ATLANTA – Doug Hooker, who has led the Atlanta Regional Commission for nearly a decade, will retire next March, the ARC announced Wednesday.
“It has been an honor and privilege to work alongside Doug Hooker for the past nine years,” ARC Chairman Kerry Armstrong said. “Doug has brought a depth and breadth to ARC that has served our region well with a myriad of accomplishments. His strategic leadership has continued to provide valuable counsel to the board and our staff.”
Hooker joined the 10-county regional planning agency as executive director in 2011. An engineer by trade, he spent two decades in metro Atlanta’s public and private sectors before coming to the ARC, including a stint as commissioner of public works for the city of Atlanta.
Hooker has carried out a broad range of duties at the ARC, including transportation planning, aging services, workforce development, water conservation, and homeland security.
“It has been the greatest accomplishment of my career to lead ARC through a transformative journey over these past nine years,” he said. “I am enormously proud of what we have accomplished together as an agency and as a regional force.”
Highlights of Hooker’s tenure at the ARC include helping to launch Aerotropolis Atlanta, a public-private partnership that works to improve the economic competitiveness of the area around Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and his role in Learn4Life, a collaborative workforce readiness initiative aimed at improving education outcomes in metro Atlanta.
Armstrong said a search committee will be formed to look for a successor to Hooker in the coming months.