GP Board Member: Paul B. Kelman

Paul B. Kelman is Executive Vice President of Central Atlanta Progress, Inc. (CAP). A Florida native, he received his civil engineering degree from Georgia Tech and Masters degrees from the University of Illinois, in urban planning, and Georgia State University, in public administration.

He also earned a Certificate of Public Management from the University of Georgia. He was the recipient of the Owens-Illinois Scholarship at Georgia Tech and the Richard King Mellon Fellowship at the University of Illinois.

He began his career as a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service. He subsequently worked for the Metropolitan Dade County Planning Department as Principal Environmental Planner and the Atlanta Regional Commission as Chief of Environmental Planning. From 1985 through 1987 he served as Planning Director for Gwinnett County in suburban Atlanta. A short stint with the consulting firm of Hammer, Siler, George Associates preceded his move to CAP. He served as Vice President of CAP from 1988 to 2000 and was
named Executive Vice President in July 2000.

Paul is past President of the Georgia Planning Association, and a charter member of the American Planning Association. He taught for ten years at Georgia Tech as an Adjunct Professor in City and Regional Planning. He is a charter member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and was named in 2003 to its College of Fellows, the highest honor conferred by the profession. In April 2003, Paul received the first Jack F. Glatting Mentoring Award given by the Georgia Tech School of City and Regional Planning. He is a graduate of Leadership Atlanta and Leadership Gwinnett.

He is a frequent speaker at national, state and regional conferences on city planning and
downtown development on topics ranging from downtown economic development and business
improvement districts to transportation and the environment.

He serves on the Georgia Tech Graduate City Planning Program Advisory Committee. For
several years he served on the Olympic Transportation Support Group and chaired its
Transportation Demand Management Study Team. He currently serves as Vice President and
Secretary-Treasurer of the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (the Ambassador Force of
Downtown Atlanta) and the boards of Imagine Downtown, Inc., the Brain Train Advisory Group
and GreenPlate, Inc.

Paul has served in leadership positions on many community organization boards, including
Research Atlanta, the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, Atlanta Private Industry Council,
Georgia State University Alumni Association, Clean Air Campaign and COPA (Centennial
Olympic Park Area).

Paul and his wife Donna have two children, Melissa and David, and grandchildren Logan, Lily,
Bethany, Audrey and Autumn.