Gwinnett developer Emory Morsberger pitches in to help in Ukraine

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A. I went there on June 8 and met with Romanian folks who were receiving and organizing there to ship [relief supplies] across the border. It’s been difficult to ship stuff into Ukraine in the middle of the war. There aren’t flights going in and Ukraine is on the Russian system of railroads. Their railroad gauges are different than the rest of the world, so you can’t go back and forth by train. That leaves tractortrailers and trucks. I arrived “They are strong. And in Romania they have welcomed and spent two or three days the people who have and then in the southern part of Ukraine, where I evacuated from the east with open arms and basically helped organize food put them in all kinds shipments and of facilities. They’re handed out food directly. determined to win, and Q, How are the they are really sticking folks that you talked with together.”

holding up? EMORY MORSBERGER

A. They are strong. And they have welcomed the people who have evacuated from the east with open arms and put them in all kinds of facilities. They’re determined to win, and they are really sticking together.

Q. You talked to many refugees as well, you had said, people who had fled the war-torn parts of the country

A. I met with dozens of these folks that were in all kinds of housing situations -- almost entirely women, children and older men. They were generally middle-class people whose neighborhoods were getting bombed. They’re just like us. I was impressed with their desire to keep their freedom.

Q. Turning to your career as a developer and a civic leader, what made you decide that there was new life to be breathed into places like downtown Lawrenceville?

A. First of all there was a growing desire for my generation to be closer to small towns, and, second, Lawrenceville is the county seat of Gwinnett County, which is the most dynamic county in the Southeast. It just needed a spark, and I was the spark. People said I was crazy and couldn’t turn it around. I said that I was going to do my best and it worked out pretty well.

Q. You were involved in a pretty high-profile push for mass transit some years ago. Can you talk about that?

A. I was the leader of a group called “The Brain Train.” In 2005 and 2006, we were working to set up light rail on railroad rights-of-way radiating out of Atlanta. Our first effort was called “The Brain Train” because it went from downtown, where you have Georgia State and Georgia Tech; then out to Emory [University]; and to Mercer {University] at Northlake; then to Lawrenceville, where you have Georgia Gwinnett College; then all the way to Athens. We had a lot of momentum, but it was shot down by Gov. Sonny Perdue in 2014.

Q. Any current efforts along that line?

A. I’m working the next two years at getting a line along Jimmy Carter Boulevard and Mountain Industrial Boulevard. We’ve got the DeKalb County portion and the Gwinnett County portion, but the two counties don’t talk, so we’re getting organized to actually cross the county line.

Q. Why do you think seniors are more active today?

A. We grew up in the 60s and 70s with the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement and we were interested in what was going on around us, and not counting on the government to do everything for us. I went to Emory, and I was on the 40th anniversary reunion committee a few years ago. We were being shown around by a 27-year-old girl and we got to the second floor of the Emory Museum, and she asked if we could make it down the stairs. It was like a hot poker got stuck in people.

Q. What do you do in your spare time?

A. We’ve got nine grandchildren and my wife is in grandchild heaven. We love spending time with the family. Also, I set a goal 20 years ago of visiting every country in the world and Turkey was number 104. I plan on keeping up with that as well.