"We have what we think are very attractive marketing and hospitality rights," she says. "The sheer scope of companies that find it interesting and useful to their businesses to be involved in the Games is amazing."
Sugarman's office in the Inforum Building downtown is at the heart of ACOG's business operations. "It's a pretty intense place to work," she says. "It's like an instant Fortune 500 company. It's so interesting to suddenly go from zero to a $1.6 billion budget and then basically go away next August."
Sugarman's role in the 1996 Games did not begin with ACOP. She originally was hired in June 1993 as deputy director of the Cultural Olympiad, where she helped with fund-raising before moving to ACOP in the fall of 1994. Sugarman, who had worked as in-house counsel for Federated Department Stores, was recruited by ACOG because of her fund-raising activities in the Atlanta community. She has served on the boards of the Downtown Child Development Center, the Atlanta Symphony, and SciTrek, and she was involved in the re-opening of Underground Atlanta.
"It's going to be wonderful what the Games mean for Atlanta," she says. "It's a $600 million physical legacy. I'm very proud of the spotlight the city will be in this summer."