Although he’s been known as Georgia’s Secretary of State for the past five years, Brad Raffensperger is also a licensed structural engineer, licensed civil engineer and contractor.
Before stepping into the political arena, he started his own business. Tendon Systems is a specialty contracting and engineering design firm with nearly 200 employees and has operated in 35 different states. Raffensperger also owns and operates specialty steel manufacturing plants based in Columbus, Georgia and in Forsyth County.
It’s fitting, then, that Raffensperger addressed the Southwest Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce at its Thursday Thought Leaders breakfast on March 12 at Hilton Atlanta Northeast. He discussed a variety of topics, including election security voter ID and the importance of stable leadership in business and politics.
Part of the community
Although he’s not from metro Atlanta, Raffensperger has been in the area for most of his adult life.
“We came here over 40 years ago,” he said. “I’ve been here longer than your kids have been alive. … But sometimes people say, ‘Well, you just got here.’ No, I got here in 1982 and it was actually here in Gwinnett County.”
The Raffenspergers’ first house was in Duluth. Two years later, they moved to Peachtree Corners on Fitzpatrick Way. His family then moved to Lilburn where they operated a daycare, which he said began the quest for being business owners.
“So I understand how important it is … [to be] a cash flow capitalist,” he said. “If you’re a small business owner, you’re a cash flow capitalist, because when you run out of cash, you’re out of business. And so you’ve got to make sure you have a line of credit, but you really want to make sure you have the cash flow coming in to pay those bills.”
He now lives in Johns Creek where he began his political career serving on the city council for two years and represented the area in the State General Assembly from 2015 to 2018. In 2019, he became Georgia’s 29th secretary of state.
Business challenges today
Although many business owners are concerned about tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China having a negative effect on their bottom line, Raffensperger is optimistic they will rebound. He mentioned a profitability coach he knew when he was starting out.
“She was with a peer group with a lot of fellow Christian business owners,” he said. “I came through the kind of times like we have right now.”
He explained that when duties are raised by as much as 25% that can really impact business owners.
“When you do about 60 million feet of steel strand [a process or product involving the formation of a continuous, often flexible, material by combining multiple individual wires or filaments] a year, and you’re paying 35 cents a foot for strand, and overnight it goes up 25%, that’s over $5 million,” he said. “When you get hit with $5 million, and that’s more than 50% of your profit, you can’t pass that on.”
He referenced the fact that the U.S. gets most of its aluminum from Canada and industries such automobile manufacturing could be hit hard, which could impact local dealers and other supplemental businesses. His own business weathered a similar storm in 2003.
“We got through that because of the lessons I learned back in 2003 when they hit tariffs over 25%. So I’ve been through where you’ve been,” he said. “If you are there, come and see me.”
He gave out his personal cell number and encouraged business owners to reach out.
Politics and business
Raffensperger reiterated that political figures with business backgrounds are good for the state. Subsequently, Georgia, known for its pro-business environment, consistently ranks high for business climate, offering a competitive tax structure, strong infrastructure and a skilled workforce, making it attractive for both domestic and international businesses.
“If you look at our office as Secretary of State, what we handle is corporations. Well, heck, I actually formed about three of them last year,” he said. “I’m just really excited with corporate registrations. We have now 1.4 million corporations [in the state.]”
He talked about a bill he sponsored while in the state house that allowed corporations to renew their licenses for as many as three years at a time.
“In 2018, when I became Secretary of State, that’s when we implemented it,” he said. “Over 25% of all business owners now do the multi-year renewal.”
Securing elections
Raffensperger made national headlines with the 2020 presidential election. On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, then-U.S. president Donald Trump pressured him to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn the state’s election results. Raffensperger held firm to the state’s voting rules.
“Georgia’s voter rolls are the cleanest in the nation thanks to the diligent partnerships we’ve made to secure our elections,” said Secretary Raffensperger years later when Georgia was ranked No. 1 for election integrity by the Heritage Foundation, awarded a top ranking for voter accessibility by the Center for Election Innovation & Research and tied for number one in election administration by the Bipartisan Policy Center.
“Clean voter rolls mean maximum election integrity. Like any election, officials across the state are working hard to prevent any undue influence on the ballot box.”
He said there are a few more minor tweaks that need to be made, but subsequent elections “went off without a hitch.”
“I think that really just shows you, after 2020 we stood our ground, but we didn’t just stand our ground to be obstinate. We actually had the facts. We followed the law, we followed the Constitution, but we followed the facts,” he added.
He seemed to bear no ill will toward Trump and even appeared happy to announce shortly after the polls closed in November 2024 that Trump had taken the vote in Georgia.
“I got excited on election day after it had started, and we started seeing it just roll through,” he said, adding that there were no long lines.
“We put into state law that lines had to be shorter than one hour,” he said. “We actually tracked that the average wait time was two minutes.”
Early results and public trust
The fact that 80% of voters either used absentee ballots or voted early allowed Georgia to have results by 9:30 p.m.
“At 10:15 I called the governor, and finally met with the press at 10:30, and about an hour and half later, the national media finally said that President Trump had carried the state of Georgia,” he said.
He added that Fox News declared that Georgia and Florida had the best-run elections in the entire country.
“But if you don’t believe Fox News, you might believe UGA,” he said. “They actually polled the voters and found that 98% of all of you said, ‘Hey, I waited less than 10 minutes.’”
Raffensperger went on to add that as a public official, his job first and foremost is to preserve public trust.
“The most important thing in society is trust,” he said. “If you don’t have trust, you can’t do anything.”
