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Chafin named chair of Georgia Economic Developers Association
Anna Chafin
Anna Chafin.
Ted O'Neil
Published: Sep 28, 2016, 1:19 PM

Anna Chafin, CEO of the Development Authority of Bryan County, was named chair of the Georgia Economic Developers Association at the group’s annual conference in Savannah last week.

“It’s an honor and a privilege and really helps in my role with Bryan County,” Chafin said. “There are a lot of opportunities to network with peers and get to know the top-level leadership at the state level.”

Derrick Smith, chairman of the DABC, agreed.

“The state is the driving force when it comes to economic development, so it makes sense having Anna in the mix to get that front-line information,” he said. “It’s a good thing for Bryan County.”

Chafin, who began her role with Bryan County in November 2013, has been involved with GEDA for several years, starting out as a committee chair and then serving two terms on its board of directors.

She was then asked by the nominating committee to become an officer, which is a multi-year commitment that begins with a term as secretary/treasurer. From there she moved to second vice chair, then first vice chair and will serve as chair in 2017. Each position lasts one year. Chafin will be past chair in 2018 and then nominating committee chair in 2019.

“We have about 700 members, mostly economic development practitioners at the state, regional and local level,” she said. “But membership also includes architects, engineers and developers.”

Chafin said the group provides a good platform to network and gain professional development.

“We’re all working for the common good to grow jobs and get investment while also individually working in our roles,” she said. “It helps to keep up with best practices and help shape public policy.”

Chafin, a graduate of Mercer University, came to Bryan County after several years with the Liberty County Development Authority. She is a graduate of the Georgia Academy for Economic Development, Leadership Bryan, Leadership Southeast Georgia and Leadership Georgia. She was appointed in 2015 by Gov. Nathan Deal as a board member to the Georgia Student Finance Commission.

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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