ATLANTA - The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service, the Honorable Frederick A. Mitchell, M.P. commissioned and presented letters of appointment to Mr. Michael Munroe Young as The Commonwealth of the Bahamas’ first Honorary Consul in the United States of America for the State of Georgia, on Wednesday September 6, 2006.
This historic presentation took place at the World Trade Center , Suntrust Plaza , Downtown, Atlanta, Georgia.
Michael M. Young is President of MPY & Associates Consulting Company in Fayetteville, Georgia. His company works with non-profit organizations and the business community in accessing funding opportunities that support the improvement of the quality of life for citizens in the Atlanta community. Mr. Young was a former Vice-President and Assistant Treasurer for the Delta Foundation and Vice President of Community Affairs at its World Headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Young provided the company with thirty years of excellence in management and community/media relations with worldwide civic groups, corporations, and worldwide media.
Mr. Young’s personal community involvement included serving as a member of the Board of Directors with Leadership Atlanta, Atlanta Urban League, Board of Governors of the 191 Club and Atlanta Technical College, the Advisory Board of the Congressional Black Caucus, Atlanta Red Cross, and the Board of Visitors for the Center for Disease Control. He is a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the 100 Black Men of Atlanta and an alumni of Leadership Atlanta. The Honorary Consul received his Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from Cambridge International University, Cape Town, South Africa. He continued his studies at the Emory University Roberto Goizueta School of Business Executive Symposium, Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship Certified Community Relations Consultant and is an Honorary Member of the Golden Key National Honor Society of Morris Brown College, Atlanta, Georgia.
Born to Bahamian parents in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Mr. Young spent his formative years in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Patricia Jones-Young reside in Fairburn, Georgia. The couple have two children, a son Tori, and daughter Leah.
His responsibilities as Honorary Consul will include; forging Trade and Investment opportunities between the State of Georgia and The Bahamas; promoting and protecting the interest of Bahamian nationals, and fostering friendly relations between the Government of the Bahamas and the State of Georgia.
The Honorary Consul’s office in Atlanta comes under the direction of the Bahamas Consulate General, Miami, Florida’s jurisdiction, where Mrs. Alma A. Adams is the Consul General. The Consulate General Miami’s jurisdiction also includes: Alabama , Louisiana , Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Florida.

Mr. Mitchell attended the Eastern Junior School and a number of other public schools in Nassau before being accepted as a scholarship student at St. Augustine’s College, Fox Hill in 1965. He graduated as President of the Student Council of St. Augustine’s in 1970.

Mr. Mitchell learned the ropes of the Public Service early on beginning his working career as a messenger cum trainee writer in the summer of 1970 in the public relations arm of the Ministry of Tourism then known as The Bahamas Tourist News Bureau. He polished his communications through a first degree in English from the noted Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio from which he graduated in 1974. Later that same year Mr. Mitchell joined the Public Affairs Division of The Bahamas Information Services as a radio producer.

In 1977 Mr. Mitchell joined the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas (ZNS) at the time of its introduction of local television to The Bahamas. He served there as Director of News and Public Affairs.

In 1979, after a sterling performance at ZNS Mr. Mitchell left the Corporation and returned to University, this time to achieve a Masters Degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at prestigious Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mr. Mitchell returned to The Bahamas in 1980, when he joined the staff of the Office of the Prime Minister. In 1981, Mr. Mitchell became the editor of ‘The Herald’, official newspaper of The Progressive Liberal Party. He left The Herald in 1983 to study law at the University of Buckingham in England where he earned a Bachelor of Laws Degree.

Mr. Mitchell was called to the Bar of England in Wales in 1986 and later to The Bahamas Bar in September of that same year. He is a member of Grays Inn.

Professionally, Mr. Mitchell practiced law at Gwendolyn House, Dowdeswell Street in Nassau before his appointment to the Cabinet in 2002. In addition, Mr. Mitchell served as Chairman of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Alumni Association from 2000 – 2002. He was the first former international student to serve in that post. He was also a Director of the International Mutual Fund.