ATLANTA – Former University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby died Wednesday at age 79 after suffering a stroke last week.
Huckaby served a brief stint in the state House of Representatives representing a Watkinsville-based district and before that spent years as an administrator at the University of Georgia.
He was named chancellor of the university system in 2011 and served in that role until retiring in early 2017.
“He was a true gentleman and a pillar of the Athens and Oconee County community,” Gov. Brian Kemp said. “Hank left Georgia better than he found it, and for that, we are forever grateful. We will continue to lift the Huckaby family up in our prayers in the coming days.”
“Hank was devoted to this state and served it in many capacities,” added current system Chancellor Steve Wrigley, who succeeded Huckaby. “He always kept the people of this state first in his work.
“His last role as chancellor was exemplary both in our state and nationally, putting Georgia on a path to be a top public higher education system in the nation. I learned a great deal from him through the years, and I shall miss him greatly.”
Huckaby’s signature accomplishment as chancellor was launching a consolidation initiative that shrank the number of colleges and universities in the system over several years from 35 to 26. The move was aimed both at cutting costs and improving the quality of education.
Huckaby also presided over strong enrollment growth, helping spur an increase in the number of graduates.
Early in his career, Huckaby taught at Emory University and Georgia Perimeter College. He went on to serve as an administrator at Georgia State University, Gordon College, and UGA, where he rose to senior vice president for finance and administration.
Huckaby also served in the administrations of three Georgia governors. He was budget director under Zell Miller, executive director of the Georgia Housing and Finance Authority under Joe Frank Harris and commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs under George Busbee.
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.
ATLANTA – Oconee County has the highest concentration of small businesses in Georgia, according to a new study from a New York-based financial technology company.
The report, compiled by SmartAsset, ranked counties based on the percentage of the county’s total tax returns filed by small business owners and the percentage of income derived from small businesses.
In Oconee County, 35.59% of tax returns are from small businesses, second only to Gwinnett’s 36.35%. Small business income accounts for 16.85% of total income in Oconee, tops on the list.
Those results gave Oconee a total score of 57.40 in the report, easily the best.
Except for Oconee, the 10 top counties for small businesses in Georgia are located either in metro Atlanta, along Interstate 20 east of the metro region or in the North Georgia mountains.
Here is the top-10 list from the SmartAsset study:
County Small business returns Small business income Score
ATLANTA – Students at Georgia’s 26 public colleges and universities won’t be hit with a tuition increase this fall for the second year in a row.
The University System of Georgia Board of Regents (USG) voted Tuesday to hold the line on tuition during the 2021-22 school year. The vote marked the fourth time in the last six years the system has not increased tuition.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic was a key factor in the decision not to raise tuition during the coming year, Tracey Cook, the system’s executive vice chancellor for strategy and fiscal affairs, told board members before Tuesday’s vote.
“Holding tuition flat … recognizes the financial hardships faced by many of our students and parents during the pandemic,” she said.
“USG over the past several years has remained committed to making public higher education as affordable as possible for students and their families, while maintaining results that rank our campuses among some of the best in the nation,” system Chancellor Steve Wrigley added. “We are grateful for the support of the board and state leaders toward this priority, and recognize students’ hard work especially over the past year to maintain success toward graduating and entering Georgia’s workforce with college degrees.”
Gov. Brian Kemp and the General Assembly did not restore the 10% budget cut the university system took last year during the early stages of the pandemic, Cook said. However, an influx of federal COVID-19 relief allowed the system to hold the line on tuition, she said.
The regents also voted not to raise either mandatory or elective student fees during the coming school year.
In other action, the board put its stamp of approval on the $2.46 billion system budget Georgia lawmakers adopted last month as part of the $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 state budget. Most of the 6.8% increase in the spending plan is to cover enrollment growth.
Wrigley said the $138 million increase in next year’s budget not only will keep tuition low but will allow the various campuses to invest in infrastructure needs.
ATLANTA – Two South Korean electric vehicle battery manufacturers have reached an 11th-hour settlement to a trade dispute that was threatening an estimated 2,600 jobs in Georgia.
SK Innovation, which is planning to build a pair of plants in Jackson County, will pay LG Energy Solutions $1.8 billion in exchange for dropping a lawsuit before the International Trade Commission (ITC). LG Energy had accused SK of stealing trade secrets and destroying documents.
The Biden administration was facing a Sunday deadline to overturn an ITC ruling favorable to LG that would have hampered SK’s ability to operate plants in the U.S.
“This settlement agreement is a win for American workers and the American auto industry,” President Joe Biden said Sunday. “A key part of my plan to Build Back Better is to have the electric vehicles and batteries of the future built here in America, all across America, by American workers.
“Today’s settlement is a positive step in that direction, which will bring some welcome relief to workers in Georgia and new opportunity for workers across the country.”
“The announcement of a settlement between SK innovation and LG Energy Solution is fantastic news for northeast Georgia and our state’s growing electric vehicle industry,” Gov. Brian Kemp added. “Our state attracted this massive $2.6 billion investment because of Georgia’s pro-growth leadership, and I have personally participated in countless meetings, calls, and other conversations to make sure this project and the 2,600 expected jobs continued to move forward.”
Helping the two companies reach a settlement was a bipartisan effort. U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., intervened personally to bring the parties to the table to work out an agreement, according to a statement from Ossoff’s office.
“When the future of the plant was in jeopardy, Senator Ossoff provided leadership and helped us achieve a path forward,” SK Innovation President and CEO Jun Kim said “This successful outcome will lead to billions more in investment in Georgia. The state is now positioned to be the nation’s leader in electric vehicle battery production.”
The two plants, representing a $2.6 billion investment, will employ 1,000 workers by the end of this year. When fully ramped up in 2024, the plants will produce batteries for 300,000 electric vehicles per year, primarily for Ford and Volkswagen.
