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The Atlanta Story is a podcast highlighting Atlanta’s most interesting creators, entrepreneurs, and builders. We learn what decisions they’ve made along the way to get where they are and of course ask questions around the vision they see for the city in the future. We believe now is the right time for a podcast like this because Atlanta is at a point in time where the ingredients are here and available for anyone who’s looking to build and create something special.
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Sally Bethea, the Founding Director and Riverkeeper of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and author. Born and raised in Atlanta, Sally spent 30 years setting up and leading the non-profit that protects and pr…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Brian McGowen, President of Centennial Yards. Born in the Bronx, raised in New Jersey, and educated in California, Brian McGowen has been bi-coastal for the majority of his life. His career has spanne…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Victoria Lemos, Founder of Archive Atlanta. Born and raised in New York, Victoria moved to Atlanta 18 years ago and since then has become a prolific podcaster through Archive Atlanta. Two hundred and …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Kelvin Collins, Vice President of Economic Development of Atlanta BeltLine. Born and raised in Grenada, Kelvin moved to the United States for college and since, has spent the majority of his career in…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Nate Hybl, Founder of Gusto!. Born and raised in Hazelhurst, Georgia, Nate has spent the majority of his career experimenting, crafting, and serving life-giving food through his fast-casual food compa…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Nedra Deadwyler, Founder for Civil Bikes. Nedra started Civil Bikes nearly 10 years ago as a way to preserve history while also experiencing Atlanta outside of the normal lens of a car. Her tours are …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Conor Sen, Columnist for Bloomberg. Conor moved to Atlanta from California in 2010 and has documented several trends and market shifts through his popular Twitter account @conorsen. Conor parlayed his…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Yanni Hufnagel, Founder of Lemon Perfect. Yanni started his career in basketball. From team manager at Cornell to Assistant Coaching positions at Oklahoma, Harvard, Vanderbilt, and Nevada, Yanni is a …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Zac Harrison, Founder of Fresh Harvest. Over ten years ago, a cross country bike trip sparked the desire to deliver locally grown food to the doorsteps of consumers. Today, Fresh Harvest supplies Geor…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Cherie Kloss, Founder of SnapNurse. After spending 10 years as an anesthetist, Cherie transitioned careers to be a tv producer and then a technology founder. Through the personal pain she experienced …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Shannon Heath Longino, Senior Vice President at Truist Bank where she works on affordable housing initiatives. Shannon was raised by her grandmother, Eva Davis, in the storied East Lake Meadows neighb…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Andrew McConnell Co-Founder and CEO of Rented.com and published author of Get Out of My Head: Creating Modern Clarity with Stoic Wisdom. Andrew received two degrees from Harvard and then worked at McK…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Frank Fernandez, CEO of Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Going into its 70th year serving our city, the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta is powered by over 1000 donors to champion equi…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Adam Wexler, Founder and CEO of PrizePicks. With over 50,000 daily active users, PrizePicks is a leading player in the Daily Fantasy Sports Industry. In today’s interview, Adam shares insights from hi…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Greg Bluestein, AJC’s premiere political reporter and newly minted author of Flipped. Greg spent the first part of his career at the Associated Press before transitioning to the AJC. Greg and his coll…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Indra Sofian, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Sora. Indra and his co-founders started Sora while still under graduates at Georgia Tech. Today, they’ve raised over $23 million dollars from the l…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Dr. Meria Carstarphen, Former Superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools. Born in Selma, educated at Tulane, Auburn, and Harvard, Meria took the helm of APS starting in 2014 to 2020. During her tenure, …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Jesslyn Rollins, CEO of Biolyte. Biolyte is one of the fastest, homegrown consumer brands in the city and state. What started out as a remedy for a family member’s illness has turned into a beverage c…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Ryan Anderson, Founder of Georgia Votes. In today’s episode, Jon sits down with Ryan Anderson, Founder of GeorgiaVotes.com. What started out as a fun rabbit hole analyzing voter data, has turned into …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Kieran McGill, Owner of Fadó Irish Pub. Kieran moved to Atlanta with plans to stay for 24 months. Today he’s transitioning into his 24th year as the owner of 8 total pubs worldwide with 300 employees.…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Jon sits down with Professional Golfer, Podcaster, and burgeoning businessman Roberto Castro. Roberto was a 4 time All-American at Georgia Tech who studied Industrial Engineering before turning pro. I…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down Founder and CEO of The Illuminarium, Alan Greenberg. Alan is a serial entrepreneur who has started companies in media, healthcare, education, travel, and technology. The Illuminarium is all about democrati…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Kyle and Brent Pease of the Kyle Pease Foundation. Born and raised in Atlanta, Kyle Pease never let being diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy get in the way of living a normal life. Baseball, wrestling, and…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Maurice Cherry, Principal of Lunch — an award winning creative studio. Maurice moved to Atlanta, Georgia to go to school at Morehouse College. In addition to running his creative studio, Maurice has p…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Joe Rogers Jr, Chairman of Waffle House. In 1979, Joe brokered a deal earning him and the Rogers family controlling interest of the steadily growing Waffle House franchise. Under his leadership, Waffl…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Fred Castellucci, President and CEO of Castellucci Hospitality Group. Fred grew up in Atlanta before heading off to Cornell University. After interning in the consulting world, he quickly realized his…
