Mike Randle, Editor

Site Selection and Mac Conway Celebrate 50 Years

It's not often one editor, publisher and magazine owner gives praise to another, especially one that is a direct competitor. In the winter quarter, Site Selection magazine, a competitor to Southern Business & Development, celebrated its 50th year in print.

McKinley "Mac" Conway founded the publication, at the time titled Industrial Development, in 1954. It was the first publication on the field of economic development and it was launched in the right Place: the South.

In the 50th Anniversary Site Selection edition (January 2004), there is an excellent time line showing Site Selection's first 50 years as well as Conway's pioneering economic development adventures in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond.

Some of Conway's accomplishments and ideas outlined in the issue just blew me away. This Southerner conducted the first regional industrial science conference in Winston-Salem, N.C. in 1952. He also conducted the first industrial wastes conference in New Orleans in 1953 that was organized to establish environmental standards for industry years before the federal government even thought about the issue.

Rumor has it he invented the word "biotechnology" in the mid-1950s. "Come on," you say. Well, I believe it. Conway's life has tremendously affected the American South and has helped shape it into what it is today; the world's third-largest economy and a place where great social change enabled the once shunned region to grow into the most vibrant economy on the planet for migrating companies and migrating families over the last 30 years.

Born in 1920 in Hackleburg, Ala., Conway entered Georgia Tech at age 15. Fifteen? My oldest son is 15 and he's finishing up the ninth grade.

One of Conway's biggest accomplishments, besides his publishing interests, which include several books, was when he was appointed director of the Southern Association of Science and Industry, a 15-state organization seeking to promote economic development in the South through the introduction of scientific programs. That was in the 1950s. Through this organization, Conway led a major effort to change the South from its dirt-poor, agri-eco base to one that is now a world leader in technology.

Mac Conway, the former Georgia state Senator, futurist, NASA engineer, pilot, global environmentalist, logistics expert, publisher, political consultant, real estate planner, retiree and all-around, smart as hell dude, now lives in central Florida.

Mac, none of your other competitors may give you recognition as the facilitator of economic development, not only in the South and the U.S., but throughout the world, but we will. This Alabama-born publisher of economic development material would be completely satisfied with his life if he accomplished half as much as you, another Alabama-born economic development publisher. As we say around our office, "Old man Conway invented it. We're merely adding a few creative touches here and there."

Mike Randle (mike@sb-d.com)