Tom Bradbury

Tom, a wise entrepreneur, has pursued innovation and perfected efficiency in homebuilding throughout his career. Through his vast experience, he created an integrated operating system called SMART Builder Solutions.

A graduate of the University of Georgia and Terry College of Business, with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a Major in Personnel Management, he is the consummate people person. His sincere, genuine leadership style assures him a loyal following of dedicated team members who share his values and work ethic.

Before assembling (and re-assembling) his current experienced Smith Douglas team, Tom founded Colony Homes of Atlanta in 1975 and ran that company in his personal, hands-on manner until he sold it to KB Home in 2003. He continued on as a consultant with KB Home through 2005, before launching Smith Douglas Homes in 2008.

Tom also founded Sodmasters Turf Farm in 2014. The main farm is located in Montrose, Georgia but also has a satellite location in Bennettsville, South Carolina.

Tom and his wife, Nell, reside in the Vinings area. They have 2 children and 7 grandchildren. They are both members of Northside United Methodist Church in Atlanta.

Chris Cannon

Thomas “Chris” Cannon is a business owner, business leader and an active member in the Albany community and for the State of Georgia. Early in his career, Cannon was president and chief operating officer of an entity that had varied business interests throughout Georgia, including a multi-divisional Caterpillar Tractor Distributorship, corporate farming operations and real estate development.

In 1992, Cannon founded and developed a business group whose mission was to provide a variety of environmental services to businesses and city and county governments in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. The business group consisted of a multi-location residential and commercial waste service company, a petroleum equipment company, a solid waste landfill developer and operator, and an environmental consulting and remediation firm. In 1998, Cannon completed a merger transaction of his waste service company with a publicly traded company - Waste Industries - based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

For several years, Cannon served on the board of directors of the publicly traded company, until he sold his shares in Waste Industries to pursue other business interests including the founding of Flint Holdings, Inc.

Today, Cannon continues to own and operate Flint Equipment Company, consisting of Flint Ag and Turf, Flint Power Systems and the Barber Petroleum Equipment Company. Over the years, Cannon has also served as the president of many civic organizations, including the Albany Technical College Foundation Board, the Albany YMCA Board and the Boys and Girls Club Board.

He also served on the boards of the Darton College Foundation, the State of Georgia Department of Industry and Trade, NoVab Inc., Waste Industries Inc., Deerfield Windsor School, the Governors Council on Economic Development, the Georgia Mining Association, the Albany Museum of Art, Nations Bank and regional Sun Trust Bank.

Cannon is a graduate of the University of Georgia with a B.S.A. degree in Business. He has two children who are active in the businesses, and he continues to reside in Albany.

David B. Dove (Vice Chair)

David B. Dove is a partner at Troutman Pepper in Atlanta, where his practice focuses on regulatory and economic investment matters. Originally from Athens, Dove earned his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Georgia, where he was inducted into the Order of Barristers and Blue Key Honor Society.

Dove previously served as executive counsel for Gov. Brian P. Kemp. As one of two direct reports to the governor, he collaborated with the Attorney General’s office to secure significant legal victories, notably in the Tri-State Water Wars. He also serves as a Georgia commissioner on the Uniform Law Commission and, in 2023, was appointed by the Georgia Board of Natural Resources to serve as interim director of the Georgia Environmental Resources Division.

Dove played a crucial role in Gov. Kemp’s judicial appointments, including four Supreme Court justices, six judges on the Georgia Court of Appeals and 86 trial court judges in Georgia. He additionally worked alongside Gov. Kemp to significantly increase the representation of women and minorities on executive branch boards and commissions.

Dove was recognized by the UGA Alumni Association with a Young Alumni Award for his outstanding leadership and service to the university, community and legal profession. He remains highly engaged with his alma mater, serving as chairman of the Alumni Board of Directors for UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs and as a board member for the Law School Alumni Council. He also served as an adjunct professor of law.

