Jim durretT

Jim Durrett is the Executive Director of The Biophilic Institute and a former board member since its founding including as board treasurer. Most recently Jim was the president & chief executive officer of the Buckhead Coalition and executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District (CID). The Coalition is a membership organization with a mission to advocate on behalf of the community; to support the well-being of Buckhead’s residents, businesses and visitors; to convene public and private sector leaders and partner organizations; and to connect Buckhead to other areas of the city and region. The CID is a local government entity with a mission to create and maintain a safe, accessible and livable urban environment in the heart of the Buckhead commercial area. 

Durrett is also actively involved in the greater community and currently serves on the Decide DeKalb Development Authority board of directors and the HUB404 Conservancy board of directors (treasurer.)

Prior to heading up the Buckhead CID, Durrett was founding executive director of the Livable Communities Coalition, a not-for-profit organization formed in 2005 to promote smart growth development in the Atlanta region. Before that, Durrett served for five years with the Urban Land Institute (ULI), the largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts in the world, as the first executive director of ULI's Atlanta District Council (ULI Atlanta), and the second ULI District Council executive director in the U.S. In addition, Durrett was with the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce as the vice president of environmental affairs and was the senior vice president and chief operating officer of The Georgia Conservancy. Durrett began his professional career as a hydrogeologist in the Atlanta office of Golder Associates, an international geotechnical and environmental engineering consulting firm.

From 1998 to 2005, Durrett was a member of the Georgia Environmental Advisory Council, appointed by the Governor to advise the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division and the Governor on environmental policy matters. He is a graduate of Leadership Atlanta, the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership, and the Regional Leadership Institute. Durrett also has served on numerous collaborative committees and task forces working on growth management, affordable housing, aging, and environmental issues in the state of Georgia.

Previous non-profit board membership and leadership includes MARTA board of directors for 15 years (chair for one); The Biophilic Institute; 3KEYS; Georgians for Passenger Rail; the Georgia Conservancy; PEDS; the Hambidge Center; and VSA Arts of Georgia. Durrett was also a founding member of ULI’s Health Leaders Network and was a member of ULI’s Responsible Property Investment Council (chairman from 2019-2021). ULI Atlanta recently honored Durrett with the 2025 Community Impact Award.

Durrett attended the Westminster Schools in Atlanta and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a master's degree in geology from the University of Georgia. He completed post-graduate work in hydrogeology at the University of Texas. He is an Atlanta native and lives in DeKalb County with his wife, Pat. They have two grown sons, James and Ryan.