The Ray nonprofit represents a living legacy of Ray's pioneering industrial vision. Where Ray transformed manufacturing by proving that superior business and resource efficiency were attainable, The Ray is applying this principle to modern transportation infrastructure.
In July 2014, the State of Georgia honored Ray’s legacy by renaming the stretch of I-85 that extends from exit 2 to 18 in West Georgia as the Ray C. Anderson Memorial Highway. A key contributor to this effort was a trustee of the foundation and, more importantly, Ray’s daughter, Harriet Anderson Langford.
However, when she stood on the side of that otherwise ordinary highway and looked at the newly installed sign, surrounded by aging infrastructure and vehicle exhaust, something didn’t sit right.
"What have I done? I put my father’s name on a dirty highway.”
That realization, an epiphany similar to her father’s, became a call to action.
The organization's success in Georgia now serves as a blueprint for application across the nation's infrastructure, leveraging the vast, often underutilized, rights-of-way (ROW) along major transportation arteries.
The Ray ensures maximum resource utilization through key programs:
- Energy and Mobility: Working alongside transportation and utility partners, The Ray’s mission is to deploy advanced power-generating assets, including solar arrays and high-voltage transmission lines, directly within the roadside to turn highways into reliable sources of distributed power.
- Geospatial Analysis: Using advanced mapping tools, The Ray evaluates corridors to precisely assess the feasibility of placing these innovative systems on public land, which accelerates the successful deployment of new ROW infrastructure assets.
- Natural Capital: In a nod to natural systems, this program reintroduces living infrastructure, such as native plantings and specialized bioswales, to restore local flora and support critical pollination systems, demonstrating that transportation arteries can coexist with thriving natural habitats.
- Waste Management: Drawing on Ray C. Anderson's corporate leadership, the organization champions circular, waste-free practices in highway maintenance and construction, promoting rubber-modified asphalt (RMA) and other alternative materials for traffic safety barriers.
Operating as a real-world field laboratory in Georgia, The Ray demonstrates that the path to superior energy and mobility systems is attainable nationwide. Through a vast network of private-public-philanthropic partnerships (P4), the nonprofit is proving that transportation networks can be built to be safer, smarter, and more efficient. Aligning the energy grid with the transportation ROW would be a visible testament to Ray's foundational belief in "doing well by doing good."