Peachtree Corners Life

Community Leadership in Social and Racial Justice, Part Two

Published

5 years ago

July 26, 2020

City of Peachtree Corners, Georgia residents, and leaders speak out about change and actively becoming a more anti-racist community.

This second episode of this mini-part series includes Executive Pastor of Victory Church, Darius Dunson, GA House Representative (District 95) Beth Moore, and business owner and community leader Joe Sawyer. Join them along with Peachtree Corners Life podcast host Rico Figliolini and series co-host Karl Barham in this intensive discussion to try and solve these issues.

Timestamp:

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:06:08] – Feelings About the Protests
[00:15:00] – Code Switching and the Commonality of Injustice
[00:24:37] – Bringing People to the Table
[00:30:07] – The Church’s Role
[00:35:38] – Drawing the Line
[00:43:43] – Equal Support
[00:49:25] – What Can People Do?
[00:52:23] – Policies and The Legal Side
[00:57:37] – Actionable Steps
[01:09:44] – Closing

Related Links:

Beth Moore: https://www.mooreforgeorgia.com
One Race: http://oneracemovement.com
Victory Church: https://victoryatl.com
Joe Sawyer: https://www.citizenjoesawyer.com

Recorded socially safe online and in the City of Peachtree Corners, Georgia

“But you know, we have to overcome. We have to be, we’re all in this together. You know, my daddy used to always say, everybody bleeds red. But we just gotta get past the color of the skin. And remember we were all made in God’s image. And that’s the thing. I think that’s the problem that people are having.”
JOE SAWYER

Podcast Transcript:

Rico: [00:00:30] Excellent. Hi everyone. This is Rico Figliolini host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Georgia, Gwinnett County. We’re doing a series of episodes, podcasts with my cohost for these episodes, Karl Barham who’s my cohost on Capitalist Sage. Hey, Karl.

Karl: [00:00:50] Hey, how you doing?

Rico: [00:00:51] Good. So we’re heading into these episodes, bringing in different leaders in the community to talk about social injustice and a topic that is, a topic difficult for some people to speak about, to talk about having that conversation. But we hope these series of podcasts will put out some good, honest commentary and interactions and information that we can all use and perhaps even give us some insight. So I’m going to let Karl go ahead and introduce our guests today. Thank you, Karl.

Karl: [00:01:25] Thank you Rico. I’m going to start with giving context to the conversation today. And for many of you have seen and know on May 26, 2020, there was a start of protests that was born out of an African American named George Floyd that was killed during a police arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Fast forward a few weeks later on June 12th a 27 year old African American father was shot and killed by Atlanta police department, after responding to a complaint that he was asleep in his car at a Wendy’s drive through. If you look we’re over a month later, and the protests have been happening, communities everywhere have been having discussions around racial, social justice, racial justice, and, and some of the things that are happening at local and national level. Well today on Peachtree Corners Life, we invited some local residents and leaders to start a discussion on community leadership and social and racial justice. What can individuals do, community leaders do to figure out where we are today in the community. And to simply offer an opportunity for citizen leaders to start the discussion that can lead to the changes that can help keep communities safe for all citizens. Whether it’s an encounter with law enforcement or what might be happening in the schools or in the health systems, we’re looking to have this discussion, maybe offer some ideas and, and really answer the question. What can citizens do? So let’s start that conversation by introducing you to our guests today. First I’d like to start, introduce, Joe Sawyer, who is a resident, a small business owner, as well as a community leader here in Peachtree Corners. We also have Beth Moore, who is a resident, Peachtree Corners longtime resident, as well as the Georgia house representative for district 19, 95, excuse me. and also a small business owner and attorney that lives here in Peachtree Corners. We also have Darius Dunson a staff member of Victory Church. He also owns a business and is a long time Atlanta native, born, raised and lived here for a long time. And I’d love to start off, maybe Darius, if you introduce yourself real quickly, supposed to learn a little bit about you and then we can have Beth and Joe follow after that, before we start our discussion.

Darius: [00:03:49] Yes, thanks Karl. And, thank, thanks Rico. Again, Darius Dunson. I get the privilege of serving with the pastoral team at Victory Church in Norcross. And, from my experience, it’s just so good to be a part of this community, a vibrant community, really growing.
I have a wife and four children. I’ve been married for 24 years now and counting. But I really appreciate being on the call because I believe this is a very important issue. And I also love the fact that we are having this conversation.

Karl: [00:04:29] Thank you. Beth?

Beth: [00:04:32] Hi everyone. This is your state representative, Beth Moore. Thank you, Karl and Rico for inviting me into this conversation. Hopefully I can provide some insights as to how we are addressing the issue of racial injustice from a legislative perspective. Of course I am a resident of Peachtree Corners by way of Dunwoody originally just a, a couple of miles down the road. And I’m very grateful for this panel today to have this conversation. Not only is it front and center on most American’s minds right now, but it’s a conversation that is long overdue. I’ve certainly learned a lot from just being a listener over the past couple of weeks, and I’m here to both listen and offer what I can to the conversation. So thanks again for having us.

Karl: [00:05:21] Thank you. Hey Joe.

Joe: [00:05:24] How are you doing? I’m Joe Sawyer, I’ve been a resident of Peachtree Corners since, well about the last 25 years. I own a business in Peachtree Corners, a carpet cleaning business. Been in business for 21 years now. Me and my wife we’ve been together, close to 31 years. And, we have two beautiful children and five grandchildren, and I’m also the president and cofounder of Bridges Peachtree Corners. And I do like the fact, I just want to thank Karl and Rico for inviting me to be on the show, the podcast, because I think it’s a very important thing that we’re going to be talking about.

Karl: [00:06:08] Thank you. Well, I’d like to start by maybe getting some insight in how each of you have been feeling about the protest at large and, and the racial injustice that people are talking about currently in this country. I’m just wondering, how is it striking you? Maybe Beth, if you could start.

Beth: [00:06:30] Sure. Well, you know, I think like a lot of Americans, it was, you know, an uncomfortable feeling watching this, you know, all of these events unfold, you know, from, you know, understanding what happened to Ahmaud Arbery down in Brunswick, Georgia, too, watching those excruciating, you know, eight and a half minutes of the George Floyd video. You know, to learning about Brianna Taylor in Louisville. I mean, this is not the type of country that I want to live in. You know, even if my particular racial demographic is not the target of the police brutality that we’re discussing now. You know, that’s, I don’t feel safe in a world that operates like that either. You know, and then came the protests and to a certain extent some of the destruction that happened as an outcry of these events. And, you know, I, I, I learned early on that sometimes instead of having an opinion, you just gotta sit back and just watch and listen and understand, you know, not just what’s happening in real time, but the causes for what’s happening right now, because we can’t address the symptoms if we don’t address the underlying disease. And I think a lot of us have ignored this underlying disease of racism and
racial inequality in our country. You know, it’s maybe something that folks who were old enough to live through the civil rights movements in the sixties, you know, are maybe more acutely aware of, but we have, you know, two or three entire generations of people who have not had that conversation. And it’s, it’s remarkable to me to think about my own parents. You know, I’m, I’m an elder millennial, to think about my own parents having been born around the year 1950, that they grew up with segregated fountains and bathrooms. I mean, it’s a, it’s almost like history is in fact repeating itself just in different ways. And, it’s, it’s been jarring to watch, but also, you know, the silver lining is I think that people are motivated and encouraged to speak out, to get politically engaged and to move the conversation forward. Because we can’t have a conversation if we don’t, if we don’t acknowledge that the conversation needs to happen.

Karl: [00:08:52] I’m curious, Darius your thoughts on it. You speak to a lot of people through, through your role at Victory. How was, how did it take you personally as well?

Darius: [00:09:03] Personally, just again, being a black man and growing up in the South, you know, one of the things that was just crucial for me, or excruciating I’ll rephrase that, is watching those eight minutes and 46 seconds. Even though these incidents aren’t new. We just have cell phones. So we’re able to see them. Watching those eight minutes and 46 seconds was, it was like I had the air knocked out of me again. And it made me think, it made me reconsider, the small things that I do to try to survive and protect myself as a black male. My neighborhood is predominantly white. And I think about the things like, and I’m talking from a very personal perspective. I think about the times that I would decide not to run down certain streets, because a black man running down this certain street, could be seen as a criminal first. But then the other part of it is, from a personal standpoint, I feel like, I’ve been having more conversations about this issue with people who don’t think like me, people who don’t look like me, more than ever. And what I’m finding is, is that there is, a heart to understand. But I think the challenge is, is that I think we were talking a little earlier. The challenge is, is that we have to be able to have grace because we’re not going to say things the right way. Everyone is not going to be able to dot their I’s and cross their T’s when we’re having this conversation. So I think the most important thing in this time is the conversation has to be had. We all have to swallow our pride and understand that there’s two views of America when it concerns blacks and white. There, it’s the same America, but we’ve all seen it differently. I didn’t grow up, seeing America the same way my white counterparts have seen America. I didn’t see it that way. I can appreciate however, I can appreciate the fact that in these conversations I’m seeing the light bulb come on. For the people who, the people who answer the call to come to the table. For those that don’t want to answer the call for whatever reason, I have great concerns. I have great concerns that because of political reasons or because of whatever reasons, I feel like some people just don’t want to come to the table and those people will be a, will be left behind in the future of what America is to be.

Karl: [00:11:46] Very well stated. And I can tell you, identify. Joe, you’ve been working in this space and, and, and working in the community. I’m curious how you’ve seen it from, from the history of that you’ve seen and experienced.

Joe: [00:12:04] Yeah. It’s a touchy subject for me, to be honest with you. You know, I’ve had some of my friends call me, some of my white friends and they called to check on me to see how I’m doing. And you know, it, it’s hard because you know, case in point a year and a half ago, I got me and my wife who is a white woman. We got pulled over in, Duluth. And the young officer, he took it upon himself to tell me, how to dress, what to look like in court and just to downgrade me and my wife kept saying, Joe, don’t say nothing. Don’t say nothing. And I didn’t say anything. I just laughed at him. And he, I finally went ahead and told him, I said, are you finished? And he said, yes. I said, number one, I’m a 53 year old, man. I don’t need you to tell me how to dress going to court. Number two, I’m a preacher. So I know how to dress. So, you know, being born and raised, Darius I’m from Atlanta too. From Shambley Georgia, Brookhaven now. I, you know, I watched my parents go through it. My dad was born in 1917 and I’ve seen some of the stuff that he had to go through. And I’m, you know, I said, you know, I would tell him sometime he would go around and say yes or no, sir. And I’m like, dad, why did you do that? And he said, you know, this is just a respect thing. And you know, and it’s always been hard being a big person like I am, because you know, I’ve been told I’m a threat. As soon as I, if I get out of the car, the police see me, I’m a threat to them because. You know, I’m just so big. I’m what six, four, 280. So, you know, they’re scared of me already and I don’t even do anything, but it is, it’s very hard because I look at what happened to Joe in Florida. And one of my friends are very good friend of mine. Who’s been on your show. He told me, he said, you know, Joe, my biggest fear is something like that can happen to you. And I said, yeah, and that’s the truth. And I tell people now I was talking to a client this morning and I said, you know, I tell people all the time, there’s a 50/50 chance when I walk out of the door of my house that I’m coming back and they’re like, what do you mean by that? I said, well, you know, you don’t know who you’re going to run into in a police car, they can be having a bad day. They can be black or white, but the problem is being seen as a threat is always going to be a problem for me. I mean, I can’t shrink. So, you know, I am who I am, but you know, I’m always respectful to the police. You know, I, you know, you respect me, I respect you. And it’s just, it’s just been hard for me because it’s, people are opening their eyes, but how long are they eyes going to be open? Because they can open, but they can shut also and pretend like we’re right back in the, like it was two, three years ago before any of this stuff ever happened.

Karl: [00:15:00] I think I can, appreciate, being a taller, bigger black man as well. It’s always in the back of your mind to appear small and to be non-threatening as a default. There’s a term that people may or may not have heard of code switching, and it’s something that, you learn to do. And I don’t think about it. To make folks feel comfortable I could present one face or one way. And, and other times I’m a different way. Same person inside, but you learn how to do this. I don’t know if everybody else had the same experience of having to do that everyday till, so it becomes practice. And so as you, as you see what’s happening overall, I noticed it, but the call that I got in a conversation I’ve had with people, they were mentioning how terrible this was. And I would share with them just the past 10 years history and the number that would fill up a page, of people, including family members that I have that have been, subject of excessive abuse by police. Women, men. And so it happens so often. It’s sad to say that you almost get used to
seeing it, but today I noticed there were more people that are seeing it and noticing it, and there’s more people that are probably struggling with what can be done. And there’s some that say it’s happening over there, but not here. And so I’m curious, you know, have you seen other instances where, racial injustice may be happening in the communities in smaller ways or people before three weeks ago or four weeks ago may not have noticed, but it’s happening. And now with an open eye, they can see it. I’m curious if folks can describe scenarios like that, that’s happening here locally.

Joe: [00:17:02] Well Karl I was at, the forum probably about two years ago and I was outside playing outside of Bath and Body Works, playing with my grandson. And my grandson, my daughter married a white male and I was outside playing my grandson. And this lady walked up to me and she asked me, she said, who is that to you? I said, what are you talking about? She said, who is that boy to you? And I’m like lady get out of my face, you know? Take a chill pill now before you get ugly. And she just kept on and a crowd came and they were like, why did you mess with this man lady? She was like, well, I want to know who this boy is because he’s a white boy with this big old black man. And it just got to the point and this was at the forum. So it’s a couple of minutes away from your house. And so it went on and on. And probably about 10 minutes a policemen came by and he’s got, he stopped the car and he asked what was going on. And I said, well, man, I’m sitting here playing with my grandson and this lady is harassing me and he said, that’s your grandson? And I said, yeah. And he said, okay. And he asked the lady what was going on. And she said, well, I just wanted to make sure he didn’t kidnap that boy. And now I’m just, you know, I started laughing and, you know, and he told the lady to go on and leave me alone. It is stuff like that, that we have to deal with every day. I mean, it happens and people want to turn a blind eye, but they’re not doing that anymore. And, you know, and I treat everybody the same, but you know, it happens all the time. I mean, it happens in restaurants, drive through and, you know, I tell people, I get it from the best of both worlds. You know, I get racism from black people and I get it from white people and they don’t understand it. Because the black people look at me as a sellout because my wife is white. Hey man, it’s my wife. I don’t look at her as a white woman. I look at her as my wife, you know, so, you know, and I love her more now than I ever did. So, you know, it’s out there and you see it every day, but you know, it’s in the community. So, you know, you just gotta be aware of it. I mean, I see it everyday.

Rico: [00:19:11] Joe, you can’t excuse stupidity. Someone comes up and says that to you. It’s just simply stupid. And callous, I just don’t understand why it would be their business to even get in your face like that? I’m sorry to put it that way, but it’s just like, you know, some people think they’re doing the right thing. And like we talked about before, right? You have to be careful what you say sometimes and stuff. They kept it to herself if she felt that way. I mean, obviously you were playing with the kid, right? I mean.

Joe: [00:19:47] Yeah, I wouldn’t just kiss on any other baby.

Beth: [00:19:50] Well, it’s, it’s stupid, but it’s also dangerous because, you know, look at what happens up in New York city, you know, the same week as the George Floyd killing, you know, with that lady in the park, you know, threatened to call the police against the black man. Because she knew that that would potentially cause him danger in any number of ways that he could be shot and killed. He could be arrested. You know, when you get arrested, you potentially lose your job. I mean, there’s just all kinds of dangerous things that could come up with that. And that’s exactly what this woman was inching towards when she, she decided to insert herself into Joe’s personal business. Maybe in her mind it was coming from a good place, but I think deep down it was coming from a place of racism.

Darius: [00:20:35] I think the thing that I would just add to this is that when you talk about the instances of racism, people are not just out in the streets rioting. People are not just out protesting because of those two incidents or three incidents or ten incidents. It’s happening because every time we see something like that happen, it reminds us of the thousands of incidents that we process through on a yearly basis. And so when I see a George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery, I don’t only see that I see the incident that I just had at Kroger, or I see the incident that I had at Walmart or wherever I’m at. All of these small things that happen. And, and I love the fact that Karl brought out the code switching aspect of it. Because oftentimes, again, we are just as black men, we are, it’s ingrained in us a survival mechanism that we just tried to avoid being looked at as criminal. And so when we see these incidents happen, it just stirs up every single incident that has happened over our lives. And so it’s not just these one offs or two offs. These are thousands of thousands incidents. And here’s, here’s the thing that I was, I was speaking to a couple of my friends, and I was telling them, they’re white, and I was telling them, is that the, the beautiful thing that is happening now is that the things that I used to tell people that happened, that they would never believe happened. Now we’re beginning to see these things actually happen. So a lot of times I would withhold some of the incidents because I just didn’t believe that my friends of another color would believe that these things actually happen. And oftentimes when I would communicate it, they just, they just thought I was overly reacting. They thought, no, that doesn’t happen in my world. But now we’re beginning to see no, this does happen on a regular basis. And because we see the tide turning where it concerns social media and also technology. People are ready to document these actual experiences as they happen. For every one that we see, there’s probably 10 others that we don’t see. And so I just think that, I would say it’s on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s too many times to count. Honestly. I had an incident, not too long ago, at, Lake Lanier where I was out boating with a couple of friends and, they had docked at a certain spot. A number of times they had been there. A number of times, they docked at a spot and we decided to dock at the same spot with our families. They’re white, my kids are black and we get here to this spot. And, this time when we dock at a spot that they had stopped at a number of times, the ranger comes out and proceeds to tell us that we can’t dock at this spot because it’s private and my friend was completely puzzled and we had to tell him, Hey, you know why this happened, right? And we had to explain to them and they, they just couldn’t believe that it happened the same way we talked about. And also recently, this is kind of personal to me and my wife, because on the same weekend that, George Floyd, the protests happened, my wife’s cousin was killed by the police in Nassau County, Florida. And so this just
doesn’t happen to someone out there. This, this happens to, happen to us personally, our family. So, I would just say this is very real and for those people who are watching this, if you don’t believe it’s real, get some people who, who look like me in your circle so that they can talk to you about this.