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Mayor Franklin served as Mayor from 2002 to 2010 and leaves an indelible legacy affecting every Atlantan today. In this episode we talk about her reputation as the mayor who cleaned our sewer system, had the political vision to act on the Beltline, and lessons she learned from her time working for Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. We also learn how…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Neal Cohen, Co-Founder of Tip Top Proper Cocktails. Before starting a fast-growing cocktails in a can company, Neal was helping brands create unique experiences at Superfly. One particular industry he…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Coach Mike Smith, former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. Mike or Smitty as locals know him, is the Falcon’s winningest coach in franchise history by number of wins. In 2008 he was the recipient of …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Ryan Hersh, Founder of Edison Bicycles. Ryan scratched his own itch when his 4 mile commute in Atlanta took over 1 hour. Through trial and error, he built the first prototype of what would be the firs…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Sandeep Ahuja, Co-Founder of cove.tool. Sandeep’s love for building and architecture started at a young age across several countries she lived in with her parents who were diplomats. After graduating …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with DL Warfield, Founder of Goldfinger Creative. DL is a critically acclaimed creative designer and artist. After earning his degree in Painting from Washington University, he started his early career for…
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Episode 15 | Jim Chasteen and Chad Ralston
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Jim Chasteen and Chad Ralston, the minds and marketing behind ASW Distillery. After fiddling around in college, Jim and his college friend, Charlie Thompson decided to take the leap from corporate Ame…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Nick Miller, Co-Founder of Gather Technologies. Nick started Gather with his Co-Founder Alex Lassiter almost 9 years ago but it didn’t start out the way they imagined. After three pivots and on the ve…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Brian Steely, Founder of Steely Works. His start in the professional design world began when he sent an unsolicited tour design poster to the manager of Widespread Panic. Their interest and his new fo…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Mike Jordan, Editor In Chief of Hypepotamus. In today’s episode we have Mike Jordan, writer and editor. Over his 20 year career Mike has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Rolling Sto…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Allie Kelly, Executive Director of The Ray. The Ray is an 18 mile stretch of highway on I-85 in West Georgia. The Ray is a peachtree dish for innovation and experiments to make highways more safe and …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Dr. Crawford Loritts, Senior Pastor of Fellowship Bible Church. In addition to being the Senior Pastor, Dr. Loritts is the author of nine books, a speaker, a radio host, and board member of Chick-fil-…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Geoff Graham, Founder of GuildQuality. During his early career in residential development, Geoff found a niche service surveying homebuyers and their customer experiences with contractors. In 2002, he…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Asif Ramji, of Paymetric and Chief Growth Officer at FIS. Asif took over a struggling Paymetric in 2009. At the time, the business was losing $2m a year. Fast forward 8 years later, with the financial…
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Sara Irvani, CEO of Okabashi Brands. This American Made brand produces over two million shoes a year right out of Buford, Georgia. Sara took the reins as CEO of the multi-generational family business …
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In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Derrick Hayes, Founder of Big Dave's Cheesesteaks. Derrick named his growing cheesesteak company in honor of his late father. Six years ago, Derrick opened up his first shop outside of a gas station in Dunwoody, Georgia. Today, he has a line out the door at his downtown location and is soon opening in Cha…
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In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Garrett Langley, CEO & Founder of Flock Safety. Garrett and his co-Founder Matt Feury started Flock Safety over three years ago with a mission to eliminate crime. They do this with their leading edge neighborhood license plate reader that provides police evidence to solve crime. Today, they have 65 employ…
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In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Hala Moddelmog, CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber. Hala was born and raised in Georgia and began her career as a financial analyst at Arby’s Restaurant Group. Over the years, she scaled the corporate ladder and busted glass ceilings becoming the first woman to lead an international restaurant company as th…
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In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Chef Ron Hsu to talk about the genesis story behind his restaurant, the constant back and forth between chef and entrepreneur, and the decisions he made along the way to create some of Atlanta’s best food. The Atlanta Story is put together by the folks at Atlanta Ventures. Atlanta Ventures invests in entr…
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In this episode Jon Birdsong sits down with Tharon Johnson, CEO of Paramount Consulting Group. Tharon is a former campaign manager turned political strategist and in today’s episode we talk about the strategies he implemented for Mayor Kasim Reed’s come from behind win. We also discuss leadership insights about Congressman John Lewis from Tharon’s …
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The Atlanta Story podcast features meaningful stories of Atlanta’s builders, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this episode Jon Birdsong shares the vision of the podcast and why Atlanta Ventures has launched into the podcast space. Sponsor information: The Atlanta Story is put together by the folks at Atlanta Ventures -- and we can’t wait to share so…
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