Am I going to need to hire an architect to design the plans? 

Does anyone have any recommendations of someone he can speak with and potentially hire?

My 1st out of state property was rehabbed 3 months after hiring the wrong pm who placed the wrong tenant. 

Yes, I hired someone on odesk to search county records for me, and remove any lead that doesn't own real property. 

Mississippi  even the west coast states can be 6 or 7 months or less... there are new rules about not starting a foreclosure for 120 days if its owner occ.you can hire foreclosure trustee services to do this for you.

Some have hired real estate people to help out, but that is a lot different than having a founding team with real estate experience.  

They hire you and pay you X% of rental income for management services and you charge them one month's rent for each lease you negotiate.

You shouldn't work in Cobb County, I hear its terrible there and there's no deals...in fact, I hear anybody who works there gets horribly diseased and their wives leave them.On a serious note, I like to hire guys that aren't driving forever to get on site, but most GC's in Atlanta are used to driving across town, so they really dont have to be local to Cobb by a long shot.

If you are looking for access to listings then you might as well just hire a buyer's agent from Loopnet and they can search all the listings for you.

Others feel they need to hire a guru while others feel they need to pay for a seminar, meeting, meetup, conference, etc.