ATLANTA, Ga. — Georgia’s small businesses are a critical part of the state’s economy, and Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel will speak about the outlook for those businesses at a monthly meeting of the Georgia Association of Business Brokers (GABB) Tuesday, October 27, 2009. “Small business is the backbone of Georgia’s economy,” said Handel, Georgia’s first Republican Secretary of State and a candidate for governor in 2010. “I look forward to sharing my outlook for small business with the Georgia Association of Business Brokers, whose members are dedicated to growing our state’s 860,000 small businesses, creating new jobs and encouraging entrepreneurs.”
Handel will address the GABB promptly at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, October 27, 2009, at the South Terraces Conference Center, 115 Perimeter Center Place, Atlanta, Georgia 30346. The meeting is open to the public at no charge; networking time is available before and after the meeting.
The Georgia Association of Business Brokers (GABB) is the state’s only professional organization and Multiple Listing Service dedicated to buying and selling businesses and franchises. An experienced GABB business broker can help a buyer find businesses for sale, negotiate a fair price and obtain financing. A broker can help an owner evaluate and price a business, market and advertise to prospective buyers, negotiate and close a deal. The GABB Web site lists hundreds of businesses for sale throughout Georgia, as well as around the country.
About Karen Handel
From a job at Hallmark Cards corporate offices in Washington, D.C., Handel was recruited to work in the Bush-Quayle White House, eventually becoming Deputy Chief of Staff. In that capacity, she managed office operations and spearheaded Mrs. Quayle’s breast cancer awareness and research campaign, which ultimately led to the founding of the Susan G. Komen Washington “Race for the Cure.”
After the White House, Handel served as an executive with KPMG and later with CIBA Vision. As a member of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce Board, Handel was tapped to lead the Chamber, one of Georgia’s largest. Within weeks on the job, she found that an employee had embezzled all but $10 from the Chamber’s bank accounts. She rallied businesses and community leaders and developed a recovery plan. Today the North Fulton Chamber is thriving and creating much-needed jobs.
During her tenure as Chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, the state’s most populous county, she inherited a budget shortfall of nearly $100 million and was told there was no way to balance the budget without raising taxes. She made the strategic cuts needed and balanced the county budget three times without raising taxes. She also made ethics reform a cornerstone of her agenda and passed the most stringent ethics laws of any local government in Georgia. Handel also received national recognition for uncovering corruption that led to the removal of Fulton County Sheriff Jackie Barrett.
As Secretary of State, Handel supervises nearly 400 employees. Her duties include overseeing elections, corporations, securities, professional licensing boards, and an anti-fraud investigative unit she formed in her first months in office.
Handel is a lifelong conservative and Republican. She and her husband Steve live in Roswell with their two cavalier spaniels Maggie and Mia. Read more about Karen Handel at her website: www.karenhandel.com.
For more information about GABB, contact Stuart J. Brady at 404.663.8080, sjb@thebusinesshouseinc.com, or visit the Georgia Association of Business Brokers (GABB) Web site at: www.gabb.org.
