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With Great Power: How Macon’s future rests in these hands

Coming on like a stubborn fluorescent light that clicks a hundred times before finally shining its brightest, Macon is now—finally—really moving forward. The long-touted potential has become less the subject of conversation and more the harbinger of actual progress. It is happening.

The next five, ten, fifteen years will feel like an explosion compared to the last decade when things didn’t look so good. Our city was in serious need, and though some people and their organizations were stepping up, it was hard to believe they could affect that sort of change. But the good news is that they have.

The better news is that they continue to.

To meet Juanita Jordan, Dr. David Bell and Don Faulk is to see where Macon has been and where it is heading. Their stories illuminate what happens when someone views a problem as an opportunity instead of an obstacle. These three do not cloak themselves negativity, no matter how rough the circumstances. As a result, they are arguably the three most influential—and perhaps most powerful—people in Macon. You are about to read just why.

Dr. David Bell, President of Macon State College
Macon State is a community college, but not in the way it once was—not in the way most folks use the term, as if it should be derogatory. The change came, most notably, almost 11 years ago when Dr. David Bell, a philosopher by training, moved into the President’s Office. In the time since, MSC has nearly doubled its enrollment from 3,600 in 1997 to more than 6,500 now—and the Board of Regents estimates MSC will soon have 10,000 students. That’s not to mention the $50 million in new construction, the 13 baccalaureate programs, the 50% increase in faculty, the three $1 million Georgia Eminent Scholar Chairs, and the addition of a Warner Robins campus.

So, yes, the stats are impressive, overwhelming even. But when Dr. David Bell talks about it, everything shifts, takes a different light. Before he speaks, it just seems like growth for growing’s sake—growing is what a good college is supposed to do, right?

“When I got here and started talking to people, it was clear what this community lacked: there wasn’t much of a middle class here, an African-American middle class especially,” Bell notes. “We figured if we could deliver to them a quality degree at the bachelor’s level that these people would really be the knowledge workers of the 21st Century.”

For Bell, MSC is no good unless it accessible and actually helps people get better lives. He and his staff and faculty have built a college education that is totally practical, and more than that, within reach. And it starts by focusing on this area.

“We recruit students from Central Georgia, not from Savannah or Atlanta or anywhere else,” he points out. “We’re educating people for Central Georgia because Central Georgia needs these folks. If you can only take two classes a semester because you work—fine. We understand that people have real lives.”

Affordability. Online classes. Night classes. And a focus on what the economy needs.

“We’re in the information age, so we started building into what we knew would be the new economy.”

That meant recognizing the power of the computer during a time when its placement in homes was still tenuous, back when 56k dial-up modems were advanced technology. Identifying the impact of health care in the mid-state, Bell went to the hospitals asking what they needed of their future employees. In the same way, he understood that Macon is the economic hub of Central Georgia and that the area needs well-trained business leaders—so they started a business program.

His formula is maddeningly simple and encouragingly foresighted. The philosophy?

“We build into need,” he says.

As Dr. Bell cites studies about the increased likelihood of college attendance by children with parents who attained degrees, the full scope of his vision begins to sink in. This is not about a man polishing the crown on his career, nor is it just about students coming in for degrees so they can get better jobs, get careers of their own. This is about creating a new culture in Central Georgia. To this end, the newest program at Macon State College may be the most impactful: an Education program for teacher training.

Because 85% of the teachers they train remain in the area, presumably still teaching in area schools, and because MSC students are area students, an incredible cycle is coming into existence. Better trained public school teachers mean better taught public school students, which means better quality students coming to college to become better educated citizens who will not only get better jobs but will, one can safely assume, help draw more employers as well.

Several sources support what could be easily assumed, namely that Dr. Bell and Macon State College have created a new mold. In fact, they say this is a sort of blueprint that the University System of Georgia wants other schools to follow.

At this point, it is a total understatement when Bell says, “We are not a traditional college.”

Thank goodness for that.

Don Faulk, President and CEO of The Medical Center of Central Georgia
He doesn’t wear power suits. He doesn’t walk or talk with the thrust of a self-important man. In fact, in most settings, Don Faulk would seem more like a health insurance salesman instead of the President and CEO of the second largest hospital in Georgia, the Medical Center of Central Georgia.

Searching for his “brag card”, a quick rundown of impressive facts, it is obvious that he’s too humble to brag himself, that he would rather let the card do it. And even then, it’s all about the hospital.

He is that self-effacing because this hospital—established in 1895 as The Macon Hospital—is so entwined with his life. He has been there, off and on, since he was born. Coming back from Georgia Tech as a greenhorn industrial engineer making $2.69 an hour, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to go into health care.

Then he returned in 1974 with his Masters Degree to become Director of Personnel. Like so many others, Faulk says, “I was not sure I’d ever come back here.” When he did, he made the most of it, seeing a grand opportunity in helping guide the Medical Center past its publicly-funded roots as “the city hospital” to its present-day status as a world-class private, not-for-profit corporation.

That said, the facts CAN do some bragging.

In Georgia, the Medical Center is one of four hospitals with Level One Trauma Care. It is one of four with the coveted Magnet designation, the highest honor awarded to hospital nursing. It is one of three with a dedicated children’s hospital. And the Medical Center is the only one in the state with all three—out of hundreds.

