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| Feature |
The Scions of Sea Island
Jan Alexander
03/01/2004
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Georgia’s Republican
governor, Sonny Perdue, whom Jones calls a great cheerleader for bringing the
summit to Sea Island, has said he expects the summit to boost the Georgia
economy by $300 million to $500 million, or about as much as two Super Bowls.
While some dispute those figures, especially given the costs of antiterrorism
measures and security to control protestors, the G8 Summit in Kananaskis,
Canada, in 2002 did inject about $300 million into the local economy. “There is
a precedent. And protestors spend money, too,” says Erin O’Brien Dobson,
executive director of the G8 Host Committee in Atlanta, a nonprofit that is
trying to raise at least $16 million in private donations to supplement the
federal funding. |  | Left: Bill Jones Sr., Jones III and Jones Jr. in 1982.
Right: Bill Jones III is the current CEO. |
Jones, a cochairman of the Host Committee’s fund-raising
arm, worked hard to get the summit and make it a positive force for the local
economy; the economy has prospered with the real-estate price boom on Sea Island
and St. Simons but remains beleaguered in Brunswick, the county seat on the
mainland, where the poverty rate is around 18 percent. Locals say Jones lobbied
the White House aggressively; he admits, “We did a little work behind the
scenes.” (George Bush pere’s fondness for the place probably did not hurt.)
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