Hello World. (It’s been awhile.)

Howdy folks. It’s been awhile. I’m sure you’ve all been wondering where we’ve been. And we don’t blame you.

You’ve no doubt seen the press (#1, #2, #3, #4) in the past several weeks. It’s true what they say, Creative Coast has and is going through an evolution. We’re still monkeys, but hopefully we’ve also progressed a little.

We’ve covered alot of ground, so we’ll just give you the high-level points. Here’s a rough list of what we’ve been doing:

December 2009:

• Brynn created and assembled Transition Team

January – July 2010:

• Crafted mission, vision, values, & strategic map
• Brought Jake on board, moved TCCa (i.e. Fitz) out of SEDA building
• Cemented City and County Funding for 2010
• Lined up funding for 2011
• Identified and secured new Board of Directors
• Maintained existing Creative Coast programs and services

August 2010:

• Two man team: Jake + Fitz
• Transferring accounts and funds
• Negotiating lease terms and begin move into downtown office location (15 W. York St)
• Transferring ownership of 501c6 from SEDA to TCCa
• Transferring ownership of Creative Coast intellectual property from SEDA to Creative Coast
• Orienting and structuring new Board of Directors

You’ll notice we’ve got a new mission/vision/etc. (You’d be suprised what it takes to get a room of 10 people to agree on one sentence.)

Our Mission: To nurture the members of the Savannah community engaged in creative or innovative endeavors and to cultivate an environment in which they can thrive.

Our Vision: Propelled by The Creative Coast Collaborative, Savannah will be transformed into a vibrant hub for creative and innovative businesses, organizations, and individuals.

Our Values:

• Advocacy
• Creating Connections and Dialogue
• Partnering
• Trustworthiness and Follow Through
• Being Respectful
• Being Open-Minded
• Being Inclusive

Our Customers:

• Knowledge-Based Businesses (KBBs)
• Designers
• Developers
• Innovators
• Information Technologists
• Entreprenuers & Start-Ups
• Bioscientists
• Advanced Manufacturers
• Content Managers
• Digital Media Strategists

Board of Directors

You’ll notice that one of the things on that list was our new board of Directors. That’s right, new! BUT…before we show you the new board, we want to thank the outgoing team of folks we’ve been lucky enough to work with and be supported by. They have been our eyes and ears to the community, and have been a great group of folks to work with. For the sake of BIG HUGS, I’m listing them here below:

Sean Brandon – Director of Mobility & Parking Services, City of Savannah; Michael Brooks – Publisher, The South Magazine; Cari Clark – Owner & Creative Director, Clark Creative; Victor Emoli – Dean, School of Design, SCAD; Michelle Hunter - Cultural Affairs Coordinator, City of Savannah; Susan Isaacs – Managing Director, Paragon Design; Orjan Isacson – Regional Manager, GA Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute; Shannon James – Owner & President, Shannon James, LLC; Dick Johnson – Vice President of Engineering, Gulfstream Aereospace; Tony Jordan – CEO, AWOL, Inc.; Yvonne Jouffrault – CFO, One-Stop IT; Tommy Linstroth – Principal, Trident Sustainability Group; Hannah Meurer – Owner & Chief Creative Officer, SmackDab Studios; Jimi Meuse – COO, RailsMachine; Tony O’Reilly – President, Small Business Assistance Corporation; Mike Polak – Memorial Health; Ashraf Saad – Department Head, Computer Science, AASU; Letty Shearer - Director of Economic & Community Development, AASU; Page Siplon – Executive Director, Logistics Innovation Center; Steve Stephens – Owner & President, StageFront Presentation Systems; Scott Tobin; Murray Wilson – President, TPS Consulting; Marjorie Young - Owner & President, CarriageTrade PR.

Now, for the incoming folks. Unlike our outgoing Advisory Board who provided us with guidance and support, this new group of local leaders will be our incoming Board of Directors. They will be a voting board that preside over us in all matters of governance, policy, personnel issues, etc.

Cathy Hill

Region Vice President, GA Power

Cathy is the current Region Vice President of the Coastal Region for Georgia Power. She holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, a Master of Business Administration from Georgia State University, and attended the Harvard Business School Executive Management Program.

