Just got back from Lennox mall
- Thread starter thismybgolname
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Including Illegal Immigrants from Mexico and Central America...........
Especially them. I've been allover the state recently, and I'm here to tell ya'll, you betta be brushing up on your spanish.
Especially them. I've been allover the state recently, and I'm here to tell ya'll, you betta be brushing up on your spanish.
Atlanta wants to unseat Miami as the gateway to Latin America
Latin CEO: Executive Strategies for the Americas
Can Atlanta become the next gateway to Latin America? The leaders in this centrally located US hub have woken up to the opportunities that lie in linking up with the economies of the region.
RUDY BESERRA WASN'T PREPARED TO have his hometown belittled right before him.
Beserra, the vice president for corporate Latin affairs for the Coca-Cola Co., has for years been part of the effort to raise Atlanta's profile as the nation's new gateway to Latin America. About live years ago, on a chance meeting with Florida Senator Bob Graham, Beserra complimented Miami for being the "great gateway to Latin America."
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"He said, 'Rudy, with all due respect, we're not the gateway; we re the capital,' "Beserra recalls. "That's when I knew we had a lot of work ahead of us."
Working in Atlanta's favor is its booming Hispanic population and a complex infrastructure that includes major interstate highways, rail systems and the busiest airport in the world -- as well as dozens of large US corporations that have made the city home. According to Beserra, Atlanta is ready to give Miami a run for its money.
Indeed, the city is preparing for two first-time events. This month (September), the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will hold its national convention in Atlanta. Then, in the fall of 2002, ALACAT -- the largest Latin trade show in the world -- will come to the city for the first time. "Atlanta is quickly becoming the Latino hub of the South," says Sara Gonzalez, president of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
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The growth of the chamber's membership reflects the ties Atlanta's Hispanic businesses have developed with their counterparts in Latin America. In 1996, the chamber had 160 members. It now has more than 800 members. "Latinos are coming to Atlanta because of the economic development of the city," Gonzalez says. "It's a new opportunity with tremendous potential."
First, the city had to erase the US Civil War-era stereotype of Atlanta as the backdrop for the novel "Gone With the Wind" -- complete with a homogeneous population. Results from the 2000 census indicate that the Hispanic population in every state in the Southeast, except Louisiana, more than doubled during the 1990s. Georgia leads them all with more than 435,000 Hispanics, an increase of more than 300 percent since the census was last taken a decade earlier.
The number of Atlanta's Hispanic-run businesses and entrepreneurs have increased so rapidly that the Chamber stepped in and launched a help center. The Hispanic American Center for Economic Development offers workshops and classes to assist people in building and expanding their business operations.
Atlanta has also become one of the most important business centers in the US. Two-dozen Georgia-based companies, most of which are based in Metro Atlanta, were ranked on the 2001 Forbes 500 list. Among them are five Atlanta-based blue chip companies which made the Forbes 100 list -- BellSouth, Home Depot, United Parcel Service, Coca-Cola and SunTrust Bank.
Jose Ignacio Gonzalez, director of the Atlanta chapter of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, says the profile of Latin entrepreneurs has been raised in the area, and that has helped "change of the minds of [Atlanta's] CEOs to look beyond the borders of the South." And many companies have done just that, including the multinationals that have made Atlanta their headquarters. Indeed, a host of those companies are sponsoring the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce meeting in September.
"We had to make local CEOs aware of, and believe in, Latin America," says Gonzalez, who is also president of the company that runs the Atlanta Perishables Center at the city's Hartsfield International Airport.
Holly Beth Anderson, president of the Metro-Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, has seen the economic boom from Latin American trade and business transcend the Hispanic community and become a major factor in Atlanta's economy Indeed, when the ALACAT trade show comes to Atlanta in 2002, it will be the first time the event have been held outside of Miami or Latin America.
Anderson says ALACAT chose Atlanta thanks to collaborative efforts by the metro chamber and the city's economic development agencies -- the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade & Tourism. "The synergy of civic partnership is what makes this work," Anderson says. "We are acting as one organization."
DELTA DRIVEN
Few doubt that Atlanta's successful trade with Latin America could have happened without the access of Hartsfield International Airport -- and recent investments by the world's No. 3 airline, Delta Air Lines, whose main hub is Atlanta.
In 1997, the company began what would be a massive expansion into Latin America, the largest in its corporate history. Today, it serves 24 destinations in the region, with 40 daily non-stop flights. Aside from being a major carrier of people, Delta also ships cargo between Latin America and the US. "It's like cultivating a green pasture," says Jorge Fernandez, Delta's director of Latin America. "Delta's success in Latin America has been Atlanta."
Continued
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0OQC/is_9_2/ai_100439528/pg_2
Yeah Lenox be full of flaming fags.
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