
Laura D. Katz

Area Director
Area Director, Athens Office
Laura Katz is the area director of the Athens office and is a public service associate within UGA’s Public Service and Outreach unit.
Ms. Katz has extensive experience in marketing and business development for both large corporations and small business. She has helped develop, price and bring to market new products for companies such as Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and Levi’s. In the second part of her career, she has worked with small business owners implementing business development and marketing plans.
In 2011, Ms. Katz joined the University of Georgia’s Small Business Development Center as a consultant and since then has earned several awards: an UGA SBDC Consultant of the Year (2014), recognized as an ASBDC State Star (2015), three UGA SBDC Flewellen Awards for consulting excellence (2013, 2015, 2018) and an UGA SBDC Program Innovation of the Year Award (2017).
In 2015, Ms. Katz achieved the rank of UGA Public Service and Outreach Associate Faculty and was promoted to Athens Area Director. Katz is a nationally recognized speaker on Marketing, Work/Life Balance, and Agribusiness. Her program “FarmSMART” is implemented nationally by the SBDC’s of Alabama, Mississippi and Missouri in response to the SBA’s Rural Initiative.
Recently, two of Katz’s client’s won SBA awards for the state of Georgia for their achievements as business owners: Tonya Barr-Dugas, CEO and Pete Dugas, COO and owners of TSAV were awarded “SBA Small Business Owner of the Year 2018” and Tiffany Hines, President and owner of Global Escapes was awarded “SBA Women Entrepreneur of the Year 2019.”
Ms. Katz enjoys working with small business owners, utilizing her education and experience to help transform their businesses.
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