She is currently on the board of Armstrong Atlantic State University, Coastal Empire United Way, Georgia Tech Savannah, Guiding Coalition, Savannah Economic Development Authority, Savannah Technical College, Step-Up Savannah, and SunTrust. Previously she has been a part of Leadership programs in Camden County, Dublin, Morgan County and Atlanta.

Cathy was born in Dublin, Georgia. She is married to Mitchell Hill, and has two children, Mitchell Jr. and Candace.

Dana Braun

Partner, Callaway, Braun, Riddle & Hughes, P.C.

Dana Braun is an attorney and is a partner in the Savannah law firm of Callaway, Braun, Riddle & Hughes, P.C. where he has practiced law since 1980. His practice covers a wide range of areas in both litigation and non-litigation matters. Prior to private practice he served as law clerk for the Honorable B. Avant Edenfield, Judge, United States District Court for the Southern district of Georgia.

In addition to being involved and serving on boards of numerous community, charitable and civic organizations, Dana served as Alderman At Large for the City of Savannah for close to six years. As Alderman he led the effort to create the Savannah Film Commission, which has been successful in the recruitment of film and other media projects to Savannah. Dana served on the Georgia Film, Video and Music Advisory Commission from 2004 through 2008 and was chairman of its Legislative Committee which drafted the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act which was signed into law in May, 2008. This Act provides a state tax credit for production expenditures up to 30 percent and is available to both traditional motion picture projects such as feature films, television series, commercials and music videos and to innovative new industries such as game development and animation. The Act has resulted in major film and television productions in Georgia and the startup of gaming entities.

Dana is married to Meg Doolan Braun and they have two sons.

Victor Ermoli

Dean of Design, Savannah College of Art & Design

He holds degrees in design and environmental design from Venezuela, United States and Canada. He possesses 12 years of teaching and 20 years of professional experience. He has been featured in Business Report’s “40 under 40″ and ID magazine’s “40 Best Designers Under 30.” He is the Dean of the School of Design at SCAD. He has supervised the creation of multiple educational programs, including a graduate program in Design for Sustainability, Design Management program and an Accessory Design program.                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

David Frost

Vice Provost, Georgia Tech

J. David Frost is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds administrative appointments as a Vice Provost of Georgia Tech and the Founding Director of the Savannah Campus. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.A.I. in Civil Engineering (Honors) from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland as well as M.S. and PhD degrees in Civil Engineering from Purdue University. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Indiana and Canada. He has worked in industry in Europe and North America on a variety of natural resource related projects including building artificial sand islands for oil exploration in the Arctic. His research focuses on the development of integrated digital data collection technologies for solving subsurface and infrastructure problems. He has been awarded two patents for a multi-sensor subsurface penetrometer system. Frost is co-owner and Chief Research Officer of an Atlanta based software company that develops data collection and management software tools for civil engineering applications.

Since moving to Savannah, Frost has been involved in various local organizations including the Coastal Business, Education & Technology Association, the Creative Coast Initiative Advisory Council, the Savannah Economic Development Authority Advisory Council, the Rotary Club of Savannah and the 200 Club of the Low Country. He also served on the Mayor’s Task Force that led to the establishment of the Greater Savannah International Alliance. He is also a member and Chairman of the Board of SAGIS, the Savannah Area Geographic Information System.

Radford Harrell

President/Owner, TalentSoup

Radford Harrell is a serial entrepreneur, geek / marketer and generalist. His diverse background includes the US Navy, Commercial Diver, Caribbean Dive Boat Captain, medical device designer and biologic implant marketer. His latest venture, TalentSoup, provides the “Faces of Advertising” through an online marketplace, where models, actors and real people (with no experience), are booked by Fortune 500 companies for use in their ads. The company was a finalist in the TAG/GRA Business Launch Competition in 2009. This venture is the first of several technologies being developed that will dramatically speed the creation of advertising imagery. Rad relocated to Savannah from Atlanta in November, 2009, after an introduction to the city by the old TCCa, with his wife, then 2 year old son Gressett, and 2 dogs.

