Business North Carolina July 2022

AND WHO’S THEPROMISING STATE’S TOP-RANKED THE MOSTHOSPITAL NEW JOBS IS ...

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JULY 2022 Price: $3.95 businessnc.com

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How Toter’s Statesville plant wastes no time in producing the leading brand of curbside garbage carts.

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+ DEPARTMENTS 4 UP FRONT 8 POINT TAKEN

JULY 2022

Gary Chesson shares tales on how to thrive in commercial real estate.

14 NC TREND

Electric bikes in accelerated demand; Q&A with Harris Teeter’s boss; Metrolina Greenhouse celebrates 50th anniversary; Film producers document key business battles.

120 GREEN SHOOTS Oxford is on the cusp of growth as the Triangle sprawls northward.

+ SPONSORED SECTIONS 32 ROUND TABLE: ENERGY A panel of experts and industry leaders discuss how energy affects the state and what the future holds.

38 NC PORTRAITS: LEADERSHIP IN LAW FIRMS Three prominent law firms showcase their talent and leadership approach.

68 RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA Institutions and companies highlight their programs, achievements and innovations.

104 COMMUNITY CLOSE UP: GASTON COUNTY Gaston County’s workforce and location are luring local and international companies.

COVER STORY

PICTURE THIS Wastequip’s Iredell County plant carries on a tradition of leading the roll-out-cart industry.

BY JENNINGS COOL RODDEY

25 LEADING JOB-CREATING PROJECTS An annual ranking of North Carolina’s significant economic expansions in the past year.

BY LAWRENCE BIVINS

ROBUST RECRUITERS An economic developer group selects top performers and projects that are transforming the state.

BY DAVID MILDENBERG & JENNINGS COOL RODDEY

DALE FOLWELL State Treasurer Dale Folwell relishes the chance to stir up entrenched institutions.

BY MIKE MACMILLAN

July 2022, Vol. 42, No. 7 (ISSN 0279-4276). Business North Carolina is published monthly by Business North Carolina at 1230 West Morehead Street, Suite 308 Charlotte, NC 28208.

Telephone: 704-523-6987. Fax: 704-523-4211. All contents copyright © by Old North State Magazines LLC. Subscription rate: 1 year, $30. For change of address, send mailing label and allow six to eight weeks. Periodicals postage paid at Charlotte, NC, and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA, 1230 West Morehead Street, Suite 308 Charlotte, NC 28208 or email circulation@businessnc.com.

Start your day with business news from across the state, direct to your inbox.

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UPFRONT

David Mildenberg

PROMISES, PROMISES

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his year’s Business North Carolina list of the state’s biggest job-creating announcements continues a hot streak as some elite companies plan investments expected to create thousands of new jobs in coming years. Macy’s, Toyota and Kroger alone are promising to spend a combined $3 billion on projects.

Last year, Centene, Apple and Google said they would invest more than $2 billion.

It’s a positive outlook tied to the state’s commitment to reimburse millions of dollars of income tax if capital spending and job commitments come through.

Otherwise, there’s little reason for companies to make bold public promises.

Business North Carolina believes in truth in advertising, however, so this report requires a caveat: The world has changed in a hurry, and in a pretty nasty way, since these pledges were made.

No one expected that inflation would hit a 40-year high in May, that gas would reach $5 a gallon or that 30-year mortgage rates would double to more than 6% within a few months. Nor did many expect the Nasdaq’s 100 stock index would lose 30% of its value in the first half of the year or that the S&P 500 Index would decline 20%.

Strong companies take a long-term view when making capital investments involving tens of millions of dollars, much less billions in the case of a few. But the ferocity of the economy’s descent makes it likely that some best-laid plans will never come to fruition.

Even in robust times, many projects fall through. Since North Carolina unveiled its Job and Development Investment Grant program in 2003, 350 awards were announced, totalling more than $3 billion through June 30, 2021. Of that total, 67 projects were terminated or withdrawn without any funds disbursed.

Disbursements by the state totaled $421 million as of last June, leading to nearly 54,000 new jobs since the program’s inception, according to the Commerce Department.

Fortunately, this month’s magazine also includes details about university research

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activity, which leads to innovation that drives business expansion and economic success. North Carolina’s research capacity appears on pace to mushroom in coming years, another very positive trend.

Three major projects in this year’s job-creation report hinge on technology changes sweeping the transportation sector. VinFast and Toyota promise big plants that will help Americans shift from gas-powered cars and trucks to electric vehicles. Boom Supersonic’s heady mission is to assemble jets in Greensboro that will fly at twice the speed of sound.

A rocky path seems likely in the short term. But we share veteran economic developer Jim Fain’s comment in this month’s magazine that it's great to wake up every morning in North Carolina.

V O L U M E 4 2 , N O. 7 PUBLISHER

Ben Kinney

bkinney@businessnc.com EDITOR

David Mildenberg

dmildenberg@businessnc.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Jennings Cool Roddey jcool@businessnc.com

Colin Campbell

ccampbell@businessnc.com

Cathy Martin

cmartin@businessnc.com SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Edward Martin

emartin@businessnc.com SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR

Pete M. Anderson

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Dan Barkin, Lawrence Bivins, Mike MacMillan, Tucker Mitchell, Katherine Snow Smith CREATIVE MANAGER

Peggy Knaack

W

e’re excited to report that Senior Contributing Editor Edward Martin won a Gold award from the Alliance of Area Business Publications for his July 2021 story on Piedmont Lithium’s plans to become a major lithium supplier. Ed’s work for Business North Carolina has made him the most-honored journalist in the association's history, so we’re not surprised that professors at the University of Missouri journalism school loved his story.

“This captivating report brings home the global challenges of a lithium shortage, introducing us to one of newest links in the auto supply chain in the small town of Cherryville,” the judges said.

Separately, Rick Thames’ April 2021 profile of former Charlotte Observer Publisher Rolfe Neill won a Silver award as a personality profile. It shares “a beautiful story about journalism and its impact on a community,” according to the judges. Rick is a former Observer editor.

Thank you for terrific work, Ed and Rick!

pknaack@businessnc.com ART DIRECTOR

Ralph Voltz

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Christer Berg, Sue McFarland MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jennifer Ware

jware@businessnc.com

ADVERTISING SALES ACCOUNT DIRECTOR

Melanie Weaver Lynch, eastern N.C. 919-855-9380 mweaver@businessnc.com

ACCOUNT MANAGER AND AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST

Scott Leonard, western N.C. 704-996-6426 sleonard@businessnc.com

CIRCULATION: 818-286-3106 EDITORIAL: 704-523-6987 REPRINTS: circulation@businessnc.com

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Contact David Mildenberg at dmildenberg@businessnc.com.

PRESIDENT

David Woronoff

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POINTTAKEN

Dan Barkin

TAKING THAT LEAP A veteran developer explains Trinity Partners’ and Trinity Capital’s landmark success in commercial real estate.

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aybe you want to start a business. There are books. I would recommend “Creating Trinity: Blueprints of a Real Estate Entrepreneur & Investor” by Gary Chesson, a retired Charlotte real estate developer.

