The Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce named Textron Specialized Vehicles its Corporation of the Year, part of a yearly celebration of local business achievements.
The Chamber held its Member Economic Luncheon at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in North Augusta on Thursday, where it presented its Best in Business awards. Southstate Bank Division President Jay Forrester, who presented the Augusta’s Entrepreneur Award, noted the majority of small businesses in the area, 75%, represented by the Chamber’s membership.
“We had a huge pool to pull from,” said Forrester about the nominees for Entrepreneur of the Year and Corporation of the Year, which are selected and reviewed by the Metro Chamber’s board of directors. “The innovation, the growth and the sustainability of our small business sector here in Augusta is incredible.”
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Dennis Trotter of Jordan Trotter Commercial Real Estate presented the final accolade to Textron, underscoring its decades of achievement and Reaching Potential through Manufacturing, an on-the-job training program for high school students the company launched in 2017, in partnership with the Richmond County School System.
“We pride ourselves in being a good corporate citizen and an employer of choice in our communities,” said Morgan Gresens, Textron Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience, who accepted the award. “But those communities help us make the company that we are providing a strong and dedicated workforce as supportive business environment and a quality of life that makes people want to live and work here.”
Nick Dickinson Jr., CEO of Dickinson Architects, accepted his company’s award for Augusta’s Entrepreneur.
“I owe a great deal of my success to what my father started,” said Dickinson, whose father, Nick Dickinson Sr., began the architectural firm in 1983. “We really look forward to the coming years and being a part of the growth of this great city.”
Doug Burks, founder and CEO of the Security Onion Solutions cybersecurity company, accepted the Entrepreneur Rising Star Award, the first such acknowledgement by the chamber since 2013.
“I always figured that if I wanted to get a technology job, I would probably have to leave Augusta and a lot of my friends ended up doing the same thing,” said Burks, who started the tech firm in 2014. “But I never left, and now cybersecurity is right here in my backyard. So it’s amazing to see the transformation that has taken place in our little town.”
The event’s keynote speaker was Jon Jackson, a combat veteran who, after serving as a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger, went on to found Comfort Farms.
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Named after Capt. Kyle Comfort, a friend of Jackson’s and fellow ranger who died in Afghanistan, Comfort Farms assists displaced veterans with post-traumatic stress and brain injuries, largely through agricultural training and programs.
“You could go to some traumatic event in your life, decisions that have been made for you that, you know, having control over puts you in a state of deep, dark despair,” said Jackson, telling the story of how he addressed his own PTSD and depression to take up farming, launch Comfort Farms, and even learning about, through tracing his family history back to Africa, a rare variety of rice to cultivate.
“But with help, with friends, we all know what happens,” he said. “We end up giving back more than what we’ve actually attained.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
