ATLANTA — Alex Willson knows how to grow a pecan and turn it into a cake, but he is not so great at analyzing shipping logistics.
The president and CEO of Sunnyland Farms in Albany is running an agricultural business that dates to 1948 — not the kind of operation one associates with cutting edge technology.
Yet Willson said he was able to harness artificial intelligence to boost his bottom line about 8%, even 10%.
He had help from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Sunnyland used to pay several shippers to send its candied or salted nuts to consumers across the country.
Willson felt like he could get a better deal, either by renegotiating with the shippers or opening a warehouse out West to consolidate costly shipments.
Then, an intern from Tech showed him the best move. The intern, with help from the federally funded Georgia AIM project, fed “reams and reams and reams” of his company’s shipping data into an AI-powered program that produced leverage for Willson. Knowledge is power, he said, and the Tech intern showed him how his shipping patterns could translate into a better deal with just one of the shippers.
The innovation also freed up time. Instead of staging pecan products at multiple locations for each of several shippers, the goods now go to one spot.
The project has subsequently helped with other data analysis that has, in turn, boosted sales and saved money and time.
“I’m thinking more strategically instead of just putting out little fires all day,” Willson said. He said his managers and workers also have more time to try out ideas for increasing revenue or reducing costs.
Georgia AIM stands for Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing, a program that started four years ago with $65 million in federal seed money.
State and private investment has increased that to $82 million, said Donna Ennis, a Tech administrator who is helping to lead Georgia AIM Week, a series of demonstrations across the state through Friday.
On Monday, middle and high school students visited Carrollton-based Southwire, a manufacturer of wire, cable, tools, electrical components and many other products.
On Tuesday, the show is moving to the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins. On Wednesday the topics include cybersecurity in Augusta and hydroponics and other agricultural advances in Albany. Thursday features robots at the University of Georgia, and career-related events for students in LaGrange, Dublin and Savannah.
The week culminates with manufacturing tours in Savannah.
“This is a program that is striving to make manufacturing cool again,” said Enis, who wants to disabuse people of the notion that factories are dull, dirty, dark and dangerous.
“That’s how people generally think of manufacturing, but manufacturing is not like that anymore,” she said.
ATLANTA — Nearly nine out of every 10 Georgia high school students in the class of 2025 earned a diploma within four years, setting a record.
With one exception, Georgia’s on-time graduation rate has increased every year since the class of 2011. That was the first class to earn diplomas under a new federally mandated counting system that required schools to account for students who transferred away and to base the grad rate on four years of high school.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods attributed the relentless gains to strategies such as credit recovery, wherein students retake failed courses. He also pointed to tutoring and extra services for those deemed to be at risk of failure.
“While more work remains to be done, more Georgia students are graduating than ever before – and they’re doing so prepared to pursue futures full of opportunity,” Woods said in a statement Monday announcing the 2025 rates for the state and for school districts.
The 2025 statewide average was 87.2%, up nearly two percentage points from the prior year when it was 85.4%.
It has climbed nearly every year since the new method of calculation was implemented in 2011, when 67.4% graduated on time. The only outlier was the class of 2021, which experienced half of junior year and all of senior year during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their rate fell a tenth of a percentage point from the prior year to 83.7%.
Then, the statewide rate started rising again, first by several decimal points a year, then by a full point in 2024, leading to the relatively big increase last spring.
Under the federal “four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate,” schools must count all students who enroll into their class year during high school. Officials can only subtract students who transfer out after confirming they reenrolled at another school.
The biggest increase — more than 6 percentage points — occurred from 2014 to 2015, when the rate reached 79%. Experts at that time attributed the gains at least in part to improved tracking of students who disenrolled, with administrators becoming more adept at keeping records that showed their former students had landed at another school.
But the gains have been grinding since then, with an annual 1-point increase or less becoming the norm. Some researchers found evidence that similar gains nationally had resulted more from teaching than from bookkeeping, with tactics such as credit recovery and increased accountability contributing to the momentum.