Karl: [00:24:37] That that’s, a very good point. Like Joe, my wife is white and it’s been one of the best experiences of learning and understanding cultures. Because she, she sees the world through two lenses now. And she’s got a perspective that comes from watching it and seeing, experience there’s a movie, that folks may have saw called the Hate You Give that came out a few years ago. And if you haven’t seen the movie, which was well received when it came out, but most people didn’t see it. You would be frightened at how eerily similar to what’s happening today. Movie makers were making this story two, three years ago. And when we watched that film of the family. We have two young daughters. And even at the ages of less than five years old, we start the training of the talk. We start making them aware of how things may be responded to them because they’re both black and white at times. So it’s a conversation that we have within our family, but we’ve been really blessed here to meet people. That are reaching out to understand more, to have the discussion and in our church, small groups. And it’s just, we still know there are people out there that may not have access, may not feel comfortable talking to Joe about what it’s like to be black in this community. And the more people reach out and, and bill comfort. It’s probably awkward to do it, if you don’t know the right words to say. But admit it. If you, if you tell people that you may not be, you may, you may not use the right word. People are really forgiving and people are really understanding if you seek to understand. And so that’s been a journey that we’ve gone on and now our mission is to figure out a future where these two girls can grow up and they’re not concerned that when they don’t get into a school or get a job or their they’re turned down for service. It’s not because of the color of their skin and an even better world where they have allies that come to their defense and point it out if they see it. If people see it, even though it may not be happening to you, there’s a role you can play for a more just society. As if you help to, you know, address those things, when you’re seeing it happening. I reached out to all the leaders, business leaders out there it’s happening in your companies. It’s happening with your employees. It’s happening in the healthcare system. It’s happening with criminal justice. There are people that have influence have the ears of the leaders. And if you want to do something, I’d say you could always start by starting with these small, let me introduce you to Joe Sawyer. Let me let you hear his story that you heard. Let me, let me introduce you to Darius. I mean, let me introduce you to people that can maybe bring a different perspective before you make choices.

Darius: [00:27:44] Yes. One of the other things I’ll add is that, our church, our Victory church, we get, we kind of have a unique experience. When I say that, we all know that Gwinnett County is one of the most diverse counties in the country. And, our founding pastor, pastor Dennis Rouse, one of the things that was important for us, it’s one of our foundational pillars is racial reconciliation. Which means that our church, been going for 30 years, we have about 140 different nations. So one of the challenges is that, when these things happen, we’re forced into conversations because we do life together with different people. And so, I would just say that
one of the most important things for anyone who’s listening, take the initiative and be intentional about your circle. Don’t accept your circle for what’s around it, who’s around you now. Build your circle. Build your circle with people who are different than you, who think differently than you, not just white, black, but also, who are different political persuasions than you? Because I feel like oftentimes when we come across these issues, things get hijacked into the political persuasions when we’re talking about a black man’s life matter or black woman’s life matters. When we’re talking about that, we’re not talking about political persuasion. Even there,even though there’s a political organization, we’re saying that your friend matters. If they’re your friend, they matter. My son matters. My neighbor matters. We’re talking about unless, unless their life matters, if we don’t make that their life important, then we can’t say all lives matter until black lives matter also. So, we’re forced into a conversation and we’ve been doing some things with other churches, like Perimeter church and other churches in the neighborhoods, through one race. And so I would just encourage people to call other people to the table. It’s very important that we do that in this time and not just watch it from afar, but actually get involved by calling people to the table.

Karl: [00:30:07] I’m curious about the pulling on that thread about the church’s role in this. We know there’s a part of this that’s speaking to the heart and changing people’s hearts, not only their minds, but their hearts. And the church has a powerful platform to be able to do that through whatever faith people may believe in. I’m curious what people’s perception of, you know, church leadership in churches in this and this transformation that we need in the country. I’m just curious. Maybe Joe, you can start off?

Joe: [00:30:41] I think my opinion called, being a preacher’s kid. I personally, I don’t think the churches are doing enough. And the reason I say that we are so strong. But in times like that, it takes something like this to happen for the church to say, okay, let’s do this, but we have to do this as a church 365 days a year. Now I don’t know much about Victory and a lot of other churches, I’m just involved with the one that I’m with. But the, and as long as we are scared to. You know, now it’s go, go, go, rah, rah, rah. But what is it going to be six months from now? What is it going to be a year from now? Is it going to be, you know, going back to normal. Or I don’t think we ever going to go back to normal with COVID and everything, you know. But my thing is, you know, I heard, I understand that the other day, a couple of weeks ago, after the Floyd thing, he said, I was told by the elders not to say anything about this, but I’m going to say it’s wrong. And as a church, we need to get together and get behind, you know, the movement what’s going on. I respect him for that. Because he didn’t care what the elders or anyone else told him. He spoke from his heart. And I think if a lot of the pastors get together, like the one race. I’m not involved with one race, but I, I hear great things about it.

Darius: [00:32:07] Get involved.

Joe: [00:32:08] Yeah. I agree. But every time y’all do something I’m doing something else. We’re getting involved though. But you know, it’s, it’s, I think if you can take that movement of one race. It can always go bigger and people will draw to it. I mean, I got friends that is drawn to it
and their pastors and their friends, and, you know, and it’s like, Joe this is something that we all need. Like I said, I want to see what it’s going to be like six months from now and a year from now. We have to take a stand because you know, the church is more powerful than we think.

Darius: [00:32:44] I would definitely agree with, agree with you, Joe. I do think the church, has to do more, needs to do more. I also think along with that, one of the things that I’m saying is, the church, as far as the people, we all understand that the church is not a building. A lot of our representatives are in churches and a lot of our city leaders, they’re in churches. Yeah, there’s this aspect that, I was downtown during the one race and I walked, I was walking out and a lady stopped me because she had stopped a group of our members and they were having this discussion, pretty heated discussion. It wasn’t necessarily outlandish, but it was heated. And the lady was asking, where are the churches? Where are the people? And the people are trying to explain to her, we are the church, we’re out here. And she said well, I don’t see this name, preacher. I don’t see this, I don’t see this name preacher. And so the people called me over and they said, well, here’s our pastor and called me over. And she says, well, where are the other pastors? And I said, well, I’m one of the pastors I’m here. And she said, well, we need the church out here. And I said to her, the church is out here. And I, and one of the things that I would say is that we can’t despise small beginnings. I think that this is a small beginning to something that needs to happen. Black churches for hundreds of years, we’ve been on this issue and we have not been solid, so to speak, as a black man. Right now, what I’m saying is the white, moderate churches like Dr. King spoke about in the Birmingham, Birmingham jail. They’re beginning to come alongside. I feel like we’ve got a do over, and this is the opportunity for people to rise and be on the right side of history, be on the right side of history. And so I think it’s very important, that as we look at what the church is doing, we see the one race. We see the Victory church. We see Peachtree Corners church. We see those churches, Perimeter church. Well, we also have to recognize that a lot of the movement that is happening is happening because the people who are in the church are getting outside of the church and sitting in circles like this. And so, the church is bigger than the four walls. And I do think as an organization, it is important for us to, to present a united front. But I would also say, as I’m looking across, I see a lot of movement happening from people, who are sitting in the pews on Sunday, going out into the world on Monday through Saturday.

Rico: [00:35:38] Let me ask you something Darius. The, you know, like you said, the church is not a building. You have Sunday school teachers, you have the men’s group, the women’s group, they meet outside the church. They do other things. I mean, you have a variety of people that build that church that are there. So I get what you’re saying. When you, when you say, when you, when people say the church is here, cause it, it is the people that make it up, right. It’s not just the pastor, people will follow the pastor if the pastor’s good, right? Or multiple pastors in the church. But what I’m, what I’m looking at too, is there are people that don’t belong to church or as Andy Stanley likes to put in, I love his preaching, the church for the unchurched, if you will, right? So you have people that don’t go to church that, that might go once in a while. That looked like me, right. White, maybe middle-class whatever. And they look at what’s going on and all, and I’ll just, can I be real here? You know, I’ve had lots of friends in Brooklyn where I
grew up that were African American, that were Asian. I mean, they weren’t always in my community though. Because the community I lived in was Italian, Jewish. As I grew up and that was, that was the enclave of what that was. But when I went to school, when I went to high school, when I went to city college, my world blew up if you will, right. Got exposed to a lot of different cultures, a lot of different people. But I think what’s happening now is that for the black community that has gone through this for, hundreds of years, churches for all this time, a lot of white people haven’t seen that, right? We’ve, we’ve learned history. Sure. But history, we’re not in the midst of it. My kids know about the sixties, the you know, the protests, the Vietnam war, how unjust that was for minorities, even that were conscripted, how white middle class families were able to get their kids out of being the draft. And those, those were things that happened. And working for Chuck Schumer for a year, doing constituent work when he was a Congressman, I got to learn, the stuff that happened in communities where, Schumer had a house. We have to be the middleman, if you will, to sort of work things in between tenants and landlords, where the tenants or the landlords were taken advantage of the tenants because of their color, maybe for other, for other reasons. Redlining, redlining was huge. I mean, that was something that, I mean, it was apparent. It took years for it to actually come to the, to the front, but having said all that. I think we, the people see the protests going on, see the riots going on for a while, seeing the looting that was going on. And I think when they saw the video of Floyd, I think most people, most anyone would say that was wrong, right? I’ve got to believe that most people look at that and say that was wrong. There’s no two ways about it. But I think that people out there are afraid too of changes. You know, it’s one thing taken down a Robert E. Lee statue, Hey, I’m from the North, take down all the Southern Confederate statues you want. I’m okay with that. But Christopher Columbus, you know, listen. I understand the history of the man. I’m not, I’m not, you know, yeah my grade school books didn’t quite give me the right history, right? Had to get into college and then get older to learn that. But some people looking at, into saying, you know, what, where do we stop? Does the Jefferson Memorial come down? Does the Washington monument come down? Do we blow up the Mount Rushmore, versus celebrating minority groups. Not just African Americans, but everyone, Latinos, Asians that have built this country. Put memorials up to them, put statues up to them. You know, we haven’t done that. I mean, and if we have, it’s been really small ways. I mean, we’re not celebrating where we should be. So I just had to put that out, that there are people that look at this and they don’t know what to do with it, I think. And they look at this and they’re afraid of what may go on. And they look at this and they don’t know how far it will go. Do they want justice for African Americans? I believe so. Well, I believe most people would, right? But so how do you address that? How do we go down that road because that’s where the road we have to go down, right?

Beth: [00:40:22] Rico, do you mind if I address that? You know, I’ve always disliked the arguments of where do we draw the line because the answer is always somewhere, right? And that line will change, you know, based on evolutions in society. So the line was different back in the 1920s, it was different in the 1970s and it’s different in the year 2020. You know, I can recall a conversation I had with some fellow legislators down at the Capitol last week. I started talking with one young white man and you know, he was, we started talking about some of the Confederate statues that adorn the Capitol grounds. And, you know, his general attitude was
like, well, you know, what harm are they really causing? And at that moment, I saw the chairman of the democratic party, a black man. Start walking towards us. And I asked him to join us. I said, James, come over here. I would like this young man to ask you a question. And so he did. The young white man asked the black man, okay, do these statues cause you harm? And his unequivocal answer was yes. Absolutely. That every single day he comes into work and has to pass by those statues. He knows what kind of message was being sent when they were first erected, which is, you know, this land belongs to a certain group of people and not to others. And that is exactly the message they were intended to convey. And they weren’t even erected after the civil war, they were erected almost, you know, almost 70 years later you know, as a response to the civil rights movement. And so, you know, the young white man was still a little bit defiant said, well, you know, shouldn’t we leave them up so that history won’t repeat itself? And my black friend, the chairman said, well, history is repeating itself just in, in different ways. And I just thought that was an incredibly profound statement of succinctly conveyed to the person who by the end of the conversation said that he was happy to engage in the conversation because he was trying to learn new perspectives. And I certainly learned some new perspectives that day, too. You know, and I added to the conversation that as a, as a white southerner, you know, the men portrayed in those statues, don’t represent my values either. No, I would rather, they not be there. And we have if we’re going to portray anyone, reevaluate where we draw that line in the year 2020, because it’s going to be somewhere and, you know, for anybody who would say, well, we’re going to draw the line here. We might as well draw it all the way to its extreme conclusions and blow up Stone Mountain and Mount Rushmore. It’s like, no, like the line’s going to be drawn somewhere. Let’s make sure that where we draw it in the year 2020, is reasonable.

Rico: [00:43:19] Well that conversation goes there. I mean, it’s going to go there. And it just no doubt people will look at that. And I’m not saying it shouldn’t and I’m not saying statues shouldn’t be taken down. I mean, some of them need to be taken down, I think, right? Or, certainly qualified, you know, what, where are they in history? Maybe they should be put in a museum. I don’t know. I don’t know the answers to everything. That’s why we’re having this conversation.

Karl: [00:43:43] It’s interesting, the discussion around statutes. And, and then I agree. I lived literally behind stone mountain for a time here in Atlanta, and I would ride my bike and hike up it everyday and see it and, and, understanding the history of stone mountain was, was interesting. But all the focus around the statues is, is important, but I’m also curious, can, is there a general passion for, equal justice? So the problem with the George Floyd’s, a bad thing happened in a man’s life died. There were the general consensus that without the tape, without protest, no justice would come from it. There’s too often when a reasonable person could look at a situation and say that was wrong. Someone acted incorrectly, a person’s life is taken and when you go to a court, you expect a fair treatment of it. If, if another black man took that life, he would be in jail, he would be arrested immediately. And that’s what I’m always curious to the question is when you see something like that, what should you do as a citizen? And I always say, well, I would pick up the phone and call 911. But am I making the problem worse in doing that or better in doing that? So there’s a lot of pushback against the police and people think that you have to be
for one or the other. I’m curious, how people could better understand there could be support of the police as well as support of black lives matter. And maybe some of that involves holding people accountable and others stepping in when they see danger happening. When they see someone getting out of hand, simply saying pause before you take this too far, let’s deescalate this. Let’s, let’s do something to have impact. I’m just curious your perception of why isn’t it, that more people can’t just do what a normal person of good conscious would do. What’s preventing them from doing that when it comes to, issues around racial justice.

Darius: [00:46:02] Karl, I want to speak into that question, but one of the things that you said, I feel like I would like to just clarify also, because oftentimes when I’m talking to people, they make the comment. Well, black people kill black people every day, you know? And the thing that I try to explain to them is that when a black man kills a black man, that black man goes to jail. This is not an issue that we’re talking about of murder. We’re talking about justice. And I think that’s, that’s one of the things that I find myself often clarifying. That if that had been a black man killing another black man, including a police officer, in some, some situations that we’ve seen, that they would have been in jail. And, and so when it comes to the disparity of sentencing or charges, or the swiftness of justice, it’s just such a large disparity. And so I just, I wanted to touch on that. Before we enter the rest of your question, because I feel like that’s a, that’s a big wall for some people to overcome. They don’t get it because they’re like, well, what about this person? Yeah, we hear that, but it’s not about the murder. It’s about the justice that happens afterwards. And that’s one of the big issues we have to understand.

Karl: [00:47:34] Very, very good point.

Joe: [00:47:37] I mean, it’s just like the fact that call is what was that? Four or five years ago when, the gentleman went into the church in South Carolina and shot all those people. When they caught him, the police caught him, they took him to McDonald’s to get a Big Mac meal before they took him to jail. Now, if that would have been a black man, they would have beat him up pretty bad. That’s just, that’s just true like Darius said there’s, there’s a difference between, you know, a black and a white when it comes to the police. And I, I have a good relationship with the Gwinnett County police. You know, I feel safe in Gwinnett because of the people I know. But outside of Gwinnett, Hey, you know, we canceled a trip to St. Simon’s a couple of weeks ago because I didn’t want to drive through Brunswick, Georgia. So, I mean, you know, there’s, God gives everybody the knowledge to know better. I knew better than to go to St. Simon’s a couple of weeks ago, because I didn’t feel like going through any kind of drama, you know? And so, you know, things are, it’s definitely a difference between being arrested by, you know, if a black man killed somebody, he goes straight to jail. But if a white person do it, they take him to burger King or McDonald’s before they take them to jail. Now, you know, how is that right? You know, but you know, we have to overcome, you know, we have to be, we all have to, we’re all in this together. You know, my daddy used to always say, you know, everybody bleeds red. But we just gotta get past the color of the skin. And remember we were all made in God’s image. And that’s the thing. I think that’s the problem that people are having, you know.

