, the jackpot had rolled over for 16 consecutive weeks before two players, one each in Arizona and Missouri, picked the right numbers: 5, 16, 22, 23, 29 and Powerball 6. The odds of wining the top prize: 1 in 175,223,510. Still, the slightest possibility of winning was enough to draw out millions to bet $2 per ticket on the big prize. More than 560 million tickets, a record for the Powerball at that time, were sold in 44 states and the District of Columbia. For many, the tickets likely were a lark—a chance to daydream about the happiness riches could bring. For some, it could have been a first-time buy. Others spend a few dollars weekly on the chance for a payout. But for some, the weekly and bi-weekly games, local lotteries and scratch-off tickets are an irresistible lure, the idea of hitting the jackpot overriding rational thought and leading the player to invest his family’s food money, or a weekly paycheck, for the 1 in 175 million chance of a big payout. These are the people Adam Goodie wants to know more about. An associate professor of behavioral and brain sciences in the Department of Psychology, Goodie runs the newly established Center for Gambling Research. Working with colleagues in other disciplines, such as social work, business, public health and family and consumer sciences, Goodie hopes to learn more about the addiction to gambling and its impact on families, societies, politics … Closeups 2013-03-01T20:15:58+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1802/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2013/03/1802/#When:20:15:52Z David Vaughan (AB ’84) owns the largest personal collection of Civil War photographs. Through September 2013, some of that collection is on display in an extensive exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “The Civil War and American Art” explores how American artists responded to the Civil War and its aftermath. It features works made by leading figure painters such as Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson, landscape painters such as Sanford R. Gifford and Frederic E. Church and photographers such as Mathew Brady and George Barnard. Vaughan is a member of the UGA Libraries Board of Visitors. Get more on the exhibit at http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/civil-war.   Included among alumnus David Vaughan’s photographs exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is this one of the Fincher Brothers, two of seven volunteer Confederate soldiers from Forsyth County during the Civil War. The exact identity of the men in the photo is not known but they are among the five Fincher men who served as enlisted men in Company I, 43rd Georgia Infantry, in 1862. Class Notes Extras 2013-03-01T20:15:52+00:00