He is co-founder of Charlotte’s Trinity Partners commercial real estate brokerage and the Trinity Capital Advisors investment business. After a nearly 35-year career, he decided to write a book that would help folks do what he did: Move from leasing up someone else’s buildings to acquisition and development.

“That is the question mark most young real estate professionals have,” Chesson told me. “They’ll say, ‘Well, I can learn the brokerage business but, gosh, it sure is intimidating to take that leap and become an investor.’”

This isn’t just a real estate book. It is a book about how to take a leap. It’s a big mystery, how entrepreneurs leave the security of a good living and go out on their own.

Not his first choice

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▲Gary Chesson formed his real estate firm with a methodical approach.

“I was networking, meeting as many people as possible,” Chesson wrote. “I was still new to Charlotte, and I wasn’t connected in any meaningful way — but I learned that you don’t have to have connections as long as you’re willing to make connections.”

It was 1990, during an economic downturn. Salaried jobs in commercial real estate were scarce. He ended up working on commission as a tenant’s representative, helping companies get the best terms. After several years, he was recruited by an office and industrial developer for a leasing job, so he moved to the other side of the table, representing building owners. By mid-1997, at age 32, he decided that he wanted to run his own company.

Picking a team

Chesson had never started or led a business, but he approached the challenge by creating a spreadsheet called “Find a Partner.”

He wrote: “On this spreadsheet, I listed a couple dozen acquaintances in the Charlotte real estate industry whom I liked, who were very successful, and who I thought might make a good business partner. Shortly thereafter, I started making calls. What I quickly found was that very few people seemed wired to make

PHOTO BY SUE MCFARLAND

Chesson, who turns 57 this month, grew up in Durham, where his father was in banking and real estate. After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill, Chesson was hired by Wachovia in Charlotte in 1987. The Queen City was his third choice after completing the bank’s training program. He wrote in the book that Charlotte then was “sleepy, with no NFL or NBA teams, and it wasn’t much more than one of the top 50 cities in the U.S., population-wise. Few knew what a decades-long explosion of growth the Southeast as a whole, and Charlotte, in particular, was about to experience.”

Commercial lending is a way to gain analytical skills and see different businesses when considering career options. Chesson knew he didn’t want to spend decades in “stagnant but safe” banking, getting “the standard 2% raises that came at the end of every year whether I was crushing it or not . . .”

He decided to try commercial real estate — the leasing and management of office buildings and warehouses and shopping centers. He made a list of every commercial real estate firm in Charlotte, identified their influential folk and set up interviews.

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this leap. The economy was strong, and anyone who was any good in the business was making a lot of money, so they were reluctant to make a change that would almost certainly disrupt their current income.”

One person ready for a change was Peter Conway, another local leasing agent. Conway, a New Orleans native with a UNC Chapel Hill MBA, worked for a company that was selling its Charlotte office tower. He was facing a possible transfer to Tampa. Conway liked Chesson’s plan. Because they both mostly had office leasing experience, Conway suggested they should find a third partner with a different specialty. That led them to David Allen, who had experience with warehouses, investment sales brokerage and capital markets.

Allen passed away in 2014 from cancer at 53. The book’s first chapter is about his last days and how he was as much a brother to Chesson as a business partner during their 16 years together.

Atlanta advice

The story of Trinity pivots on a meeting in early 1998 with executives of Atlanta-based Bullock, Terrell & Mannelly. “They were exactly what we hoped to become: a successful startup, competing with industry giants,” Chesson wrote. “The three principals asked the three of us to have dinner with them in Atlanta the following week.” What happened next was crucial: “As dinner was winding down, Jay Mannelly looked up and said in his slow Southern drawl, ‘I have a question for you boys.

Have you decided to be a union or a confederacy?’ The three Charlotteans didn’t understand the question.

“He explained, ‘When we started our business, we were a confederacy. We just shared overhead, and each man was his own profit center. Sometimes we shared real estate commissions, and we were careful to negotiate the fee splits up front — but it was each man for himself. Despite sharing fees, it was inevitable that we got to the end of a transaction and someone would say, ‘I worked on that more than you did; I think we should renegotiate how we share these fees.’ We did that for a year, and then we made a terrific decision that positively shaped our business for the

TR IN IT Y TALE S Trinity Partners ■ 175 employees ■ More than 25 million square feet of office, industrial and real space managed and leased in the Carolinas ■ Managing partners: Adam Colvin, Rhea Greene, Bruce Harper, David Townsend

Trinity Capital Advisors ■ 25 buildings under construction or development ■ $4.1 billion invested in 28 million square feet of buildings acquired or developed ■ Managing partners: Walker Collier, Jeff Sheehan

next nine years. We decided to become a union. Any dollar that came in the door would get split three ways, regardless of who sourced it, or who executed the business.”

Most of the Charlotte real estate businesses that Chesson studied were confederacies, basically groups of independent brokers.

“But this dinner convinced us that we would need to take the leap and become a true union. This one decision formed the foundation of a successful partnership and the basis of a firm culture that prioritizes teamwork and generosity over selfishness and individual success. It was the best advice we ever received.”

In my conversations with Chesson recently, I asked him about this. “It seems easy in concept,” he says, “but in practice there’ll be some times when it gets tested.”

“One year, David, who really focused on investment sales — which was a highly cyclical business — one year he just whiffed and didn’t produce a single dollar. And he felt really bad about it, but we said, you know what, you’ll do great next year. And he did.”

The importance of investing

Another key moment was the decision to be developers and investors, not just brokers, negotiating leases for someone else’s properties. That, said Chesson, “is a young person’s game.”

“We’d seen industry professionals burn out in later years, fatigued by the all-too-common, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ mentality. To get ourselves to a position where we didn’t have to grind in our 50s while competing with 32-year-olds, we were very aware that we needed to become successful players in the investment arena.”

They discovered early on that an experienced partner is valuable. Trinity’s first big investment deal was the acquisition of Perimeter Woods Business Park in north Charlotte. It was owned by the Chicago-based real estate investor TrizecHahn, which hired Trinity in 2000 to lease and manage the office/warehouse properties on the 100-acre parcel. In 2002, TrizecHahn wanted to sell it. Trinity offered to buy it with the plan to develop 60 vacant acres. Chesson, Conway and Allen knew how to value the office/ warehouse part of the property, but didn’t know what the vacant 60 acres was worth.

So they brought in John Collett of Charlotte’s Collett & Associates as a joint-venture partner. He loved the project’s potential and helped Trinity raise $7.5 million of equity capital. “Over a span of several years, we learned a massive amount about investing in a single transaction.”

The book provides a window into how money is made. By late 2011, Trinity Capital was raising its third fund and started looking at institutional investors as partners. Typically, these are insurance giants, pension funds and other entities with large pools of cash they need to put to work.

Trinity Capital would find buildings to buy or land to develop.

It would find an institutional partner and get a loan for, say, 65% of the project. Of the remaining 35%, the partner would put up 90% and Trinity, 10%. That 10% would come from a fund that Trinity had raised from individuals, including the Trinity principals. The big payoff for Trinity would be carried interest, the financial incentives tied to profits. Up to a certain target of returns, the profits would be split 90% to the institutional investor and J U L Y

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POINTTAKEN

Dan Barkin

10% to Trinity and its high net-worth fund. Above that target, the split got better for Trinity, up to 20% or 30% of the profits.

