Housing Policy Landscape
Rep. Dale Washburn
Dale Washburn grew up in Jones County, the oldest of four sons. He received his formal education in the Jones County Public School System and at Macon State College.
He entered the real estate brokerage business in 1975 and has remained active in the real estate business since that time. His experience includes residential and commercial brokerage and development, as well as property management, both as a practitioner and as a principal broker who is responsible for the supervision of other agents. He has been a licensed instructor for several years and owns and operates the Dale Washburn School of Real Estate. He has written a pre-license textbook, Basics in the Business of Real Estate, that he now uses in Pre License Classes at his school. He also wrote a 25 Hour post-licensing textbook, You Have a Real Estate License, Now What? In addition, he has written several continuing education courses that are approved by the Georgia Real Estate Commission.
Dale has been active at every level of the Realtor organization having served as local boardpresident, GAR vice president and several terms of NAR director. He was honored to be Middle Georgia Association of Realtors Realtor of the Year in 1994 and Georgia Realtor of the Year in 2004.
Dale has been active politically for many years. He served as vice chair of the Jones County Commission from 1985 through 1988. He has been involved in the campaigns of a number of congressional and legislative candidates, as well as serving as a political activist in the Realtor Organization for issues involving real estate and private property rights. He is an active member of Ingleside Baptist Church in Macon, where he serves as a deacon and adult bible study leader. He and his wife, Donna, have been married for over 40 years. They have three sons, a daughter, three daughters in law and five grandchildren. They also have an 85 pound mixed breed dog that was rescued from a terrible situation in downtown Macon. He is named Roscoe. Dale considers it a great honor to have been elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He is committed to doing his best to do a good job of representing Georgia’s families and Georgia business.
Mayor Michael Caldwell
Mayor Michael Caldwell is a successful entrepreneur, business owner, a former four-term member of the Georgia House of Representatives, and the 31st Mayor of the City of Woodstock. He is raising his family in downtown Woodstock, he has built his business in downtown Woodstock and he is committed to making Woodstock the best city in America to live, work and play.
Michael owns Black Airplane, a full-stack digital product agency in downtown Woodstock. The award-winning company employs more than 25 Georgians full-time and serves some of the largest companies in the world. As a proven technology leader in Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp appointed Michael to serve on the Board of Directors of the Georgia Technology Authority.
In 2012, Michael was elected the youngest state legislator in the United States and retired after serving Woodstock for eight years in Georgia’s House of Representatives. He championed ethics reform, term limits, and economic freedom across Georgia.
Michael was on the founding team of the North Atlanta Venture Mentoring Service, the first MIT trained entrepreneurial mentoring service in Georgia aimed at helping new ventures increase their odds of success here in Cherokee County. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Cherokee County Historical Society, and his wife Katie serves as the President of the Woodstock Arts Board of Directors.
Michael grew up in Woodstock, graduated from Cherokee County Public Schools, and earned his BBA in Finance from Kennesaw State University in less than three years. Michael and his wife Katie have three children, Oliver, Elizabeth and Charlotte. The Caldwell family are members of Sojourn Woodstock.
Rep. Spencer Frye
Spencer Frye was first elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 2012, representing District 118 (Athens/Winterville) and currently serves as the Executive Director for Athens Habitat for Humanity.
He’s also been a small business owner and a construction manager, has helped to export American ambulances overseas, and co-founded an environmental company. As a business owner, non-profit director, and now state representative, Spencer Frye has met and worked with folks from all over the community, and successfully balanced the interests of citizens, private enterprise, and government. His wife Gretchen is an emergency room nurse at Athens Regional, and his kids attend school right here in the district he represents.
An entrepreneur at heart, Spencer is optimistic about the future, about what can be accomplished with the right vision and a little shoe leather. That’s why he’s worked to see common-sense changes made, such as…
- Ending the double-tax of public schools paying taxes on fuel
- Restoring local choice to Georgia cities, including Athens, to allow increased access to grocery stores for all local families
- Removing regulatory barriers that kept life-saving medical emergency supplies out of schools
- Meeting requirements for modernizing the Savannah harbor and increasing international trade in Georgia
- Expanding the ranks of workers making a living wage in our state
- Assuring safe, sustainable development in downtown Athens
- Allowing more rural non-profits to assist with housing in their communities.