Richard “Tim” Evans

Richard “Tim” Evans founded Evans General Contractors in 2001, leading the company as President and CEO until January 2021. He now serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors, where he is responsible for the overall guidance and long-term strategies and initiatives of Evans. He has more than 40 years of construction experience and has led the Evans’ team in becoming both a nationally and internationally recognized design-build firm.

Evans founded the Silver Lining Foundation, Inc. in 2009 to connect the Evans’ offices with people and organizations making a difference locally, throughout the country, and abroad. Efforts have included grass roots, local, national, and international financial support, college grants and scholarships for financially challenged students, financial aid to the terminally ill and to economically distressed households, afterschool programs for urban and rural communities, support for veterans and Gold Star families, the MD Anderson Leukemia Research Foundation, and national charities.

Evans and his wife, EJ, have two children.

Erin Hames

Erin Hames is the Headmaster at Heritage Preparatory School, a classical Christian school in Atlanta, GA. She previously served as the President of ReformEd, a law and consulting firm focused on improving educational opportunities and outcomes for children and students. Prior to launching ReformEd, Erin served as Gov. Nathan Deal’s Deputy Chief of Staff and, prior to that, as Gov. Sonny Perdue’s Policy Director and Chief of Staff at the Georgia Department of Education. Erin started her career as a public school classroom teacher where she was named as her school’s First Year Teacher of the Year. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia College of Education and a law degree from Georgia State University College of Law. She also earned a Women’s Certificate from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Erin is a member of the State Bar of Georgia. She received the 2016 Professional Achievement Award from the University of Georgia’s College of Education, was a member of the 2013 40 Under 40 Class by the University of Georgia’s Alumni Association and was selected as a 2010 Henry Toll Fellow by the Council of State Governments. She and her husband, Ben, natives of Clarksville, Georgia, live in Atlanta with their two young children, Isaac and Rachel.

Samuel D. Holmes

Holmes is vice chairman of the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm, CBRE, Inc. His focus is representing businesses with strategic planning and transaction services. He has successfully negotiated over 90 million square feet of sales and leases with an aggregate value of more than $15 billion.

Holmes is a native of Monticello and attended boarding high school at Baylor School. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia (‘87 BBA in Finance). He is on the board of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Atlanta Speech School and Baylor School. He is the former chairman of both the University of Georgia Foundation and the University of Georgia Real Estate Foundation.

Holmes was appointed by Gov. Kemp to the Georgians First Commission, a task force created to make Georgia the most attractive state for small business.

Holmes and his wife Lara (‘88 UGA BBA and ‘90 Georgia State MBA) have three children, two who have graduated from the University of Georgia. His family is very involved at Northside United Methodist Church in Atlanta.

James M. Hull

Jim Hull is the founder and managing principal of Hull Property Group. He has led the acquisition, development and redevelopment of over 75 big-box retail, neighborhood and regional shopping centers, including 34 enclosed regional malls, which comprise the Company’s 18 million plus square feet of owned retail portfolio located in 17 states.

Jim is a lifelong resident of Augusta, Georgia, and currently serves on the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. Jim has served on the Board of Regents for the past ten years, and he was recently re-appointed until 2030. He also serves on the boards of the Community Foundation of the CSRA and America’s Warrior Partnership and is a past Chair of the University System of Georgia. Jim endowed the Hull Scholars programs at Augusta University, Paine College and Vanderbilt University. He is a long-standing member of the United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Society and has been honored with the United Way’s Founders Award. Jim received the President’s Award from Augusta University, the Liberty Bell Award from the Augusta Bar Association and the Philanthropist of the Year Award from the Society of Fundraising Professionals. He is a Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow, past president of the Augusta Assembly, and has been inducted in Junior Achievement’s Business Hall of Fame and Beta Gamma Sigma’s Honor Society. Jim holds a doctor of humane letters from Augusta University.

Jim is married to Karen Newton Hull. Jim and Karen enthusiastically support the Augusta community through their volunteer involvement in many civic initiatives and community organizations.

Cade Joiner

One year after earning a BBA in Marketing from the University of Georgia in 2001, Cade Joiner founded Shred-X Secure Document Destruction. Shred-X is one of the largest independent shredding companies in the Southeast and was named as one of the 100 fastest growing businesses in Georgia.

