Former Georgia governor, state senator and current Georgia University System chancellor Sonny Perdue was the keynote speaker at the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce’s biannual Legislative Breakfast, Thursday morning.
A crowd of business leaders—many from event sponsors such as Georgia Power, Gold Cross, AT&T and Doctors Hospital—alongside Columbia County dignitaries gathered at the Doubletree Hotel off Wheeler Road for conference, organized by the chamber’s government affairs committee.
The overarching theme of Perdue’s address was the legislative implications of the relationship between education and healthcare. The former governor offered praise to
“If I could sit here and ask this crowd this morning one question, what do you think is the best, most simple, doable issue to get someone to break the chain of poverty?” asked Perdue to the audience. “Education, surely, and that’s the business that we’re in.”
Perdue, who helped establish Georgia’s HOPE scholarship, noted how the presence of MCG Wellstar, Piedmont and Doctors Hospital makes the CSRA the “epicenter of healthcare” in Georgia, a status which carries a responsibility in the region on the part of the education sector to facilitate growth in the medical workforce.
“When you think about quality of life in communities all over Georgia, think about housing, you think about education, what’s next on the list? Typically, healthcare. Where can I get healthcare?” said Perdue. “People don’t want to go to a community where they’ve got to drive 50 or 60 miles, and sadly, people that’s the situation in some parts of Georgia.”
Georgia has celebrated having been named the Top State for Business by Area Development magazine for 11 consecutive years. Perdue lauded this unprecedented achievement, while contrasting it with the state’s healthcare statistics, which show 83 of Georgia’s 159 counties in the bottom national quartile of health outcomes, according to recent studies published by the nonprofit County Health Rankings and Roadmaps.
“It embarrassed me to tell you exactly where we were,” Perdue said. “We could do better than that, that’s what our goal is at the University System of Georgia, is to do better in producing that and this community is a huge part of that effort.”
Central to Perdue’s recommendations toward solutions to this disparity was an emphasis on workforce development, an issue he also noted was important to constituents—the parents of students—and employers alike.
“Most of those parents want those students to come here and proudly receive that diploma, walk off that stage and go to work on Monday,” he said.
To illustrate his point, the former governor jestingly proposed a new degree program in the University System of Georgia: the “FIO,” or “figure it out” degree.
“[Employers] want students who can figure it out,” he said. “We want students to work in teams for conflict resolution, problem solving, critical thinking, those kind of things. That’s the kind of people that we want coming out of your university.”
Perdue also encouraged the university system’s capital projects, particularly the development of advanced lab facilities to attract top medical research scientists. Public money helps fund those projects.
“That’s the that’s the workload of a democratic republic. It’s citizens coming together and businesses coming together to help tell your people what you want, what you’d like to see,” Perdue said. “In that regard, that’s the essence of what we want to hear in communities and employers around the state, of how can this university system be tailored to what you need in the next year, the next two years, the next 10 years.”
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
