March 5, 2004 (Atlanta) - Dr. David Bruce, professor of International Business and an authority on Latin America, has been named president of the Georgia-Pernambuco Partners of the Americas, a private, nonprofit and nonpartisan state-to-state organization linking Georgia with the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
"The Georgia-Pernambuco relationship is one of the oldest the state has had and it is now more important than ever with our drive to become the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas," said Bruce.
Pernambuco is the home of Brazil's current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as well as other senior government officials and Brazilian business leaders.
The relationship is part of the Partners of the Americas Organization that grew out of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. Georgia and Pernambuco were teamed up in 1968. Over the years, delegations of government administrators, farmers, legislators, judges, business and health professionals in rehabilitation and medicine as well as tourists, sports teams and students have visited back and forth.
Bruce previously served as president of the organization for two years in the mid-1990s. He also recently completed a term as chairman of the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce of Georgia Inc., a position he held from 1999 to 2003..
