Hobart McKinley "Mac" Conway

CONWAY, McKINLEY
Shiloh, Fla., - Hobart McKinley "Mac" Conway, one of the most significant and influential figures In the history of economic development, passed away in Shiloh, Fla., on May 29, 2011. A prominent member of the Atlanta community for 66 years, Conway was 90. In the course of his distinguished career, Mac Conway created such a broad array of landmark moments that his life almost sounds like fiction- His passions and accomplishments spanned an inordinately broad spectrum: He was a publisher, an entrepreneur, a writer, a globetrotting adventurer, a pilot and a musician. Above all, though, Conway will probably be most remembered as a pioneer; and many of his most notable accomplishments Came while Atlanta was his home. He was born on Nov. 1, 1920, In the small town of Hackleburg in northwest Alabama. At the age of 15, Conway was already a freshman at Georgia Tech, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees In aeronautical engineering. In 1995, Georgia Tech added another honor, Inducting Conway Into its Engineering Hall of Fame. During his college days, Conway led his own big band, "The Techniques." That group was so successful that he briefly considered a career In music. Instead, the licensed pilot accepted an offer to work for the U.S. agency that later became NASA. Based at Moffett Field in California, Conway conducted high-level aeronautical research In the base wind tunnel, serving as project engineer for testing the Navy's first jet fighter, the Ryan FR-1. In the course of his aeronautical work, he met aviation giants Orville Wright and jimmy Doolittle. Conway during those years made another fateful decision that was totally unrelated to his work: He married his college sweetheart, Rebecca Kellam, on Sept. 17, 1942, in Atlanta. After leaving NASA to return to Atlanta, Conway In 1949 founded The Journal of Southeastern Research - the first science journal ever centered on a single region. That publication caught the eye of a fledgling coalition of southern business and political leaders. In short order, they tapped Conway to be the director of the brand-new Southern Association of Science and Industry (SASI), a 15-state development alliance. Only 29, he spearheaded SASI's important role in transforming the then-backwater South into a business hotspot. He founded his own company, Atlanta-based Conway Data Inc., in 1947. By 1954, he had created another publishing milestone by launching Site Selection. Site Selection was the first magazine ever to focus on the then obscure domains of corporate real estate and economic development. Fortune's editors promptly took note, spotlighting Conway In 1955 as "A Man to Watch." Today, Site Select/on still dominates the industry. In the 1960s, he served in the Georgia Senate, joined by another son of the rural South, Jimmy Carter. Sen. Conway led the effort to establish Atlanta's mass transit system, MARTA, which became a model for the country. He also chaired the Governor's Commission for Scientific Research and Development and introduced Georgia's first "sunshine law." During that decade, Conway was also heavily Involved in global affairs. His company in 1960 won the contract to lead the Agency for International Development/Private Enterprise Promotion (AID/PEP). The U.S. State Dept. Initiated AID/PEP to demonstrate capitalism's superiority over communism in Central and South America. Conway traveled extensively to promote that goal. He organized delegations of Latin American leaders and escorted them to the U.S., where they learned from American business executives. Likewise, he frequently trekked to Latin America. In Panama, Peru and Venezuela, he organized and led Inter-American Development Conferences, connecting heads of state, cabinet ministers and business leaders. Vice President Lyndon Johnson in 1962 named Conway to a five-member team charged with strengthening economic ties with Southeast Asia. At the time, communists were aggressively jockeying for a foothold in that region. The U.S. team's Asian missions Included an unforgettable trip to Burma (now Myanmar). In the midst of a formal dinner honoring the Americans, the commander general of the Burmese army took the microphone. The military had just overthrown the government, the general announced- Then he immediately "Invited" the U.S. delegation to leave the country. The Americans flew out the next morning; to this day, the military still controls Myanmar. Conway had a special knack for creating groundbreaking organizations. He founded the International Development Research Council in 1961 and the Industrial Asset Management Council in 2002 - widely regarded as two of the world's premiere real estate associations. In 1991, Conway founded another unique organization, the World Development Federation (WDF). That organization linked the principal players in the world's billion-dollar "super projects." WDF mounted a series of conferences at sites scattered round the globe: Honolulu; Singapore; Barcelona; Osaka, Japan; San Francisco; Paris; Madrid; Atlanta; and Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Always eager to embrace new technology, Conway launched the development industry's first telecommunications network, SiteNet. Strikingly, he debuted SiteNet in 1983, a full decade before the Internet revolution began to remake modern life. Today, Conway Data's suite of Web sites attracts more than a million visitors a year. An avid world traveler, Conway visited 106 countries. On many of those trips, he piloted small private propeller planes, with wife Becky usually riding beside him. The Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech flew for almost 60 years, logging more than 7,000 hours in the air. One of his most memorable flights was 1965's trip across South America, flying with his wife and daughters from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Piloting a two-engine prop, Conway crested the Andes Mountains and then plunged down steeply into the lush, untamed Amazon Basin; from there, he navigated the rest of the flight by following the river. That course took the Conways into terrain eons removed from modernization! They landed on rocky, primitive strips, showered in rainstorms, and bought a blowgun with poison darts from Peruvian tribesmen. In another noteworthy sortie in 1980, Conway and daughter Laura flew a single-engine plane all the way from Atlanta to Europe. The plane didn't have nearly enough fuel capacity to cross the Atlantic. Consequently, the pilots mapped out a hopscotch course that required flying directly over the foreboding Arctic Circle. Navigating that difficult leg, though, facilitated vital refueling stops. Flying also inspired Conway to formulate the "airport city" model. In the late 60s and early 705, he planned many fly-in developments around the U.S. Most notably, he developed the Spruce Creek community near Daytona, today the world's most famous residential airpark. He summarized his experiences In a 1977 book, The Airport City, one of 48 titles he authored. Conway in 2001 moved with wife Becky to a large tract of land in Shiloh in north-central Florida. They lived there In a five-building compound with their daughters. Even as an octogenarian, Conway remained remarkably productive. In the last five years of his life, he wrote 10 more books- Similarly, Conway remained an energetic presence In cyberspace, frequently posting Ideas online. And he continued his long association with The Futurist magazine, contributing articles about everything from desalination and ocean energy to the "super cities of the future." In addition to his wife, Conway is survived by two daughters, Linda Conway Duever and Laura (lack) Conway Lyne, and two grandchildren, Adam Jones-Kelley of Atlanta and Piper Jones-Kelley of Whidbey Islan