Karl: [00:49:25] So that’s part of the question is, you know, there’s the why, but what can people do? What if people want to do something, change a behavior? Are there things that you think can start people on that journey moving toward action.

Darius: [00:49:41] I would say one action is to call representative Beth Moore. I do think that’s a big part of it. I think calling your, your local representative, I think even your, your city Councilman, all of those things are a part of it, and I think those are steps of action. I think after you march, after you protest, you have to get in and talk to the people who make the actual, makes the laws and help change the culture. First of all of your local community, but then at a greater scale, the nation. So talking to people, who make decisions, talking to the chief of police, and finding out, you know, where they stand on some of the reform that, you know, That was, that happened under the, some reform happened under the Obama administration, but then some of that was rolled back. I’m just saying some of those conversations we need to take and have the right conversations with the right people to see where they stand. So that in every cycle, when we’re voting, we can elect the right people who are on the right side of history.

Karl: [00:50:49] There, you mentioned a little bit of, if I could expound eight can’t wait Campaign Zero is an organization where they’ve conducted research and came up with recommendations for police law enforcement departments, eight policies that they could implement that has been proven to help reduce the amount of use of excessive force and the death of black citizens at the hands of law enforcement, including, they talk about no choke hold. They talk about citizen review board. They’re talking about accountability, keeping records and metrics on, on the use of force as well as the obligation or the requirement to intervene should they see somebody’s life in danger. These are things that are out there. I couldn’t tell you. I’m not, I’m not educated enough to know how much of those are implemented in Gwinnett or various police stations around the local area here, but people can go and ask the question they can ask and demand to understand. We’d love to know the plan. If it’s been implemented great, tell us, how’s it going? If it hasn’t, is there a plan to implement? And if there, if there’s no intent to implement, tell us why. If you think choke holds are necessary to protect or just explain to the citizens, you know why that is and how you’re going to control the proper use of it and train people. But those are some of the things that people could do is to start holding leaders accountable. And asking the questions of them that deserve answer and discussion.

Beth: [00:52:23] Well, since we’re talking about policy, that’s my area, I’d be happy to jump in. And I am familiar with the, the eight can’t wait platform. As a member of the Georgia house democratic caucus, we came up with a legislative agenda that we call Justice For All. And it was 12 specific proposals. But I’ll, I’ll highlight a few that we can talk about for today’s purposes. Number one on the list was to, when we went back to the session on June 15th was to prioritize the passage of hate crimes bill. Georgia was one of only four States in the entire country that did not have a hate crimes bill on the books. And to clarify what that means, hate crimes bill is a penalty enhancement for biased, motivated crimes. So there has to be an underlying crime. But if it turns out that this crime was motivated by hatred, towards the victims immutable
characteristic, whether, their, their race, gender, religion. A whole litany of, of, of criteria that a prosecutor could ask for penalty enhancement. Because let’s face it when you are indiscriminately targeting people based on, for example, their race. That puts everybody who fits within that racial category at risk of also being a victim. Which is, you know, any crime is, is scary to be the victim of, but when it’s something that you can’t do anything to fix or prevent that’s, that’s terrifying for the entire community. So I was very pleased to, that we were able to get the vocal support of the speaker of the house. You know, back in 2019, the state house, the chamber in which I serve, we did pass a hate crimes bill. But the Senate never passed it. And the governor at the time didn’t really seem all that interested in it. Well, after the Ahmaud Arbery situation, as well as George Floyd, the governor signaled that he would be, he would be interested in, in revisiting that possibility. And we did in fact, pass a hate crimes bill this month in, in, June, 2020, and the governor immediately signed it into law. So that’s progress. That’s a, you know, I did, before I continue, I did want to, take a moment to thank Derius and his church in the one race movement that has organized around racial injustice in society, because quite frankly, that that put, took a lot of pressure off of legislators to find a quick fix to some of these issues. I will be the first to say that passing a hate crimes bill is not going to prevent hate crimes. I mean, you know, that’s, that’s the purview of, of society and the church in terms of changing hearts and minds out in the community, but as a legislator, I take it, I have made it my priority to make sure that at least our laws reflect some kind of equity when it comes to, to achieving racial justice. And we do that one bill at a time, basically. Some of the other proposals that we had put forth, for example, one of the bills that I was a cosponsor of when we went back to session recently, was to create a district attorney oversight committee and lots of people including myself a couple months ago did not know that if you have a bad or a rogue district attorney, who’s tasked with prosecuting crimes in their jurisdiction. If they’re not doing a good job, there’s nothing you can do. You know, you’ll just have to wait and vote them out next election cycle but that might, that opportunity might not happen for, you know, anywhere from two to four years. Whereas compare that to, the, you know, the oversight committee that reviews judges. You know, if a judge is not acting properly or is maybe declining in mental health, there’s a committee in place to remove them if warranted. There was no, no equal procedure for district attorneys. And we got a lot of support for that bill, it did not pass this time around, but that’s something that I look forward to continuing to advocate for when we go back. Lots of other things on that list, for example, ending the use of choke holds, ending the use of no knock warrants, which are, is something that is applied on a, on a discreetly racial basis. Ending the use of citizens arrest, which was used as a reason, not to arrest the killers of Ahmaud Arbery down in Brunswick. You know, the repeal of stand your ground, that particular one probably requires a little more explanation. A lot of people think that means that you can’t defend your home. That is not what that means. There’s I would not advocate for the repeal of any kind of castle doctrine that allows you to defend yourself in your home. But if you go out and you pick a fight with somebody and they fight back, you have a duty to retreat, as opposed to using excessive force in that case, that is what the repeal of stand your ground means. There’s a whole lot more that the democratic caucus has proposed. We’ll continue to fight for those policies.

Karl: [00:57:37] What can folks do to, if they want to learn more and want to get involved and express their wishes? How can folks, what are some of the right ways to do that?

Beth: [00:57:49] In terms of, effective advocacy of your elected officials. There are a couple of things. Number one, obviously is go vote, right? And don’t just vote. Be a voter. Being a voter means that you have researched the candidates. You have researched the issues and what each candidate stands for. That you understand what role they play, if and when that person does get elected. You know, and furthermore, it means that you hold elected officials accountable in between elections. That is a duty and a privilege that we have been granted as American citizens operating within a citizen led democracy. So number one, vote, number two, show up to community meetings. You know, if you’ve ever been to a Peachtree Corners city council meeting. They’re pretty bare, nobody’s there. And, and not only the, the public meetings, but also the working sessions, right? You know, and if you don’t have to stretch yourself too thin, pick one and stick with it, you know, whether it’s city council or attending your County commission meetings or showing up at the legislature. You know, showing up to other types of public meetings that are, that are crafted in order to serve your interests. You know, the school board meetings, election board meetings, these sorts of things are happening all of the time. And we need citizens in the room, holding these officials accountable. Beyond that, you know, I can tell you as an elected official myself, that some of the most effective advocacy that I receive are when people email me, because I do read every single email that I receive. And my office tries very hard to make sure to reply to every email. The one exception that we make as if, if you’re using one of those sites that sends just mass non-personalized email that clearly come from some kind of bot. I don’t typically bother with those because that’s just very low energy type of advocacy. But if I receive a personalized email saying, Hey, my name is so and so I live in your district. You can provide an address for me to confirm it. Then I will, that, that email will receive high priority from me because I am answerable to my constituency through emails, phone calls is, is, probably the next best way although sometimes phone calls and voice messages get, get lost in the fray. Last year I received exactly eight handwritten letters to my office, which is quite a treat in a world where we don’t often receive personalized handwritten letters anymore. And then of course, my folks know that they can always reach me through Facebook. And I’m starting to get a little bit better at Twitter and I have an Instagram account too, but you know, every, every elected official has some means to receive input from the community and, you know, whichever particular elected official you’re targeting, find their information, contact them, stay in touch with them, let them know who you are, and you should get to know who they are as well.

Karl: [01:00:57] Can I add one more to that? I think there are good people out there with amazing talents in leadership and otherwise. Another way you can get involved is to run for office. Whether it’s city council, participate in government, get involved. If you’ve got talents for leadership, if you’ve got passion, sometimes especially in these times, it’s easier to sit on the sidelines. And to watch and wait for someone else to take care and to do it. But sometimes stepping up and starting in small ways might be one of the most effective ways to affect the chain. Joe what about you? Any advice?

Rico: [01:01:42] Joe? Are you going to run again?

Joe: [01:01:47] Well, you know, Rico, it was only 15 votes in the runoff and I tell people, citizen Joe, will be back in 2021. So I’m looking forward to it. You know, we’ll be missing Steve Cohen, you know, he passed away. But we are looking for a new manager and I have a couple of people, but yeah, citizen Joe is getting very excited right now. And you know, we’ve got another year.

Karl: [01:02:13] What office is that Joe?

Joe: [01:02:15] Peachtree Corners, post four. So if they didn’t know, they know now since it’s on the podcast, so yeah, for the city council. And, you know, and like Beth says, you know, I do go to those city council meetings and it gets lonely because there’s no one there. You know, and I’ve had, you know, I talked to some of the people in this area, especially on the South side of town. And the first thing they say is, you know, those people over there don’t care about us. And I said, you know, put somebody in there that does. So you got to get out and vote. 15 votes is nothing.

Karl: [01:02:48] But I could share something that a mentor of mine once told me. We were talking about diversity in corporate America and how to drive that in, in higher levels of leadership. And he implemented a practice with his team where before he would interview for any director or above level position, if the slate wasn’t diverse, he rejected the slate because often it’s comfortable and easy. Just say these are three candidates. I’m going to pick one of these three candidates for the job. But if the slate isn’t diverse, he said we won’t start the interview process, which forced HR and others to bring more voices to the table to be considered for those positions. So, I think everyone could take a look at if you see which voice is missing at the table and you want to affect change, do something about it.

Joe: [01:03:41] Yes, sir.

Karl: [01:03:43] Darius, any thoughts from you on, on things that people can do practically to, to really impact change when it comes to racial justice in the church or outside?

Darius: [01:03:52] Yeah, I think, I would just kinda come off your last point, Karl. Again, I think for you know, policy is not going to necessarily change the heart. I think though it can definitely create a boundary, create great boundaries for a safer America for black people. And I do believe it’s a part of it. Because some things by habit, people are just birthed into some of the social injustice. But I would say again, I think on a very simple level, I’m talking just to the common person who doesn’t know what to do. Here’s the thing you have to change your circle. And I would just continue to, continue to say that. You have to not only listen to one news station, you have to go on the other side and you have to hear what other people are saying. But most importantly, invite people into your circle that are different than you, people of color
need to be in your circle. And I would say to people of color, if the only people around you are black people, then you have to reach across the line. And so I would just say it from that perspective, that’s one of the things that we champion all the time. And so you’ve, talked a lot about the things that we can do practically when it concerns local government. But I would just add that piece from a very human level, love your neighbor. That means talking to the people that are right around you. In your supermarket, in your neighborhood, where you are, giving people a chance and giving yourself a chance to understand people. And so that’s what I would add to that.

Karl: [01:05:34] If I could also build on that, that can translate also to social platforms like next door. Love your neighbor a little bit more when folks express views and issues. And even there’s that practice of, I saw a suspicious person in the neighborhood on next door, which then triggers off a whole lot of scrambling. You know, the question you’ve got to ask is what made that person suspicious? And if it wasn’t an action and/or a behavior that makes someone suspicious, you’ve got to look at your biases. That’s fallen in there. And social media is a powerful mechanism to create a lot of harm. If people aren’t more cautious with what they say. When you’re in front of a person or what you post when you’re online. And my media expert Rico, I wonder from your perspective, first, I want to, I want us to mention one thing, when it comes to stepping up, when I first, moved into the area of Peachtree Corners Life Podcast was one of the only platforms where you can find out what was going on locally, whether it was a city council and others. And, I don’t know if everybody knows, but you started that as a labor of love and just because you thought it needed to be done. And that’s a great example of stepping up and doing something and creating a platform where dialogue like this can happen. So I just want to know that you’re appreciated and recognized for doing that. And for all that you do in the community, whether the people get to tell it to you with face to face or not.

Rico: [01:07:11] Thanks, Karl. I appreciate that. You’re right, though there was a labor of love because I wasn’t making any money off it. And I keep telling my wife, I don’t play golf. This is what I do. And I’ve been doing it for, I think almost four years now. So, and, and talking about getting out of comfort zone, you get to meet a lot of different people. I choose a lot of the interviews and then people also come back to me like Joe, I think we’ve, I’ve interviewed you before on here. Keybo Taylor recently, diverse people from all walks of life. So I do get an opportunity to see a lot of stories and to hear a lot of things. So which is good for me, magazine does that as well, too. So Peachtree Corners Magazine, I get to tell, I get to direct what to tell about other stories in Peachtree Corners. So all good things and you know, Darius is correct. You should go out and out of your comfort zone. I don’t just listen to CNN or Fox News. I, BBC. I mean, I go out and I, not only to, I read a lot, but I listen to a variety of places. Cause you have to. And it’s in an interesting, You can look at CNN and Fox news the same day, same night, and totally different stories. Totally different stories. I’m like, you know, who’s reporting the news. Forget about reporting. You almost think they report, but I don’t get it because it feels like I am living in two worlds. And I’m not sure which one is real. Karl: [01:08:38] The fun game you could play Rico on that. Some cable channels they have the news mix channel. Where it shows multiple news stories. And you could just toggle between
different ones, same exact story reporting. And you’ll hear at least three different views. I love the European view, how others see us. That’s some of the most fascinating insight.

Rico: [01:09:00] And that’s why I listen to BBC, sometimes. We can BBC Europe, not BBC America, just to see what they’re saying about the crazy people in America sometimes. But, so it’s yeah, it’s a good place to be. I come out of politics and business background. And, you know, the world has changed over this period of time, but it’s not going to change enough. And I fear we will take much longer to change these other things. It’s going to take generations. So this is really the beginning of where it needs to go. Or the second reset, I think like Darius said before. Another opportunity to maybe do it right. It’s going to be a long road. I fear.

Karl: [01:09:44] Absolutely. And I’m hopeful that there is another generation coming that’s impatient with the status quo. So whether we want to change or not, it’s going to change because, the younger generations didn’t grow up in the 1960s and 50s. And so they have a different take on the world and they’re, they’re going to drive us all to change one way or the other. Well, we’ve come to the, to, to a little bit over an hour and, and wanted to thank, Joe Sawyer for, for joining us today. I want to thank you for sharing your heart, sharing your stories with us. Representative Beth Moore. Thank you so much for continuing to do what you do to help drive the agenda down at the Capitol and, and, and help the citizens of the community, be heard and, and, and help drive and be a leader in the community to help drive change. Whether it’s social, racial justice or, or many other things that you’re, that you’re helping pass. And Darius, thank you and the work of your entire community at Victory. What you do in the community, what Victory does in the community, what you do personally. We appreciate that and thank you for participating in this ongoing discussion. We’re not going to stop here. We’re going to, we’re going to do another one on Thursday at two o’clock. We’re going to bring some more people on and we’re going to continue this conversation. If there’s one thing we can prove that people from different backgrounds, people from different perspectives can come and sit down and have a discussion. It’s not that hard. If we could do it, you could do it in your home. You can do it in your church in your discipleship group. You could do it in your community. You can do it in your gym. But have the discussion, reach, gain understanding, listen for understanding. And when you start to formulate what you think that future could look like, take an action. Write a letter, run for office, join a committee, make your voice heard, vote. There’s things you can do and I’ll spend I’ll, I’ll share a special challenge to those that are in leadership positions in business, in the community, in nonprofits, in the schools. You have a very unique role to impact those you lead and the communities that you’re in. And so if you’re for black lives matter, if you’re for racial justice, if you’re for something, speak on it, where you put your time and money tells us what’s important to you. So that’s the challenge I throw out there to all leaders. Thank you.

Rico: [01:12:25] Thank you,

Karl: [01:12:26] Karl.

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Community Leadership in Social and Racial Justice, Part Three

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Community Leadership in Social and Racial Justice, Part One

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Peachtree Corners Life

Inside the Solicitor General’s Office: Lisamarie Bristol on Justice in Gwinnett County

Published

6 days ago

March 25, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

On this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini speaks with Gwinnett County Solicitor General Lisamarie Bristol about her work addressing the county’s growing case volume and implementing new justice initiatives. From launching a public resource website to tackling a 4,000-case backlog, Lisamarie shares how her office is improving efficiency and accessibility in the legal system.

