[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 143 (Tuesday, October 6, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2457]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO BILL HARRISON

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                       HON. LYNN A. WESTMORELAND

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 6, 2009

  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Bill 
Harrison, the recently retired president of the Coweta County 
Development Authority, who died September 29 after a battle with 
cancer.
  I had the great privilege of knowing Bill personally. He was a 
professional, a dedicated husband and father, an avid outdoorsman, and 
an all-around great guy.
  He put his heart and soul into bringing new businesses and 
opportunities to Coweta County, and that's how he and I became 
acquainted. He would take business recruits under his wing like a 
mother hen. He would often bring them into my district office 
personally, assuring they had a friendly, familiar face in the room and 
that they got all of their needs met and all of their questions 
answered. He also saw to it that nothing got lost in translation 
between us Georgians and our international business partners.
  As the Newnan Times-Herald reported upon his death, ``Harrison 
assisted with locations or expansions of numerous companies, including 
PetSmart, SYGMA Networking, Kingwasong, Winpak Films, D&H Distribution, 
and MC Precast. He considered the planned location of the Cancer 
Treatment Centers of America to Coweta County the highlight of his 
professional career.''
  It's fitting that his crowning achievement will be a center to fight 
the ravages of cancer, the disease that took him from us much too soon. 
The cancer treatment center will bring at least 500 new jobs and 
hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact for Coweta County.
  When Bill retired this summer, the Times-Herald editorialized: ``Bill 
Harrison is a good guy. If he were in an old western movie, he would be 
wearing a white hat. . . . When Harrison took the economic development 
job in Coweta, our community's industry-recruiting effort was a mess. 
It was fragmented. There was no single go-to person or organization. It 
had gotten so bad that prospects would simply look elsewhere. That 
changed after Harrison was hired to preside over the Development 
Authority and that group became the go-to agency here.''
  Bill was more than a fierce advocate for the community; he was also a 
beloved figure. On a web site set up for his family, more than 2,000 
people expressed their condolences.
  All of Coweta County mourns the loss of our dear friend Bill 
Harrison. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife of 43 years, 
Virginia Heitzman Harrison, and their family.

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