Joiner is the Chairman of the National Federation of Independent Business of Georgia, an organization with 8,000 member businesses across the state. He serves as a board member for the UGA Entrepreneurship Program, Georgia Chamber of Commerce, and Georgia Workforce Development Board, and he also advises the boards of several start-ups. The University of Georgia recently named him as one of its forty most distinguished graduates under the age of forty.

In 2018, Joiner served on the Finance Committee for Gov. Brian Kemp and was also on the Executive Committee of the Kemp Inaugural. In early 2019, he was named the Co-Chairman of the Georgians First Commission. He regularly appears in the media discussing business issues and has been featured on Fox News, CNN, and in the Wall Street Journal.

Joiner and his wife, Katie, and sons live in Brookhaven. In his free time, he enjoys traveling and watching college football and basketball.

Patrick C. Jones

Patrick Jones is chairman of the board of PrimeSouth Bank, president of The Jones Company and president of Walker Jones Automotive Group. He spent over three decades of his career with Flash Foods, which under the leadership of Jones and his brother, Jimmy, became one of the largest convenience chains in the southeast. Flash Foods was on the cutting edge of technology, having been one of the first convenience chains with item-level inventory, a loyalty program and a proprietary retail pricing platform before being acquired in 2016 by CST Brands and, subsequently, Circle K.

Jones graduated from the University of Georgia in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in Risk Management. He currently serves on the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Southern Georgia Citizen’s Review Panel, which was created through the state’s Transportation Investment Act. He previously served on the Bona Fide Coin Operated Amusement Machine (COAM) Operator Advisory Board, which helps the Georgia Lottery Corporation provide regulatory oversight to COAM businesses across Georgia.

Jones and his wife, Kara, have two children and reside in Blackshear, Georgia.

C. Everett Kennedy III

Everett Kennedy is Chief Executive Officer and Broker of Berkshire Hathaway Kennedy Realty in Statesboro where, for thirty-seven years, he has specialized in residential and commercial sales and development.

Everett, a lifetime resident of Bulloch County, is a 1987 graduate of Georgia Southern University with a BBA in Finance. He is passionate about Georgia Southern athletics and committed to the education of the regional workforce.

He is a past and current President of the Statesboro Board of Realtors where he was named Realtor of the Year three times in his career. He served two terms on the Board of Governors for the Georgia Association of Realtors, and he is active in the community. Kennedy serves on the board of directors of the Statesboro Bulloch Chamber of Commerce, is a Rotary Paul Harris

Fellow and Charter Member of the Rotary Club of Downtown Statesboro, and serves on the Bulloch First Bank Advisory Board and Bulloch Academy Board of Directors. Kennedy is also active in the Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter. He was named to the “40 Under 40” class in 2005 by The Business Report & Journal. Everett and his wife, Staci, have three children: Greyson, Harrison, and Alexandra. They are active members of the Statesboro First United Methodist Church. Kennedy will represent the 12th Congressional District on the Board of Regents.

Lowery Houston May

Lowery Houston May grew up in rural Georgia in the small town of Nashville and received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia.

Lowery is a 2014 graduate of Leadership Georgia and received the organization’s Cora Lee Fanning Award that year. She served as a program chair for Leadership Georgia in 2015, and she continues in an active role with the organization. Lowery serves on the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which helps students access higher education by providing financial aid options and programs to make college more affordable. She also serves on the Rome-Floyd County Land Bank Authority, which works to acquire, manage, maintain, and facilitate the redevelopment of underutilized, vacant, blighted, and tax-delinquent properties.

Lowery is an active member of the Young Life Rome-Floyd County committee and a long-time board member of Open Door Children’s Home, a local group foster home in Rome. She serves on the Linda Brannen Williamson Foundation Rome Advisory Committee, a leadership development program for women founded in Statesboro in 2015.

