Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Michael Hatcher.
Hi Dr. Hatcher, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I live and work on the east side of Atlanta, more specifically “Zone 6,” in the words of Future and Gucci Mane.
Since I live and work in the City of Atlanta, we are close to almost every neighborhood. I pride myself on being an Intown lifestyle specialist. Our Sovereign office is in the Edgewood neighborhood, and I have lived in the Kirkwood neighborhood with my family for over 15 years.
I grew up in the “real” New Jersey, South Jersey, to be exact, and I understand what it means to put in a solid day’s work both individually and collectively. People in South Jersey have a solid work ethic. Although it’s in the upper mid-eastern Atlantic part of the United States, New Jersey has a lot of farmland. Hard work and the notion that you should put in an honest day’s work is a part of the norm growing up in South Jersey. I moved to Atlanta in the early 90s and attended Morehouse College. After graduating, I was involved in several entrepreneurial pursuits, from starting a nightclub security company to running a barber and beauty salon, but ultimately I found my passion as a builder, leading me to the construction industry.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Of course NOT. I found my passion later in life, so I had to completely pivot and stop doing something that paid the bills to do something I truly loved: real estate and construction. I didn’t know anything, so I had to start from the bottom and build my way up. I enrolled in graduate school at Georgia Tech and went to school at night to pursue a Masters in Building Construction. I would go to school at night and run the business during the day. It was challenging, but the beauty came in being able to implement the things I learned at night into the company during the day, practically in real-time. I loved going back to school so much that I didn’t stop until I earned a Ph.D. in Building Construction, which was an extremely rigorous and challenging undertaking.
We’ve been impressed with Sovereign Construction and Development, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My company is Sovereign Construction and Development. It was founded in 2007 and has been around 15 years this year. Our core operations are general contracting, construction management and development.
We believe in people and purpose over profit. As a company, we focus on building and developing urban core in-fill commercial construction projects. As builders, we can fundamentally change the quality of peoples’ lives in everything we do. Building a library helps to facilitate the spread of information and knowledge; if we build housing, it provides people with a safe place to live and thrive, a church creates a place for fellowship, and a school creates a place for opportunity and innovation. No matter what we build, it becomes a contributing part of the community, and it positively impacts the quality of life people experience. As an organization, our mission is to make people’s lives better by building better places. That’s powerful. Every day our organization strives to elevate the quality of people’s lives and the lived experience. That is the beauty of construction; everything built is done in service of the human race and improves the human condition. There is no better calling and no greater mission. We should all be BUILDERS!!!
We are proud that one of our core focuses as a developer has always been affordable housing, even before it was such a hot topic of conversation.
Our latest project, FRONT PORCH on Auburn Avenue, in partnership with Historic District Development Corporation (HDDC), a nonprofit specifically dedicated to preserving the availability of affordable housing in the Old Fourth Ward and the Sweet Auburn district, recently broke ground on a complex that will have 37 co-living apartment units with retail and commercial space on the ground floor.
As an organization, we also strive to intentionally focus on attracting and retaining diverse and top talent as a “quality of life” enterprise or QLE. I believe the future of work lies in our abilities as leaders to impact positively the quality of someone’s life holistically. Leaders must focus on creating a working environment that aligns with a person’s life, not just what they do from 9 to 5. Building up the people on our team is just as important as the structures we build as an organization.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
If Dr. Benjamin E. Mays was still alive, I’d love to have lunch with him. He was the sixth president of Morehouse College from 1940-to 1967. Mays is credited with laying the intellectual foundations of the civil rights movement and influenced the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Maynard Jackson. I would love to know how an African American leader in the “Jim Crow” south crafted and developed his thoughts and approach to leadership in such perilous times. I would also love to know more about the creative process he utilized and the sources of his vision for leadership.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.DrMichaelHatcher.com
- Istagram: www.instagram.com/DrBigMikePHD
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/Michael Hatcher
- Twitter: twitter.com/DrBigMikePHD
Image Credits
VK3 Photography