Susan Isaacs

Managing Partner, Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs is an entrepreneur, design-nerd and managing partner of award-winning Paragon Design Group, a broadcast, print and web design firm she co-founded in 2001 with fellow graduates of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Having earned her M.Arch from the college, Susan adapted her critical thinking skills to focus on business innovation through upside-down thinking and designing for the greater good.

Under her leadership Paragon has cultivated a reputation for creative problem-solving and earned more than 45 local, regional and national awards in the last 3 years alone. Clients include CNN International, The Weather Channel, Gulfstream Aerospace,The Hatchery LLC, SCAD, Paula Deen Enterprises and a number of non-profits including All Walks of Life, Inc (AWOL) and Clear Air Visibility Unlimited (CAVU).

Christian Sottile

Principal, Sottile & Sottile

Christian Sottile is principal of a Savannah-based urban design firm working extensively in Nationally Registered Historic Districts. Currently, His work also includes regional planning and master planning for new towns, emphasizing historic research, urban analysis and community-wide engagement.

Christian Sottile began his design career unconventionally by entering the architectural profession as an apprentice before receiving formal education. He later graduated as Valedictorian from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and received a fellowship to continue urban research in Italy. Mr. Sottile earned his Masters Degree in Urban Design and Architecture from Syracuse University and was voted among the Top 100 Academics in the Nation by USA Today.

After his graduate work, Sottile turned his attention toward expanding the role of the architect in issues of community planning, preservation and growth. Currently, along with his practice, Sottile holds a faculty position as Professor of Urban Design and Architecture in the Masters program at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Mr. Sottile has received over twenty-five awards for his work, including an international Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism, awards from the American Planning Association, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and a National Honor Award for Urban Design from the American Institute of Architects.

Zelda Tenenbaum

President, Tenenbaum Consulting

Zelda Tenenbaum is a noted process change manager, facilitator, seminar leader and trainer who has 30 years experience working with business and industry, government and civic organizations around the US and in Asia.

She has authored several training manuals including” Facilitation Training”, “Coaching for Improved Performance”, “Successfully Applying the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator in the Educational Setting”. She is author of a chapter, “Developing Strong Leadership” in the workbook, Leading by Stepping Back: A Guide for City Officials on Building Neighborhood Capacity. She contributed a chapter in the book, The Green Building Bottom Line, by Martin Melaver and Phyllis Mueller.

Her areas of expertise include Productive Communications, Team Building, Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Managing Transition, Applied Strategic Thinking and Understanding Differences in the Workplace.

Zelda is President of Tenenbaum Consulting,Inc., a training and consulting firm based in Savannah, Georgia. Her mission is to make a difference by facilitating personal and organizational growth.

Murray Wilson

President, TPS Consulting

Murray Wilson has consulted in the professional broadcast television industry for over 20 years. He was heavily involved in the industry’s transition from analog to digital and played an integral role in the development and deployment of some of the largest multi-channel digital broadcast facilities in the world, working in North America, Europe and Asia. He is President of tps Consulting (http://tpscorp.com) an experienced broadcast television consultancy that delivers operational analysis and workflow design to the professional broadcast industry. He has consulted at an engineering level in all aspects of television network technologies, including content production, content management, distribution and transmission. He established an excellent reputation in the start-up of the world’s largest broadcasting facilities, based on his extensive knowledge of workflow design, operational procedural development, and resource optimization. His clients include SONY, Galaxy Latin America, DIRECTV, DIRECTV Japan, MTV, MediaFLO, Viacom, and Hughes SPACEWAY.

Finally…

And, finally the group that has steered this transition ship through some challenging but ultimately rewarding waters. The Transition Team: Zelda, Brynn, Cathy, Helen, Brian, Murray, Susan, Rad, Letty and Mike. THANK YOU!

Ok, that’s enough for one blog post. There will be more coming.

We are grateful and excited to move forward with all of you. And we’re grateful to Brynn and the SEDA team, the City of Savannah and Chatham County for giving us the opportunity.

Thanks for being patient with us these last several months and as we move forward. We’re excited for what’s ahead.