Lowery previously worked in the insurance and staffing industries, and she currently assists with a family land management enterprise. She lives in Rome with her husband, Charlie, and their two children, Cappie and Charlie III. Their family attends Seven Hills Fellowship church. May will represent the 14th Congressional District on the Board of Regents.

Dan Murphy

Dan Murphy has spent his career in consumer products and sporting goods, working for brands such as General Mills, Maxfli, TaylorMade and, most notably, Bridgestone Golf.

He was central to the launch of the Bridgestone Golf brand in 2005 and has overseen steady growth since that time. He is currently Bridgestone Golf’s president and CEO, overseeing North American manufacturing, sales, marketing and administrative operations, and is based in Covington.

He serves on several local and golf industry boards such as the Piedmont Covington Hospital Board and the Audubon International Board. Murphy is formerly chairman of the Newton County Chamber of Commerce.

Murphy has three adult children who all graduated from Georgia Tech. He graduated from Wake Forest University, where he met Stacey, his wife of 34 years.

Neil L. Pruitt Jr.

Neil L. Pruitt Jr. is chairman and CEO of PruittHealth, Inc., an integrated health care company offering independent and assisted living, skilled nursing services, rehabilitation services, home health and hospice care as well as pharmacy services, community-based services, medical supplies and care management. Pruitt served as chair of the Board of Governors of the American Health Care Association and chair of the Georgia Health Care Association.

As shown by his February 2013, Congressional appointment to the Commission for Long Term Care – a 15-member panel charged with developing plans for a comprehensive, coordinated and high-quality system ensuring long-term care for older adults and people with disabilities, Pruitt has become a recognized leader in the health care profession. Pruitt served as chair of the Board of Trustees of the University System of Georgia Foundation, Inc. and currently serves as a Board Member for the Georgia Regents Health System.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of the South in Tennessee and was awarded a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Health Administration from Georgia State University. He is an active member of the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.

He and his wife, Mebane, have three children.

Harold Reynolds

Harold Reynolds is the Chief Executive Officer of privately held BankSouth Holding Company headquartered in Greene County, Georgia. The company owns and operates BankSouth, BankSouth Mortgage headquartered in Atlanta, Coldwell Banker Lake Oconee Realty, and other subsidiaries. He is a graduate of Georgia Tech where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Industrial Systems Engineering and has been inducted into the Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni.

During the early 1980s, Reynolds was among the first developers of property near the newly impounded Lake Oconee. He was also General Manager of Greensboro Lumber Company, a local, innovative manufacturer of pine and hardwood timber products. The company operated a steam-powered electrical generating plant that was entirely fueled by waste and byproducts of milling and logging operations. The facility was one of the first in Georgia to export excess generation capacity to the electrical grid.

In 1987 through 1992, Reynolds was a founding partner, the President, and the Chief Operating Officer of Linger Longer Development Company. The company was the owner, developer, and operator of Reynolds Plantation, now known as Reynolds Lake Oconee. Reynolds served on Savannah-based Coastal Bankshares Board of Directors. He was a founder and director of Specialty Surgery Center Partners.

Gov. Zell Miller appointed Reynolds to the State Board of Technical and Adult Education, now known as the Technical College System of Georgia. He served for ten years as the chairperson of the capital outlays committee and a two-year term as board chairman during the thirteen years that he was a board member.

Reynolds and his wife, Lesley, reside on Lake Oconee. They have an adult daughter, Chandler, and a son, Jackson, attending Southern Methodist University. Reynolds represents the 10th Congressional District on the Board of Regents.

Dr. Deep J. Shah

Deep J. Shah, M.D., M.Sc., is a practicing primary care physician and chief operating officer at Gwinnett Clinic. He has expertise in healthcare operations and health finance. Gwinnett Clinic is northeast Atlanta’s leading independent multi-specialty group. The clinic champions patient-centered, physician-led care. Shah has been named a Top Doctor by both Georgia Trend and Castle Connolly. His recent work has focused on contract negotiation for independent medical groups, efficient utilization of health IT and medical real estate.

