When Brynn Grant grew up in Liberty County, she didn’t think much of Savannah. 

It was where you went to the doctors or to go to the mall to buy a new coat. 

Since then, wherever she goes, growth seems to follow. She had a key role in the birth of what is now the Savannah Music Festival, in JCB bringing 500 jobs to the area, and in leading the United Way through COVID. 

Recently, Brynn returned home to Liberty County to lead the county’s economic development efforts in a post-Hyundai Coastal Georgia. 

Learn more about Brynn and Liberty County at comegrow.global

Where & Why is recorded in beautiful downtown Savannah and produced by Garrett Zajac for Zip Zap Media and EBS Brain, where we are only as good as the quality of our conversations.

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Welcome to Where & Why, a podcast where we surface the origin stories of community leaders and influencers.

Today, we brought back two guests who have something a bit unusual in common. They both have attended Burning Man - a week-long, large-scale event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance.” It is held annually in the Nevada desert, about 100 miles from Reno.

The event's name comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as the Man, that occurs on the Saturday evening before Labor Day.

The event is guided by ten stated principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

Our guests are:

A.L. Addington is the retired dean of the business school at Valdosta State University. For his 85th birthday, his son took him to Burning Man.

Christi Hester, a massage therapist, is in her early 30s and went to Burning Man for the first time this year with friends she met at a professional conference.

We asked them what they learned …

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Today we are in conversation with Clinton Edminister, an Oregon native who ended up in Savannah via Homer, Alaska.

Of course, SCAD was the draw for a pioneering videographer, but Savannah also gave Clinton the chance to become a true Renaissance man. He is an artist and art advocate, he has started two successful small businesses - Starlandia and Waters Street Cafe, was appointed to the Chatham Area Transit board, and ran, unsuccessfully, for county office.

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Today we are in conversation with Peter Roberts, gallery manager at Location Gallery on Bull Street. It is a joint project with Austin Hill Realty to promote Savannah artists and raise money for local charities. To date, the project has  donated around $300,000. Peter is a Connecticut native who 30 years ago came to Savannah for a year at SCAD. And he's still here.

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Today we are in conversation with the Rev. Michael White, the retiring rector of historic Christ Church Episcopal on Johnson Square.

Michael came to Savannah in 2008 to navigate the church through some of its most turbulent times in a history that dates back to 1733. 

The congregation was divided by the Episcopal Church's acceptance of gay and lesbian clergy and same sex marriages. One group called themselves Anglicans and left the denomination; the other group remained Episcopal. What followed was a lawsuit over who had the rights to the historic church building, a legal and moral dispute that split families, friends and neighbors.

As a Georgia native and former rector of a church in Richmond Hill, White knew what he what he was getting into but he likely didn't imagine that 16 years later the church would have grown to its highest level of members, diversity and viewpoints. 

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Welcome to Where & Why, a podcast where we surface the origin stories of community leaders and influencers.

Science and Writing have always competed for space in the brain of Dr. Mark Murphy.

He is a noted gastroenterologist AND he writes a column for the Savannah Morning News. His first focus was on research, while his first book, Shadow Man, was a well-received thriller. He is now writing the second in a Young Adult/Fantasy trilogy.

Mark is almost a native Savannahian, having met his wonderful wife Daphne met at Calvary Day School. 

This conversation was recorded in Historic downtown Savannah, GA, where hotels are always 87% occupied and the rent is way too high.

It is produced by Garrett Zajac for ZipZap  Media and is a project of EBS Brain - where we study the Human Intelligence behind success. Find out more at ebsbrain.com/whereandwhy.

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Welcome to Where & Why, a podcast where we surface the origin stories of community leaders and influencers. 

Today we are in conversation with Wade Herring, whose day job is as an employment lawyer with the storied Savannah firm Hunter McClean. 

Wade, whose mentors included former mayor Malcom McClean, has served on and advised numerous community boards. But most people know Wade for when he stepped out from behind the curtain to run as the Democratic candidate for Georgia's First Congressional seat in 2022. He lost to incumbent Buddy Carter.

Wade's story begins in Europe where his father was serving in the military.

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Welcome to Where & Why, a podcast where we surface the origin stories of community leaders and influencers. 

Today our guest is Ivy Council. She is chairman of the board of Goodwill of Southeast Georgia, a member of the board of directors for the Savannah Book Festival and the YMCA.

Council recently retired from CitiTrends, a Savannah-based urban clothing retailer where she spent the last 16 years as EVP Human Resources and Chief Compliance Officer. Before that she was with Wendys, Ross Stores and AraMark.

She grew up in Philadelphia and went to Chatham University in Pittsburgh. So she knows about diplomacy, although she had to learn it …

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Welcome to Where & Why, a podcast dedicated to cultivating the science of conversation.

Today, our guest is Rexanna Lester. Rexanna's first job was as a tractor parts salesperson in Garber, Oklahoma. Her love of words led her to be a teacher in Germany, and her ambition led her to become the first woman editor of the Savannah Morning News. 

Since leaving the paper she has been an ESL teacher for SCAD, a long time board member of the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, and is now working on a long-awaited biography of Mills B. Lane.

Full disclosure, Dan worked for Rexanna until 2004. 

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Today we are talking with Molly Carrott Taylor, executive director of the Hidden Gem that is Savannah's Ships of the Sea museum. 

Taylor came to Savannah after growing up in Kansas, spending summers in Michigan, and going to school in the Northeast. Her love of museums and art traces back to her grandmother, of whom she has vivid memories. While Covid interrupted Taylor's professional journey, she is now gathering an impressive team to boost the prospects of Ships of the Sea. 

Where & Why is produced by Garrett Zajac for ZipZap Media and is a project of EBS Brain - a company that teaches companies how to work with the brain and not against it. Find out more at ebsbrain.com

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