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Aiming for Atlanta's top spot Voters will decide next entry on Robb Pitts' resume´ By Corinne Colbert Robb Pitts' life could have turned out very differently. He might have chosen to remain a Dayton-area musician and become a '70s R&B star with the Ohio Players. He could have continued his career as a college professor. He might have taken that high-powered advertising job in New York.     Atlanta City Council President Robb Pitts hopes to wield a different gavel as the city's mayor. Instead, Pitts passed up music for Ohio University, earning a degree in education and Spanish in 1963. He later traded a teaching position for a career in business and politics in Atlanta. But in November, he's letting millions of voters decide where life takes him next. "Atlanta is at a crossroads," says Pitts, an independent candidate for mayor of the city of 8 million. "We have tremendous potential, but City Hall is not functioning." Pitts has more than two decades of perspective on the city's politics. He was elected to an at-large seat on Atlanta City Council in 1977 and took the gavel as council president in 1998. It might seem an odd position for a man who decided to attend college only because his best friend was going. "I didn't have a plan except to go," he says now. He remembers his college days as a lot of fun, but Dan Whitner, BS '65, a friend he met on campus, saw Pitts' serious side. "I thought he showed a lot of leadership qualities," he says. "He was very knowledgeable, an intellectual." Pitts, who spent two years in Air Force ROTC at Ohio University, nearly dropped out of school to join the military. But his Spanish professor, Wallace Cameron, talked him out of it. "He told me about a town in Mexico with an artists' colony and a lot of wealthy people where I could study Spanish," he recalls. "Listening to the people there talk about world travel had a big impact." He went on to earn a master's degree in languages at Kent State University, where he eventually joined the faculty. During the summers, he worked toward a doctorate in international studies from Mexico's La Universidad Interamericana. But the turbulence of the civil rights movement led him back to his native Georgia and Clark College, a historically black institution. After a few years, Pitts decided to leave academia to pursue a career in business. He worked for a short time for a black-owned public relations firm that managed a number of political campaigns. "I was never really satisfied with how they handled themselves," he says of political candidates. "I said to myself, 'I can do this better than they can.'" His first race for council, in 1973, was unsuccessful, but he won four years later. As owner of the sales and marketing company RLP Corp. and the financial services company Robb Pitts & Associates, he says his background in business and international affairs has benefited Atlanta. With the mayor's office opening up, Pitts conferred with his wife, Fran, and their 9-year-old daughter, Jordan, about spreading his political wings. "We all talked about it and what it would require," he says. Their verdict: Go for it. Pitts says his goal is to take race out of politics - "I'm not aware of a decision made here in Atlanta in which race is not a factor, and that's not healthy" - and build a bridge between City Hall and Fulton County businesses. Should Pitts' campaign fail, he won't lack for things to do. He'll continue to run his businesses and enjoy time with his family. And win or lose, he has no plans to look beyond Atlanta. "I'm not using this as a stepping stone to higher office," Pitts says. "I want to get this city straightened out. This is a great city, and it can be even greater with the right kind of leadership." Corinne Colbert, BSJ '87 and MA '93, is a freelance writer living in Amesville, Ohio.