“If a project does really well, these carried interest numbers can be substantial, and to state the obvious, when you’re investing in larger projects, the profits are bigger, too.”

Development, wrote Chesson, is something of a science; acquisition is more of an art. The question with buying neglected properties with higher-than-normal vacancy rates or lower-thanmarket rents is can they be fixed, or are they in bad locations or obsolete? If they can be renovated and re-leased, they can be sold to investors at a profit.

Balancing act

The Trinity partnership had strengths but also weaknesses.

Allen “hated confrontation and wasn’t very good at evaluating or hiring talent, but he was by far the savviest and smartest among us.” He was “terrific at handling even the most challenging situations.” Conway’s “always-agreeable demeanor translated into confidence and likeability, and that was appealing to both clients and employees alike.” Chesson brought “the drive.” But he was the most impulsive of the three. “I would shoot first and aim later.”

A leader is seldom the complete package. Surround yourself with folks who can balance you out, Chesson learned.

“When we combined David’s careful, slow and deliberate

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decision-making with my impulsivity and drive, along with Peter’s ‘always in the middle’ perspective, we usually struck the perfect balance of being thoughtful, deliberate and aggressive.”

Trinity was also fortunate to be in hot markets, aided by significant international investment in the past decade. “Over the last 20 years, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham have turned from tertiary markets into top 15 markets nationally... Our North Carolina markets will likely never be considered gateway cities for investment purposes, but when growth and trajectories are considered, we’re definitely at the top of everyone’s lists.”

The book Chesson wrote is a textbook in disguise. It reads as a narrative about three guys who found each other in Charlotte and built something from nothing but their smarts, grit and nerve.

After the book was finished, his dad gave a copy to some university professors. They liked it but suggested Chesson take out “all the personal stuff” so it could be turned into a course.

“And I said I’m not interested because it’s the personal side of it that makes it relatable to the reader.” ■ Veteran journalist Dan Barkin went to high school in Newton, Massachusetts, arrived in the South for college in 1971 and moved to North Carolina in 1996. He can be reached at dbarkin53@gmail.com.

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SHORING UP NORTH CAROLINA’S BEACHES

As residents and visitors descend on North Carolina’s beaches this summer, a local PNC Bank leader provides an inside look at what the preservation of our state’s treasured coast entails.

This is the twentieth in a series of informative monthly articles for North Carolina businesses from PNC in collaboration with BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA magazine.

Casey Turner vividly recalls the first time he witnessed the dramatic impact of an in-progress N.C. beach nourishment project. “As I looked toward the horizon, there was a clear dividing line between the existing beach and the nourished beach,” he says. “To my left was 50 feet of sand. To my right was just ocean.” It was a stunning visual that brought into focus the necessary work that Turner, managing director of PNC Bank’s Public Finance group in the Carolinas, and his team facilitate to help restore N.C. beaches – a critically important fixture in the state’s multibillion-dollar tourism industry.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, beach nourishment is designed to protect people and property from the effects of hurricanes and coastal storms by widening a beach and advancing the shoreline seaward.

“Beach nourishment represents a necessary investment in the future of North Carolina’s coastal communities and economy,” says Turner.

North Carolina’s coastline is among the most nourished in the country, having received more than 160 million cubic yards of sand since the first N.C. beach nourishment project more than 80 years ago, according to data from the National Beach Nourishment Database.

Dare County’s beaches are among those slated for beach restoration this year to replace sand lost during 2019’s Hurricane Dorian. The replenishment of sand along more than 20 miles of shoreline will create a more effective buffer between the ocean and N.C. Highway 12, while resulting in a wider recreational beach and additional habitat for wildlife. Sand will be pumped ashore from an offshore dredge, with just 1,000 feet of beachfront directly impacted at any given time to minimize disruption to beach visitors.

It’s a process repeated every 5-6 years to preserve the beautiful yet fragile beaches of the Outer Banks.

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Turner and his PNC Bank business partners, including Brian Miller, a Raleigh-based credit product specialist, have led PNC Bank’s financing of no fewer than 20 beach nourishment projects spanning the N.C. coast, from Duck to Holden Beach, during the past eight years. And while the work facilitated by the Public Finance team extends far beyond the scope of beach nourishment, the output from these projects is among the most palpable applications, particularly in the summer months.

Rarely straightforward, each beach nourishment project is inherently different, based on a wide array of factors – from sourcing sand with a grain size similar to the sand being replenished, to understanding land and shoreline use patterns, to providing for environmental protections.

Another essential element, and one that the PNC Bank team is positioned to address, is providing the short-term local funding to cover the costs of these projects, which in the long term are largely financed by disaster assistance grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and storm mitigation grant funding from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Because federal funding for beach nourishment is typically distributed on a reimbursable basis upon the completion of a project, the PNC Bank team develops short-term borrowing solutions to help finance the capital-intensive work, while providing repayment options that meet the unique needs of the borrowing jurisdictions.

“Because PNC Bank is already deeply embedded in these communities, our team is well positioned to work with each county, town or special municipal district – and the State of N.C. – to structure a customized financing solution for each project,” says Turner. “Ultimately, this work helps create a more resilient state and provides the opportunity for PNC Bank to support the communities that mean so much to us.”

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UPHOLDING A COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY

sustainable use of proceeds helps us create impact for our clients and communities while also addressing environmental considerations, including climate change.”

PNC Bank’s role in beach nourishment projects is just one example of how banking and environmental sustainability can intersect, and illustrates a key aspect of its sustainability and climate change strategy: helping clients finance their sustainable operations.

In 2021, the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. announced a five-year, $20 billion commitment in support of environmental finance as an extension of its long-standing support for the transition to a low-carbon economy. This environmental finance goal complements its current Community Benefits Plan, which pledges $88 billion in loans, investments, and other financial support to bolster economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income people and neighborhoods, as well as people and communities of color over a four-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2022.

“We believe in not only managing our own operations in an environmentally sustainable manner, but also in doing our part to tailor financial solutions for clients with sustainability in mind,” says Miller. “Providing financing and underwriting debt with an environmentally

For more information, visit www.pnc.com/publicfinance or contact Casey Turner at casey.turner@pnc.com.

REGIONAL PRESIDENTS: Weston Andress, Western Carolinas: (704) 643-5581 Jim Hansen, Eastern Carolinas: (919) 835-0135

PNC, PNC Bank, ACHIEVEMENT, PINACLE, Working Cash, ActivePay, Global Trade Excellence, Midland Loan Services, Enterprise!, CMBS Investor Insight, Portfolio Investor Insight, Borrower Insight, Shared Servicing, PNC Riverarch Capital, PNC Erieview Capital, Solebury Capital, Solebury Trout, TEMPUS TECHNOLOGIES, Forecast and Forsite are registered marks of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (“PNC”).

