Buckhead Coalition Taps Representatives From Ten Additional Area Businesses

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Staff Report

The acknowledged power in civic circles serving the Buckhead Community, the Buckhead Coalition, has voted in top officers of ten businesses new to its roster. Limiting its complement to 100, it is only once a year around this time on the calendar that it’s able to determine what attrition it will experience.

It is apparent that its vacancy rate is envied by the area’s other nonprofits of this type, considering the average membership loss nationally in civic groups being twenty percent. The Coalition even maintains a waitlist numbering almost thirty from over the years of Applications on file.

Membership in the Coalition, for which the annual dues responsibility is $9,000, is by invitation, and limited to chief executive officers or the equivalent, of major area firms. The Coalition is now celebrating its twenty-seventh year.

New affiliations for 2015, alphabetically, are: W. Millard Choate, President and CEO of Choate Construction Co.; Steven DeFrancis, Chief Executive Officer of Cortland Partners; Kevin Greiner, President and CEO of Gas South; Mark Kauffman, President of Kauffman Tire, Inc.; Meredith Leapley, Chief Executive Officer of Leapley Construction; Jonathan D. Rodbell, Partner of Atlanta Property Group, LLC;

Tony R. Smith, President of Simmons Bedding Co.; Carol B. Tomé, CFO and Executive VP Corp. Services of The Home Depot; R. E. (Ted) Turner, Chairman of Turner Enterprises, and Jeremy Wing, Founder and President of Payscape Advisors.

In addition, the following firms changed their representatives as follows: DPR Hardin replaced Brantley Barrow with Regional Manager Russ Brockelbank; OliverMcMillan replaced Paul Buss with Chief Executive Officer Dene Oliver; Brightworth, LLC changed Chris Dardaman to Managing Partner Ray Padrón; Cartel Properties named G. Matt Rohrig, its Vice President, for George Rohrig; CBRE, Inc. replaced John Shlesinger with Senior Managing Director David P. Lanier, and Branch Banking & Trust Co. replaced Brant Standridge with new Group State President Dontá L. Wilson.

The Coalition maintains a staff of four headed by former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell, with headquarters in the Tower Place 100 Building. Its mission is to nurture the quality of life of those who live, visit, work, and play in its twenty-eight square miles.

The Chairman of the organization is Jeff Sprecher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. He is pleased to welcome the new list of “top business leaders in our City”, admitting that whereas “the organization has no official powers, its members altruistically support the City’s Mayor and City Council, and this year will take on a special effort to strengthen the brand of Buckhead’s only public high school, North Atlanta High.”