In addition to Shah’s work at the clinic, he advocates for patients and community-based primary care at the state and federal levels. He has won multiple leadership awards, including an Alpha Omega Alpha Fellowship. In 2021, Shah was appointed by Gov. Brian P. Kemp to serve on the board of Augusta University Health System (now Wellstar MCG Health). In 2022, Shah was named a director of Touchmark National Bank, an FDIC-insured Minority Deposit Institution in Alpharetta. He was elected secretary of the bank in 2023.

Shah graduated with highest honors from the University of Georgia as a Foundation Fellow. He won Truman and Rhodes scholarships to study at Oxford University, where he earned a master’s degree in social policy. Shah earned his medical degree from Harvard University and trained in internal medicine at Emory University before entering private practice. He and his wife live with their three sons in Johns Creek, surrounded and supported by a large extended family.

T. Dallas Smith (Chair)

T. Dallas Smith is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at T. Dallas Smith & Company. He leads all new business development initiatives. His role includes overseeing all brokerage affairs related to the company and providing chief liaison services to key clients.

Dallas began his commercial real estate career in 1982 at Atlanta Air Center Realty under the guidance of Thomas W. Tift as leasing and management representative for the portfolio. In 1989, he became the first African-American broker at Cushman & Wakefield of Georgia. His affiliation with the company opened doors for many minority brokers.

In 1995, he pioneered the brokerage division for H.J. Russell & Company, an African-American owned construction and management firm, where he served as Vice President of the Brokerage Division. Dallas led the company initiative of acquiring forty parcels of real estate, a full city block in the intercity of Atlanta resulting in a mixture of office, retail, and multifamily developments now valued at over $20 million. In 2006, with the blessing of the late Herman Russell, Dallas opened T. Dallas Smith & Company, specializing in tenant representation. T. Dallas Smith & Company has led projects across the country with metrics exceeding more than seven million square feet of commercial property leasing and acquisitions and five thousand acres of land purchases. Since its inception, the team has grown exponentially, successfully leading transactions totaling over $15 billion in aggregate value.

Dallas, a Georgia State University alumnus, is the Chair of the Real Estate Committee at his alma mater. He also serves on the boards of the Council for Quality Growth and Atlanta Commercial Board of REALTORS. He has been awarded numerous honors including Atlanta Most Admired CEO in 2017, Atlanta Commercial Board of REALTORS’ Realtor of the Year in 2018, and Empire Board of Realists Broker of the Year in 2018.

Haynes M. Studstill

Haynes (Maier) Studstill is a partner in the Valdosta law firm, Studstill Firm LLP, where her practice is focused on representing individuals and families in disputes with insurance companies. Haynes is originally from Rome where she attended Darlington School before graduating the Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana. She earned her B.S. degree cum laude from Vanderbilt University in Human & Organizational Development.

After graduating from Vanderbilt, Haynes worked in the journalism industry for several years. She worked at WRC-TV/NBC4 in Washington, D.C., and NBC-affiliate WSMV in Nashville, Tennessee, and served as the Life editor of The Brunswick News, before joining her uncle, William S. Morris III, of Augusta, at his equine publications, Quarter Horse News and Barrel Horse News, in Fort Worth, Texas. Mr. Morris is a former Regent, as is his father and Haynes’s grandfather, William S. Morris Jr., thus making Haynes the third generation in her family to serve the University System of Georgia on the Board of Regents.

Haynes attended Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law, where she met her husband, Justin D. Studstill, of Nashville, Ga. She served as editor-in-chief of the Mercer Law Review, was inducted into the Brainerd Currie Honor Society, and received the Webster Award and multiple CALI Excellence awards at Mercer Law School. She and Justin both graduated magna cum laude from Mercer in the top 8 percent of their law school class. She is a former barrister in the William Augustus Bootle Inn of Court. Haynes clerked for the Hon. C. Ashley Royal in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia and worked as an associate for King & Spalding LLP in Atlanta, before joining her father-in-law, Danny Studstill, and her husband in practice in South Georgia at the Studstill Firm LLP.

