Senator Eric Johnson, FAIA

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Senator Eric Johnson, FAIA, (R, Savannah) was elected to the Georgia State Senate after serving in the House of Representatives since 1992. Senator Johnson served as the Senate Minority Leader for two terms and currently serves as president pro tempore of the Georgia Senate. He recently announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor of Georgia in 2010.

Education
I started with a bachelor’s degree at Tulane University—and then they changed it to a master of architecture.

Career path
Well, I was drawn into architecture by my uncle, who is originally from Louisiana. He went to Georgia Tech and then ended up in St. Louis as a principal with HOK.

When I graduated in ’76, there was a recession going on and Dallas was the only place booming, so I ended up working a year in Dallas and then moving back to my wife’s hometown of Savannah. Right after I got my license in 1980 was when I began my political involvement. I went on a U.S. Senate staff in ’81 and ’82 and then decided I didn’t want that as a career and went back to architecture. I worked for a couple of firms, but ended up with a large E/A firm, Hussey, Gay, Bell, and DeYoung in Savannah and was with them for 19 years. I was the managing partner of the architectural division for about 10 years. I left them three years ago to get into real estate development to give me a little bit more free time. Managing partner and billable hours was a tough blend with the political career and, at the time, the Republicans had taken over the state senate, and I had become the de facto lieutenant governor, so it was a real strain trying to do both those jobs.

Why did you get into local politics?
It started as a way to meet people. I went to a Young Republican meeting when we first moved to Savannah because an old friend of my wife’s invited us. I wasn’t raised politically and my parents weren’t active, so it really started as a social outlet. I began to enjoy the give and take of the issues and then I got involved with the strategy of politics, and it just took off from there.

When I worked for a U.S. senator, I was the regional director on the coast of Savannah. The senator was from St. Simon’s Island, so it was his home territory, which was great because I would see him a lot: picking him up at the airport, driving him back. It gave me a lot of experience talking to bank CEOs, to farmers, to waitresses, to retirees, to union members because I was representing him in the field. That was a great background for me to develop people skills and begin broadening my knowledge of a variety of issues other than architecture.

Do you have any plans to run for national office?
Washington is too partisan and it just doesn’t seem to work well to me. I still like the part-time legislature, the citizen legislature where I can have a real job and do my public service at the same time. You can’t do that in Washington.

We have announced my candidacy for lieutenant governor in 2010. We haven’t done a formal announcement, but we’ve formed our committee and we’re starting to do some fundraising.

What’s your proudest accomplishment as an elected official?
I’d say there were two. The first one is more administrative. I was the minority leader when we took over, so the biggest accomplishment was switching from the minority to the majority after 130 years, and taking over and learning how to govern. That’s no easy task when all of a sudden people are writing budgets and chairing committees and there are no mentors to tell us how to do it. The only time the Republicans had controlled Georgia was after the Civil War and Reconstruction when they were put there by the Union forces.

The second one would be education reform. I passed Georgia’s first voucher program for special needs kids, where if your child has an individualized education program in public school and you find a better environment in a private school for them, you can take the state portion of the public school funding which is about $5,000-6,000 and put that towards tuition.

What’s your priority during this term?
Continuing on education reform and expanding school choice, that’s the main thing. We’ll focus some on government reform issues that try to keep accountability, transparency, and the ability for citizens to actually make a difference and give less consideration to special interests.

What design issues are facing Savannah aside from historic preservation?
Until the recession, it was more of a growth issue. We had the fastest growing port in the country, and tourism was growing and retirees moving south and a major military base expanding, which is great for the economy but it continues to strain resources.

We also have limited water, which affects land planning and growth. Georgia’s just beginning to implement our first statewide water management plan, and we still have legal issues with our neighboring state of South Carolina. We’re talking about Savannah, but Georgia’s also dealing with Alabama and Florida on the other side. We have ongoing water wars and saltwater intrusion, so protecting our environment and making sure that we have enough water for residential growth and economic development is particularly important. Georgia, probably like most states, is also facing infrastructure challenges, particularly roads and traffic, and we’re trying to figure out how to build infrastructure with no money.

Over the last couple of years, the design profession has become more prominent in public awareness. Do you think architects’ services are being fully engaged by elected officials though?
Now you’re in my wheelhouse. I preach this as often as I can. Architecture is a great background for public service. We’re trained to take a client’s vision or a citizen’s vision, help them focus it, develop a plan to reach it, and work with a diverse team to accomplish it. To get where you want to go, you have to think 30, 40, 50, 100 years out instead of one or two. We have budgets that we have to meet. The whole way we’re trained and our whole work experience lends itself to serving in public office.

I think the biggest fault I have with both parties is that we tend to look to the next election and not the next generation. We don’t think long term enough. Architects by our nature are thinking what’s this building going to look like 100 years from now and how can we preserve what we have and update it. Our whole career dovetails with what we need in public office.

Favorite local building
I love courthouses and city halls. I love the old government buildings. There’s the old Savannah Volunteer Guard armory that the Savannah College of Art and Design, it was the first building that they moved into.

The other one in Savannah is the new Telfair Museum that Moshe Safdie did—that fits into our historic district’s fabric very nicely. I’m not one that says we have to make fake historical buildings and that would be one in Savannah that I think people ought to make note of.

Final thoughts
This country is a republic and not just a democracy, so who we elect to figure out transportation infrastructure and health care is important, and it only works to the extent that citizens are educated and involved. It’s not just elected officials who have to make these decisions. Citizens have a role, not just on election day but as policy is developed and architects need to become more engaged than they are, whether it’s through the PACs or knowing who their elected officials are. We are about to go into a major infrastructure package, both nationally and most of the states, and that will affect architecture practices’ revenues also, so it’s important to know what’s going on and who represents us.