Overflow Crowd Attends PCBA Kick Off Meeting

The held its inaugural meeting earlier this week at the and by all accounts it was a rousing success. The organization's first meeting Tuesday drew some 200 business, school, church and political leaders. Organizers had anticipated 120 to attend.

Michael McLaughlin, PCBA's president, was delighted at the business community's response. "It was much bigger than expected," said McLaughlin. "It was exciting to watch all of those people come in."

The meeting room quickly filled up and hotel staff scrambled to provide seating for everyone. It was a good problem to have for McLaughlin and the PCBA board, who have been working for months organizing and planning for the first meeting.

"We were orginally trying to hit 100," said McLaughlin.

The association was organized to provide a networking opportunity for the businesses in the new city. McLaughlin said the board is looking at a date in April for the next event, which he said would probably be an after-work or evening social for networking.

PCBA does plan on holding monthly meetings "by the second half of the year," said McLaughlin. The locations will vary he said. "We're looking at holding big quarterly meetings and then smaller monthly networking meetings."

On hand to help kick off the first meeting was Peachtree Corners future mayor Mike Mason, Gwinnett County Commissioner Lynette Howard (Dist. 2) and State Rep. Tom Rice.

Steve Cone, who owns a Peachtree Corners based online marketing company, said it was just what the business community needed. "I really liked what Michael McLaughlin said in his opening remarks when he said, 'We need to get to know the people in the room and do business with them.'"

Peachtree Corners businesses supporting each other was certainly what Sally Falkowski, a Realtor with , wanted to hear. "It was fabulous, the turn out terrific," said Falkowski. "We need to pull together as a business community. We're definitely going to join."