Chairman Emeritus Maynard H. Jackson, Jr

Maynard H. Jackson, Jr., returned to the private sector as chairman of Jackson Securities, LLC, and co-founder of Jackmont Hospitality, Inc., in January 1994, after completing his third award-winning term as mayor of Atlanta. Whether serving the public or working in a corporate setting, Mr. Jackson knew how to ask the right questions, focus on the bottom line, and deliver measurable results. Against all odds and public naysayers, Mr. Jackson built the new Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (opened September 20, 1980) – a prime example of his positive leadership style. When it was built, it was the largest airport terminal in the world, and today stands as the world’s busiest.

Mr. Jackson served as mayor of Atlanta from 1974 to 1982 and again from 1990 to 1994. His three terms were distinguished by:

    The addition of the first international air carriers and a dramatic increase in their number
    Improving or adding: consulates and foreign trade offices, imports and exports, the neighborhood planning unit system, a comprehensive development plan, major construction, management innovation, the arts, mass transit, vertically-integrated housing finance and production
    Streamlining the bureaucracy
    Increasing employee incentives and productivity
    Record-setting new jobs creation
    Strengthening bond ratings
    Creating the most successful non-preference, non-quota affirmative action and equal opportunity programs in the nation

Especially noteworthy was Mr. Jackson’s leadership in the construction of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which was completed ahead of schedule and under budget. The airport is the biggest economic generator in the Southeastern United States. As a result, Mr. Jackson’s years of mayoral service were widely respected and documented as times of unparalleled economic development, internationalism, public-private partnerships, racial harmony, and fiscal stability for Atlanta. FORTUNE magazine’s survey of CEOs named Atlanta as the “Best American City” in which to do business in 1991 and 1993.

Under Mr. Jackson’s leadership, Jackson Securities Inc., a national institutional and retail investment bank headquartered in Atlanta, expanded steadily. Jackson Securities earned the reputation for unquestionable integrity, superior quality and prudence, and outstanding performance in public finance, tax-exemptions, underwriting sales and trading, institutional sales and trading, corporate syndication, corporate finance, and wealth management.

Mr. Jackson was national development chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the first chairman of the DNC Voting Rights Institute. He was a member of the DNC Executive Committee.

Determined to counteract voter disillusionment and apathy, Mr. Jackson founded in 2002 the American Voters League, Inc., a non-profit, non-partisan effort to increase national voter turnout of base voters, especially African Americans.

Mr. Jackson was a member of the Bars of Georgia and New York and a managing partner of Chapman and Cutler, Attorneys at Law, from 1982 to 1990, where he specialized in public finance law. In 1985, he co-organized and became the founding chairman of the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP). Mr. Jackson was a NASD registered Municipal Securities Principal (Series 53) and Uniform Securities Agent (Series 63).

Mr. Jackson’s winning style was at the heart of Atlanta’s successful bid to host the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, a bid in which he played a key leadership role as mayor. In recognition thereof, H.E. Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, officially commended him and the U.S. Olympic Committee named Mr. Jackson Attaché for the United States of America in the 1996 Centennial Olympics.

Many of Mr. Jackson’s accomplishments were the result of a series of creative and successful public-private-partnerships. That also was his style when he was chairman of the Advisory Board and president-elect of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, chairman of President Carter’s Local Government Energy Policy Advisory Committee, vice chairman of the White House Commission on the Windfall Profits Tax, and chairman of the Rebuild America Coalition (infrastructure investment), and a member of the Rockefeller-led American Arts and Education. He was founding chairman of the Corporation for Olympic Development in Atlanta (CODA), and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Committee on the Arts, the U.S. Conference of Mayors Special Committee on the Census Undercount, the Atlanta Downtown Development Authority, the Urban Residential Finance Authority of the City of Atlanta (URFA), the Atlanta Economic Development Corporation, the High Noon Legal Foundation, and co-founder of the Urban Residential Development Corporation of the City of Atlanta.

In 1974, the American Institute for Public Service awarded Mr. Jackson the prestigious Jefferson Award for “The Greatest Public Service Performed by an American 35 Years or Under.”

In May of 1999, Georgia Governor Roy E. Barnes named Mr. Jackson to the board of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism, where he served a term as chairman of the International Trade Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee. He was an active member of the Metropolitan Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, honorary chair and board member of the Leadership Center at Morehouse College, a 33° Prince Hall Free and Accepted Mason, a member of Friendship Baptist Church, and numerous civic and social organizations. In 1992, Mr. Jackson founded the Maynard Jackson Youth Foundation, Inc. (a multi-focused leadership program teaching at-risk students in Atlanta) where he actively served as chairman and principal teacher.

Mr. Jackson was a 23-year trustee of Morehouse College and a former board member of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, The Atlanta Regional Commission, the Environmental Financial Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Emory Community Legal Services Program, the C.A.R.E. Board of Overseers, FGIC Public Trust, and the National Council of the United Nations Association-USA, and was a national board member of the NAACP. He was a corporate board member of Fannie Mae, ICF Kaiser International, govWorks.com, Bingwa Software, and Real Estate.com, Inc. Mr. Jackson served as chairman and co-founder of Jackmont Hospitality, Inc.

Mr. Jackson, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha and recipient of eight honorary degrees, was a former visitor of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Chubb Fellow at Yale University. He earned a BA in political science and history from Morehouse College at age 18 and the Juris Doctor cum laude from the School of Law at North Carolina Central University. Mr. Jackson was born in Dallas, TX, and raised in Atlanta, GA; he worked his way through school as a waiter, tobacco picker, librarian, and encyclopedia national sales trainer and salesman. He was married to Valerie J.R. Jackson, (MBA, Wharton), host of WABE-FM’s “Between the Lines” and “Valerie Jackson in Conversation” (www.wabe.org) and was the father of four daughters and one son. Mr. Jackson died unexpectedly on June 23, 2003.