Chris Britton Takes the Reins at Cobb Chamber

That ballpark was Truist Park, and Britton was in the thick of construction, attempting to do the near impossible: build a Major League Baseball stadium in just 29 months, on a piece of land that would present more than one obstacle.

But there was one chamber event he wanted to attend, the August 2014 Strategic Visit to Dallas, Texas.

There, the chamber and local leaders had the chance to gain insight on several industries in the Lone Star State and take a tour of the Dallas Cowboys AT&T Stadium.

But Britton had just one mission on the trip: build rapport with Mike Plant, Braves Development Company president and CEO.

Saturday night, more than a decade after that trip, Plant brought Britton on the Cobb Galleria Centre stage to pass the torch of chamber chairman.

“I look forward to passing on this torch over to you, Chris,” Plant said. “He is a great friend, he’s got a standard of excellence that is second to none, and I’m grateful that we were able to convince (him) to step into this role.”

Britton succeeds Plant as this year’s chamber chairman, and addressed the audience of 1,100 people at the chamber’s annual dinner. In his speech, he promised to help lead the chamber into another “All-Star year” in 2025.

“I’m honored to join you tonight as your 2025 chairman,” Britton said. “The chamber is going to continue to thrive, and we need to continue to recruit and plan for the future ... The year ahead is going to offer lots of opportunities for partnerships and collaborations, so let’s use each opportunity to tackle tough projects together, to work as a team and figure out innovative solutions. And along the way we’ll develop trust and mutual respect.”

‘In my blood’

Britton grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“I actually get along with a lot of Georgia folks, even though I’m deep in enemy territory,” he joked in a recent interview with the MDJ.

There, a deep love, respect and fascination with the ocean was instilled in him. Though he doesn’t surf anymore these days, he still has a passion for scuba diving and all kinds of fishing.

As he puts it, “saltwater is in my blood.”

After graduating high school, he took an academic scholarship at Florida State University to study biology, but left after one semester to join the U.S. Marine Corps.

He spent six years in the Marines between his time on active duty and in the reserves, with stops including Camp Lejeune and Parris Island.

Britton was in boot camp when Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, and Airborne School when the United States started its bombardment of Iraq.

He was supposed to be deployed, “but the ground war ended too fast, and the war was over.”

His reserve unit was stationed in West Palm Beach, Florida, but at this point, Britton had moved to Gainesville, Florida, to further his education. He’d eventually graduated from the University of Florida with the highest honors, but not before completing a construction program at nearby Santa Fe College.

Brasfield & Gorrie

It was the fall of his junior year that Britton was introduced to Brasfield & Gorrie while on a field trip to a job site. Now, it’s one of the largest privately-held construction firms in the country. Then, Britton said it as a much smaller operation.

Intrigued, he took a co-op with the company before the start of his senior year, and spent the summer in Atlanta.

He was 24 and starting to think more seriously about his future. When he witnessed the company’s response to the loss of a colleague, he knew he wanted it to be with Brassfield & Gorrie.

“Our chief estimator passed away at a very young age. (He had) a widow, two little kids,” Britton said. “And I saw an office embrace that situation like there was no tomorrow. And I thought that’s where I want to be. I want to be in a place that I know if something were to ever happen to me, that the people that I work with are gonna watch out for the best interests of my family.”

Britton met his future wife, Beverly, while in school. They’re both from West Palm Beach and grew up five miles apart from each other, but their paths didn’t cross until they’d both moved more than 200 miles from home to Gainesville.

When Britton was offered the gig, he had to come up to Atlanta from Florida to meet face-to-face with Rob Taylor, then-president of Brasfield & Gorrie.

“I think my interview maybe lasted two minutes, literally,” Britton said, and it consisted of just two questions: “What do you want to do?” and, “Where do you want to work?”

Both answers were easy.

Britton turned down the offer to stay in Florida to move to Atlanta with Beverly, who’d been hired to work at an advertising agency in the city.

There was one thing he forgot to ask.

“I got up, I shook his hand, I walked out and I flew back to Gainesville .. of course (I) get there and everybody’s talking ... ‘What are they gonna pay you?’ ... I left accepting an offer having no idea what my salary was gonna be,” Britton said, laughing. “I was just happy to have a job.”

The Georgia Aquarium

Over nearly three decades, Britton’s risen through the ranks at Brasfield & Gorrie, working in preconstruction, as an assistant project manager, and, at one point senior project manager.

It was the early-aughts, and Britton said his team landed an interview “for a project we had no business interviewing for,” the Georgia Aquarium.