Bank deposit, treasury management and lending products and services, foreign exchange and derivative products (including commodity derivatives), bond accounting and safekeeping services, escrow services, and investment and wealth management and fiduciary services, are provided by PNC Bank, National Association (“PNC Bank”), a wholly owned subsidiary of PNC and Member FDIC. Merchant services are provided by PNC Merchant Services Company. Payroll processing services to employees, officers, and directors of third-party companies acquired by, or merged into, other third parties are provided by PNC PAID, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of PNC Bank. Secure payment gateway services and reporting and payment-processing solutions are provided by Tempus Technologies, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of PNC Bank. Investment banking and capital markets activities are conducted by PNC through its subsidiaries PNC Bank, PNC Capital Markets LLC (including through its trade name, PNC FIG Advisory). Services such as public finance investment banking services, securities underwriting, and securities sales and trading are provided by PNC Capital Markets LLC and PNC FIG Advisory. Mergers & acquisitions advisory and related services are provided by PNC Capital Markets LLC, PNC FIG Advisory, Fortis Advisors LLC, Harris Williams LLC, Harris Williams & Co. Ltd., and Harris Williams & Co. Equity capital markets advisory and related services are provided by PNC Capital Markets LLC, Harris Williams LLC, Harris Williams & Co. Ltd, Harris Williams & Co. Corporate Finance Advisors GmbH, Solebury Capital LLC and Solebury Trout LLC. PNC Capital Markets LLC, Harris Williams LLC, Solebury Capital LLC, and Sixpoint Partners LLC are registered broker-dealers and members of FINRA and SIPC. Retail brokerage services and managed account advisory services are offered by PNC Investments LLC, a registered broker-dealer and an SEC-registered investment adviser and member of FINRA and SIPC. Annuities and other insurance products are offered through PNC Insurance Services, LLC. Neither PNC Bank nor PNC Capital Markets LLC are registered as a municipal advisor under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Act”). PNC Bank and certain of its affiliates including PNC TC, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser wholly owned by PNC Bank, do business as PNC Real Estate. PNC Real Estate provides commercial real estate financing and related services. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This material does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any investment product. Risks of each fund, as well as information regarding the investments, risks, and expenses of each fund, are described in the fund’s private placement memorandum (PPM) or other offering documents. Please read the PPM and other offering documents carefully before investing.

Important Investor Information – Securities, insurance, foreign exchange, and derivative products are: Not FDIC Insured • Not Bank Guaranteed • Not A Deposit • Not Insured By Any Federal Government Agency • May Lose Value In Canada, PNC Bank Canada Branch, the Canadian branch of PNC Bank, provides bank deposit, treasury management, lending (including asset-based lending) and leasing products and services. Deposits with PNC Bank Canada Branch are not insured by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation or by the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Lending, leasing and equity products and services, as well as certain other banking products and services, require credit approval. PNC does not provide legal, tax or accounting advice unless, with respect to tax advice, PNC Bank has entered into a written tax services agreement. ©2022 The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship Retail Agribusiness Media Public affairs Statewide

WHEELS UP An unlikely founder has Huck Cycles on the move as demand for electric bikes accelerates.

By Tucker Mitchell

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF HUCK CYCLES

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rett McCoy has nice memories of growing up in western New York state, especially Saturday mornings. He’d ride into town with his grandfather Harold McCoy, a farmer who grew grapes for local wineries. Grandpa would pick out the auto parts he needed at the local NAPA store while little Brett danced along the aisles.

“They (the store owners) knew (Grandpa) was coming, and had the coffee waiting for him,” says McCoy. “They’d let me roam around, feed me candy. … Sometimes Grandpa forgot his wallet and they let him pay the next time. It was just a neat experience — real small-town America.”

A few years later and a few miles south, the desire to reproduce that feeling is the driving force behind Huck Cycles, McCoy’s 3-year-old electric motorbike company that’s based in Cornelius, just north of Charlotte.

Huck is designed to be a small business, selling a limited number of hand-built, battery-powered vehicles for a slice of the growing “micro-mobility” market that includes bikes and scooters.

Huck machines start at about $5,200. Most of them — the company has sold nearly 1,000 in 40 states and six countries so far — have been ridden by McCoy, Huck’s CEO and founder.

He’s also spoken with the vast majority of his customers.

While a total newcomer to the biking industry, McCoy picked a red-hot sector to invest his time and money in. Sales of micro-mobility products are expected to soar to more than $200 billion annually by 2030, up from $44 billion in 2020, according to Allied Market Research, a Portland, Oregon-based data service.

Huck’s 15-person staff consists primarily of U.S. veterans (like McCoy), and the company is working to find North American suppliers for each of the 200 or so components for each bike. North Carolina suppliers are preferred. Currently, frames are made in Statesville, seats in High Point, and plastic “fuel” tanks in Salisbury.

Heck, the company is even named after Huck Finn.

“I don’t know, I just wanted to keep that piece of America, that vintage feel" from his childhood, says McCoy. “That’s really important to me.”

McCoy knows a lot about two-wheel vehicles. His parents owned only motorcycles — no cars — so he rode from age 6

▲ Brett McCoy, CEO and founder of Huck Cycles, has ridden most of the bikes his company has sold.

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until many years later when life changes put a damper on his biker life.

He talked his wife into letting him buy an electric bike several years ago — a “loophole,” he calls it — but was disappointed with the options available on the market.

McCoy, who is 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, says he felt “like I was on a kid’s dirt bike.”

So despite no experience in fabrication, electrical engineering, or vehicle design, McCoy created his own. He built prototypes out of cardboard and then PVC pipe purchased from a local home improvement store.

It’s a very different pursuit from his long marketing career at various employers in the Buffalo, Cleveland and Charlotte areas. He’s been in North Carolina off and on since 2003, including stints at Lowe’s Cos. and, most recently, Wells Fargo.

McCoy documented his quest to create a better bike on social media. To his surprise, that generated offers to buy one if he got it done, and, as work progressed, a few unsolicited checks.

Somewhat accidentally, says McCoy, a company was born.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, followed by workforce headaches and supply chain miseries.

But good old American perseverance won the day. McCoy burned the midnight oil while also burning through much of his savings. He turned off the sales button on the company website more than once because his band of veterans couldn’t keep up with demand. But the orders kept coming. Problems were overcome. The company generated enough income — and promise — for him to quit his day job in March 2021.

In December 2021, Clairvoyant Ventures, an affiliate of a South Korean investment firm, invested $1 million. That first outside investment allowed Huck to expand its workforce and purchase enough inventory to weather some supply chain

bumps. It will also facilitate a move into a new space with more than 15,000 square feet near Charlotte Douglas International Airport later this year.

That should lead to a tripling of production, from 50 to 60 cycles a month now to 150. McCoy doesn’t want to get much bigger than that because the dynamic of the business would change. “We’re made in the U.S., by hand, by real people,” he says. “If we changed what we’re doing, we’d lose that. … I don’t want to get too big.”

Clairvoyant CEO Steve Amedio says McCoy’s vision and connection with the micro-mobility trend impressed his group.

“This is not a toy,” says Amedio. “It’s a serious product in a fast-growing part of the transportation space, especially in urban areas. It’s already a big thing in Europe, and it’s taking off in cities across America.”

Amedio says he and his fellow investors were not daunted by McCoy’s insistence on an American-made product, though it raises the cost of Huck cycles by 30-40%.

“The quality will be better, and there is support for that idea,” Amedio says. “Consumers are willing to grant some leeway for an American-made product. And then that is who they are. That’s Brett’s vision.”