Haynes currently serves as a board member on the State Botanical Garden of Georgia Board of Advisors in Athens and on the Judicial Nominating Commission, having been appointed by Governor Brian Kemp in 2021. She also serves as a Special Master, appointed by the Georgia Supreme Court, on attorney discipline cases. She is the immediate past president of the Valdosta Bar Association and former president of both the Alapaha Judicial Circuit Bar Association and the Valdosta Chapter of the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. She is a former board member of Vanderbilt University Peabody College Young Alumni Board; the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Macon; SafeKids Lowndes County; and The Verdict magazine of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association.

Haynes has been named a Georgia Super Lawyer or Rising Star by Thomson Reuters for the last 11 years, an honor achieved each year by only 5 percent of Georgia attorneys. She has been admitted to practice in all State Appellate Courts in Georgia, all U.S. District Courts in Georgia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Haynes and Justin have four children and live in Lakeland, Georgia, where they enjoy hunting, riding horses and raising Texas Longhorn cattle.

Mat Swift

Mathews Swift received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Georgia in 1969 and his J.D. from Walter F. George School of Law in 1972.

He practiced real estate law before becoming president & COO of the W.C. Bradley Co. – Real Estate Division in 1986. During his 32 years as president of the Real Estate Division, Swift developed multiple projects ranging from a 600-acre upscale golf course community, a 500-acre suburban mixed-use development, a 200-acre suburban office park, a 100-acre industrial park and numerous residential subdivisions.

Over the past 20 years, he has primarily focused on the redevelopment of downtown Columbus. Swift’s marquee project was the Eagle & Phenix Mill, a mixed-use development of converting a 1 million-square-foot 1800s textile mill into riverfront high-rise condominiums, apartments, retail, restaurants, offices and specialty uses.

As part of this riverfront development, Swift was an integral part of the Columbus Whitewater initiative — a $30 million project involving the removal of two hydroelectric dams and the restoration of 2.5 miles of Chattahoochee River into what has been labeled as the world’s longest urban whitewater experience.

In 2019, Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Swift to serve on the Board of Economic Development.

James K. Syfan III

In 1984, James K. “Jim” Syfan III and his two sons founded Turbo Logistics Inc. It grew to over $100 million in sales, and in 2006 was sold to OHL.

In 2011, Syfan and his sons founded and became joint owners of Syfan Logistics Inc., of which he is chairman and CEO. He also serves as chairman and CEO of Turbo Truck Center Inc., Turbo Sales & Leasing Inc. and Syfan Transport Inc.

Throughout his career, Syfan has served on the First Board of Directors for the Transportation Intermediary Association (TIA), Board of Directors for Agricultural Transport Division of the American Trucking Association (ATA) and the Board of Directors for Georgia Motor Trucking Association (GMTA). He has been president of the Georgia Chapter of the Transportation Brokers Conference of America, secretary of the Transportation Brokers Conference of America, founder and chairman of the TIA Foundation and has been a regular member of TIA, GMTA and ATA. He’s an active member of his community, having served on the Northeast Georgia Hospital Service Board, the Northeast Georgia Health Systems Inc. Hospital Authority: Strategic Planning Committee, the Hall County Planning Commission, the Hall County Parks & Leisure Board, the Hall County Efficiency Committee, the Gainesville-Hall County Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Hall County Unified Development Code Committee, the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club of Gainesville, the Brian Kemp Finance Committee and as a Randy & Friends board member. Syfan has also been on the Board of Directors for the Mike Cottrell College of Business at the University of North Georgia (UNG), and has served as a member of the Supply Chain Advisory Board at UNG and at Appalachian State University. In 2020, Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Syfan to serve on the Lake Lanier Islands Development Authority. Syfan also serves as Treasurer and is a member of the Convention Center Construction Committee.

The Syfan Logistics Charitable Fund has been established to assist with needs in the local community, with an emphasis on children’s health care and Syfan employees. The fund has also contributed to creating the Syfan Logistics Lab and the Mike Cottrell College of Business at UNG.

He and his wife Gloria have two sons, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. They reside in Gainesville.