EXECUTIVE WATCH Gretchen Johnson


CEO of DaVinciSKY Group By Rick Weatherford W


e catch Gretchen Johnson in a rare hour of relatively free time. She is in Orlando, having headed


south from her metro-Atlanta home, when she says in a cultured, soft Southern accent that would make Scarlett O’Hara sit up and take notice, “Thank you so much for choosing to spend an hour with me; I’m flattered. Hopefully, something I say will be worth repeating. It’s wonderful being down here in Florida because now Miss Georgia can’t decide whether she’s winter or spring.”


Make up your doggone mind, Miss Georgia!


It would be wrong to base an assumption on Johnson’s accent and Southern manners that she’s akin to an antebellum belle. The CEO and founder of DaVinciSKY was in Orlando for a “Women in Power” symposium — and that could be a clever pun because Johnson’s flagship company and its subsidiaries feature helicopters in power-line construction, inspection, and maintenance.


It’s no pun; Dr. Johnson, with her earned PhD in education, has a resume of powerful accomplishments. Here are a few peachy appetizers to whet your appetite for this profile. In her 20s, she became the youngest school administrator in Georgia. She chose to leave her education career — more about that later — but as a Georgia Tech electrical engineer and MBA who was “a helluva engineer” (as GT’s fight song says), she worked at Southern Company, an electric-utility behemoth. She consulted for top utilities and service providers throughout the U.S. and was the principal engineer who restored electricity after Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy and


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Mar/Apr 2025


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