She also discusses innovative programs like the Diversion Program, the Duty Attorney Pilot Program, and the Special Victims Unit—each designed to enhance fairness and provide second chances where possible. Tune in to hear how Gwinnett County is adapting to its rapid growth, the role of technology in legal processes, and how community partnerships are strengthening justice for all.

Key Takeaways & Highlights:

Understanding the Solicitor General’s Role – How the office prosecutes misdemeanors, traffic offenses, and quality-of-life cases.
4,000-Case Backlog Solution – Strategies to streamline processes and improve case resolution speed.
New Legal Resource Website – How Gwinnett residents can access critical legal information and victim advocacy services.
Diversion Program Success – Over 1,400 successful cases, providing alternatives to prosecution and preventing repeat offenses.
Special Victims Unit – Dedicated to handling sensitive cases like misdemeanor sex crimes and vehicular homicides.
Teen Dating Violence & Social Media Risks – How technology is impacting legal cases involving young people.
Expanding Access to Legal Support – Partnerships with Mosaic Georgia, PADV, and HIMSA House to assist victims and underserved communities.
Justice System Challenges – Addressing mental health, substance abuse, and legislative changes affecting prosecution.

Listen in for an insightful conversation on justice, reform, and the future of law enforcement in Gwinnett County!

Resources:
Gwinnett County Solicitor Website: https://gwinnettsg.com/
Campaign website: www.lisamariebristol.com
Mosaic Georgia: www.mosaicgeorgia.org
PADV: www.padv.org
Ahimsa House: www.ahimsahouse.org

Transcript:

00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I appreciate you guys joining us. We’re in our little smart city just north of Atlanta. I have a great guest today, Lisamarie Bristol, Solicitor General for Gwinnett County. I appreciate you joining me, Lisa.

00:00:18 – Lisamarie Bristol

Thank you so much, Rico. It’s a pleasure to be back with you.

00:00:21 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, this is our second podcast together. I think the last one was just before you got elected?

00:00:29 – Lisamarie Bristol

Yes.

00:00:29 – Rico Figliolini

Right? ‘22?

00:00:30 – Lisamarie Bristol

It’s when I was still campaigning so probably about three years ago now. Oh my.

00:00:34 – Rico Figliolini

Yep, yeah. You took office January ‘23 so a good tenure. So lots to talk about right? But before we get to that I just want to say thank you to our sponsors. And we have two great corporate sponsors both based in Peachtree Corners, both family run. EV Remodeling Inc is a company that does great work. You have a dream home, they can build it, renovate it, add home space to you, renovate your bathrooms, your kitchens. They design your space like they want to design your life. So 260 families plus have been really happy with their work. So you should check them out. EVRemodelingInc.com. We appreciate their support. And Vox Pop Uli. Vox Pop Uli is family run as well. I want to thank Andrew and Daniel for supporting us. You have a brand, you want to bring it to life. These guys will put your logo, your brand on almost anything. Think of truck, car, vehicle wraps. They’ve done over 1,600 last year, I think alone. So check them out, trade show things, embroidering, whatever you need. If you have a logo and you want to put it on an object, challenge them because I think they have yet to fail whatever we need done. So it’s kind of cool. So check them out, voxpopuli.com. So I appreciate them doing that and supporting our journalism, our podcasts, and the magazines that we produce. But let’s get to Lisa. Let’s get to, do you prefer Lisa or Lisamarie?

00:02:11 – Lisamarie Bristol

Marie, actually.

00:02:13 – Rico Figliolini

Okay, Lisamarie. So you’ve been tenured in the job of Solicitor General for Gwinnett County since ‘23 of January. For those people that aren’t aware, tell them what the job entails. What does that job do in this county?

00:02:29 – Lisamarie Bristol

Great. Well, thank you so much again for having me here today. I’m really honored. Full circle moment. You were the first podcast I did when I was first campaigning for this seat. So it is wonderful to be back here. As Solicitor General, my job as the elected prosecutor is to handle prosecuting cases in state court, recorders court, and we handle all of the misdemeanors, the traffic offenses, the code enforcement, animal cases. So everything that’s not a felony comes through my court. My office is responsible for prosecuting cases in 11 courtrooms. We are the second largest office in the state of Georgia in terms of Solicitor General offices, and we are definitely a high volume office. So anything from DUI, domestic violence cases, death cases that are misdemeanor amounts, as well as traffic offenses and quality of life cases like junkyard and animal barking cases. All of those are prosecuted through my office.

00:03:33 – Rico Figliolini

Wow. That’s a lot. And I remember when we first spoke back then that there was a huge caseload backlog of I think over 4,000 cases in ‘22 and it was going to be a challenge for anyone that took office, the amount of courts, the amount of work to be done. And trying to make it in an efficient way. So you’ve started some programs to help better work the system if you will versus the system working you. So one of one of the things you all set up and maybe you could tell us about it. It’s the launching of the new website and what that does for anyone that needs to interact with the agency, with the department.

00:04:20 – Lisamarie Bristol

Absolutely. One thing I realized is a lot of people understandably just don’t really know what my office does. And the reality is, is most people will interact with a Solicitor General’s Office traffic court or something at that level. Lots of people get traffic tickets or they may be the unfortunate victim of a traffic accident. There’s lots of, you know, lower level misdemeanor kind of public safety or public nuisance crimes that may touch our community where they may be a victim or a witness to a car accident case or something that occurred in their community, not necessarily severe violent crimes all the time. And so one thing that I thought was really important was reaching our community. And reaching our community in a way that they got an opportunity to understand what we do, how we do it, why we do it, in not a very traumatic way. And so we created this website which allows us to give out information that we know we’re constantly being asked about. Things like record restrictions for people with older cases and older convictions to clear their record. So we have lots of information on there about that. Lots of information about our victim advocacy program and how victims and survivors of crimes can receive resources and help and assistance if they need it. We also talk a lot about what my office does and how we can help people and what we’re here to do. So if you go to GwinnettSG.com, there’s just lots of different nuggets of information. One thing on the website that I’m especially proud about is we started a safety resource library where we’re trying to periodically add different topics, whether it’s teen driving safety or DUI, a safety PSA, so people can kind of go there and kind of get like the high level nuts and bolts about different topics that affect everyone in our community and just get some quick information.

00:06:26 – Rico Figliolini

Well, you also have some additional links to other websites that are helpful as well, it seems, right? Gwinnett County Courts website and all that.

00:06:36 – Lisamarie Bristol

Yes, we have websites and links to all of our other county stakeholder partners, as well as lots of resources to other agencies that serve victims in the community. So whether it is somebody who needs help for domestic violence, they need shelter, they need resources, food, culturally relevant services. We’ve tried to provide kind of a one-stop shop if this is where somebody ends up to find all of the things that they could possibly need. Additionally we have you know the generic contact us page where if you reach out to us if you can’t find the information on our page, contact us, send us an email. And if we don’t have the answer we will definitely try and point you in the right direction of who does.

00:07:21 – Rico Figliolini

And the good part is that the site can be read in not just Spanish, but Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, Dutch, Chinese, Arabic. Quite a few languages.

00:07:34 – Lisamarie Bristol

Yes, whatever language you need. I mean, Gwinnett County is the most diverse county in the entire United States. I don’t know if anyone had the opportunity to see our chairwoman deliver the state of the county earlier this month. We have, for the longest time, Gwinnett’s been known as the most diverse county in the Southeast region of the U.S. We’ve recently been recognized as the most diverse county in the country. I think that’s phenomenal. And as such, I thought it was very important to have a website that could properly serve such a diverse and vibrant community. So yes, all of the languages are available with a click of a button.

00:08:15 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, that must complicate things, I’m sure, in the courtrooms as well, right? A little bit.

00:08:20 – Lisamarie Bristol

Yeah, it does. And we try and have, you know, court certified reporters as quickly as possible when needed. And I’m grateful for the resources that we do have and definitely trying to expand the resources that we have even within my office. One of the things that we definitely worked on was making sure some of the core victim resources that we put out on a regular basis, we develop them in more than just English and Spanish. We expanded them, I believe, to Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, some of the more regularly seen languages that we were seeing throughout the community to make sure that we could reach people where they are.

00:09:00 – Rico Figliolini

For sure. I mean, there’s a large Korean population, Vietnamese population in Gwinnett County. Yeah. So it must be. So, I mean, with the growth of the county, which continues to grow, with second largest county in the state, a million plus residents, and that’s going to keep growing probably as much as 20% over the next decade, I bet. Easy. How does that affect your office? How does that affect budgeting and the things that you have to do?

00:09:30 – Lisamarie Bristol

Well, growth is a thing. Actually, the day I took office, my office grew. So we gained an extra judge in our circuit, a seventh state court judge. And gaining an extra seventh state court judge meant growing my office by an extra team and that was day one. And yes we do continue to grow, we do see an increase in numbers of cases that come in. I think we’ve seen a growth of approximately 2,000 cases per year so far that coming through state court. Two to three thousand citations per year and increasing coming through our recorders court. And the growth is something that we do have to deal with. I have increased my staffing levels and kind of restructured, not kind of, actually restructured how my office handles cases in an effort to be as efficient as possible. We have flipped how we look at our cases. So we are front loading a lot of the work. And what I mean by that is the effort that we’re putting in, every single case that comes through my office has to be touched. It has to be investigated. We have to reach out to the victims. We have to make these first critical touches and calls and safety planning and things like that. That has to happen no matter what. At the beginning of 2024, we had approximately 14,000 cases open in this office for state court alone. But by front-loading the work, by having my amazing investigations unit, my amazing victim advocate unit, who all since I took office has been nationally credentialed and poured a lot of training into both teams. What we’re able to do is we’re able to figure out which of those cases need further resources and need to be prosecuted at a higher level versus which ones we can divert and put into our diversion programs. Or which ones we need to go ahead and put in our accountability courts by identifying those low level offenses by identifying those low level or non-frequent fires so to speak, we’re able to kind of reserve some of that energy and efficiency so we can put that towards the cases, the more serious violent cases that we know need our attention.

00:11:48 – Rico Figliolini

So we’re talking about the implementation of the diversion unit essentially. And how that frees up the case, well not frees up but certainly frees up the time. I can see why you want to front load that to just, it’s almost a triage in a way because the flood keeps coming, right? It doesn’t stop. You can’t even put up your hand and say, whoa, it’s going to get more just essentially even just because of the expansion of population. Just the natural thing of it. So how do you identify these cases sooner than later? What makes you delay them or divert them? What criteria do you use?

00:12:31 – Lisamarie Bristol

That’s a great question. So diversion for those who don’t know, free trial diversion is an alternative to prosecution. So what it means is that someone who either has a minimal or no criminal history is given the opportunity to still be held accountable for their behavior, but rather than it ending up with them having a criminal conviction and criminal history, it gives them an opportunity to participate in this program pre-adjudication and keep a clean record if they successfully complete the program. So typically, a diversion program will be for someone who is either a youthful offender with very few cycles on their criminal history, less than three, someone who’s not been convicted of any felonies or any violent crimes, someone who’s maybe had a couple of traffic citations, anything that’s not violent or overly serious, things like that. They come into the program, they have to pay a fee. They usually have to do some forms of community service. The fee is not exorbitant. They’ll do some community service and they may have to do, well, they will have to do some sort of treatment. Maybe it’s anger management. Maybe it is a values clarification course, if it’s a theft-based class. Maybe it’s defensive driving if it’s a traffic offense or something of that nature. But they complete their portion in hopes that we are addressing what got them there in the first place, right. And once they successfully get through the program, which takes about six months, with no further arrests or any run into the law, the tradeoff is we will expunge their record. We’ll dismiss their case and the record will remain clean. So it gives them an opportunity to have. Yes, they did mess up. Yes, they did get a case. They were held accountable. They did have to pay their fine. They had to be supervised for six months. They had to go through this program, but they hopefully learned a lesson from it. And they have a chance to have a do-over without having the tarnish of a criminal record on their back.

00:14:37 – Rico Figliolini

So does this, just because the question pops to mind, I’m sure that other people might have the same question. Number one, are these minors or this would be anyone?

00:14:48 – Lisamarie Bristol

It could be anyone. It depends on their criminal history. So if, for instance, someone who is in their 50’s for the first time comes into contact with the criminal justice system and has a slip up and they’ve never done anything, they too would be eligible for our diversion program and would be able to maintain a clean history.

00:15:13 – Rico Figliolini

Go ahead. I’m sorry.

00:15:14 – Lisamarie Bristol

Well, as I’ve said before and what I campaigned on is knowing that convictions even to misdemeanors can have such a dire impact on people’s lives. It can keep from getting student loans, from you know stable housing, from jobs, from serving in the military. There’s a lot of things that can impact them. People with criminal histories may be prohibited from even getting a liquor license which may prevent them from being able to get a job as a server at a restaurant. So our goal is for those who are low risk, who have made a mistake, who may be restorative, to have that opportunity to do so. And so we’ve really expanded our diversion program. We’ve expanded our reach. We’ve tried to get people into our diversion program as quickly as possible. And I’ll tell you, our numbers are impressive so far. Between ‘23 and ‘24, we put in about 1,900 people into our diversion program, 1,900 cases, excuse me, with over 1,400 cases successfully completing it. So we have about a success rate of successful completion of about 74% on our diversion cases. We haven’t tracked this year yet.

00:16:31 – Rico Figliolini

So I guess the question for me would be a couple of questions. One is, how do you keep track of that? That’s a lot of people. You know, how do you keep track of it and make sure that it’s done in a comprehensive way? Because, you know, people can do things and fool around and stuff. And maybe you’re not getting quite all the information. But so how can you track that reasonably well? And the second part is when you expunge the record, what if they come in back into the system? Do you still, will you still know that they’re a repeat offender at that point? Or because the case is, the records expunge, you don’t have that record. So I guess that’s the two questions that I know that would come to mind to a listener.

00:17:19 – Lisamarie Bristol

Great questions. So for the first one, how do we keep track? Well, first, my office keeps track of, we have a team that is dedicated solely to our diversion program. And so their sole responsibility is keeping track of sending out the offers, maintaining the offers, signing them up, keeping up with their monthly check-ins. They are actually supervised by the probation office, not by my office, but they are responsible for staying on track of them and at certain timelines, checking in to ensure that certain cases have hit certain benchmarks to see that we’re on track. If someone has absconded or has disappeared or is not doing what they need to do, that team then pulls that case. We’re notified by probation. We pull that case and that case is then put on the regular track for prosecution, which would account for the 26% of people who unfortunately did not successfully complete the program. So we have multiple ways to track it, both internally within my team, as well as the independent probation office that handles the actual supervision of the people in the program. In terms of how do we know if they’re second offenders, the great thing is, well, what people are going to always know is for criminal records, there’s levels, right? As a criminal justice agency, we will always see somebody’s entire criminal history. So even though their record is expunged, that means for employers, for housing, for those reasons, yes, it is expunged. But law enforcement will always be able to see it. So I will always have access to their entire criminal history and see whether or not they’ve already been afforded an opportunity to go through diversion on a previous case. So those are all things that are checked prior to them being admitted into our program.

00:19:13 – Rico Figliolini

Cool. Okay, great. That answered my questions on that. So glad to see that that would work that way. Anything else about the diversion unit that you’d like to share?

00:19:25 – Lisamarie Bristol

I think one of the things I’m really happy about with our diversion unit is we are working really hard to expand the service providers within it. And by that, I mean, we’re trying to find as we are such a diverse county and not just in culture, but in needs. So we’re really trying to find diverse service providers that we can refer people to. That means having a variety of different types of anger management courses, not just always sending people to the same provider. The reality of it is, is if you have, say, a 23-year-old young lady, she might respond very differently to an anger management course then, let’s say a 30-year-old man. And we’re trying to be mindful of things like that and having a better rolodex of options so that people can be placed with the most impactful provider that will actually help them buy into the reformation and actually make a difference in what they’re doing.

00:20:26 – Rico Figliolini

Are you working with nonprofits in Gwinnett County as well that do outreach of this sort?

00:20:32 – Lisamarie Bristol

Yes. And as we go around and we meet new nonprofits, I have members of my team who are able to kind of vet what they’re able to do, how they’re able to do it, and whether or not we can refer people not only through our diversion program, but sometimes through regular deed bargains with our defendants. Sometimes the victims in cases need some of these resources. So it’s really been helpful to kind of build these relationships with our community partners and other nonprofits. so we know what’s out there and so that we can utilize them and they can get the support as well.

00:21:08 – Rico Figliolini

Cool. There’s another program that you implemented as well, the Duty Attorney Pilot program. I know you’re proud of that as well. So tell us a little bit about that.