Huck Cycles fit a space somewhere between scooters, mopeds and actual motorcycles. The heaviest Huck is 160 pounds, a third as much as a lightweight motorcycle.

They are classified as mopeds in some states and as motorcycles in others. Huck’s cycles come with a vehicle identification number to match the classification of the state of delivery.

“Our customers, for the most part, are not motorcycle people,” says McCoy. “They have not been in the market for a motorcycle but have aspired to be. So we scratch that itch.” ■

Along for the ride Huck Cycles sold its bikes online or by word of mouth until earlier this year when it signed its first dealer, Queen City Scooters in Charlotte.

Initial sales have been strictly to individuals, but business-to-business applications are on the horizon. Huck is talking to police departments and delivery companies, among others.

Huck’s cycles, which have starting prices ranging from $5,200 to $6,200, are simple to operate. There’s no clutch and speeds are factory-restricted. The entry-level model, the Rebel, goes up to 18 miles per hour. The Overland, which is designed for off-road and street use, has a top speed of 30. The new Stinger planned for this fall is the speedster, reaching 45 to 50 miles per hour.

The range varies, but the top end is around 50 miles on a single charge.

▲ Huck Cycles sells two bike series: Rebel (pictured) and Overland.

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Retail

MY HARRIS TEETER Kroger taps a veteran North Carolina retail executive to sustain the grocery chain’s long-term success.

By Katherine Snow Smith

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The interview is edited for brevity and clarity.

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▲ Food Lion veteran Tammy DeBoer now heads rival Harris Teeter.

► After leaving Family Dollar, you ran your own consulting firm for three years. Why return to a corporate job?

Creating and running my own consulting firm was always something I wanted to do. In the end, I missed a team. In the consulting world, relationships with your clients are just that — a contracted relationship. At Harris Teeter, I help lead meetings, strategies and project conversations. I’m very passionate about coaching and developing people as well. ► How did you thrive in a male-dominated industry?

As a young lady starting out in this business, I really didn't think about gender at all. It never crossed my mind. I was very independent and very strong-willed. I was fortunate to have incredible mentors who drove me, and they were honest with feedback. It’s always good to deliver and receive positive feedback, but for me it was also important to receive feedback that would help me grow.

I was always looking for the opportunity to take on more. At the end of the day, it was really about being able to lead people and deliver results.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HARRIS TEETER

ammy DeBoer is relatively new to Kroger and its Harris Teeter unit, where she became president in February. But the Salisbury native is a veteran North Carolina retailer, having spent 17 years at Food Lion and its parent company, Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, and five years (2012-17) at Matthews-based Family Dollar Stores.

One of her notable roles was as vice president and general manager of Bloom, Food Lion’s effort to create an upscale store brand that launched in 2004. But the business didn’t take off, prompting its closing in 2012.

DeBoer moved to Family Dollar, where she was chief merchandising officer amid the company’s sale to Dollar Tree in 2016.

About two years later, she left to start a consulting business, then joined Matthews-based Harris Teeter in September 2020 as a senior vice president.

In February, she succeeded Rod Antolock as president, becoming only the third person to hold the post in the past 25 years.

Fred Morganthall led the company from 1997 through 2015. Harris Teeter, which dates back to Charlotte and Mooresville stores in the 1930s, was acquired by Kroger for $2.5 billion in 2014.

In her first six months leading the 260-store chain, DeBoer is steering the company through a labor shortage, rising food costs, increasing competition and changing shopping habits.

While most shoppers still buy their food at the store, Harris Teeter is raising its digital game with a new app for online ordering and plans to deliver groceries directly to customers’ homes. That delivery plan requires dedicated fulfillment centers employing artificial intelligence and advanced robotics, the first of which will open in Frederick, Maryland, this summer. It will be followed by a 200,000-square-foot warehouse in Concord, where Kroger is investing nearly $140 million and expects to eventually employ 700 starting in 2024, according to state government documents.

DeBoer worked at a Food Lion in Boone while earning an undergraduate degree in business and business technology at Appalachian State University. She has also completed a course for supermarket executives at Cornell University.

DeBoer discussed how Harris Teeter is navigating the changing grocery industry.

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► How is Harris Teeter attracting employees during the labor shortage?

We are focused on understanding exactly what associates are looking for in today's environment. We’ve heard from them that it’s not all about compensation. We want to be an incredible place to work, certainly offering competitive compensation packages but also other benefits. We have intense programs to coach and mentor associates and offer them career paths. I meet so many of our 35,000 associates who started in high school as a part-time bagger or cashier and now are a store director or district manager or even a regional vice president. ► How diverse is your leadership team at Harris Teeter?

I am proud that 50% of our senior executive team, who are the top leaders in our company, is diverse [in race and gender]. ► What is Harris Teeter’s competitive advantage?

Our relentless commitment to world-class customer service.

We have such wonderful associates, and they really are the core of our business model. The other thing that sticks out is our incredible quality standard. We also have an extensive variety of products. Over the years, we’ve added conveniences (pharmacies, Starbucks, fuel centers, wine bars, live music, hot bars, pizza bars) to many of our stores. ► Wegmans has many hot-food stations. Trader Joe’s is known for its customer service. Publix has pharmacies. How do you differentiate yourself?

I think there’s this trust factor. Certainly, those competitors that you named, are strong and they offer that as well, but I think there is an advantage of being a local, hometown grocer where people grew up in the store. People refer to their local store as ‘my Harris Teeter.’ They are very protective of their store manager.

When I go out on unannounced visits, they are positive about their experience and the associates. ► How is Harris Teeter combatting food inflation?

We are trying to absorb costs where we can. It's impossible not to pass along some of those. We are trying hard to become more efficient for cost savings so we don’t have to pass those along 100%.

▲ More than half of the 260 Harris Teeter stores are in North Carolina.

► Will the home delivery cost outweigh the benefit of access for customers in areas without grocery stores?

No, it will not. There’s a nominal fee for delivery. We’re still working out some of the details. Kroger has been doing this now for a couple of years in markets where they don't have brick-andmortar stores, and it's been highly successful. ► How much of your business is online?

We don't share what percentage of business is online. It certainly grew by over 100% during the pandemic. Now customers really like going to the stores. They like picking their own produce and their own cut of meat. People were really eager to get back to human engagement. ► What is your favorite place to eat at in Boone?

The Dan’l Boone Inn has great comfort food. It reminded me of my grandmother’s cooking and gave me a sense of home. ■

CEOS OF NORTH CAROLINA-BASED SUPERMARKET CHAINS FOOD LION

SALISBURY

MEG HAM

1,100 STORES

INGLES MARKETS

BLACK MOUNTAIN

JAMES LANNING

198

FRESH MARKET

GREENSBORO

JASON POTTER

160

LOWES FOODS

WINSTON-SALEM

TIM LOWE

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Agribusiness

SPROUTING SUCCESS

On its 50th anniversary, family-owned Metrolina Greenhouses rides growing interest in plants and gardening.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF METROLINA GREENHOUSES

I

By David Mildenberg

n 1972, Tom and Vickie VanWingerden looked around the South to find a good location to start an indoor plant-growing business. They leased a 20,000-square-foot property in Huntersville, a Mecklenburg County town of fewer than 1,000 residents at the time.

