From the boardroom to the links: East Lake Golf Course selects AT&T's Ray M. Robinson to run operations - Special supplement: golf & tennis challenge

Black Enterprise, Sept, 2003 by Maya R. Payne

In May, Ray M. Robinson was named president of Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club, a facility whose rebirth in the early 1990s attests to the power of community, government, and corporate cooperation. In his new position, Robinson is charged with continuing the vigilant coalition building that reclaimed the East Lake neighborhood from violence, poverty, and drugs. Robinson is up to the task, and views East Lake's "golf with a purpose" community renewal program as a model for other troubled neighborhoods to emulate.

Robinson, himself an avid golf fan and a member of several golf clubs, enjoys playing in both his spare time and while he's working. The father of two children who was raised in a black community in Dallas, Robinson says he plans to create a tournament at East Lake.

Prior to its demise--resulting from white flight and urban decay beginning in the 1960s--East Lake was known for its great contributions to golf. It's home to two golf courses designed by famed architect Donald Ross and legendary amateur golfer Bobby Jones, winner of the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open, British Amateur, and British Open all in the same year. By 1970, East Lake Meadows, a 650-unit public housing project, had been constructed on the site of the club's second golf course, marking another step in the club's movement toward obscurity.

Fortunately, a charitable foundation purchased East Lake in 1993 with a mission to restore the club as a tribute to Jones and the other top-notch players who'd honed their skills on its greens. With golf as a centerpiece, the foundation embarked upon a neighborhood renewal project, and by 1995, the East Lake course and clubhouse had been repaired. "East Lake Golf Course has been restored to its splendor of old," says Robinson.

The revitalization did not stop there. The $121 million overhaul of the area dramatically altered the inner-city Atlanta landscape. The redevelopment includes mixed-income housing, a charter school, family YMCA, and a child development center.

Robinson first became affiliated with East Lake in 1996 when his employer, AT&T, became a founding sponsor of the course. Prior to taking the helm at East Lake, Robinson was president of AT&T's Southern Region. There he was responsible for marketing, sales, and promotions of AT&T's business and consumer services in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

The position was the culmination of a long and fruitful 35-year career with AT&T. Robinson began in 1968 as a communication technician, installing long-distance circuits while still in high school. From there he held several management-level positions of increasing responsibility in corporate relations, marketing, operations, regulatory affairs, and sales. Those positions required him to relocate 13 times to cities such as Albuquerque, New Mexico; Portland, Oregon; Chicago, San Francisco; and Colorado Springs, Colorado before finally settling in Atlanta.

"The work I was doing before was to use technology to solve business problems," says Robinson. The primary reason we were there was to use our products and services to help people do their jobs better and to make a profit. My new position has more of a noble type of an objective, helping to build lives is different than helping to increase stock prices."

Through AT&T's corporate membership to East Lake Golf Club, Robinson played on the golf course and became impressed with other aspects of the community such as the East Lake Family YMCA and the Eastlake Junior Golf Academy. He participated in groundbreaking festivities for both.

The YMCA, which opened in 2001, is a 57,000 square-foot full-service facility that offers East Lake residents venues including a youth and children's education center, a family aquatics center, and a wellness center.

The Academy is a year-round program founded during the 1995-1996 school year to teach the community's children hard work, integrity, and self-discipline through golf. "It teaches young men and women the rules and behaviors in golf, [which] translates quite nicely to behavior as citizens," says Robinson. In its short five-year history, the Academy has introduced 200 children to the sport through small group instruction.

A 2002 agreement between the PGA Tour and Coca-Cola ensured that East Lake will remain a top-tier competitive venue for years to come. The comprehensive, global, multiyear partnership stipulated that Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club, site of the 2002 PGA Tour Championship, would become the event's primary host value. The championship brings the top 30 money winners at the end of the PGA season to Play for a purse of more than $1 million. The championship will return to East Lake for the 2004 and 2005 competitions. As president of the East Lake Golf Club, Robinson plans to make the generate more funds to benefit the neighborhood renewal project. Robinson says that corporate memberships, like the one that introduced him to East Lake, will continue to be a part of the club's efforts to the community. Founding sponsors, companies that pay a membership fee to join the club and also make a mandatory contribution to the East Lake Community Foundation, have contributed more than $8 million to the cause.