BCC President and CEO Jon Williams, ASLA, PLA began his professional career in the seventh grade when his father presented him with a key to Jay’s IGA, a grocery store in Alma, GA, that had been in the Williams family since the early 1950s. It was at this small-town grocery store, working alongside his father, where Williams first learned the importance of leading a team with the goal of leaving things better than he found them through progressive business practices and emphasis on the larger community.

Williams continued to work alongside his father at Jay’s IGA until moving to Athens, GA, in the late 1990s to attend the University of Georgia. In November 1999, just three short years after graduating, Jon Williams founded W&A Engineering (then Williams & Associates) with the mission to provide local clients with multidisciplinary, land planning and design services. What started as a one-person operation blossomed into an award-winning, multidisciplinary engineering firm with offices across the southeast.

Supported by a leadership team comprised of the country’s best and brightest operations, human resources, and business development professionals, Williams took the next step in 2021 and founded Better Communities Collaborative to expand the network of businesses growing and thriving under his new way of doing business. Together, this collaborative provides comprehensive development services, including engineering, landscape architecture, land surveying, economic development consulting, LiDAR and remote scanning, utility location, subsurface utility engineering, video pipe inspection, and program management.

Since establishing Better Communities Collaborative, the team has launched new progressive workplace policies such as a 12-week paid maternity leave policy, 4-week paid paternity leave policy, unlimited PTO policy, wellness program, and a nationally recognized, full-flexibility culture.

A three-time recipient of the prestigious Zweig Group Best Firms to Work For award, Better Communities Collaborative earned the prestigious B Corp Certification in June 2023. This designation is given to businesses meeting the highest standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. With over 6,400 certified B Corp businesses in 89 countries and 161 industries represented, BCC is one of less than 40 site development groups to receive the designation.

Maintaining a corporate portfolio stretching across 46 states, partnerships in the country’s most dynamic cities, and endless career opportunities, Better Communities Collaborative is setting the standards of excellence in business operations, corporate culture, community impact, and professional service because we believe that our employees, communities, and neighbors deserve the best.