00:21:19 – Lisamarie Bristol

One thing we recognized when I took office is that, you know unfortunately some people are unable to bond out of the jail. They get arrested on a misdemeanor charge and they may have, they may, they will have a bond, but they may be unable to post the bond for various reasons. And for every day that they’re in jail, that leads to housing instability, job instability. It can really have a huge impact on them. And some of these crimes are, again, you know, nuisance crimes or nonviolent crimes that could destabilize them. One of the things I worked really hard with and did take partnership with other community partners, with other stakeholders rather, was getting a schedule so that we could have duty defense attorneys scheduled to be at each one of my jail calendars. We do three jail calendars a week so far. Hopefully they’re going to increase that soon. And at each of those jail calendars, there is a duty defense attorney. That means every person that we can get ready and put on those calendars, has the opportunity to resolve their case, even if they would otherwise not have had that opportunity or they would have had to wait a little bit longer for an appointed attorney to maybe get to them. The reality is we don’t have a public defender’s office here in Gwinnett. And our indigent defense defendants are dependent upon the attorneys who take the cases. And sometimes they’re stretched thin. Sometimes there’s complex things happen. People get stuck in other courtrooms. And what was happening is sometimes the defendants in jail got stuck because their attorneys could not make it for various reasons. I really wanted to address that. And having the duty pilot program has worked. It’s worked a great deal. I’m very proud of it. We’ve been able to increase our volume, increase our calendar sizes, and really start to move those cases on a more consistent basis. Because, honestly, the cases that we’ve identified that can be fast-tracked, our goal is to get them out of the jail, let them be held accountable for whatever they’ve done, and keep moving forward. It saves the county. It’s better for us in terms of community safety, and that’s definitely what we’re working towards.

00:23:38 – Rico Figliolini

So, obviously, you’re addressing a lot of the pressing challenges of the office, and you’ve done it, right, since ‘23. The, there’s other challenges as well. And you’ve implemented another program, the special victims unit program that you all did. And very important part, right, for the other side of that crime. So tell us a bit about the special victims unit.

00:24:03 – Lisamarie Bristol

So when I took office, one of the things I also recognized is there are some cases that just require extra care. I’m very fortunate I’ve had the experience to have worked with all types of crimes throughout my career on both sides. Whether it’s been from traffic, through serious violent felonies, as both a public defender and a prosecutor. And sometimes there are crimes that just require a little bit more TLC, a little bit more attention, more training to deal with them. We have a great deal of misdemeanor sex crimes that the legislature has carved out to be handled in state court now. And those are crimes of sexual nature that occur between consensual teenagers, anywhere between 14 and 18, sometimes 13 and 17. And frankly, those are just very sensitive. The subject matter is sensitive. All the facts usually surrounding the topics are sensitive. Both parties on both sides, usually the parents and guardians involved, it can be very sensitive. And I recognized really quickly that it was important to have a team that could really dive deeper and focus in on that, that I could spend extra time training and focusing their attention on handling those cases with the extra care they really do require. So our misdemeanor sex crimes, our vehicular homicides, which are cases where unfortunately due to a traffic accident, someone has passed away. And those are horrendous cases to deal with, but unfortunately they happen. So it’s an accident that a loved one has passed away. Again, very sensitive, very highly emotional at times and requires a little bit of extra attention. And so there are just certain crimes that have been, that we’re seeing an increase in volume at times in the office. Gwinnett has the largest school district in the state. So a lot of kid cases and just needed that extra touch. And so creating that Special Victims Unit was my solution to that.

00:26:16 – Rico Figliolini

Are you finding, I mean, so there wasn’t anything like that before? Or is this new? Are you improving on what might have been there?

00:26:28 – Lisamarie Bristol

Special Victims Unit is brand new to this office. There wasn’t anything like that in this office before.

00:26:34 – Rico Figliolini

Are you finding any trends in that part? Let’s stick to that for a second. When you say, you know, we have the largest school district, you know, and parents worry about the safety of their kids, both inside the school and outside. Are you finding any trends that you’re seeing that you’d like to share?

00:26:53 – Lisamarie Bristol

What we are seeing is we know that teens are engaging in intimate and romantic relationships younger these days, and they’re exposed to a lot more. They are, whether it’s on the phones, on the media, what have you. And we are seeing that they are exposed and more experimental with things earlier now than probably several years ago, 10 years ago, even. I think that’s part of the reason why this whole kind of Romeo and Juliet portion of sex crimes is carved out. So what my office is trying to do is not only are we not only just the creation of the special victims unit, we’re also trying to be very proactive. So for instance, February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. And my office participated in a number of activities trying to get ahead of it. And what we did was we participated in resource tabling here at the courthouse where we set up tables with tons of information about teen dating violence, where we could share the importance on signs of healthy dating, management partnerships, and just regular partnerships amongst teens. We actually went out and we were in five different high schools throughout the month of February, where we were invited over their lunch periods to meet with various teenagers throughout the Gwinnett County Schools and talk to them and meet them where they are about healthy dating habits, healthy boundaries, how to seek help if they felt like they were in an unsafe situation. Whether it’s a friendship or an intimate partnership. Because what we do know is sometimes teens don’t feel comfortable or don’t want to talk to their parents. So we were able to give them other resources. Here are some toll-free numbers you can call. Here are some safe adults you can speak to. Speak to your teachers, speak to your counselors, if that’s what you need to do. There are some red flags you need to consider. So we’re really trying to be proactive with educating the public as well, not just being reactive.

00:28:58 – Rico Figliolini

Are you seeing any activity or exposure to social media that you have to attend to in some of the cases that you do?

00:29:08 – Lisamarie Bristol

We do. Sometimes a big part of it is explaining to teens the impact of some of the things that they’re doing on their phones and the potential pitfalls to some of that behavior. And a lot of times going out to the schools, whether it’s just a teen dating, violence awareness, tabling event, or just being at their career fairs or going to career days and speaking to different youth groups and answering those questions has been really beneficial. We also participated in a teen summit where we did a panel discussion, there was an attorney, an advocate, and an investigator from my office that all participated in the Teen Summit, which was in partnership with PADV, the Partnership Against Domestic Violence. Huge event over at Gas South last month. And they had the opportunity to ask those kinds of questions. What is, you know, what happens if I take this picture and I send it to my friend or if I get this picture and I send it out to my other friends? So I think having those conversations with young people in a space where maybe they feel a little bit more comfortable asking those questions has definitely been helpful. And we’re certainly trying to make sure that when we’re talking to them, they understand who we are and they’re meeting us not on the worst day of their life. So they can build that kind of trust and rapport with us.

00:30:32 – Rico Figliolini

I like the way you put that not on the worst day of their life, yes. Because some kids don’t you know, I think critical thinking sometimes is lacking, depending on the age. And they think you know they get a picture from from a friend from a friend and they think it’s okay to put it out because they didn’t shoot it you know. And it’s like you know whatever. But yeah some of these kids just, you want them to grow up a little faster in how they think, but you don’t want them to grow up too fast, right?

00:31:02 – Lisamarie Bristol

Exactly.

00:31:03 – Rico Figliolini

Technology, you know, that’s always, we’re talking about phones and smartphones and all sorts of things. How has technology affected you? Good and bad, either in office to make efficiencies or in other ways? Are there innovative technologies you all are using? How does that work?

00:31:26 – Lisamarie Bristol

So one of the things we were able to do in coming into office is we did apply for some federal ARPA funding. And, you know, the ARPA funding was earmarked for offices affected by the COVID backlog. And I was like, hey, that’s us. We are definitely affected by the COVID backlog. And very grateful we were able to apply for some of that ARPA funding to enhance and upgrade a lot of the technology in our office. Whether it is scanners for investigators so that they can move quicker in uploading evidence along with our trial assistants, just making sure we have the equipment that my team needs to work more efficiently. So those are things that we were able to do and does help us do our job better.

00:32:17 – Rico Figliolini

You talked a lot about community outreach just before. You talked about preventative. Preventing crime, crime awareness in the community, promoting that. Are there any significant partnerships or collaborations that you’re doing with other agencies within the county that may not have been done before that you’re expanding on?

00:32:38 – Lisamarie Bristol

Yes. One of the first partnerships that we were able to forge was with Mosaic Georgia. Mosaic Georgia is a nonprofit here in Gwinnett County, and they service victims and survivors of sexual assault crimes. They do free sane exams. They do free counseling and forensic interviews and anything that somebody may need. If schools reach out to them, if a victim reaches out to them, they’re a one-stop shop. They’re an amazing organization. Mosaic is someone, is an organization that I think is critical to a county like Gwinnett and the work they do is just so important. I was really excited to develop a partnership with them. They are one of the nonprofits that receive benefits from the annual 5K that my office does. It’s our signature event. So every October, we’ve done two so far. We do our Dash for Domestic Violence Awareness 5K. It’s the first Saturday in October at Alexander Park. And the proceeds from that 5K, every single penny we raise, whether it’s from registrations from runners and participants or sponsorships, is divided amongst Mosaic Georgia, Partnership Against Domestic Violence, or PADV, which is another nonprofit that services survivors of domestic violence both here in Gwinnett County. They also service them in Fulton County. We have a shelter here in Gwinnett County under PADV. They assist survivors with getting TPOs, temporary protective orders. They will help house them for about 90 days as they get back on their feet and give them some housing stability, child care, a little bit of job training to help people who are leaving those really hard situations stabilize and have a moment to catch their breath with dignity so that they can hopefully make that pivot and launch to a better place. And we also formed partnerships with the HIMSA House. HIMSA House is probably one of the more unique organizations that my office has partnered with. On a steady basis, the third recipient of proceeds from the 5K. HIMSA House houses animals. When people are leaving domestic violence situations, what a lot of people don’t realize is about 70% of people who would leave a violent situation do not because of their pets. And they don’t want to leave their pet behind. They have no escape to bring them. HIMSA House will house their pets up to a certain amount of time. And not just cats and dogs. And I ask them every year what’s the most interesting animal they’ve had for the year. They’ve housed horses, snakes, dogs, cats. They have quite an interesting list. But it gives that survivor that extra level of peace so that they’re able.

00:35:40 – Rico Figliolini

I didn’t even think about that. That makes a lot of sense. When you think about that the other things come to mind also then. Yeah, it’s just amazing. So let’s shift gears a little bit and because you know you’re not you don’t live in a silo right? Georgia State House legislators they’d like to pass laws and, you know even if we need them or don’t need them, the reforms that are happening at the state level and legislation, they tend to impact a variety of people, a variety of organizations. I am sure they impact sometimes the prosecution of cases or stuff. What approach do you have to that? And what do you see happening in the statehouse currently that might affect Gwinnett cases?

00:36:28 – Lisamarie Bristol

Yeah, that is an excellent question, especially. Like of us just getting over crossover day. I think what we’re seeing in the legislature is sometimes we have lawmakers who have the best of intentions and they want to fix one problem and it sometimes causes a domino effect down the line. And we don’t always have the opportunity to be like, wait, wait, wait, let’s stop and think how this can play out because you’re going to, you’re going to pass this lovely law and then you’re going to hand it to me to enforce it. And so the way I approach it is I really do try and be open and have relationships with my Georgia delegations. I actually spend as much time as I can down at the Capitol while they’re in section. So I’ve been down there quite a bit. I have conversations with different committees. I’ve testified before the committees and offered input on legislation that is being put before the Senate or before the House to make sure that they understand the impact of what it is that they’re trying to put out there and maybe reconsider some of the wording, reconsider some of the clauses. And I think having that open dialogue and having the availability to do that makes a huge difference. And I think it makes an impact because they know before they do something, they know they have a partnership in their prosecutors and they can say, hey, is this going to mess you up? How is this going to mess you up? How do we shift that? And we’ve definitely seen some improvement, I think, on certain things, not all things, by having that communication.

00:38:13 – Rico Figliolini

Do you, are there specific legislative reform or policies you would like to see updated that hasn’t been touched yet?

00:38:24 – Lisamarie Bristol

I would love to see us have some updates on or some better clarity on our intention with the misdemeanor sex cases. That’s been one of the things that I’ve been talking about probably the most since taking office, just in terms of intent and direction and some better guidance. It’s a really sensitive topic, and I would love to dive a little deeper into that. And generally, you know, most recently they passed some more law. I don’t know if they’ll make it to the governor’s desk or not, but I know it’s about crossover day regarding how we are assisting victims. We need to be victim-centered and whether or not victims can include their pets for TPO protection and things like that. So I think we’re seeing the legislature becoming more sensitive and aware to a more victim-centered, trauma-informed approach. And I think that’s important in this work that we’re doing.

00:39:24 – Rico Figliolini

Okay, cool. Mental health, substance abuse. I mean, we touched upon that a little bit. Is there anything you want to share about that as far as some of those issues, mental health issues, basically?

00:39:39 – Lisamarie Bristol

I think mental health is an issue that we’re continuing to see in the community as we continue to search for resources. I think that’s going to be our biggest downside is finding the right amount of resources to assist the people who need it. I think we’re trying. I think we’re at least acknowledging that, you know, there are people that we’re scared of and the people that we’re upset with and the people that are just in new settings. And I think we’re finally moving into an era where we know we can’t treat them all the same. For the people who, their real issue is mental health. It becomes, okay, well, what can I do? So you don’t just keep coming back. We don’t quite have the answers yet, but definitely working on it to make sure we’re not just putting them on that hamster wheel so they keep turning back.

00:40:27 – Rico Figliolini

Yes. I think we all feel to some degree we’re on a hamster wheel, right? Day keeps going, which is that by the time Friday comes, Monday comes, we’re still doing the same old, same old, and you want to make sure that you don’t keep doing that, right? So, okay. I mean, you’re only in this now. It’s been two years? Well, two years.

00:40:52 – Lisamarie Bristol

I’m in my third year now. Yes. Two years and two and a half months.

00:40:57 – Rico Figliolini

So too early to talk about a legacy, of leaving a legacy in Gwinnett County. But what would you like that to be if that was the case? What is the most important thing that you’d like to make sure you left once you do leave?

00:41:14 – Lisamarie Bristol

That’s a really great question. Thank you for that. I would really love to know that you can look back at the work that my office does, the work that my team does, the work that I do, that it makes an impact, that it leaves people better than how we found them. That I understand that a big part of what I do is supporting victims during some of the hardest times of their lives. Trying to keep the community safe during, you know, really hard times, whether it’s DUI or domestic violence cases, or whether it’s a family grieving their loss of a loved one. That can be really hard work. My desire is to have a legacy in knowing that people look back and say, even though it was a really hard time, Solicitor Bristol’s team treated me with compassion and kindness and respect and dignity, whether they were the defendant or the victim or the witness. And that even when held accountable, they came out knowing that what happened to them was fair. That is the legacy I really want to leave because sometimes you may not like what happens to you. You may not like being held accountable, but you can still acknowledge that it’s fair. And I think that’s important to me. It’s very important to me that what the work we are doing, we are supporting the victims. We’re educating, giving resources and doing what we can, but we’re still treating everyone with dignity and compassion and being fair in how we do it.

00:42:51 – Rico Figliolini

I’ve got to believe being a mother of three, middle schooler and high schoolers, that that probably informs a little bit about how you feel about doing these things.

00:43:03 – Lisamarie Bristol

Absolutely. Everything that I do, I’m always mindful that my children are watching me. And I never, ever want to do anything that I would be ashamed to do in front of them. So absolutely.

00:43:14 – Rico Figliolini

Well, yeah, the kids are definitely watching even when we’re thinking they’re not watching.

00:43:19 – Lisamarie Bristol

All the time.

00:43:21 – Rico Figliolini

Final question, I guess. You came in on, I won’t say it was a wave or anything, but you came in during a time of a lot of elections going on in ‘22, a lot of changing of the seats, if you will, changing of the chairs. It feels like musical chairs sometimes, they keep going back and forth. But I think there was some good expansion, some good things done. What would you consider saying to someone seeking a career in public service or law enforcement in Gwinnett County, what would you say to them that they should know about from your experience?

00:43:59 – Lisamarie Bristol

I think anyone who wants to serve publicly has to know it can’t be about them. It has to be about people. It’s a very humbling experience, and you may think you’re right, and you may think you have the best approach, and you might. You might be correct in that, but this work is not for the faint of heart. I will say, knowing when you walk into public service, you are walking into a situation where you are dealing with a cruise ship, not a speedboat. And it’s going to be small, incremental changes that make the biggest impact. And sometimes it’s easy to get lost in thinking, I’m not doing enough. But if you take a breath and you look back over it, and know where you’re heading, it’s worth it. It’s absolutely worth it. And so when I look back at where we started on January 1st of 2023, where my team is today, it was small. It was small steps along the way, but I am incredibly proud of the work that we’re doing. And I’m absolutely looking forward to continuing it on into a second term.

00:45:11 – Rico Figliolini

Excellent. So we’ve been speaking to Lisamarie Bristol, Solicitor General in Gwinnett County. Appreciate the time you’re giving us. Thank you, Lismarie. Hang in there with me for a minute. I just want to say thank you to our sponsors again, EV Remodeling and Vox Pop Uli for their great support of these podcasts, the magazines, and all that we do. If you have questions for Lisamarie, certainly if you’re watching this on Facebook, YouTube, or X, leave them in the comments, post them. I’ll have links in the show notes as well so you can reach out to her directly. If you’re listening to this on an audio podcast like Spotify or iHeart, certainly share it with your friends and share our video podcast as well. We appreciate that. It’ll be easier for other people to find our podcasts as well. So Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners. Thank you, everyone. And thank you, Lisamarie.

