On September 18, 2025, Charles H. “Pete” McTier attended his final board meeting as a Georgia Research Alliance Trustee. GRA was one of a select few board invitations he accepted after retiring from The Woodruff Foundation in 2015 (which he served for 44 years, 18 of them as president). But before he became a GRA Trustee, McTier had attended nearly every other GRA Board meeting as an observer and supporter – including the inaugural meeting of the full board back in 1990.
At the time of his last meeting, McTier was Secretary/Treasurer of the GRA Board, a post he’d held since 2018. In this 35th anniversary year of GRA, he kindly agreed to share his perspectives on the origins, story arc and impact of an Alliance he had come to know so well.
GRA’s origin story is familiar – in 1983, the state had lost its bid for a microelectronics research consortium to Texas. As the story goes, one of the selection committee members for the consortium observed that the university presidents in Georgia didn’t seem to know each other. That comment planted the seeds of a concept to build bridges among the universities.
But it took a few years for this concept to gel. Between the 1983 story and the 1990 founding, you became president of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. Can you share your recollection of this origin story?
The business and state leadership had said, ‘We’re losing the tech race here, and we need to do something.’ Gov. Joe Frank Harris asked Larry Gellerstedt, Jr., who was head of Beers Construction at the time, to get some business leaders together and look for ways to make Georgia more competitive in technology and the sciences. Tom Cousins was there at the outset too – and also Jim Laney, president of Emory at the time.
The Campbell Foundation provided support for a McKinsey study to define the problem clearly, and what to do about it. Jim Balloun, was in charge of the McKinsey office at the time, became very involved in the project.
How did the concept for GRA take shape?
The organizers determined that you had to have world-class researchers in place, a nucleus of top experts and skilled scientists who were at the cutting edge in their fields. The idea was that the newly formed organization would play a leading role in helping attract these scholars. The Woodruff Foundation provided initial moneys for the operation of what became GRA. I had become president of the foundation and was involved in early organizational meetings with Larry, Tom, Jim Laney and Jim Balloun.
As for the state’s involvement, the concept really got traction under Gov. Zell Miller. He advocated for the ambitions of GRA, and he called for state money to support it in his budget. It was clear that the organization, although a private nonprofit, would depend on state appropriations for its success. State legislative leaders also agreed to the state providing money to support the work of GRA.
Going back to that missed opportunity for Georgia in 1993, how did the formation of the Alliance address the issue of the universities getting to know each other better?
It is true that, years before, the culture and leadership of Georgia Tech and UGA had been in competitive conflict, and that was certainly amplified on the football field. Through GRA, the presidents began to develop relationships they hadn’t experienced before. They came together at the GRA meetings, jointly participating and looking for ways to cooperate.
Today, when a new president is appointed, it’s expected that the president is going to embrace and participate in GRA’s success. You now have wonderful collaborations among the universities. I give credit to GRA for playing an important role in drawing the institutions closer together.
Can you share anything about internal discussions at the Woodruff Foundation regarding the early funding of GRA?
At the time, we saw it as an imperative. If Georgia was going to be a meaningful contributor to advancing science and medicine, our state was going to have to step up. At the Woodruff Foundation, the root of it was in the longstanding Atlanta tradition of “let’s do things better, let’s do things greater.” The business leadership has always been very ambitious. It was out of that ambition that came the push to do something like GRA.
There’s a photograph of the first GRA Board meeting that’s been shown a lot. You’re in it, even though you weren’t officially a Trustee – because you were leading the Woodruff Foundation.
I started attending the GRA board meetings at the very beginning and continued to do so during my time as president. Having Woodruff there at the table every time said something to everybody else. Then when I retired as president, I went on the GRA board.
Was it unusual for the president of the Woodruff Foundation to attend board meetings of nonprofits as an observer?
Oh yes.
So why this nonprofit – why GRA?
Because of its potential, because it needed help from the beginning. And because it could be so beneficial to our research institutions. There were other meetings of other important organizations of course, but I wanted to make sure the community knew Woodruff was behind GRA.
I remember one of the reports from a university president at the meeting that was very positive. Tom Cousins was chair of GRA at the time, and he said, ‘If I had a bottle of champagne, I’d propose a toast.’ He was holding a Coca-Cola bottle when he said that. I said, ‘Tom, what you’ve got in your hand will do just fine.’ The point was, the Woodruff Foundation and what it represented, and the relationship between Coca-Cola and the community, was important encouragement to everybody.
One of the things that make GRA distinct is that it’s an alliance of government, industry, academia and philanthropy. From your vantage point at the Woodruff Foundation back in 1990, had you seen anything else quite like it?
No. There may have been other similar alliances, but I’m at a loss to name another. From the beginning, the uniqueness of GRA was one of its great strengths.
Over the years, how much did you find yourself talking with colleagues about what Georgia’s universities were doing in terms of innovation and research?
Constantly.
What did those conversations sound like?
I got into the mindset of paying attention to what the universities were doing. And coincidentally, as a side note, Mr. Woodruff’s interest in the medical program at Emory was his foremost philanthropic interest. While I didn’t get close to the scientists themselves, I would be exposed to them at the GRA meetings. And I would get to know some of them in my direct work with the universities.
It’s important to know that these [GRA Scholars] are national leaders in their fields. Max Cooper is one. He made a historic discovery about how our immune systems work. Max came to Emory from UAB, and when get someone like him who is recognized at the top of their disciplines nationally, they attract other great scientists.
What do you wish more people knew about the role of universities in American innovation?
It would be good if we had a greater understanding, nationally, of the advancements of science across the board that came because of university research success. Because there are so many different kinds of institutions around the country, and they all advance their own messages, it can be hard to see the totality of their success.
Because you have this perspective of GRA’s history, do you feel you’ve seen GRA’s potential realized?
I wouldn’t say I had a fixed vision at the beginning of where it should go as an organization. It was more a matter of getting it underway and succeeding in building greater capabilities at Georgia’s research universities. The outstanding progress of that effort, seen from the beginning, is what I appreciate about GRA.
And I think GRA could be even stronger. Greater participation on the part of the private philanthropic community would be beneficial and could help encourage the state’s further investment. GRA needs and deserves investment from the state, because you’ve got state institutions who are principal beneficiaries of the GRA process. There’s really no limit to what can be done.
This interview was edited down from conversations with Pete McTier in Summer, 2025.
