DeKalb Advisory Roundtable with Commissioner Cochran-Johnson

Join the Council for Quality Growth's DeKalb Advisory Roundtable on December 1, 2022 at 8:30 AM in-person at the Druid Hills Country Club with Commissioner Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, DeKalb County, Super District 7.

Lorraine Cochran-Johnson
Commissioner, Super District 7
DeKalb County

Priorities
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Building a DeKalb that has a healthy businesses community.
PUBLIC SAFETY: With rises in crime not only in the county but the U.S. keeping DeKalb resident’s safe is my top priority through funding.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Understanding small businesses are the core and cornerstone of healthy communities.

Biography
Lorraine Cochran-Johnson is originally from Greenville, Alabama and a twenty-three-year DeKalb County, Georgia resident. Lorraine attended Troy University where she received a B.S. degree in Political Science and Criminal Justice; a M.S. in The Administration of Criminal Justice and received an M.P.A. in Public Administration with a concentration in Economic Development and Grant Writing from Auburn University before attending John Marshall Law School. Lorraine holds a business certificate from Harvard University in Delivering Public Services: Efficiency, Equity and Quality.

Lorraine has over two decades of experience in print media, mass communications, and management. A seasoned grant writer, Lorraine has developed state and federal proposals resulting in the procurement of millions in CDBG funding for state and local entities through the Auburn University Economic Institute. As a parent, Lorraine is a past president of Pine Ridge Elementary and Chapel Hill Middle School PTA. She independently secured over $200,000 in funding for school revitalization and digital technology in 2017, while donating $250,000 in 2020 for COVID relief to ensure the safety of educators and students. Lorraine strongly supports positive initiatives in economic development, education, public safety and home ownership. As the former moderator of DeKalb’s PDS-24 television show EngagementNow, Lorraine worked with show producers to develop content crafted around issues relevant to modern education. Lorraine is the current Parent Council President for 2021-2022 of Agnes Scott College, where she serves as the official parental ambassador of the college.

As a professional, Lorraine spent over a decade at Creative Loafing Newspaper. An entrepreneur, Lorraine founded Salons Unlimited Magazine, a publication that started with 5,000 print issues in Atlanta and grew to a 56,000 circulation in 31 U.S. cities in three years before being sold in 2010. In 2009, Lorraine became a founding member of United Front Media, a premiere film and visual media company specializing in content development where she produced commercials for the City of Atlanta, MARTA, KIA and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. In 2015, Lorraine joined Real Times Media as the General Manager of the Atlanta Daily World Newspaper and Associate Publisher of Who’s Who In Black Atlanta. She was the VP of Business Development for RTM Properties - AtlantaDailyWorld.com and Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine, before resigning to pursue public service.

As a Commissioner, Lorraine has worked hard for the people of DeKalb Since taking office in 2019. Lorraine has allocated over $4 Million in discretionary funding to non-profit and community-based organizations to facilitate the needs of DeKalb residents. She is the visionary and founder of the highly anticipated Education Marketing Botanicals Agriculture and Recreation Center (E.M.B.A.R.C.) Youth Farm. A fifty-eight-acre campus devoted to youth enrichment, entrepreneurship, healthy eating, and community. Lorraine recently funded the DeKalb County convention center study to develop much needed research for event space critical to moving DeKalb forward. Devoted to economic development and financial dignity, she is responsible for Operation HOPE in DeKalb, a partnership that has resulted in over 3,000 Dekalb residents receiving financial dignity coaching, credit repair, and home ownership counseling resulting in over $7 Million in down-payment assistance for DeKalb County residents. Additional programs created by Commissioner Cochran-Johnson include DeKalb Covid Info, Lock-In For Life, Let’s Vote DeKalb, DeKalb Cancer Week, and the technology based DeKalb Business Summit platform boasting the most comprehensive collection of business resources in a single platform.

The wife of Ret. Lt. Col. William H. Johnson, III, niece of Annie Page and the mother of Agnes Scott junior Zion Cochran, Lorraine values God, family, and community above all else.