- That’s also why Spencer Frye wants to create more incentives for sustainable building, to reduce utility costs for everybody through increased efficiency, to reward businesses who invest in revitalizing their areas, to find cost-effective solutions for maintaining our roads, waterways, and bridges, to ensure all Georgians have access to a doctor when they need one, and to bring the best educational practices to Georgia and Athens so we see the maximum return on our investment in our kids.
And that’s why he’s serving as your representative — to make government more responsive, more efficient, more sensible. Because to get things done, it takes good ideas, solid planning, and someone who cares enough to see the project through.
Commissioner Nicole Hendrickson
Nicole Love Hendrickson was elected chairwoman of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners in 2020, making her the first African American to hold this position in Georgia’s most diverse and second-most populous county. As the Commission Chair, she leads the Board in setting the direction and formulating policies for County government, overseeing the creation and adoption of the County’s more than $2 billion budget, and ensuring Gwinnett’s superior services reach all its nearly 1 million residents with the standard and quality they have come to expect.
Since taking office, Chairwoman Hendrickson led Gwinnett County’s efforts in combating COVID-19, rolling out comprehensive vaccination efforts and overseeing more than $180 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. Under her leadership, Gwinnett opened the first COVID-19 mass vaccination site in the state in partnership with GNR Health Department, which resulted in Gwinnett County being one of the leading counties in Georgia for vaccination rates. She also helped launch Project RESET 2.0, providing more than 6,000 struggling households impacted by COVID-19 with emergency rental and utility assistance.
Chairwoman Hendrickson was instrumental in rewriting Gwinnett County’s vision, mission, and values statements to emphasize the principles of accountability, transparency, equity, inclusivity, and innovation. She continues to lead in the development of Gwinnett’s unprecedented Equity Action Plan and the Gwinnett Place Mall Equitable Redevelopment Plan, which both serve as guiding principles for ensuring investments and service delivery center the voices of the community.
Chairwoman Hendrickson oversaw the investment and launch of the Gwinnett Entrepreneur Center as well as the initiation and expansion of the Police Mental Health Collaboration pilot program, both of which have expanded since their launch. Embracing Gwinnett’s diversity, she is the first Gwinnett County Chair to host the County’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month celebration and recognize Juneteenth as a paid county holiday.
Chairwoman Hendrickson is active on several local and statewide boards including the Atlanta Regional Commission, Metropolitan North Georgia Water District Board, Gwinnett Board of Health, Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Aurora Theatre. She is a proud member of the Rotary Club of Gwinnett County. She currently leads the Local Leaders Housing Action Committee, which is tasked with developing a regionwide plan to address housing affordability challenges.
Chairwoman Hendrickson is a 2010 graduate of Leadership Gwinnett, a 2016 graduate of the ARC’s Regional Leadership Institute, and a 2016 graduate of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber’s Cultivating Hispanic Leaders Institute. She has been recognized as one of Engineering Georgia’s 100 Most Influential Women in Georgia and Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Power 100: Most Influential Atlantans. She was the recipient of Congressman Hank Johnson’s Trailblazer Award and the Gwinnett Chamber Public Service Award. In 2018, Georgia Trend named her one of the state’s top 40 under 40. Prior to being elected Chairwoman, she served as Gwinnett’s first Community Outreach Director. During her tenure in Community Outreach, Chairwoman Hendrickson championed Gwinnett’s multicultural outreach efforts and launched several community-based initiatives, including the Gwinnett 101 Citizens Academy and the Gwinnett Youth Commission.
She graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and earned a Master of Social Work from the University of Georgia. She currently resides in unincorporated Lilburn with her husband and their son.
Jeff Ledford
Jeff Ledford has an extensive and proven track record of state level executive leadership with strengths in policy development, legislative affairs, budgets, staff development, management, negotiations, statutory compliance and fostering strong professional relationships.
In addition to over two decades of state level experience, Jeff has been recognized at the state, national and international levels for leadership, innovation and promoting organizational efficiency in administrative and regulatory governance.
Jeff has also held standing columns in industry publications; chaired several international panels related to investigations, technology and examination credentialing; been an active participant on industry boards; and been named by the Atlanta Business Chronicle to Who’s Who in Finance (2008-2010).