Fifty years later, the family’s Metrolina Greenhouses has become a $300 million-plus business that supplies more than 1,400 retail outlets in 19 states. As many as 1,200 people work for the company, which has enjoyed strong gains in the last two-and-a-half years as many homeowners spend more to beautify their properties amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The family saw a niche for supplying large quantities of plants at affordable prices, mainly through big retailers. Selling through Salisbury-based Food Lion paved Metrolina’s initial success; then Kmart became its biggest customer. Sales to Lowe’s, The Home Depot and Walmart now account for many of the 250 to 300 trucks that come in and out of the business every day.

“We had to convince the retailers that the business didn’t end on Mother's Day,” says Art VanWingerden, who is co-CEO with his brother Abe, sons of the founders. “It’s a year-round business now.”

While it germinates plenty of plants itself, the business also wholesales products grown by about 60 other growers. Abe calls Metrolina a logistics company as much as a grower. Huntersville, which now has more than 60,000 residents, proved to be a great location because of its proximity to Interstates 77 and 85.

The unusual arrangement of co-CEOs works because of a teamoriented approach. “Abe isn’t in this to make Abe look good;

▲ Metrolina was named International Grower of the Year at the International Association of Horticultural Producers' conference in Amsterdam in June.

he’s in it to make Metrolina look good,” Art notes. Different skills also help. While Art says he has limited sales talent, “Abe could sell snow blowers in Miami.”

Both fully expect the family business to thrive for another halfcentury, led by some of their parents’ 19 grandchildren, who are ages 2 to 28. ■

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Media

STREAMING SUCCESS

By Katherine Snow Smith

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aleigh investment strategist Burke Koonce has a pretty sexy side gig as co-partner in a film production company that has created documentaries on two notorious Wall Street stories of recent years.

With streaming overtaking theaters, the demand for content means relative neophytes like Biltmore Films can make a mark in the movie business.

In March, HBO Max aired Biltmore Films' “Gaming Wall Street,” a study of how a barrage of individual investors coordinated through the Reddit website to boost retailer GameStop’s share price in early 2021, hoping to thwart short sellers. The film, which was narrated

by Kieran Culkin of HBO’s “Succession” fame, has received good reviews and has been compared to “The Big Short,” the 2015 film on beneficiaries of the U.S. housing collapse in 2007-09.

The new film is “about GameStop as well as the democratization of the markets and the little guy being able to level the playing field against the big guy,” says Koonce, whose business partner is Darien, Connecticut, hedge fund manager John Fichthorn.

Their first documentary, “Betting on Zero,” told the story of Los Angeles-based Herbalife Nutrition, a health supplement company that became ensnared in a multiyear battle with hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman.

The film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2016, earning a Special Jury Prize for Investigative Filmmaking. Herbalife fought behind the scenes to prevent the documentary from being bought or widely seen, blunting its distribution.

“With ‘Betting on Zero,’ we were a nobody,” Koonce says. “We had Herbalife breathing down our necks. Streaming had not really become the norm. We were still trying to get it in theaters.”

By 2021, “Gaming Wall Street” was a much easier sell. “What you have now is a very robust market for content,” he says.

Stock stories

Analyzing stocks isn’t much different from telling a business saga, according to Koonce, who is an investment strategist in the Raleigh office of Trust Company of the South, which is based in Greensboro.

“The whole reason John and I started doing this is we are both storytellers,” says Koonce, who met Fichthorn while attending UNC Chapel Hill. “Every good investment is a good story.”

The documentary on Herbalife started as an in-house research project on multilevel marketing companies while Koonce was running an investment research firm, Helicon Research. His client, Fichthorn,

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owns a firm called Dialectic Capital Management. “[Fichtorn] asked me to look into this industry to see if it was worth investing in long or short. It doesn’t take a lot of detective work to find all the crazy, goofy stories that come out of multilevel marketing. So our original idea was I might make a video so (investors) could see fully what was going on,” Koonce says.

“It was going to basically just be me making it with my iPhone.” ▲"Betting on Zero" is Biltmore Films' He was deep in research first production. in 2012 when Bill Ackman declared Herbalife a pyramid scheme in disguise and put up about $1 billion with an expectation that the company’s shares would decline.

“It was like that moment in ‘Jaws’ when the police chief says: ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat.’ The good news was we suddenly had this story that was on the front page of every financial news outlet,” he laughs. “The bad news was we had no idea what we were doing in terms of making a documentary.”

After reaching out to industry connections, they brought on documentarian Ted Braun to make the film as a director and co-producer.

Fitchthorn invested nearly $1 million, while Koonce contributed time and research. Neither bet on Herbalife shares, either long or short.

The Federal Trade Commission eventually fined Herbalife $200 million for misleading consumers. But a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the company in 2015, which sent its stock soaring.

Ackman reportedly got out of the stock in 2017 after suffering losses estimated to exceed $500 million.

John Oliver's role

In addition to Ackman, various consumer groups started speaking out against Herbalife. Through class-action lawsuit filings and protests, it became clear that the company had marketed its program and products to many lower-income Hispanic communities. Many immigrants and undocumented residents invested thousands in merchandise, but many wound up unable to sell the products at a profit.

“Every week, I sent a research piece to the film crew. I was monitoring the news flow, the court documents, where the next protest might be,” Koonce says.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BURKE KOONCE

Films on the GameStop and Herbalife sagas raise the stock of upstart producers.

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Herbalife countered the bad publicity by showing various millionaires who credited the company for their wealth. Company loyalists picketed the April 2016 premiere at the Tribeca festival and other screenings. When nobody showed up to see a sold-out screening at a Washington, D.C., film festival in October 2016, the producers learned Herbalife’s lobbying firm had bought all the tickets.

“We won an award for investigative journalism, but then nobody bought (the documentary). Herbalife was behind the scenes telling people to stay away from us,” Koonce says. “We had had all these people wanting to talk to us at first. Then it just dried up because people were so frightened about litigation.”

Herbalife spread the inaccuracy that Ackman, who was prominently featured in “Betting on Zero,” financed the film. He didn’t put up any money, Koonce says. Rather, the financier’s aggressive style hurt Biltmore Films’ chances. “At least one very well-connected film distributor told us: ‘I love what you're doing, but I’m not going to do anything to make (Ackman) look good.’”

Six months after the premiere, Koonce was desperate to find an entity to buy the documentary. The company got lucky when HBO show host John Oliver went after multilevel marketing companies on his program “LastWeekTonight.”

“When [“Betting on Zero”] played in a D.C. film festival earlier this year, the screening had 173 empty seats because an Herbalife lobbying firm reportedly bought them out,” Oliver said on his show.

“And that’s not just petty, it’s stupid. If you don't want people to see a movie, you don't need to buy out seats, just put up posters saying ‘Starring Shia LaBeouf.’ Done.”

A few days later, Netflix called to buy the program, Koonce says.

“If Herbalife hadn’t (bought out the theater), ‘Betting on Zero’ might have just died a lonesome death.”

Coming attractions

Herbalife’s retaliation put Biltmore Films on the map. Koonce and Fichthorn considered several projects over the next few years while focusing on their jobs.