Business

Why Patient Experience Matters: A Conversation with Dr. Aristo Shyn

Published

1 week ago

March 23, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

On this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini sits down with Dr. Aristo Shyn, owner of Link Dental Care, to discuss his journey from corporate dentistry to running a thriving private practice. Dr. Shyn shares insights on the challenges of entrepreneurship, how he built a patient-centric practice, and how technology is transforming modern dentistry.

They also dive into Link Dental Care’s community involvement, the role of social media in business growth, and the importance of creating an exceptional patient experience. Whether you’re interested in dentistry, business ownership, or local community impact, this conversation offers valuable takeaways.

Key Takeaways & Highlights:

From Corporate to Private Practice – Why Dr. Shyn left corporate dentistry to build his own patient-focused practice.
The Power of Technology in Dentistry – How 3D imaging, digital scans, and upcoming Botox treatments improve patient care.
Growing a Business – The challenges of launching and expanding a dental office without prior business experience.
Community Involvement – Supporting local schools, charities, and offering free dental makeovers.
Navigating Insurance & Patient Care – Why transparency in billing is crucial in healthcare.
The Role of Social Media – How Link Dental Care’s Instagram skits helped grow their brand and even go viral.
Balancing Work & Family – Juggling a growing business while raising two kids.
Future Plans – Potential expansion, but always staying patient-centered under one roof.

Listen in to learn how Dr. Shyn built a thriving dental practice while prioritizing technology, patient experience, and community engagement!

Transcript:

00:00:32 – Rico Figliolini

Hey, everyone. This is Rico of Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett County, just north of Atlanta. We have a great guest here today, Dr. Aristo Shyn, who owns Link Dental Care. Thank you for allowing us to do the podcast with you today.

00:00:48 – Aristo Shyn

Thank you for having us. I’ve been calling you our very own Joe Rogan for years now, so it’s an honor.

00:00:54 – Rico Figliolini

I’ve done over 250 episodes. I feel like I could be Joe Rogan. I get the head for it. Before we get into the show, though, let me say thanks to our sponsors. We have two. EV Remodeling, Inc., and Eli, who owns it, that lives here in Peachtree Corners. Great family. They do great work. They do design to build, whole house renovation, or your bathroom, your kitchen, or an addition to the house, whatever you need. They’ve done over 260 homes throughout the metro area. I think you should check them out. EVRemodelingInc.com is where you can find that. Vox Pop Uli, our second sponsor, is also here in Peachtree Corners, also family owned. So they take your brand and they bring it to life. So think about it. You have a brand, you have a car, vehicle. They do, I think this past year, they did over 1,600 vehicle wraps alone. You go to trade shows, they’ll put up a whole setup for you. You need shirts, they’ll do that for you. You need just one or you need 1,000, they’ll do all that for you. If you have a logo and you want to imprint it on an object, bring it to them. Challenge them. It’s amazing what they’ve done. So check them out. Vox Pop Uli is the company, and we appreciate the sponsorship of these podcasts, the magazines, and our journalism. Now that we’ve done the sponsors, I appreciate the conversation we’re going to have today. Aristo’s been, Dr. Shyn has been our family dentist for quite a while for all my kids and my wife and myself. So seeing you guys grow from a very small office that was probably big enough for you when you started.

00:03:06 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, you’ve been with us since the beginning. Yeah, very humble beginnings.

00:03:09 – Rico Figliolini

So just moving from that, I saw you know you guys were getting more and more patients. The place was getting filled and now you’re in a larger location, a very beautiful place here right on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, Holcomb Bridge Road here. So tell us a little bit about your origins, where you started.

00:03:28 – Aristo Shyn

How far back do you want me to go?

00:03:30 – Rico Figliolini

Where were you born?

00:03:33 – Aristo Shyn

So I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, next to UMKC, which is where my dad went to dental school. And then moved to Alaska afterwards. Stayed in Alaska from ages 2 to 14. And then I moved to Florida, pursued a golf career, and then naturally transitioned to dentistry after that.

00:03:57 – Rico Figliolini

Naturally.

00:03:58 – Aristo Shyn

Yes. And then I’ve been in Georgia since 2012.

00:04:01 – Rico Figliolini

That’s amazing. You went from Missouri, where I’ve never been. I’m a Brooklyn kid. Kid. No longer a kid, but from Brooklyn. So I don’t know that place. Alaska, which is, for me, you know, grizzly bears is what I think of. So you went, right? From grizzly bears, snowstorms, to Florida, alligators, rocks, and hurricanes. And now Atlanta, of which you find almost none of that, actually.

00:04:25 – Aristo Shyn

It’s nice.

00:04:27 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, it must be different, right? But you went to start with a golf career. When did that even take hold?

00:04:40 – Aristo Shyn

In Alaska, of all places. Yeah, I was pretty good at it. Again, we moved to Florida to pursue that, but I think dentistry was my true calling, and I think I made the right choice.

00:04:55 – Rico Figliolini

Well, and you were kind of young too, I think, when you got your dental degree?

00:05:00 – Aristo Shyn

Yes. I try not to talk about that too much, but I was 23 when I graduated.

00:05:07 – Rico Figliolini

I saw that. I was like, that’s amazing. And so you’ve been practicing since then, obviously.

00:05:10 – Aristo Shyn

Mm-hmm.

00:05:13 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. So you’re in Atlanta. You moved here in 2012. You decided to start your business in less than a year of moving here.

00:05:23 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, I think my first job in Atlanta was a corporate job. It wasn’t for me, to say the least. I think I lasted about seven months before saying, I got to do this. I got to do something else. I got to do this on my own. And that’s how I came to Peachtree Corners.

00:05:45 – Rico Figliolini

So just to be clear for people to know, it’s corporate dentistry is what you were working at. So corporate environment with multiple offices and stuff is a whole different business model, I think. Isn’t it?

00:06:02 – Aristo Shyn

Yes, to say the least.

00:06:08 – Rico Figliolini

Yes. You might not want to say it, but I’ll say it. Corporate dentistry is not that great. When you don’t have an owner that owns the business and doing the work that’s passionate about his patients and his community, it’s way different than dealing with someone that’s billing out of Texas let’s say or they have multiple 20, 30, or 90 offices throughout the country. And they sound like they’re local because they sort of keep the name of the place so they sound local but they’re really not. And so they’re driven by money because they have a big nut to pay.

00:06:36 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, you’re just trying to get me into trouble right now.

00:06:39 – No, no, I’m saying it so it’s okay.

00:06:42 – Aristo Shyn

Listen, I would, in general, and this is from my own experience and what my colleagues have experienced as well, it’s just a lot of, and I think there are good dentists there, but unfortunately they don’t have the autonomy or the control over the whole operation. So I would say a lot of corporate offices, a lot of chain offices, are profit and production driven versus being patient-centric.

00:07:02 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I can’t argue with that.

00:07:05 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, I mean, for example, and this you’ll find often in the industry, when you have your morning huddles, a lot of times at those offices, you’re looking at the schedule for that day. And if there’s not enough production on the schedule, you have to find crowns or implants somehow. And I’ll let our audience use their own imagination for that one. But when we have our meetings, we don’t really talk about that. And we talk about how to streamline logistics and how to improve the patient experience. And these days, fortunately or unfortunately, we’ve been doing some Instagram skits. I’ve been putting my staff through a whole other level of stress.

00:07:58 – Rico Figliolini

You all have to visit the Instagram channel that he has. He comes up with all the skits himself. Some of them are really cool. They’re all pretty good. I mean, some of them are hilarious.

00:08:09 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, we really, you would expect, you know, before and after photos or us selling something. But I think we’re just trying to have fun there. I really don’t know what we’re selling, but it’s fun. I think it still gives us exposure in a different way. We have a live follower counter there. We’re trying to get that up right now. So follow us, please.

00:08:27 – Rico Figliolini

What is the Instagram? It’s Link Dental Care.

00:08:30 – Aristo Shyn

It’s @LinkDentalCare.

00:08:32 – There you go. So follow them. They want to hit 1,000, like, you know, soon. But no, I think that’s a great team building to be able to do that. There’s a lot of pressure sometimes in doing work and such, and every day is different. I think we would talk before a little bit about how you, you know, you go from one patient speaking English, let’s say, to another patient and speaking Spanish or maybe Korean. So multiple languages here in the office, and multiple challenges, dental challenges, right?

00:09:06 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah. I mean, due to the range of services that we offer from fillings, crowns, to root canals, implant surgeries, sinus surgeries, we get quite the variety of cases here. And then there are days where in one room I’m speaking obviously English, and then next room, I’m speaking Spanish. The other room, I’m speaking Korean. And I think we did a count earlier. We speak a total of nine different languages in this office.

00:09:38 – Rico Figliolini

It’s amazing that you speak three languages, at least.

00:09:43 – Aristo Shyn

Two and a half. We’ll call it three.

00:09:43 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. You get by on it. That’s good. So busy, busy work. Technology, though, drives a lot of dental practices now, too. So tell us a little bit about some of the technological improvements you’ve made here. Some of the technology you’ve brought in.

00:10:01 – Aristo Shyn

Well, everything’s new here. So it’s all digital. All new x-ray units, we have our 3D cone beam imaging machine, we have a 3D scanner, we’re doing really cool stuff with digital photography not just for before and after cases but also to communicate with our lab. We’re doing botox and dermal fillers soon. Busy.

00:10:29 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, that’s amazing. Botox. How does that work in dental?

00:10:34 – Aristo Shyn

I think it’s been requested quite a bit. We haven’t started it yet. We will very soon. It’s not just for, I don’t think it’s just for cosmetics, but it can do a lot with TMJ and related issues.

00:10:51 – Rico Figliolini

Now, when you started on Peachtree Park, it was just you. I think your mom was helping at the front desk.

00:10:55 – Aristo Shyn

No, she wasn’t there at the time.

00:10:57 – Rico Figliolini

She wasn’t there. She came later, maybe.

00:11:01 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah. It was, I think it was a thousand square feet. I don’t think anything was digital at the time. And I had, it was me, one and a half hygienists, one assistant, and one person in the front. Yeah, I still remember I could actually stand in the middle of the office, and if I did a 360, I could see everything. The front office, the four chairs, the lab.

00:11:23 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, I was just thinking the same thing. That’s how small this place was. How many square feet is this place?

00:11:33 – Aristo Shyn

I think it’s just over 3,000.

00:11:38 – Rico Figliolini

And you took on a new, also an additional practitioner with you as well?

00:11:41 – Aristo Shyn

Oh, yeah. New staff, front offices, expanded assistants, hygienists. Another doctor. I mean, she’s been terrific.

00:11:42 – Rico Figliolini

Dr. K?.

00:11:51 – Aristo Shyn

Yep. Dr. K.

00:11:52 – Rico Figliolini

So business has been going well. So that’s good, no?

00:11:54 – Aristo Shyn

It’s been busy. It’s been busy.

00:12:00 – Rico Figliolini

Can’t complain. And there are challenges, right? So let’s go back a little bit. Challenges of opening a business. What would you say to an entrepreneur, to another dentist that wanted to do the same thing? What challenges did you have to overcome when you did that?

00:12:16 – Aristo Shyn

When we first started everything I mean, I was still learning. I had no business experience, I had no HR experience. I mean, I was still learning dentistry at the time so you know the normal course for I’d say acquiring a dental office is, you know you’re usually out in the field for a few years and then you kind of pick up on things and you know slowly transition. But everything happened at once for me so I don’t recommend you do that because it’s quite the learning curve. But going back to everyday challenges, though, I would say half of my stress is just due to my staff, which I love very much, who I love very much. I think we have the best staff ever right now, but you’ve got to deal with staff every single day. So there’s always something. And then beyond that, it’s insurance. Insurance is an issue for, I think, everyone involved in the insurance game. And then after that, it’s just dealing with a wide range of patients and cases that we have coming in, which is also fun for me. But there’s also some focus and stress, and we’re always on our toes. So there’s that aspect to it.

00:13:35 – Rico Figliolini

I think part of that stress probably is because you’re, of your concern for your patients and stuff. I mean you’re sharing that stress with them right? Because some of them, because like you said insurance can be an issue. You know they come in they have to do certain things insurance may or may not cover it or you know, yeah. I mean so, has that changed in the state of Georgia a lot over the past decade?

00:14:01 – Aristo Shyn

I don’t know, insurance is kind of like a foreign language to me. We try our very best to be transparent with everything, I mean not just in my communication with our patients but also you know with our front desk communicating you know regarding finances and numbers. But you know, we try our best, that’s all I can say.

00:14:19 – Rico Figliolini

No that’s good. That you know, I mean that’s the toughest part I think when it comes to medical.

00:14:23 – Aristo Shyn

And our front desk goes to bat for patients if there’s any issues with insurance we don’t just give up and you know tell them that it’s on them so yeah. I know my front desk works very hard.

00:14:36 – Rico Figliolini

Okay cool. You know, the care that you show into the community as well, right? You’re involved with the community. So let’s cover that a little bit as well. What do you like doing in the community? What have you done? Where has Link Dental Care been involved in when it comes to community organizations, events and stuff?

00:14:55 – Aristo Shyn

Well, it’s very different now than when I first started. And I’m very happy and proud of where we are today. For example, I mean, even last year we were able to sponsor the Norcross High School Marching Band, local photography club. I’ve worked closely with Norcross Co-op for quite some years. And it’s, you know, when we interview for dental school, you know, one thing that we’re always saying is we want to be part of the community. We want to be involved in the community. And, you know, that wasn’t the case when we first started. Now that we’re here. Yeah, I plan on staying here and being more involved as time goes on.

00:15:37 – Rico Figliolini

That’s cool. You know, I mean, the biggest thing that we do at the magazine and stuff is that we like to be a cheerleader for businesses that are giving back to the community, doing things with the community, especially if you’re pulling from this community. You know, your patients, your customers, and all that. So being involved makes sense.

00:15:57 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah. And I think we’ve done quite a bit of charity over the years. We don’t advertise it or we don’t really post a whole lot of it on social media. But outside of working at volunteer clinics, we try to take on at least one patient a year and give them a makeover, which they wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. That’s something I’ve been doing.

00:16:21 – Rico Figliolini

That’s cool. That’s great that you’re able to do that. When the business gets to a certain point, and you’re facing these everyday challenges, right? At the end of the day, what do you do to release that stress, that pressure? I mean, what do you do outside of the office? You’re not playing golf anymore.

00:16:53 – Aristo Shyn

No, it takes too much time.

00:16:54 – Rico Figliolini

Do you get out of the office? What time do you close up?

00:16:57 – Aristo Shyn

Well, it’s a good thing I still like what I’m doing. But yeah, life’s gotten busy. So the way I see it, I mean, I do have a few hobbies, but really it’s been work and my kids right now. So when I’m working, the way I see it, it’s overtime in a football, basketball scene. And then when I’m with my kids, it’s game seven, triple overtime. So that’s where all my focus has been after work.

00:17:28 – Rico Figliolini

Sure, sure. You have two kids, I think? Two kids. Good-looking kids. So, you know, you’re expanding. You’ve done your expansion. But there’s a future, right? I know you want to stay here. You want to expand. What does the future look like for Link Dental Care? For you?

00:17:44 – Aristo Shyn

We just moved in here. We’re talking about expansion again.

00:17:47 – Rico Figliolini

Are you really? You just moved in here. How long has it been? It’s been a few years. Can’t you stop?

00:17:58 – Aristo Shyn

I mean, a few. I mean, patients and staff have asked me in the past, what do I plan to do? Do I plan on opening multiple offices or another location? And to answer one part of that question, I think when a dentist branches out to two, three, four offices, there comes a point where you’ve got to stop being a dentist and become more of a businessman. And I still like what I’m doing a lot. And I really want to keep our practice patient-centric and really emphasize that we are a people business, not a tooth-cutting business or a production business. But, you know, I definitely plan on staying in Peachtree Corners. We’re not leaving. I mean, if there ever is another expansion, you can rest assured it’ll still be under one roof. That’s been always important to me. And I mean, going forward though, I think we’re just, we’re going to continue doing what we’ve been doing. We’re going to continue to stay up with technology, continue to reinvest in the office and the community.

00:19:19 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. This is a great place. People want to take the tour. I mean, 3,000 square feet is a lot of space. I think you have plenty of space to expand in. What should people know about you maybe that they don’t know? Is there anything interesting that you want to share?

00:19:41 – Aristo Shyn

I can share what our dental practice focuses on. I think a lot of times patients and dentists alike, they emphasize, they put their emphasis a lot on good dental care. And that is absolutely important. But, you know, to us, you know, good dental care alone doesn’t really, it doesn’t always equate to a good patient experience. And I care a lot about the patient experience. So that means the patient experience starts from the first time you call into our office, from the time you walk through our doors the first time. From the way you’re greeted from the front office, from the way, you know, our assistants or hygienists take you back to the clinical area. So, you know, bedside manners and having clear communication. So, you know, when you’ve put in all those factors, you know, the receiving good dental care, although quite important, it’s not the only piece to the puzzle. So that’s been my focus.

