John Dixon

John Dixon began his career in the design and construction business in the early 1960’s. His first project was the former terminal at Hartsfield Atlanta Airport. This building was torn down to make way for the airport’s expansion in the early 1980’s when the passenger functions were moved to their current mid-field terminal and concourses.

Over the past forty-two years, John has been involved in the design and construction of every type of commercial, industrial and airport construction project imaginable. In the field of aviation facility development, his projects include taxi lanes and taxiways, passenger terminals, flight training facilities (including flight simulators), crew training facilities (including pools used to simulate water evacuations of aircraft), data centers and back-up data centers (for airlines as well as entities such as WorldSpan), flight kitchens, cargo handling facilities (including terminals possessing perishables capabilities) and many others. Much of this experience was gained before the concept of third party private section development of “public” facilities was invented.

Dave Garrett

Dave Garrett grew up in an airline family. (His father worked his way from ticket agent and baggage handler to Chairman and CEO of Delta Air Lines.) His own career in aviation spans the past thirty-six years beginning with his work as a production control engineer for Lockheed Aircraft (while a senior at Georgia Tech) building the initial 30 C-5A aircraft in the late 1960’s. From that, he worked for Monsanto, marketing chemical products to the airlines.

Following his graduation in 1975 from law school, he represented a broad array of commercial enterprises. These included airlines both “mainline” and commuter. After his unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate from Georgia in 1986, he and John, longtime friends, became partners. He maintained his involvement in politics, however, by accepting the appointment from Governor Zell Miller to chair the campaign that made the Georgia Lottery a reality. He went on to serve as the founding Chairman of the Lottery’s Board of Directors.