Brenda Hayes

Brenda Hayes serves as a Public Service Associate at the University of Georgia’s Fanning Institute, which conducts public service and outreach activities in partnership with communities.

Her special interests include downtown development, ethnophotography, leadership, civic engagement, dialogue and international outreach. She has taught classes to municipal and state officials at the Beijing Administrative College in Beijing and the Qinghai Administrative Institute in Xining, China on the topic of public participation and helped accompany a group of Georgia’s local elected and appointed officials to Monterrey and Xalapa, Mexico.

Brenda initially joined the University of Georgia in 2002 as Director of the Community and Regional Development Division of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. Before joining UGA, Brenda served as the Georgia Department of Community Affairs’ Director of the Office of Downtown Development and prior to that as DCA’s Regional Representative for the thirteen northeast Georgia counties known as the Georgia Mountains Region. From 1993-97, Brenda served as Chairman of the Hall County Commission, the only female ever elected to this position. During that time she served on the Executive Council of the Georgia Mountains Regional Development Center, chaired the Association County Commissioners of Georgia’s Natural Resources and Environment Policy Committee and was named to the National Association of Counties’ Task Force on Sustainable Development. She took an active interest in the Gainesville Main Street Program and played a key role in the collaborative effort that won Gainesville/Hall County’s successful bid for the 1996 Olympic rowing venue on Lake Lanier. During her term of office, she was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Board of the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority. Brenda is a member of the 1994 class of Leadership Georgia, the Omicron Delta Kappa Society for Leadership and the inaugural University of Georgia Public Service and Outreach Leadership Academy.

Brenda serves on the Georgia National Register Review Board, the Georgia Cities Foundation Advisory Board and the Georgia Downtown Association Board. She also serves as a University of Georgia Peabody Awards Faculty Judge. Brenda holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Augusta State University and a Master of Public Administration Degree from North Georgia College and State University. She has taught high school English, gifted education, written for a newspaper and once had a great time working in children’s theater. She is married to Harry Hayes, Director of Local Government Programs at UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, and has two sons – Jonathan Branch of Hanover, Germany and Alexander Branch of Atlanta.