Committees
The DE&I Council works to promote, influence and advance our diversity mission throughout the Cobb Chamber and the community through the following four focus areas:
In each focus area, the Council is working to achieve the following vision statements:
AikWah Leow, Cobb County Government
Aisha DeBerry, Gas South
AJ Brooks, Wellstar
Al Martin, Georgia Power
Andrea Foard, Cobb County Government
Andrea Smith, The Atlanta Black Chambers
Angela Getter, Life University
Angela Parks, First Citizens Bank
Angie Lipscomb, TKE
Ashley Palmer, Cobb County Government
Belisa Urbina, Ser Familia Inc
Brandon Porter, Northwestern Mutual
Brian Marcos, City of Smyrna Fire Department
Britt Fleck, Georgia Power
Cheryl Richardson, Richardson Legal Group
Chris Lugo, Out Georgia Business Alliance
Chris Martin, Kaiser Permanente
Claudia Colichon, Ohio River South
Cory Savage, Charlie’s Angels Movers
Cynthia Syken, Humanvue
Daniel Vasquenza, VanMan Inc
Danielle Bedasse, Atlanta Braves
Darin Mitchell, Chase Bank
Darrell Morgan, 5th Down Group
Dave Ward, Tommy Nobis Center
Dawn Moore, Devry University
Deane Bonner, Cobb NAACP
Dedre Brown, Georgia DOL
Derek Goshay, Genuine Parts Company
Derrick Vincent, Jacobs Engineering
Diane LaRoss, Taylor English
Donna Middlebrooks, Re/Max
Drina Miller, Taylor English
Dyann Wilkerson, Wellstar
Elaine E. Armster, LINKSCAPE360
Erick Allen, GA House of Representatives
Esther Prieto, Cobb EMC
Harrison Davis, Life University
Holly Quinlan, Cobb Travel & Tourism
Ish Gayle, GHCC
Jackie Charles, Women are Worthy
Jackie McMorris, Cobb County Government
Jen McKeehan, Walmart
Jenny Jang, TKE
Jeriene Grimes, Cobb NAACP
Jesus Martinez, Peachtree Capital
John Loud, Loud Security
Jon Ingram, Woodruff Arts Foundation
Joseph Malbrough, The UPS Store
Joyette Holmes, Marietta Law Firm of GDCR
Juan Violantes, Violantes Group
Judith Bowers, Cobb County Government
Karen Hilton, Wellstar
Karen Park, The Walker School
Kartik Bhatt, Asian-Indian Chamber of Commerce
Kathryn Smith, Walton Birch
Katina Cunningham, C3 Innovations
Ken Johnson, East-West Pshycotherapy
Keylan Mitchell
Kim Ellet, The Growth Coach
Kyethea Clark, Atlanta DOT
Lashaunda Smith-Pope, Georgia Power
Le Joyce Naylor, Wellstar
Leanne Richards, Colgate Palmolive
Lee Johnson, Wells Fargo Bank
Lisa Cupid, Cobb County Government
Littie Brown, SpeedPro
Martin, Shari, Cobb Community Foundation
Marty Hughes, City of Kennesaw
Melvin Coleman, The Atlanta Black Chambers
Michael Baptiste, Metro Atlanta Chamber
Michael Murphy, Cobb County Government
Michael Smith, Life University
Michele Swann, Cobb Galleria
Mindy Elkan, MDE School
Mishaune Sawyer, JE Dunn
Naceo Denney, Georgia Power
Nicole Lawson, United Way
Norma Zuniga-Cardoza, Georgia Hispanic Chamber
Odessa Archibald, Georgia Power
Patti Schoettler, AFLAC
Rachel Rogers, Cobb Travel & Tourism
Randal Crider, Cobb County Government
Ric Kimball, KPMG
Rosanmarys R. Petrillo, Kaiser Permanente
Russell Smith, TSA Foundation
Russell Tamika, Life University
Sasha Bailey, TKE
Shenia Kirkland, Vonage Business
Sheree Knowles, HR Knowledge
Sonya Grant, CobbWorks
Stephon White, Gas South
Steve Byrne, Mauldin & Jenkins
Suzanne Tucker, Georgia Symphony Orchestra
Sylvia Carey-Butler, KSU
Tatiana Yarbrough, GHCC
Tiara Hunt, Strengthening Her Evolution, Inc
Tiffany Collie-Bailey, Girls Inc. Atl
Time Spearing, Gas South
Tracy Styf, Town Center CID
Velvet Washington, Gas South
Veronica Moldanado Torres, Georgia Hispanic Chamber
Vivian Ford, Wellstar
William Cheeks, ABBA Associates, Inc.
William Tanks, City of Powder Springs
Yvonne Byars, MUST Ministries
© 2024 Cobb Chamber of Commerce. All Rights Reserved.
Cobb Chamber of Commerce
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to