As I mentioned in my recent Investing in Georgia post, the "Empire State of the South" has a diverse industrial output that ranges from peaches and peanuts to aircraft manufacturing and tourism (much of which is taking a hit from this year's severe drought in the South).

Georgia is home to such corporate giants as Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO), The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD), and United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), and the state also has just been named the second-best U.S. state in which to do business by Site Selection magazine. Georgia has been in the top four on that list for the past four years.

The Peach State is also home to Acuity Brands Inc. (NYSE: AYI) and Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN), which I examined previously, as well as RPC Inc. (NYSE: RES) and Radiant Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: RADS), covered here. RPC and Radiant both made Fortune's 2007 list of the 100 fastest growing companies in U.S. It was Radiant's first time on that list, and Radiant has also been named one of the fastest growing tech companies in Georgia for the third straight year.

Atlanta-based RPC offers oil and gas services, including consulting, equipment rental, emergency services, and inspections. Its five-year EPS growth rate of 114% was well better than the S&P, and better than the sector average. The consensus recommendation of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial is to buy RPC, even though it has fallen short of analysts' estimates in the past three quarters. Earnings came in at 15 cents earnings per share in the third quarter just reported, ten cents shy of expectations. Still, analysts are looking for EPS of 26 cents in the next quarter. The disappointing quarterly report prompted the share price to fall to a 52-week low of $10.76 last week; it opened today at $11.19. RPC blamed the results on increased competition from such rivals as Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) and Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB), as well as new entrants into the field. RPC also announced a regular quarterly dividend of five cents per share.

Headquartered in Alpharetta, a suburb of Atlanta, Radiant Systems provides hardware and software for point-of-sale and centralized merchandising systems for such clients as The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD), Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), BP (NYSE: BP) and 7-Eleven. Radiant recently announced deals with Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) and Dunkin' Donuts, as well as a partner in China. Of the handful of analysts covering Radiant last surveyed by Thomson Financial, most were split between buy and strong buy recommendations. Radiant's five-year EPS growth rate of 27.7% was better than the S&P 500, and its earnings have beat Wall Street expectations for the previous six quarters. But Radiant merely matched the 19 cents per share analysts estimated when it reported third quarter results last week. The share price rose to a 52-week high of $18.33, before sliding back to $15.55 at the close yesterday, due to falling short on revenues in the 3Q report. For the fourth quarter, analysts are looking for earnings of 22 cents per share.

I do not own shares in these stocks. As always, be sure to do your homework before investing.
See also: Investing in Georgia, Investing in North Carolina, and Investing in Tennessee.