Jim Langford
Over the next several days we will be featuring speakers who will headline the 2nd Annual Rural Healthcare Symposium at the University of Georgia School of Law, April 21, 2018, in Athens, Georgia. Jim Langford will lead the "Morning Plenary Session" at 10:45 am. Seats are filing up quickly -- register for this free event here.
James ‘Jim’ B. Langford serves as Executive Director for the Georgia Prevention Project. The Georgia Prevention Project is a statewide drug-prevention program that partners with community members, schools, and prevention professionals to develop strategies, build coalitions, and provide drug education resources to reduce the use of dangerous drugs, especially methamphetamines, among teens and young adults. In recent years, drug overdose deaths have exceeded motor vehicle crash deaths in Georgia, per a GPP report.
Mr. Langford’s focus on the opioid epidemic follows a long career in public service programs benefiting Georgia communities. He is the former President of the Society for Georgia Archaeology, and a former member of the Georgia Board of Natural Resources (DNR), the Governor's Environmental Advisory Council, and the Georgia Humanities Council. From 2004 to 2007, Mr. Langford served as Georgia State Director of the Trust for Public Land (TPL). At TPL, he led the effort to design the connected park and greenspace system of the Atlanta BeltLine, and he directed the acquisition of more than $40 million of land to be converted from commercial and industrial uses into parkland.
A native of Calhoun, Georgia, he is the founder of two successful non-profits: the MillionMile Greenway, an organization that helps communities throughout the eastern United States preserve and connect greenspace, and the Coosawattee Foundation, an organization that concentrates its efforts on the study and protection of archaeological sites and environmentally sensitive areas in northwest Georgia. He earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School.
At the Rural Healthcare Symposium at UGA Law, Mr. Langford will speak about the Georgia Prevention Project’s efforts to combat opioid addiction in Georgia. He will discuss the findings of the project’s recent white paper led by the Substance Abuse Research Alliance, a collaboration among GPP and more than 60 research institutions including most major universities in Georgia and the CDC.