00:20:48 – Rico Figliolini

Cool. Patient-centric, essentially. Well, we’ve been speaking to Dr. Aristo Shyn. It’s a great practice, you guys have. I’m glad that he’s my dentist also, my family dentist. He has been doing a great job. So I appreciate you giving us some time and telling us a bit about your business.

00:21:06 – Aristo Shyn

Thank you.

00:21:07 – Rico Figliolini

Thank you. Everyone, if you have any questions, you can actually check out the website, which is?

00:21:13 – Aristo Shyn

LinkDentalCare.com. There you go.

00:21:15 – Rico Figliolini

And Instagram, it’s the same handle, @LinkDentalCare, right? Anything else you want to share? Count is 455, so we need to get that up to 1,000 apparently.

00:21:25 – Aristo Shyn

It was 200 a few months ago. I’ll tell you one more thing about Instagram before we end this. Within a couple months of us actually trying on Instagram, we actually went viral on one video. We got 1.3 million views.

00:21:41 – Rico Figliolini

Damn, which video was that one?

00:21:43 – Aristo Shyn

That was last year. It was the one about our 3D scanner. So I thought I figured it out and I was almost ready not to come into work the next day. And then here I am doing a podcast with Rico.

00:21:57 – Rico Figliolini

Sorry, it’s not a YouTube content or TikTok creator yet, but he’ll get there soon. Thanks everyone. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. Of course, we’ll have links in the show note and you can always find Dr. Aristo Shyn here at Link Dental Care. So thanks again, everyone. Take care.

Business

Burn The Ships: Alex Wright on Committing to Success & Helping Businesses Thrive

Published

1 week ago

March 21, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Discover how Alex Wright, a former U.S. Naval officer, founding member of the City of Peachtree corners, and corporate finance veteran, made the bold decision to “burn the ships” and launch his own fractional CFO firm. Burn the Ships Financial embodies Wright’s philosophy of unwavering dedication to success. Wright explains how fractional CFO services can help entrepreneurs navigate their financial journey, from basic accounting setup to high-level strategic guidance.

Resources:

Burn The Ships Website: https://burntheshipsfinancial.com/

Key Takeaways:

Burn the Ships Mentality – Why Alex embraced total commitment when leaving corporate America to start his own business.
Solving Business Challenges – How a fractional CFO helps entrepreneurs manage cash flow, optimize processes, and grow sustainably.
Financial Storytelling – The power of translating financial data into actionable insights for business owners.
City Leadership & Business Strategy – Lessons learned from helping launch Peachtree Corners as a smart city and how that applies to business growth.
The Role of Technology in Finance – How tools like QuickBooks and Power BI can improve financial planning—if used correctly.
Long-Term Business Planning – Why forecasting, budgeting, and understanding financial trends are crucial for sustained success.

Listen in as Alex Wright shares his journey from the military to corporate finance and now to empowering small businesses with Burn The Ships Financial!

Timestamp:

00:00:02 – Interview with Alex Wright

00:02:27 – From Naval Officer to City Leader, Alex’s Remarkable Journey

00:06:45 – Burning the Ships, Commitment to the Mission

00:10:39 – Solving Business Problems as a Fractional CFO

00:13:59 – Optimizing Business Efficiency Through Financial Analysis

00:18:14 – Guiding Entrepreneurs to Financial Clarity

00:21:30 – Providing Financial Guidance and Structuring for Growing Businesses

00:25:46 – Translating Financial Data into Actionable Insights

00:31:19 – Leveraging City Startup Experience for Business

00:37:43 – Helping Others Succeed From Military to Coaching to Entrepreneurship

00:42:14 – Expanding Startup with Passionate Partners

00:45:31 – Connecting with Burn The Ships Financial

Transcript:

00:00:34 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I have a great guest today, this morning, Alex Wright. Hey, Alex. Thanks for joining me.

00:00:43 – Alex Wright

Hey, Rico. It’s good to see you again. Thanks for the invite.

00:00:46 – Rico Figliolini

Sure. We’re going to have exciting things to talk about. But before we get into that, I just want to say thank you to our two sponsors, EV Remodeling Inc. and Eli and his family who live here in Peachtree Corners and the company is based here. Provide a sponsorship to us for supporting our podcast and our magazines. And EV Remodeling Inc. is a company that does design to build. You need a whole house remodeled or you just need your bath remodeled or your kitchen, they’re the people to do it. They’ve done over 260 large projects over the past few years. And you should check them out. Great supporter of ours. Great people. Nice guy. EVRemodelingInc.com is where you can find them. Our second sponsor, Vox Pop Uli, is also based here on Peachtree Corners. Family owned, they are a company, if you have a brand and you want to bring that brand to life, Vox Pop Uli is the people to do it. They do, think about the truck wraps, car wraps that you see traveling around, trade show booths, signage, anything you need imprinted on any object imprinting. They’re the people to do it. You need a backdrop for you, 20 feet by 10 feet tall, they can do it. Any of those things that will bring your brand to life is what they’re doing. Challenge them, and they’ll come back and surprise you. They’re right here in Peachtree Corners and Norcross. So check them out, Vox Pop Uli, and the link will be in the show notes. But if you search them, V-O-X, P-O-P, U-L-I, you’ll find them. Thanks again for your support. So now we have Alex. So let me introduce Alex a little bit. He has a great background. He served in U.S. Naval, as a U .S. Naval officer back during the 90s. He was the founding member of the City of Peachtree Corners City Council and has been a city councilman here in leadership here since 2012 when he was first elected. He was also the guy that originated the idea of Curiosity Lab that set our path on being a smart city and on so many foundational parts that the Curiosity Lab has been involved in including autonomous vehicle, 5G technology, and all that. So without him, I don’t know where we’d be when it comes to that. Georgia Institute of Technology grad, so much more. He’s also a board member of the Peachtree Corners Veterans Monument Association, if you’re familiar with that and the monument that we have at Town Center. So now that I’ve given a really good background, I think, of you, Alex, why don’t you tell us just a little bit more about what what you’ve been up to and where where we’re going?

00:03:33 – Alex Wright

Yes, that was a great introduction. I wish my wife could have heard how great you made me sound she would’ve found that entertaining. Yeah so I, after I got out of the navy, you know I went to the graduate school and then basically the next 25 years was at various companies in corporate finance. Some big ones, Glaxo Welcome, which I guess that was GlaxoSmithKline, Home Depot, Equifax. And then the last 11 years was at a big consumer products company in a divisional CFO role. That was here in Atlanta. And about three, I guess it’s probably November, I made a decision to transition out of corporate America and with some colleagues of mine that I used to work with, formed a fractional CFO company. Some people refer to it as business advisory firm. And it’s called Burn the Ships. That’s the name of the company. And so, yeah, we’re in the process of just getting engaged in the community, you know, looking for companies that could use our services.

00:04:56 – Rico Figliolini

So tell me, I understand the burn the ships part, but really what inspired you to name burn the ships financial?

00:05:04 – Alex Wright

So, you know, when I was making the decision to leave corporate America and, you know, that’s kind of all you know, it’s, you get comfortable with that and to make that, you know, giant career change you know it’s, it can be kind of scary. And I happened to be reading a book at you know during this time when I was trying to figure out and do I want to do this and the name of the book was called actually burn the boats. And the book is about it’s written, I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he’s an entrepreneur serial entrepreneur and the gist of the book is not to have a plan b. And you can apply that concept to really anything, whether it be your marriage or training for an athletic event or starting a business, that something that’s going to be challenging and require your full effort in order to succeed, you can’t have that thought of, well, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll just go back to that. It has to be a total commitment. So that phrase is a metaphor for total commitment. You know, there’s a, not to go into much of the history, but, you know, the phrase comes from, not to go into a lot of history, but of Cortes when he was exploring the coast of Mexico. He had been tasked with that. And he gets there and discovers that, you know, there’s the Aztec Empire is there and decides, hey, I want to go into the bowels of Mexico and see what’s going on there. He just had a few hundred men with him. These guys that he had with them were apprehensive, obviously, because he wants to march into the jungle, the unknown. Plus, their orders were to just explore the coast. Well, his solution to that was, I’m going to eliminate the plan B. And the way he did that was he literally burned all the ships. There was now no way to go back. It was succeed or, in their case, die. So that phrase is about total commitment to the mission. And it really, at that time, it rang, just struck a chord with me as I was trying to make this decision because that’s a big change in a lot of different ways. And so I really just loved the story, that idea of total commitment. And so that’s the brief background or as brief as I could make it, where that phrase came from, because I just loved that story about the, you know, the commitment. Those other, not to go on a lot of my other, you know, kind of pursuits that I’ve got in my life, but, you know, different, whether it be especially like athletic things or projects, some of the things we’ve done with the city where it’s only going to succeed, you know, totally buy into, you know, what we’re trying to accomplish, the total commitment. So that’s the, that’s the name. And you know another, some of the advice I got was you need to make the name evocative so when someone hears that name, I think what does that mean? You know versus opposed to a right CFO services.

00:08:27 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, no I totally agree with that branding is key to to a lot of what we do and get people remembering. And I can appreciate what you’re saying too because having, I mean I have not worked in corporate environment except for a couple of years. And I’ve been on and off a business owner and then working for a company and stuff. So I’ve been on both sides of that so it’s a little different. But you’ve, your whole career has been with corporate large companies, so I can appreciate that jumping off the ship almost and not going back is really scary, I’m sure. So your experience has been as a divisional CFO at least for the past decade or so, I guess. How do you think that that’s going to, how does that shape the services that you’re offering through Burn the Ships Financial?

00:09:23 – Alex Wright

So in this role I had, when people say, I worked in corporate finance, that can mean a whole lot of different things because in larger companies, the finance department’s quite large. So the role I had, in this business, and this company had probably 15 businesses, and as a divisional CFO, you’d be embedded in the business. And what that means is you’re at the table with the decision makers actually helping run the business. From generating sales to making, say, manufacturing more efficient to how can we ship more efficiently to negotiating with vendors for better terms, you name it. You had exposure to that. So the relevance of that is you’ve seen, now granted, maybe it’s a bigger scale, bigger numbers, but the challenges of making a business successful, you’ve had exposure to a full P&L balance sheet, just like for a small company. And so that allows you, the reason that’s translatable is ultimately what, when companies hire someone. As a fractional CFO, really what they’re looking for is I’ve got a problem. I’ve got a pain point and I need someone to help alleviate that pain to make that, help take that problem away. So it’s really about problem solving. So running a business in the finance role is ultimately about solving problems as well. So I feel like the skill set is very translated because that’s what I did for 10 years, which was solve problems to make the, our business more financially successful.

00:11:13 – Rico Figliolini

In the practical way, can you give us an example, without sharing the company you worked with I guess or you know particularly, but is there an example that you can give of how that translates in an actual real life story?

00:11:30 – Alex Wright

Yes. So now you know at a larger company it’s especially when it’s publicly traded, you know, it’s all about how do we get our earnings per share up? You know, the company is normally pretty stable. And like, say, a smaller company, they might, in some cases, might be fighting for survival in some instances. So a little bit different scenario, but ultimately it’s about how do we make the company more profitable, whether it be small or big. And so an example of something we did at this larger company is, we were in a market where there wasn’t a lot of growth on the top because it was an industry that was actually kind of shrinking. So how do you grow profit if your top line is stagnant at best or maybe just growing through price increases, very low single digits? So one of the things that you could look at is, let’s look at our product, the actual composition of the product. So we are actually a manufacturer. Are there ways that we can make the product that we’re producing less costly, but hopefully in the process also make it more effective? And so in this instance, the product in this case was grass seed. You’re thinking, well, what can you possibly do to grass seed? But in today’s world, they actually take the grass seed and they put a biostimulant around it so that when the seed goes out, it has a much higher probability of germinating. So what you would look at is, what can we do with the stimulant to change the makeup of it, change the composition where it’s, maybe the germination is even higher, but we’ve substituted some type of material that costs less. So in those instances, you’re working with an R&D department, you’re marketing people. And so in this instance, we did that over a series of five years, switched all of our, you know, changed the composition of our products. And so the ultimate takeaway for that was we increased the margins for the business by about a thousand basis points. So what that means is let’s say your margin was 30%, now it’s 40%. So that’s, and that drops straight to the bottom line through that. Something is, it wasn’t simple, but you know, instead of saying, well, there’s nothing we can do because we’re not growing is to basically look at everything on the pan out. What are, you know, areas that we could look at? I mean, you could apply that to your own personal life. I’m trying to cut back on spending and you go through and look at every expense and explore it. And maybe we don’t need the 1G, you know, internet. Maybe we just need the 500 megabytes and, you know, no stone uncovered. That’s the way we had to operate and I think that’s very translatable skill for smaller businesses because most likely they’re going to be even more cost conscious than you know a bigger company that’s got you know, more resources at their disposal.

00:14:45 – Rico Figliolini

So it’s really looking closely not just at the books but at the process of what companies do, right?

00:14:52 – Alex Wright

That’s exactly right. So one of the things when I’m, and this is before I transitioned, you know people would say well you know what does finance do? It’s just kind of this broad term and I would always describe it as in three pieces and it’s very simplistic, the first the most basic part is the gathering of of information. And that could be billing AR, AP like in a big company that’s completely automated, smaller company it might not even really exist. The next level is you’re taking that information, you’re analyzing it, you’re putting it into a reporting format. At a bigger company, not completely automated, but mostly automated. At a really small company, especially like reporting, the small business owner, his financials might be his bank statement. That might be the limit of what he’s got. And the third part, and this is really where finance differs from, say, accounting, is. You are going to the decision maker and you’re saying, hey, if you pull this lever, this will happen over here. You’re giving them actionable data, advice, if you will, on how to drive the company, whatever the company’s financial goals are, giving them suggestions how to do that.

00:16:17 – Rico Figliolini

So it’s also, I guess. You know, if I look at it from what I do a little bit, from my business and stuff, every business is somewhat the same to the degree there’s peaks and valleys. You might not always have the same trend line of revenue coming in and stuff. So it’s finding how to maximize the use of the money that’s coming in and the money flowing out. Maybe it’s the manufacturing or the service side and how that’s being done. Whether that’s parts being delivered or how it’s being ordered and such. So you’re looking beyond just the numbers on the books. You’re trying to optimize the way a company’s doing business behind the scenes.

00:16:59 – Alex Wright

That’s right. And that’s the thing I was talking about being embedded in the business, being part of the decision-making is, again, looking at the full P&L. You’re not just reporting the news you’re trying to influence what’s going on. So you might be looking at in the course of a day okay how do we make our you know logistics more efficient. You might be looking at hey what’s the ROI on this marketing spend. You know any anything you can do to you know drive profitability. And that you know I guess that’s one of the upsides of a publicly traded company when you’ve got that pressure that quarterly pressure if we got to make earnings you know you’re looking at anything and everything all the time. Now there’s downsides to it because sometimes to make the numbers look a certain way things will be done that maybe aren’t super logical but you still have that relentless pressure to become more efficient to drive costs down as much as possible.

00:18:02 – Rico Figliolini

I think with certain types of business, like you said, the private business, smaller businesses, the owners tend to, the job keeps going, right? Three years will pass before you know it. Maybe they’re not optimizing their cash flow properly. Maybe they’re doing the work, if you will, and not really looking at everything because money’s coming in. Everything seems fine. They may not see even the trend of how things are going where maybe it’s going bad, but they’re not seeing it yet because maybe they have the revenue there. The cash flow is there. They might not see it for the next three months. And all of a sudden, they start realizing, whoa, this is bad. We’re beyond, why didn’t I see this before? So how does the aspect of what you do as a fractional CFO, let’s say, how will you give that foundation to these businesses? What’s the process, if you will?

00:19:01 – Alex Wright

Well, I think that obviously each company is different, right? You have to go in and see what, if any, processes they have. But I think if you make the assumption that they don’t, kind of your point, they’re just, you know, you’ve got this entrepreneur. They’re really good at making pencils. And that’s what their total focus is, selling those pencils, just growing, growing, growing. You know, they don’t really have a whole lot of time to, you know focus on the finances other than making sure they got enough money to meet payroll or buy anything. I think the key thing when you go in, in a situation like that is, you know, to talk to the owner or the founder, you know, understanding what is it that, you know, what are your, you know, try to define the goals besides just staying afloat, you know, kind of help them sit down. Okay. Let’s put this pen to paper. What is it you’re, I’m going to make something up, okay you’re doing 500,000, million in revenue and you want to get to a million and a half in two years. Again I’m just making this up. You know in the larger company it would be you know to be a budget or they’d call it a you know five-year plan it’d be some kind of structure you know a guide post if you will. I think that’s the, I mean you could apply that to your personal life. Like okay I’m trying to you know, retire at age 65 or I’m trying to lose 20 pounds or whatever it might be, whatever that you’re trying to accomplish. You’ve got the saying about if I fail to plan, I plan to fail. So I think that’s the key thing is to understand from that owner what it is you’re trying to accomplish. And then once, because ultimately it’s their business, you’re there to help them be successful. So once they’ve articulated what those goals are, then one of our jobs would be, okay, let’s lay out a plan to see if we can get to that. Because in some cases, you know, my experience has been people that are entrepreneurs, when it comes to forecasting financially, they’re not always the most realistic because they’re normally going to be really optimistic. I can conquer the world, which is you need that to be an entrepreneur. But one of the jobs of finance is to kind of poke holes in arguments, not to discourage people, but to make people think realistically, okay, can we grow from a million to a million and a half in two years? Understanding, you know, what is there a path to do that that’s realistic? And having those conversations with, you know, with these guys, because in some cases you’re bringing up things that maybe they haven’t thought about because they’re so focused on the here and now versus looking a year or two out that that’s just not really what they’re focused on because, again, they’re trying to grow the business.