In 2021, cinematographer Tobias Deml reached out to Koonce. At the time, Deml was shooting videos on retail investors trying to boost GameStop stock. Biltmore Films worked as an unofficial consultant with Deml for several months, then pitched the idea for a documentary to Gunpowder & Sky, which had distributed its previous film to theaters. Within weeks HBO bought the pending film for a sum that dwarfed the budget for “Betting on Zero.” One catch: With rumors of as many as seven other GameStop films in the making, HBO wanted a completed film in three months.

“It was an absolute dead sprint,” Koonce says. “Our director was working 14 hours, seven days a week for three months. We were actually able to deliver on time.”

Biltmore Films, which is a nod to the partners’ family ties to Asheville, is now considering several ideas.

“John and I both think the best stories are often the best investments,” Koonce says. “Film people and business people don’t always operate in the same worlds. I believe we are in a small but growing part of that Venn diagram where it’s valuable we can do both." ■

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Public affairs Our paid daily newsletter provides detailed interviews with key lawmakers, Q&As of other political leaders, and stories on 2022 election news and campaign finance. Plus lots of stories tracking daily happenings at the state legislature.

Here’s some of what you missed. Sign up today at nctribune.com.

REDISTRICTING TIME AGAIN

R

edistricting is back in the news thanks to a comment from N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore that the legislature might hold a December session to redraw congressional maps.

Moore floated the possibility in a conversation with WRAL News, but so far there’s no indication the Senate is eager to spend the Christmas season in Raleigh looking at maps.

A December redistricting session would make a lot of sense if Democrats manage to take the majority in one or both chambers. But barring major changes in the national political landscape, Republicans are expected to expand their numbers.

If the 2023 legislative balance of power is unchanged, it might be just as easy to wait until the new year to tackle redistricting. But if lawmakers are indeed in a hurry to get the job done, it’s likely because the inevitable lawsuits can take months (if not years) to resolve, and they want a final court ruling before candidate filing would begin in December 2023.

Senate leader Phil Berger cited that as a possible reason to get a head start. Moore told me he feels strongly that the current legislature that

GET TO KNOW REP.-ELECT KANIKA BROWN

K ▲ Kanika Brown

anika Brown, 46, surprised some political observers when she won a Forsyth County Democratic House primary over the husband of the longtime lawmaker who currently holds the seat, Rep. Evelyn Terry.

The new version of District 71 includes the southern half of WinstonSalem, and no Republican filed for the seat, so Brown was effectively elected when she won the primary.

► What are the current and past jobs you’ve held outside politics?

I'm the president of Fuzzy Friends Pet Food Pantry, the president of the Morningside & Reynolds Park Road Neighborhood Association, a board member of Experiment in Self Reliance, and an assistant to a client with disabilities. In the past, I have also worked as a substitute teacher and teacher's assistant.

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was elected in 2020 ought to finish the job of redistricting before newcomers take office.

A December redistricting session could also end up turning two Democrats into lame ducks of sorts. If the legislature were to approve a congressional map similar to the one that was rejected by the N.C. Supreme Court, it would be unlikely that Democrats Jeff Jackson and Kathy Manning would be able to get re-elected in 2024. (They are expected to be elected in districts that mostly include Charlotte and Greensboro, respectively.)

Instead, we’d again see the west-of-Charlotte district where Moore considered running until U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn decided to switch districts under that map. If Moore tries again, Cawthorn is less likely to stop him. (Cawthorn lost in the GOP primary in May and won’t be in Congress in January.)

► If you could enact a single piece of legislation into law today,

what would it be?

I would raise the minimum wage in North Carolina to a livable one that properly honors the labor of our state's working families and provides the wages needed to make ends meet. ► Where do you most enjoy taking an out-of-town visitor

in your district?

Local restaurants and venues like a/perture cinema, as well as our beautiful natural environments like Salem Lake. ► What is your favorite hobby outside work?

Among my favorite hobbies are enjoying music (especially at jazz concerts) and learning more about our world through documentaries. ► Who do you most admire, and why?

I admire the activists from generations before mine, particularly the many who have dedicated their time and energy to mentoring me.

Leaders of the women's and civil rights movements, particularly in the Piedmont Triad, have paved the way for women of color like me to be able to serve in leadership roles and give back to our communities. I am determined to build on their legacy and forge a strong future for generations to come.

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Statewide

TOP PAY

E

We love getting feedback from our readers. Here’s a sampling of what you had to say about Business North Carolina on social media last month.

Power List

Lisa Shpritz @lshpritz The need for outstanding leadership has never been greater. @BusinessNC’s Power List 2022 was recently released, and @BankofAmerica has not only one but two #NorthCarolina leaders on it. Congrats @DSteveBoland and Aditya Bhasin! https://bit.ly/3NsnIl9

ight CEOs of North Carolina companies received total compensation of about $15 million or more in 2021, according to proxy filings. Iqvia leader Ari Bousbib and Honeywell’s Darius Adamcyzk topped the list. Bousbib led Danbury, Connecticut-based IMS Health before its 2016 merger with Durham-based Quintiles to create Iqvia.

Adamcyzk became Honeywell’s CEO in 2017.

Pay doesn’t necessarily match performance. The total returns of two companies led by the eight highest-paid CEOs topped the 53% increase in the S&P 500 Index in the five years through June 14. One company matched that return, while four underperformed the index. Krispy Kreme hasn’t been public for five years.

HIGHEST PAID N.C. CEOS Driven Brands

CEO, company

Total compensation in 2021

5-year total return *

Driven Brands Inc.

Ari Bousbib, Iqvia

$28.6 million

131%

Read the profile of Driven Brands in the June edition of Business North Carolina magazine. https://bit.ly/3NPaC16

Darius Adamcyzk, Honeywell

$26.1 million

44%

Brian Moynihan, Bank of America

$23.7 million

49%

Michael Tattersfield, Krispy Kreme

$23.7 million

NA

Adam Schechter, Labcorp

$20.5 million

53%

Marvin Ellison, Lowe’s

$17.9 million

148%

quismachinery

Lynn Good, Duke Energy

$16.5 million

48%

Once again, we were proud to be a sponsor at MFGCON, NC’s premier manufacturing conference. Many thanks to @ businessnorthcarolina and NC Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NCMEP) for planning and hosting the event. The confluence of so many of our state’s innovators and business

Howard Nye, Martin Marietta

$14.9 million

40%

MFGCON

NORTH CAROLINA CEOS WITH THE BEST FIVE-YEAR RETURNS CEO, company

Total compensation in 2021

5-year total return *

Greg Gantt, Old Dominion Freight Line

$10.8 million

283%

Frank Harrison III, Coca Cola Consolidated

$13.6 million

138%

James Lanning, Ingles Markets

$1.9 million

130%

David Smith, Sonic Automotive

$6.5 million

103%

Gene Lowe III, SPX

$6.5 million

98%

*Five-year return through June 14

SCAN ME

to find Business North Carolina online or go to linktr.ee/businessnorthcarolina.

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CHARLOTTE SALUTES MOYNIHAN

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ank of America’s influence in North Carolina is very different from 2010, when Brian Moynihan became CEO. Few of the bank’s most prominent executives live in Charlotte, including Moynihan, who resides in a Boston suburb and makes rare visits to the state. Only one BofA director lives in the Queen City.

