Dye joins Industrial Properties Group as broker
Industrial Properties Group of Gainesville has announced that Russell Dye has joined their staff as an agent/associate broker. He will be handling sales and leasing activity along the Interstate 85 corridor.

A graduate of Georgia State University, Dye has a BBA in Real Estate from the Robinson College of Business and has been involved in various aspects of real estate since 1999when he was first licensed.

He is involved with the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors, the Urban Land Institute, the Atlanta Chapter of the Association of Young Real Estate Professionals and the Gainesville Jaycees.

Dye resides in Gainesville with his wife, Pamela, and their daughter, Madilyn.

Papanicolaou named VP at National Bank of Georgia
Mark D. Papanicolaou has been named as group vice president for National Bank of Georgia in Gainesville.

His primary role will be to assist the bank's business banking market expansion into Gainesville and Hall County. He will also share responsibility for managing existing and future planned retail branch facilities in that market.

Papanicolaou was born in Athens, and is a 1985 graduate of The University of Georgia. Additionally, he completed the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University in 2003 and was a member of the 2003 class of Leadership Georgia.

A 23-year banking veteran, he established Park Avenue Bank's Athens office and served as its market president.
Prior to that, Papanicolaou worked for SouthTrust Bank as its market CEO for Northeast Georgia. In that capacity, he was responsible for the overall retail and commercial operations in Athens, Winder, Jefferson and Oakwood.

He and his wife, Susan, have two daughters.

"Mark is a very successful, proven commercial and retail banking professional with direct experience in the local market," said Billy Glosson, regional president.

Abernathy joins Norton Agency as associate VP
The Norton Agency has announced that Brad Abernathy has joined the firm as associate vice president.

Abernathy has been a real estate broker for more than 12 years and will serve clients in residential, acreage, commercial and investments.

Bates Carter & Co. promote Geer and Sayer
Two promotions have been announced by Bates Carter & Co., a Gainesville accounting firm.

David Geer has been promoted to audit supervisor in the commercial audit department.

Lori Sayer has been promoted to audit supervisor in the government audit department.

Geer and Sayers joined the staff at Bates, Carter & Co. as staff accountants and served as audit seniors before being promoted to supervisors.

Ex-principal Dover named as outstanding educator
Terry Dover, recently retired principal of Lula Elementary School, has received the Outstanding Educator Award presented by the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders at its recent conference.

The award is presented annually to a GAEL member who has shown significant achievement in the field of educational leadership and who has made important contributions to the association or its affiliates.

Among his accomplishments as principal of Lula Elementary were improved student attendance, steady increases in student academic performance, a parent volunteer program and a business partner program.

His community activities included the Lions Club, where he served as president for four terms, a Scout master, Scout summer camp director, city councilman, GHSA basketball official and trainer and chair of his church building committee.