While Faulk may keep the bragging quietly confined, he does not limit his enthusiasm for the potential for Middle Georgia and MCCG’s place in it. In fact, he reaches a point of zealousness that he apologizes for. “I’m sorry. I’m the recent Past Chair of the Macon Economic Development Commission.”

So, it was practically his job to get that excited. But then again, he says that because of MEDC and the Chamber of Commerce, he came to understand our “incredible opportunity” by looking at the bigger picture.

“We will win or lose as a region,” Faulk says. “Whatever happens in Macon is like a rock thrown in a pond. Those people who think Bibb can win as Macon dies are fooling themselves. They aren’t thinking big enough. It’s like a spin on that old Hard Rock Café slogan: Act locally, think regionally.”

Case in point, the Medical Center is the area’s second largest employer behind Robins AFB, and their employees—just like their patients—come from all over Central Georgia. That fact also illustrates the difficult balance Faulk must maintain between advancing medical technology, financially solubility, community responsibility and quality health care. The completion and imminent opening of The Albert Luce, Jr. Heart Institute provides some cushion.

Despite a consultant’s report that heart catheterizations would plateau around five- or six-thousand and then drop, the Medical Center soon found itself performing 10,000 such procedures, ranking them 13th busiest in the country. MCCG is also the only hospital outside of Atlanta to average 1,000 open heart surgeries a year. Just as the institute is financially prudent, filling the great demand for cardiac procedures, it also consolidates services from around the hospital to make patient care safer and more efficient.

No doubt this addition—as well as the Medical Center as a whole—makes a huge impact on the medical, communal and financial health of Central Georgia, adding even to the perception of growth around downtown Macon. “People see the cranes and know that something is happening,” Faulk says.

Something is happening, and it must. As Faulk says, “If we don’t see the bigger picture, what we leave for our children and grandchildren will crash.”

Juanita Jordan, Executive Director of the Peyton Anderson Foundation
It is fairly safe to say that without NewTown Macon downtown would likely be a ghost town. Likewise, without the Peyton Anderson Foundation and its Executive Director, Juanita Jordan, there would be no NewTown Macon.

And without Jordan a lot of kids never would’ve gotten home from school, because she was their bus driver. At the time, this job was perfect; she could take her three-year-old, Darrell, along as she picked up kids in the afternoons. And the children were largely well-behaved, though she still remembers one rapscallion who threw a lit firecracker in the bus—remembers his name too.

It was as a bus-driving mom that Juanita Jordan first met Peyton Anderson, the legendary former owner and publisher of the Macon Telegraph. She entered his employ as a substitute for someone who’d had surgery and talked into staying long-term, working from 10am to 2pm before her bus route. When Anderson sold the paper, Jordan moved with him to manage his investments, keeping her part-time driving job until June 2, 1969 when he told her he needed her to work full-time for him.

“He said, ‘I can handle being second to your husband and to your family, but I cannot take third place behind another job,’” Jordan recalls.

Twenty years ago, on April 24, 1988, Peyton Tooke Anderson, Jr., passed away, leaving most of his fortune to establish a philanthropic foundation. As he was known to say, “You made your money in Macon so you should spend your money in Macon.” This is exactly what Jordan had been helping Anderson do, carefully and wisely, for the 25 years that they worked together, and it was she was tasked with as a trustee and eventually—once the foundation was established—as its Executive Director.

In the early days of the foundation, Jordan visited charities to discuss their financial needs and possible grants, but time and time again, she noticed how these charitable good works were being done in buildings and facilities that often complicated their efforts. “It didn’t make sense to me that they would have to labor in those conditions,” Jordan says.

In partnership with the United Way, the Peyton Anderson Foundation helped fund the construction of the Peyton Anderson Community Center, a building dedicated to providing space for non-profit organizations that need decent facilities.

This is the way that Jordan makes a difference.

“Mr. Anderson would always say, ‘Separate the good-doer and the do-gooder.’ There are a lot of really good people who want to help others,” Jordan says, marking the distinction, “But there are so many needs in the community that we have to support those who are already doing good.”

When Juanita Jordan heard that Macon would be home to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, she looked around at downtown and realized that something would have to change. That was the spark for NewTown Macon, which is a Peyton Anderson Foundation initiative. She called attorney Ed Sell, III, a foundation trustee and long-time friend, to talk about it. Columbus, GA, came up.

“He said, ‘They’re eating our lunch,’” she remembers. So they took a trip to study what “Uptown Columbus” was doing, to see if it could be duplicated. Upon return, they rallied troops, showing them what was possible and more, that it was vital to Macon’s survival, not just for the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

Through the foundation, Juanita Jordan solves problems by addressing their root cause instead of applying band-aids. Revitalizing downtown Macon is such an example. There are several others—the Anderson Conference Center at Goodwill Industries, the Anderson Building at the Medical Center, etc.—but listing them all would be overkill.

Behind every donation, every initiative, every new development, every planted seed waiting to be sown, one question is answered first: What will make the greatest difference?

She puts it this way: “I didn’t want to look back and think that in 20 years we never made a difference.”

As good a steward as she is of Peyton Anderson’s wealth, Juanita Jordan has proven to be twice as diligent about preserving his community spirit, his creative charity and his love of this place. These gifts are those she spreads the most significantly. And that is what continues to make the greatest difference.

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