In the room was Bernie Marcus, the late Atlanta business giant who built Home Depot, and Jeff Swanagan, the late executive director of the aquarium.

But with saltwater in his veins and an academic background in biology, Britton said he was able to impress the two with some obscure marine reference.

“I don’t think that got us the job,” he said, but Brasfield & Gorrie did secure the project and all subsequent expansions of the Georgia Aquarium.

When it was unveiled in 2005, it was the largest aquarium in the world. Today, it’s still the biggest in the United States.

Landing the aquarium birthed a new division Britton would eventually run that focused on sports and entertainment, with the Georgia Aquarium serving as the anchor client.

Britton said they tried, unsuccessfully, to get the contract for Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

But soon, something much closer to home came along.

Home of the Braves

Today, the Atlanta Braves do spring training in North Port, Florida, but when Britton was a kid that site was West Palm Beach.

“I grew up a lifelong Braves fan, and I was one of those kids that used to shag balls out in the outfield when they did come for practice,” he said. “... You’d go and you’d wait for hours after them as they take showers as they’re coming out of the stadium to try to get things signed.”

So when news broke that the Braves were moving to Cobb County in November 2013, Britton saw it as another full circle moment coming to pass.

Since Brassfield & Gorie had never taken up a stadium project of this size, they forged a partnership with three other American-based construction companies — Mortenson Construction, Barton Malow Company, and New South Construction Company — to become one: American Builders 2017.

“America was a big deal. Some of our competition were not American-owned companies, and all of our conglomerates that made up our joint venture were United States-based. I don’t know if the Braves ever got any of this,” he laughed, “But it meant a lot to us.”

With the contract secured in spring 2014 and a deadline to get the team into the stadium by December 2016, American Builders got straight to work.

There were several obstacles they had to overcome — the tight deadline, a challenging landscape with bedrock that had to be blown up, but none were more urgent than the two underground pipelines running right through the property.

Britton said that Plant and Braves CEO Derek Schiller barely batted an eye at the puzzle of the pipelines — “they’re not afraid of anything” — and took it in stride when he had to break the news that the soil around the removed lines needed to be surcharged and left untouched for 60 days, throwing a wrench in construction plans.

“They look at each other, they lean back and Derek goes ‘Well, Chris, you got any good news for us?’ and they laughed,” Britton recalled.

Then Plant turned and said something that surprised Britton.

“’What are we gonna do about it.’ ... Not ‘what are you gonna do about it,’ ‘what are we gonna do about it,’” Britton said.

The stadium was built faster than any other in MLB history, according to the league.

It’s not been without its critics, but for those who love it like Britton, it’s a piece of them.

“When we won the World Series, that was part of me,” he said. “You really feel like you’re part of the Braves family and the Braves team.”

According to the chamber, Truist Park and the Battery saw more than $40.3 million in tax revenue to the county and state in 2023, with $21.7 million sent straight to the county and its Board of Education.

Those numbers, Cobb Chamber President and CEO Sharon Mason said, will only be higher in the years to come.

“This is prime real estate, right?” Mason said, looking out over Cumberland from the chamber’s 10th-floor office. “This area, and entire Cobb County, we hadn’t seen a new office towers in decades coming up ... This was a major economic boom for this area and just transformed it.”

‘A phenomenal leader’

Though Britton resisted joining the chamber at first, he’s welcomed it with open arms ever since participating in its Honorary Commanders program.

The leadership program pairs business professionals with military personnel, giving them the chance to learn more about local military activity and the defense system.

For some, Britton said, it can be “eye-opening.” For him, it’s a return to his roots.

He graduated from the program in 2019, and went on to participate in Leadership Cobb (class of 2023) and become increasingly involved in the chamber’s Membership Campaign, chairing it the last two years.

Mason said his new role of chairman is well-deserved.

“Chris is a phenomenal leader and we are extremely blessed to have his leadership stepping into the board chairman role,” she said. “He’s been involved for a long time with the Cobb Chamber in many capacities ... he lead a record-breaking membership campaign in 43 years of having it. ... He’s also done a lot to build this county, so it’s neat to see him coming in.”

He joked it’s a result of “peer pressure.”

The offer came at a mysterious meeting set up by Plant.

“(Plant) goes ‘Chris, there’s something I really need to talk to you about,’ and my heart drops ... my head (goes) down, and I think I might have said a bad word,” Britton said. “... Like ‘Shoot, Mike, am I in trouble?’ ... As soon as those words come out of my mouth ... the door opens and Trey Sanders comes in.”

Then a proper parade — former Chamber Chairs Greg Teague, Ben Mathis, Mason and many more.

“How can you say no to that?” Britton said.