G8 summit left imprint on isles

Global leaders met on Georgia’s golden coast in June 2004.

The community went right to work. Although Sea Island would be the primary stage for the prestigious conference itself, city, county and business leaders wanted everything to be just right. It’s not every day, after all, that the international spotlight comes to town, and the G8 conference would be a perfect opportunity to show the continents Georgia’s golden coast.

But all the fanfare that preceded the arrival of the threeday conference June 8, 2004, proved to be much greater than the fanfare that accompanied it. Other than a handful of protesters who were never allowed to get close to the main event and the army of federal agents and other law enforcement personnel on the mainland and St. Simons Island whose job was to protect the leaders of the world, there was little else visible to the public eye.

The conference was upstaged by the death of former President Ronald Reagan on June 5, 2004, and his funeral June 11. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia and other countries joined the United States in a final salute and goodbye to one of the nation’s most popular presidents in recent history.

Ten years later, there are those in the Golden Isles who remember the G8 as as an exciting time. Renn Gruber is one of them.

He had nearly completed the hangar at McKinnon St. Simons Island Airport in 2003 that would eventually house his business when he was approached with a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Before the company could move in, Gruber agreed to let more than 400 federal employees use the hangar as the communications and logistical headquarters for U.S. operations during the annual meeting of the heads of state on Sea Island.

Getting the chance to provide the hub for multiple agencies like the Secret Service, FBI, CIA and state agencies like the GBI was something Gruber does not expect he will ever experience again.

“We were lucky,” Gruber said. “I was part of the whole operation the whole time.”

He keeps a scrapbook with photos, newspaper clippings and other items to commemorate the experience.

Looking back, Gruber is still impressed by the coordination and cooperation he witnessed.

“It is impressive what the U.S. can do, both with its security and diplomatic abilities,” Gruber said. Bringing all the security agencies together under one roof is still used as a model today for similar events, he added.

Although the meetings were not public and were not something that attracted tourists, Gruber said G8 left its imprint on the Golden Isles through infrastructure like several cell phone towers that were built on St. Simons Island to handle the increased workload of an affair that annually costs around $500 million.

For others involved, like Chief Matt Doering of the Glynn County Police Department, G8 was a unique learning experience.

He began working with federal and state agencies to plan security for the meetings as assistant chief in 2002. By December 2003, Doering had become chief and was in the middle of organizing 130 agencies and more than 1,500 people in the massive effort to ensure not only that the heads of state like former President George W. Bush were safe, but also that protesters who annually show up at the meetings did not get out of hand.

“I remember there being an enormous amount of planning involved,” Doering said. “Watching all those components come together was impressive. It was a wonderful opportunity for everybody who participated, in any capacity.”

Doering said the 2004 meeting is considered one of the most successful G8s in the history of the event. Protesters came, but there were very few problems with them, he said.

It was an experience Doering still draws from today.

As a new chief at the time, seeing the process of setting a goal, putting the pieces in place to see it through and following it to fruition was invaluable, he said. “You can’t go to school to learn that stuff,” Doering said.

He applies those lessons today when implementing initiatives like the joint violent crimes task force and recently created crime suppression team.

Then there was the exposure the community received from the meetings.

“For me, it meant more people learned what we have here as a community,” Doering said of the influx of federal and state agencies who came here to work behind the scenes.

Those are the people Bill Tipton, then director of the Golden Isles Convention and Visitors Bureau, said were important to how the community approached future big events like the McGladery Classic.

“(G8) was not a tourist event,” Tipton said. “But it was a huge community effort.”

Tipton said the hotel industry had plenty to do to get ready for G8.

“It was a lot of coordination,” Tipton said.

Hoteliers agreed on a threetiered system of rates to charge the employees who needed places to stay during the meeting so that they would get fair prices, Tipton said.

“It kind of showed us we could do it,” Tipton said of hosting a large influx of visitors for a single event. “It was a super neat experience for all of us.”

Tipton expects the 2004 G8 Summit is a nice tidbit to learn about while visiting the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, but he doubts anyone is making a trip just to come to the place where it took place.

Still, “It’s a nice notch in the belt to be able to look at the lists (of places where the meeting has been) and see us on them,” Tipton said.

AJC FILE Law enforcement officers in riot gear order G8 protesters to move as they sit in the road near the checkpoint leading to Sea Island on St. Simons Island in June 2004. Authorities were concerned about security at the economic summit, and protesters were...