Macon Magazine

December 2025/January 2026 | maconmagazine.com 89 I mpressionable kids can grow up to do some pretty inspiring things. Take Eric Williams, owner of Unified Defense, Truss US (a division of UD), and Prince Service and Manufacturing, for example. As a boy growing up in Canton, Ohio, he worried about his grandmother's welfare. Rain or shine, when the temperatures soared or the mercury plummeted and streets were laden with snow, Joanne Marzano depended on local bus service for transportation to her job at a local library. She didn't even have a driver's license because car ownership was a financial impossibility. Galvanized by memories of his grandmother's transportation challenges on top of her full-time job, decades later her devoted grandson had a novel idea to make life a little easier for bus riders in Macon, his adopted city, with an exceptionally generous gi . Eric Williams chats with Macon Magazine about his determination to use his success as a springboard for community betterment by donating fi een custom bus shelters to the Macon-Bibb County Transit Authority (MTA) in the name of his indefatigable grandmother — and how he got to Macon in the first place. Donating fifteen $35,000 bus shelters, totaling more than $500,000, is gob smacking. Tell me how your grandmother's story prompted this donation. My grandmother, Joanne Marzano, was very poor and raised 11 children. She never had a driver's license — why would she? She couldn't afford a car and took the bus to and from work each day, year round, regardless of the weather. She wore a cap when it was raining and sometimes, in winter when snowplows cleared the roads, they plowed right over the bus stops and she'd have to walk through that. It just bothered me. I got older and Grandma was still riding the bus. And by then, the city had declined and was dangerous. Her purse was stolen, and some other unjust things happened. It was hard to watch. So, how did your concern become an action plan? I'd love to take all the credit, but my mother is part of the story. She belonged to Rotary in Ohio, and got the club to join her in raising funds from local businesses to buy a bus shelter dedicated in my grandmother's name. I thought they'd easily raise funds for multiple shelters, but they barely got enough money to finance one. They could have done better. The people didn't care, and some club members even put in their own money. So I decided to do in Macon what they barely accomplished in Canton. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I'm not in a Rotary club, but I am a member of the Greater Macon Chamber of Commerce and a board member. So I called the president, Jessica Walden, and said, "I have this crazy idea to donate bus shelters." I asked if she'd set up a meeting for me with whoever I needed to talk with about it. Easy peasy in Macon, right? You requested a meeting and promptly got one. Yes. Jessica put me in contact with Lynn Farmer (then the Chamber's Director of Workforce Development), and a Macon- Bibb County Transit Authority (MTA) board member. Lynn arranged a meeting for me with MTA CEO, Craig Ross, and Operations Manager, Tony Woodard. When we met, they asked, "How can we help you?" I asked if I could donate fi een bus shelters to MTA. They just looked at me and a er they picked their jaws up off the ground they asked if I was kidding. I assured them I was serious and hoped I didn't offend them. They said I didn't need permission, and they definitely wanted the shelters I was offering. I wanted to be sure that the shelters would be impactful and provide MTA with the flexibility to build additional shelters or to reallocate the funds for other improvements. Craig and Tony assured me they'd be happy to reallocate more than a half million dollars for other authority programs. Walk me through the shelter design and construction process. Our shelters are all-aluminum structures. The metal roof is welded, but the rest is bolted on. The cost for each shelter is $35,000, which includes the concrete pad each one sits on. There was a big coincidence which made the project even more enjoyable. Allen Windham, Director of Engineering for Prince, and Tony Woodard previously worked together at Blue Bird Corporation. Both are very detail-oriented people. We discussed what MTA liked and didn't like about their current shelters and Allen worked on customizing the design. We knew it needed to be simple, lightweight, and modular, so if there is an accident or something breaks, we can replace a single piece and do it quickly instead of replacing the entire shelter. That means lower maintenance costs in the long run. Tony was specifically concerned about the accessibility of the benches. He wanted a le entry and a right entry so the shelters would be handicap accessible regardless of the entry point. He wanted wheelchair users to be able to access the back of the shelters. Except the metal roofing, we made everything for the shelter, including the benches and trash cans. We also supplied the plastic cans that line the inside of the cans, and our field services crew installed all the shelters, which was an additional bonus. How would you describe working with Tony and the MTA team? They truly care about their riders. They have been incredible. I was thinking about constructing panels on the shelters so MTA can sell advertising. That's when Tony told me that some MTA shelters have art panels and asked if it was possible to have art on the new shelters. I was surprised and said, "Man, my mind didn't even go there." I like the idea of adding beauty to shelters. So, there's a panel for art on each shelter and room for advertising on the front and sides, and we added MTA's logo and our three logos — Prince, Unified Defense, and Truss. How did the completion of fifteen shelters line up with the timeline in your head? When we started I thought this would be a really easy process. I'm an impatient millennial, so I thought three weeks to build them and six to eight weeks total if everything lines up perfectly, which includes the concrete slab they sit on and installation. But Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) requires MTA to have a permit for each shelter. So a er

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