Chamber of Commerce Hall reflected on career after winning the top award

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He served as the vice president of the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce for the past 16 years and was recently recognized with the state’s top award for economic development – the Georgia Economic Development Association’s Rip Wiley Award for Professional Excellence.

When asked why he was chosen from among hundreds of other candidates, he commented that he preferred working together over competition.

“We are not a competitor to the other counties in the region, we work together,” said Evans. “If there is something I can do to help the new person in the county next door, make their life a little easier and save them some time studying, then we’re both better off.”

The youngest of four children, Evans grew up in a small town in Jefferson, but spent much of his youth in Gainesville, which felt like a big city by comparison.

“You couldn’t get into trouble in Jefferson without someone calling your mother,” he said. “It was so small so we came over here in Gainesville and took a cruise.”

After graduating from Jackson County High School, he attended Oglethorpe University, a humanities college in Atlanta. He initially completed an engineering degree, but soon realized that he lacked the personality for it.

“I am human,” he said. “I wanted to go out with my friends, and I wanted to do some things with the student administration and the program committee. Nobody in this engineering program did anything like that. ”

He played tennis in college and was involved in student government. He also chaired the program committee, which was responsible for planning concerts, parties and events. He switched major and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science. He later earned his Masters in Business from the University of Georgia.

In Oglethorpe, he interned with the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism, now known as the Georgia Department of Economic Development, and later accepted a full-time position for the department, marking the start of a 27-year career in economic development. He worked under his current mentor, Jim Steed, who presented the award to Evans. Steed worked under Rip Wiley, on whose behalf the award was launched after his death in 1978.

Evans was influenced by classic business texts like Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in college, but he found that economic development is more about understanding people than economic theory.

Evans said that almost everyone in business development has an “oh, wow” moment where they realize that what they do has a positive impact on everyday professionals. He had one such moment about 25 years ago when he finished his job at a textile company in LaFayette, Georgia, where the unemployment rate was about 13% at the time. He visited the facility and saw a man, accompanied by his wife and young daughter, fill out an application.

“I was like, ‘This guy is here to get a job from this project that I was working on. He wants to bring bread to his family, ”recalls Evans. “I saw then that this is not just a job. You won’t get rich with it. You have to love what you do, and when you realize that what you are doing is having an effect, it becomes more valuable personally. “

Working with a company as a business developer, he said, is more like a real estate agent helping someone buy a home, except at a higher level, Evans said. The realtor helps the homebuyer find a home and location that can tick off their wish list but also fit their budget.

“The location process for many industries and companies is very similar,” said Evans. “Instead of the list of 20 items, however, it could be 100 because they require a workforce and proximity to customers and suppliers.”

Evans recalls when he was starting to learn about economic development and someone asked him, “What is a lot of money to you?” As a freshman college graduate, $ 20,000 seemed like a lot of money back then. But he soon found that as an economic developer managing projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars, he had to think on a much larger scale.

“As a young college graduate student, it was beyond my imagination to work on a $ 400 million project,” he said. “But before I knew it, I did just that. I worked on massive capital investments across Georgia. “

Evans worked with companies in Georgia, but also traveled internationally to Italy, Germany, Korea and Japan. The trip began to weigh on him, however, and he decided to settle down and, after dinner at Rudolph’s (now Mellow Mushroom) with Chamber President Kit Dunlap, accepted a position at the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce in 2005.

In his spare time, Evans spends time with his 9-year-old son mountain biking, playing basketball, and archery.

“Pretty much anything my 9-year-old wants to do, I’m in,” he said.

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