The J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development’s Jenny Jordan recently facilitated a day-long event that marked the halfway point for the inaugural Locate South GeorgiaLEADS program.
Thirty-three community leaders from throughout southwest Georgia spent Nov. 10 in Crisp County, one of the five communities to host the program thus far.
The Locate South GeorgiaLEADS program grew out of outreach through GeorgiaLEADS, a partnership between the University of Georgia’s J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, to help communities improve leadership, economic development and civic engagement.
The group toured the Cordele Inland Port and heard from a panel of six transportation experts as they begin to formulate ideas and plans for a regional transportation effort.
Jordan, a senior public service associate with the Fanning Institute, facilitated a discussion that included the opportunity to match transportation decisions to the regional values and vision identified earlier in the program.
Locate South GeorgiaLEADS is an eight-month-long pilot program designed to stimulate leadership and economicdevelopment as well as civic engagement in 21 south Georgia counties. It also will create a strategy to implement an affordable, long-term approach to regional collaboration in leadership development.
The program began with a retreat at Southern Woods Plantation in Worth County on Aug. 18-19 and has included sessions in Colquitt, Tift, and Sumter Counties. In addition to exploring transportation from a regional perspective, participants have looked at agriculture in the 21st century economy, entrepreneurial leadership, and regional tourism and leading a branding effort for the area.