Gov. Brian Kemp speaks at the Georgia Governor’s Tourism Conference in Savannah on Friday, Sept. 26. (Contributed/Explore Georgia)
ATLANTA — Tourists and business travelers continued flocking to the Peach State last year, injecting billions into the economy, according to new state numbers from Gov. Brian Kemp.
A record 174.2 million traveled across the country and the globe to visit Georgia in 2024 and spent $45.2 billion, up 4% from the year before, he said in a statement issued by his office Friday.
The governor traveled to Savannah for a state tourism conference where he revealed the numbers. He credited Georgia’s cultural attractions, its communities and its scenery — from coasts to mountains — for a third record-breaking year in a row.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development said more than 17 million of the visitors were domestic travelers here for business and conventions. Their numbers were up nearly 5%, accounting for $4.6 billion in spending.
Tourism is the state’s second-largest economic contributor, according to the agency.
The influx — more than 15 times the state population of 11.2 million last year — bolstered the bottom lines of hotels, restaurants and recreation and transportation businesses.
Government also took a $5.1 billion cut, with Kemp saying the state and local tax revenues saved each household an average $1,285 in taxes.
ATLANTA — The private health information of more than 900 Medicaid recipients in Georgia may have been exposed in July, according to a state contractor.
Gainwell Technologies, the fiscal agent for Medicaid in Georgia, disclosed the incident Friday, saying an unauthorized caller gained access to a reimbursement account and was able to view payment information.
The caller wanted to access payments to providers, the company said through a spokesperson.
“There is no indication that the caller attempted to access individual member accounts; however, the caller was able to view billing statements that included the names, Medicaid member IDs, coverage and payment information for claims and date ranges for when services were provided under Georgia Medicaid,” the company said in a statement.
Social Security numbers were not disclosed in the July 23 incident, the statement said.
Gainwell contracts with the state Department of Community Health. A department spokesperson could not be reached for comment Friday.
Gainwell said it is not aware of any misuse of personal information but is offering free credit monitoring for a year to those affected. The company said it notified 912 Medicaid members whose protected health information might have been disclosed.
Anyone who received a notification letter can call IDX, the identity theft protection service that Gainwell is providing, at 1-833-788-9712.
ATLANTA — For a dozen years in a row now, Georgia has ranked at the top of an economic development magazine’s listing of the best states for doing business.
In a new report, Area Development Magazine cites affordable housing, reliable child care and transportation as key determinants for the state’s consecutive run atop its charts.
“Executives are asking not just where they can find talent, but where that talent can live and thrive,” said the trade journal, explaining what helped buoy the state’s ranking. The measure is seen as a marker of a state’s attractiveness to growing companies that can bring new jobs.
The new rankings came out a week after an August jobs report from the state Department of Labor. The Sept. 18 state release showed nearly five million employed, with unemployment basically unchanged from July.
Area Development Magazine’s rankings are based on a survey of consultants who help companies choose where to locate. They considered numerous factors, including permitting ease, workforce training, climate risks, taxes, business incentives, reliable energy infrastructure, support for technology innovation, and business-friendly policies.
Southern states led the list, with Georgia ahead of South Carolina, Texas and North Carolina. Ohio ranked fifth, followed by four more states in the South, with Michigan rounding out the top 10.
Gov. Brian Kemp credited Georgia’s ranking to a “team approach” to economic development with the legislature and local leaders.
The Georgia Chamber of Commerce credited teamwork between elected officials and the business community, with President and CEO Chris Clark calling Georgia the “economic envy of the nation.”
The magazine said that the criteria are changing. Tax credits and cheap land are no longer the sole selling point as access to energy, water and housing becoming crucial.
Long-term environmental resilience will be key, too, the publication said, as insurers evaluate risk of flooding, fire, extreme heat or drought. “Expect more companies to weigh climate risk and water access with growing seriousness,” the publication said, adding that Georgia is a leader in that category.
