Mr. Volande (left) and Mr. Lesser (right) fielded questions from the fellows after their presentations. photo by Trevor Williams

Fresh off an eight-day trip to Salzburg, Austria, and the German state of Bavaria, a former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development said he saw economic synergies and the prospect for continued investment between Bavaria and Georgia.

Craig Lesser, who is also managing director at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP and chairman of the World Trade Center Atlanta, said he has visited Bavaria at least four times this year because much of Georgia’s European business is concentrated there, as well as in northern Italy and Switzerland.

On his most recent trip, Mr. Lesser was encouraged to see that cooperation should continue to thrive between the regions, which share a number of similarities.

“We can only see increasing commerce coming out of our areas,” he said, comparing Atlanta’s position in the Southeast United States to Munich’s strategic importance in Bavaria and southern Germany.

He stressed the forestry, high-tech and life sciences industries as important shared interests between the economies.

“And (Munich) is a hub of economic activity in that region, and of course it (supports) the growing prominence of the Munich airport as the prominence of Atlanta’s airport continues to grow,” Mr. Lesser said to an audience of Marshall Memorial Fellows, alumni from a program with origins in the 25-year-old, Washington-based German Marshall Fund of the United States, established by the German goverment to thank America for the Marshall Plan and to introduce European leaders to American government and business practices. 

Most of the attendees at the luncheon at the Westin Peachtree Plaza, however, were Americans who participated in a companion program established in 1999 by the Marshall Fund.

The fellows, leaders from all regions and fields throughout America, participated in a reciprocal exchange program in Europe that exposed them to European business and political methods.  They convened in Atlanta for the Marshall Forum on Transatlantic Affairs, an annual weekend reunion that helps facilitate the exchanging of ideas on pressing transatlantic trends and issues.

The program was named after U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, whose Marshall Plan distributed U.S. funds throughout Europe to build up the allied countries’ economies after World War II.  Germany, which was in shambles after the war, also benefited from the funding, as the luncheon’s introductory speaker attested from personal experience.

Harry Volande was born in 1958 and grew up in what was then called West Germany, enjoying what he said Germans call “the blessing of post-war birth.”

Now executive vice president and chief financial officer for Atlanta-based Siemens Energy & Automation Inc., Mr. Volande thanked America and its Marshall Plan, which he said helped his grandparents and his company overcome difficult times.

“Siemens was ruined after World War II,” Mr. Volande said.  The company, which had about 24,000 machines and pieces of production equipment, was left with only about 1,300 after the war, and many of those were no longer functional.

Kick-started by a $30 to $40 million contribution from the Marshall Plan, Siemens has built itself up over the ensuing years to become an international technology powerhouse with 460,000 employees worldwide and $120 billion in annual revenue, Mr. Volande said.

Mr. Volande, who has worked for the company for 32 years, said he can’t fathom what the world would be like today without the partnerships created through the Marshall Plan.

“I don’t want to imagine that; I might be speaking Russian,” he said, clarifying that there’s nothing wrong with Russian, but adding that he is glad to be in America pursuing the opportunities his heritage has presented him.

The Marshall fellows at the event seemed to share a certain degree of fraternity, even among those who didn’t travel in the same year.

Gregg Behr, a Marshall fellow who traveled to Europe with the program when he was 30 years old, chatted amiably with other fellows at his table, some of whom traveled with him in 2002.  Now working as executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Grable Foundation, which contributes about $12 million annually to charities that help develop young children, Mr. Behr said the Marshall fellowship gave him the opportunity to see the way Europe functions. 

“It changed my orientation about the world,” he told GlobalAtlanta, adding that the trip helped him realize the importance of in trade of mega-regions rather than traditional nation-states.

Mr. Behr’s impressions echoed Mr. Lesser’s speech, in which he said that Georgia now faces the challenge of competing on the same scale as a country, a feat made possible by the regional approach he discussed in his speech.