Apr 27, 2010

South African Study Tour Visit Day 4

If it's Friday it must be the Federal Reserve. As luck would have it, the Georgia Council was partnering with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to conduct a middle school/high school personal finance workshop so we took the South Africans along to see what "helping teachers teach economics" is all about for us. Not only did our guests get to see 2009 Econ Teacher of the Year, and new-ish Fed employee, Amy Hennessy demonstrate a number of solid personal finance lessons, they also took some time to tour the Fed's money museum. Like every other person who has ever been on that tour, each and every one of them was blown away by the millions and millions of dollars that were driving around from room to room. You simply cannot beat the Fed for a quality location to conduct a teacher workshop.

Next up we drove a little north to visit some great friends at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Marietta. Hands up, who else in the group thought the tour of the C-130 and F-22 production facility was way beyond cool? The visit to Lockheed was very high on everyone's list (including mine) as "most amazing part of the tour." Follow that tour with a meeting with GCEE Executive Director David Martin on the "11 Keys to Success" and you have yourself a pretty great day.

Did someone say Apple store at the Lenox Mall? We tried, we really did. Each of the South Africans was ready to single-handedly stimulate the entire economy of Atlanta by purchasing every iPad and iPhone in the mall but they were all denied by incompatibility issues with the telecommunications system in their home province. The only real bummer of the study tour.

To be continued...