00:22:08 – Rico Figliolini

So when you come into a firm, for example, you know, obviously people, you know, you want to build that foundation without the cost of a full-time CFO. I mean, that’s the idea, right? So work with me for a minute. In an ideal world, you would come in for a few hours or whatever that first month and then how would the rest of it work like is there a maintenance level that you provide? Quarterly stuff you provide? So give me in brief what that would look like to someone.

00:22:45 – Alex Wright

Right. So again, each company is going to be different but really kind of two levels, and I’m simplifying this, but really two levels of service. And you can pick one or the other or both. So let’s assume we’re talking about a company that we used an example earlier of the finances are literally the bank statement. I know how much cash I got. That’s kind of an extreme example. So we use that one as our example. So in that case, they don’t have a P&L or balance sheet. They don’t really know what’s going on other than, you know, how much cash they got in the bank and maybe in their head, they’ve got kind of a gut instinct of what’s going on. So in that instance, you know, you’re going to have to come in and create a structure that will allow you to build a P&L, which is, you know, the foundation of any type of forecasting or budgeting. You’ve got to have that initial document. And to get to that, you’ve got to go in and take basically all their transactions that, you know, are in their bank statement and create what’s called a trial balance, which is going to have a chart of accounts. Basically, all that is coding where, you know, okay, this is travel and this is, you know, sales and it’s basically, you know, accounting 101, right? And so that base level of service would be something like that plus reporting that goes with it. And that reporting you would get through programs like Microsoft power BI that can do you know anything at the like that but you’ve got to have the you know the numbers formatted. So that would be a basic level of service and the first time that initial transition that would be time consuming because you’ve got to you create something, a structure that’s not there before. But then after you’ve created a structure you know each month you’re just really just updating, you know the results putting them into a P&L format. And if we think back when I was talking about the three levels of finance that’s really like the first two levels combined. So that’d be like a fixed fee you know for that service almost like a subscription. The second level of service it’s more like what that kind of like that third level I was talking about before where you’re sitting down with the decision maker and you’re telling them hey, this is what’s going on with your business. And depending on if they wanted to have, layout objectives, then you talk about the progress each month of how are we progressing versus these objectives that we’ve laid out. And if we’re off course, what things can we change to get you back on course? And so that would be an in-person review where, the analogy I use is that movie, The Matrix, if you remember, they’ve got all the data that’s doing this, right? You can’t read it. And so if you’re not in finance, often people struggle to, you can give them 20 reports, but if they’re not a finance person, they’re often going to be like, I don’t really understand what this is telling me. That second level is, it’s really about storytelling, where you’re taking the information and you’re telling the owner a story, you know, not in a fictional way, but this is what’s going on with your business, but you’re translating it in a way that is easy for them to understand, versus if you’re just talking about debits and credits, they’re going to be lost with that.

00:26:21 – Rico Figliolini

So if they already have QuickBooks online, for example, they’re already getting reports, you’re at that stage already, but you’re able to tell them more than that, what the reports give them in numbers, because you’re looking at all of it, right? Holistically almost.

00:26:38 – Alex Wright

That’s correct. So you know a lot of companies will have you know they’ll have a controller, bookkeeper, you know maybe both of them. And so in my you know previous life I had plenty of accountants that worked for me and really what their job, and I’m simplifying and this isn’t to say anything negative about accountants, like I said I’ve worked in accounting. But their job really is to tell you okay this is the number and this number is correct. But if you ask them well okay that number is that’s a number ten, last year it was a five, why did it go from a five to a ten? That’s really not what their role is in most cases. So they’re challenged to you know explain the why part of it right? And so that’s where, that’s really where finance comes in to explain what is going on. And not just report.

00:27:36 – Rico Figliolini

And not just explain it. I would imagine if, from my point of view, you might explain why that went from a five to a ten, but you should probably be able to give me advice on, you know, where can we take that from now? You know, why is this? I know the difference is there. I knew it grew. Maybe it grew for this reason, but you might be able to tell me how we can adjust that, right? I mean, the whole idea is, for you to provide guidance. So almost like a, what do you call it? A person that, the accountability partner, if you will, in this.

00:28:15 – Alex Wright

Yeah. Well, that’s the great thing about, you know, having a budget is that you’ve, again, we were using examples earlier, but you could apply it to different parts of your, you know, personal life, but having that objective. If you don’t have that objective, then you don’t really know. It’s like driving a car. You’re trying to get somewhere, but you don’t have a map. You’re going to struggle without that map to point you in the direction you’re trying to get to.

00:28:45 – Rico Figliolini

So now we’ve got here, does technology play a part in what you do as well in financial advisory or in this type of field?

00:28:59 – Alex Wright

So the, remember when earlier I was talking about the kind of the three levels of not services but you know what finance does, and what’s occurred over the last 20 or more than 25 years is that systems like say SAP or Hyperion or for these large ERPs is they have really kind of flattened the work structure of companies because what they’ve allowed is it’s really like an early form of AI. Is they automated you know tons and tons of functions that before there would have been literally like armies of people you know just doing kind of mindless work almost and so technology, now some of these small companies you know they’re not going to have an SAP or Hyperion but when we were talking earlier about power where that’s like Quickbooks but on steroids the kind of things that can do. But the reality is, whether it be QuickBooks or Power BI, if you don’t have that basic level of the information formatted, the magic can’t happen without that. So ultimately, at the smaller companies, there is some manual aspect of, I’ve got to code this expense correctly, input it. So the technology, at a smaller company, you know, that doesn’t have an SAP or Hyperion or Oracle is really more in the, you know, the reporting phase, the things it can do once the numbers are formatted correctly. It’s almost mind boggling now that the danger there is you can have too many reports. I can produce 30, 40 reports, but it’d be too much, you know, information. And that’s the, so when people talk about, well, I got QuickBooks. or even got Power BI, if you don’t have someone there to interpret it for you, to say, well, this is actually what this is telling you, it’s a very limited value. Like we were, again, using the Matrix example of it’s great, but if I can’t take any actions based off of it, then I don’t really want to do it.

00:31:15 – Rico Figliolini

Right. And I can see that in a world where a company might have two, three, or four different credit lines using them for a variety of reasons. Well, the financial planner might come in and say, why do we have these two where your APR, your interest rate is this high, you’re actually utilizing the wrong credit line or, you know, there could be a variety of things there, right? Let’s look a little bit at experience. As a founding member of Peachtree Corners, the city of Peachtree Corners since 2012, how has the involvement in local government influenced your business perspective? Has that influenced it at all? And where does that go?

00:31:57 – Alex Wright

The thing that I, kind of a, not a comparison, but an analogy is, I was talking to someone about this the other day where we started the city. There was an election to whether to have a city, and then there was an election to elect a council. So we had seven people who, for the most part, didn’t know each other. And I mean that was the city, there was no city staff there was no anything. So the reason that’s relevant it’s almost like a startup where we’re like okay we need to find someone, it’s like you don’t know what you don’t know. You had to go find people to kind of help us get started and then there’s those growing pains of whether it be the relationships amongst the council or you know finding the right people from a staff standpoint to be part of a city startup because if you think about all the cities in the country, very few new cities. That idea of a new city, it’s not unique to Georgia but you know prior to say like 2005 that wasn’t something that was happening here. So it’s that, there’s only certain people that want to take that risk. I guess it was kind of like going from a big corporation to a startup, it’s you got to have the right you know mindset and you know kind of fire in your belly to do it so it’s being part of something and seeing it grow from you know literally the seven of us in a room one day like meeting each other to you know what there is now. It’s what I envision starting a company would would be like. And you know maybe the the comparisons aren’t you know the correlation not completely you know accurate but I would think for sure there’s some you know similarities those same kind of decisions we had to make about bringing the right people in at the right time and you know just being able to get along. Because at a smaller company I would think those relationships are, the importance of them are more pronounced because there’s fewer people. Versus at a larger corporation not that the relationships aren’t important but you know the success or the failure of say like working at the home depot headquarters is it going to be based on you know just a you know my relationship with somebody because there’s 400,000 people that work there.

00:34:17 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I think part of it too is you’re starting, you know, the city started with just, you know, with a certain amount of revenue because it took over some of that revenue being a city, franchise taxes, business licenses, but you also grew into a budget. And then as the city grew financially, I know it’s not a business, but you all treated it to some degree as a business, right? You didn’t spend money you didn’t have, or if you did there was a reason you knew where the revenue might come in from whether it was a grant or a loan or whatever it was. I’ve got to say that the city has overall done it responsibly. So has any of that informed the way you know or have you used your experience there you know working with that type of finance too?

00:35:08 – Alex Wright

So, you know the analogy I use sometimes with people is like the city council relationship, say, to the city manager is similar to in a company, a board of directors to a CEO. So that, you know, being a role, you know, because I was never on a board of directors at a company, you’ve got to be way up or probably older than me normally, you know, to be in that role of coming up with policies and then entrusting someone to execute those, you know, definitely gives you a different perspective. You know, running an organization because my career had been on the implementing people’s policy, you know, taking that directive from on high and implementing it and, you know, bringing it to some results. So to have that perspective from the other side has been, I think, good because, you know, I sit there and think about not too many people get that opportunity to be on the other side of the, you know, the table, if you will, to come up with policies. And trust other people, find the right people to enact those and make them successful.

00:36:20 – Rico Figliolini

Going from other experiences, your military service as a naval officer, has that also provided any experience that you’ve drawn on? Excuse my black cat.

00:36:34 – Alex Wright

No, you’re okay. That was a little more tricky. I think the thing that, where that part comes in, and this was really more about, you know, the why of, you know, I wanted to get into this type of work. Because when I was making the decision to leave corporate America, you know, I was in a position from a career standpoint, financial standpoint, a personal standpoint, you know, kids rolling off the payroll. There’s an opportunity here to do something different. And I did a, I don’t know if you know what a SWOT analysis is, but strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, did like a SWOT analysis of myself and thought, what is it that, you know, now in this situation where I don’t have as much responsibility as far as taking care of other people, like what really brings me, you know, satisfaction, fulfillment, besides just, you know, helping a company get that EPS each quarter. And, you know, the common theme as I looked at all these different things I’ve been involved in. I looked at my military experience, looked at serving on the city council. I looked at the 20 years I coached kids sports. All three of those things are thinking, how the heck are those three related to each other? But the common theme, because each one of those brought me satisfaction in different ways, was that you’re helping other people in each of those instances. You’re serving other people. You’re making other people either successful or in the case of, you know, the military is really about, you know, serving the nation, but it was doing stuff for other people. Again, differently. And I thought, how do I take these skills that I’ve built up over 25 years and do that in a way where I can help other people be successful? Because one of the things I would constantly hear from small business owners is, we were kind of talking about it before where they’re really good at you know that making the pencils or whatever it is but they struggle with finance because that’s not what their you know expertise is. And in a lot of instances can’t afford you know to bring somebody in or they don’t they don’t need someone full-time. And as I learned more about that industry I thought this could really fill that that impulse, if you will, you know, I’ve got about how can I help other people be successful? And in a way where you go in, you take this person’s got their whole life’s work tied up in this business. Their heart and soul in it. And to be able to go in and help them eliminate or alleviate some of their pain points that are preventing them from being successful. That really appealed to me much more than, well, I’m just going to go back into I’m going to call it the matrix of corporate america life we’re just going to you know get that EPS up three cents. You get to a certain point in life where like I’d really like to a bit of focus more on giving back. Just like with the you know city council it pays eight thousand dollars a year an occasional free t-shirt but you just have a great sense of satisfaction when you go out to the Town Center and you see like the the playgrounds and stuff we’ve built out there and you see all those people enjoying themselves you think you know I had a some small part of you know bringing that you know joy to these other people so it’s that same you know you want to do the same thing but in this different you know industry.

00:40:16 – Rico Figliolini

Now and I can see that. I mean you brought a lot, you’re passionate about the things you do. We were talking about a little bit about the industries that you’re passionate in, the areas of like CrossFit and stuff. So, you know, a person that’s driven that way and that’s sharing. I mean, you’re doing the Memorial Day Challenge for kids on Fort Payne, which is our obstacle course. That’s probably one of the best in the city, if not the best. So I can see that. I mean, giving back to the community and all that. And working with entrepreneurs, startup businesses, or even just businesses that have been around for a while, providing them with information. And you’re right. Some people, number one, either they think they can’t afford it, but they really can’t ignore it, right? Because if they’re going to grow their business, they really need to know what those numbers mean. And, you know, I mean, you’re right. Bank statement or even a QuickBook report. I mean, fine, so you can see your business is growing, you can see its profitability, but you may not see the things that are coming, which those numbers can tell you. It’s almost like being a futurist with it, right? Or being able to tell the future with numbers, if you will. And those numbers don’t lie to a degree. So giving back to the community as a business leader, as a political leader, I mean, I know that’s part of what you do. The relationships you’re building with Burn the Ships Financial, I mean, you just started out. This is your first few months in business. And you want to be able to give the feedback that you can to them. So tell me what, you know, what do you look ahead? What’s your company’s long-term goals? We’re towards the end of our interview here. So I just want to know where you think you’re going, where you want to be in a couple of years. What type of clients, what industry maybe. What do you want to be? Tell me.

00:42:24 – Alex Wright

So one of the things that I’ve done you know as I was learning about other companies that play in this space you know some of their you know limitations whether it be bandwidth or skill set. One of the things I did is I reached out to a lot of former colleagues and said hey would you be interested in going on this journey with me? Like hey, don’t quit your job but you know would you like to you know partner with me on this? And literally every person I reached out to was like, yes, I would love to do this with you. They were very excited about it. The reason that’s relevant is, it gives us a scope of skills and bandwidth that I would argue most of these other companies just don’t have because they don’t have access to these people that have worked in companies. The reason I mentioned that to your question is, some of these folks that are really you know fired up about you know doing the business initially, I was just, I’m just going to do it myself and take on four or five six customers you know that have compelling stories but as these other folks really wanted to get involved you know I’ve been rethinking that just see how things go but you know it could be that things take off and we’re able to some of these folks come on board we might you know make it a bigger plan. I just wasn’t expecting the level of response I got about how excited people wanted to do this as well. So that’s TBD, obviously. We’ll just see how that goes. But money is a very personal thing, whether it be our personal money or a business’s money. It’s really about trust. And obviously, you’ve got to build that over time. I’m anticipating, you know, it’s going to take several months where, hey, you got to inform people they have moved into this space and you’re spending a whole lot of time meeting with people and just telling them what I’m doing and, you know, getting the word out that I’m here to, you know, get involved to help people be successful. So we’re just, we’re going to have to wait and see how that goes. See what kind of growth opportunities there are. But, you know, Peachtree Corners, that’s over, I want to say about 2,500 businesses. They’re not all in the space that I’m looking to get involved in, but it’s a great location to be in, in terms of this industry.

00:44:51 – Rico Figliolini

For sure. We’re a growing city, so it’s never-ending. We’ve been speaking to Alex Wright with Burn the Ships Financial. Just started a startup of his own. A city councilman with City of Peachtree Corners here as well. Alex, I appreciate you being with us. Can you tell people where they can find more information about you, your website, your contact info?

00:45:15 – Alex Wright

Yes. So website is just like the company name, Burn the Ships Financial. We got that up a few weeks ago. And that’s probably the best place to go. It’s got my contact info and some of my partner’s contact info on there. Yeah, that’s going to have all my info. I was going to say you could go to the city website, but at this point, everything you would need would be on the company website.

00:45:46 – Rico Figliolini

In fact, on the homepage, there’s a phone number, email address, and a schedule a consultation button. So it is burntheshipsfinancial.com that you should all visit. And check out Alex Wright and his team and the services they provide. Hang with me for a second, Alex, but everyone else, thank you for joining us. Appreciate your support. Appreciate the support of evremodelinginc.com and Vox Pop Uli as well for supporting our podcast as well as the magazines and the digital work that we do, newsletters and all that, and the journalism that we produce. So thanks again to everyone. Alex, appreciate you being here. And if you all have any comments, leave it in the comment box, depending where you are. YouTube, Facebook, or just email Alex and he’ll be able to answer your questions.