But after 12 years leading the second-largest U.S. bank, the Marietta, Ohio, native has maintained BofA’s commitment to Charlotte in terms of jobs and civic benevolence. It remains the bank’s official headquarters and employs more than 16,000 people there.

Moynihan’s respect in the city remains strong enough that the World Affairs Council of Charlotte gave him its prized “World Citizen” award last month. Several hundred people attended a black-tie dinner to honor his success rebuildng the bank’s financial strength and leadership in many global initiatives, including

CHARLOTTE

chairing the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council and co-chairing Prince Charles’ Sustainable Markets Initiative.

Former BofA CEO Hugh McColl Jr. introduced Moynihan as the city’s “most important leader,” citing his work with the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, a group of area ▲ Brian Moynihan CEOs, and steady support of key causes. “I’m proud to say that he’s running the company I helped build, and nobody could do it better,” McColl said.

Moynihan, 62, responded by praising Charlotte’s resilience through the pandemic and cited CEOs Lynn Good of Duke Energy and Gene Woods of Atrium Health as exemplary leaders. ■

Tepper’s companies, saying it is owed $21 million related to the failed Panthers practice facility project. The county is suing Appaloosa Management, DT Sports Holding and Tepper Sports Holding.

CBRE Investment Management bought the 16-story The Line tower in the South End district for $206 million. CBRE is in a joint venture with Portman Holdings, which developed the building with Washington, D.C.-based National Real Estate Advisors.

CHARLOTTE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NUCOR, NBA

Nucor acquired Summit Utility Structures and Sovereign Steel Manufacturing for an undisclosed sum. They will become part of a new business unit called Nucor Towers & Structures, serving the utility, transportation and telecommunications sectors.

CHARLOTTE South Carolina’s York County filed a lawsuit against the City of Rock Hill and three of Carolina Panthers owner David

The City Council approved a plan to renovate Spectrum Center and extend the Charlotte Hornets’ lease of the building through 2045. Councilors voted 10-1 for renovations that will total $215 million, while $60 million will be extended for a new practice facility near the arena.

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Statewide Marty Sumichrast agreed to step down as CEO and chairman of cbdMD, based here, as he defends himself against fraud allegations lodged against him in a civil suit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The public company sells hemp-based health products.

CHARLOTTE

CONCORD

Duke Energy reached an agreement with several N.C. solar installers who objected to the company’s proposed changes in rooftop solar rules and incentives. The company had sought to reduce what rooftop solar owners get paid for excess electricity sent back to the grid.

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Eli Lilly and Co. broke ground on the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company’s $1 billion campus. Eli Lilly plans 600 jobs at The Grounds, where Philip Morris formerly operated the world’s biggest cigarette plant.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DUKE ENERGY

Tampa, Florida-based Holland & Knight signed five corporate/M&A lawyers focused on private equity who have been working at the Moore Van Allen firm here. They are partners Rick Bange, John Gilson, Mike Miller, Emerich Gutter and Ben Weadon. H&K added a Charlotte office in 2016.

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Chemical plastics manufacturer Dymax’s plans a $46.7 million expansion in Monroe. The Torrington, Connecticutbased company says it will add 227 jobs with an average salary of $66,343 annually.

EAST

PHOTO COURTESY OF COLLINS AEROSPACE

GREENVILLE

CHARLOTTE Collins Aerospace opened an additive manufacturing center and expanded its maintenance, repair and overhaul capabilities at its local campus. The company completed a $30 million expansion in 2021 and has since invested an additional $15 million.

FNB Corp., the Pittsburgh-based owner of FNB Bank, agreed to buy Union Bancorp for $19.56 a share, or $117 million in stock. Union Bank has assets of $1.2 billion and $1 billion in deposits with 15 offices in 12 N.C. counties.

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Statewide HIGH POINT Former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin will be the founding dean of the developing High Point University School of Law. Martin spent more than three years as the head of the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He served as chief justice from September 2014 through early 2019.

WILMINGTON

FAYETTEVILLE Audrey Oxendine, the chief of Fort Bragg’s energy and utilities branch, said the sprawling Army facility plans to construct the largest floating solar farm in the Southeast. Fort Bragg’s electricity bill is about $40 million a year, which the base is trying to reduce.

Greater Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce leader Shari Fiveash resigned as president. Fiveash was appointed president in May 2021.

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TRIAD GREENSBORO

▲Mark Martin

KERNERSVILLE Cone Health plans a 12,000-square-foot facility in Welden Village, a mixed-use development here. It is expected to open in the summer of 2023 and will offer primary care, lab services, weight management and wellness services.

Investment firm KKR signed an agreement to acquire a majority interest in Apex Analytix, a supplier management and fraud prevention software company.

Apex’s former majority owner, Carousel Capital of Charlotte, remains a minority investor. Terms were not disclosed.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to invest about $2 million to create an Agriculture Business Innovation Center at N.C. A&T State University. The center will aid historically Black colleges and universities and small farms across the U.S., according to Professor Kathleen Liang.

WINSTON-SALEM The National Black Theatre Festival is returning this August. Billed as the world’s largest event in Black theater, the biennial festival had more than 60,000 attendees when it was last held in 2019. The 2021 festival was postponed because of the pandemic.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF DUKE ENERGY, NCCOURTS.GOV, CONE HEALTH

A new group signed an expansion agreement with the United Soccer League for a professional soccer team here. The group behind the push is planning a 4,500-seat stadium in the area and a mixed-use campus that would include high-density housing, retail, a food hall and a beer garden.

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Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist said community benefits spending, including charity care and outreach efforts, reached a record $611.2 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2021. That is $15 million more than a year earlier.

TRIANGLE

PHOTO COURTESY OF LOTUS BAKERIES

DURHAM Becton Dickinson is paying $1.5 billion for Parata Systems, a provider of pharmacy automation technology started here in 2001. Parata is led by CEO Rob Kill and has been owned in recent years by Frazier Healthcare Partners, a private-equity company. Franklin Lakes, New Jerseybased Becton Dickinson had $20 billion in revenue in 2021.

Teamworks, an enterprise software company serving collegiate and professional sports organizations, raised $50 million in a funding led by Delta-v Capita, which has offices in Dallas and Boulder, Colorado. Zach Maurides is founder and CEO

MEBANE Lotus Bakeries, a snack food company, will create 62 jobs in Alamance County.

In its second expansion in a year, the company will invest more than $84 million to add a production plant.

of Teamworks, which has raised more than $100 million since 2006.

Policygenius, an online insurance marketplace with dual headquarters here and in New York, laid off as much as 25% of its staff, or about 170 people. CEO Jenni-

fer Fitzgerald posted on LinkedIn a list of alumni that she recommended as talented workers. The company pledged to create 377 jobs in North Carolina in 2019 as part of an incentives program.

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Statewide

WEST BREVARD The city is suing Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, which bought the nonprofit Mission Health System in 2019. The federal lawsuit alleges HCA engaged in a scheme to monopolize health care markets in seven counties in western North Carolina. Separately, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners said it supports a new hospital in the Asheville area that is not owned by HCA.

WRAL News reported that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is planning to add a significant number of jobs in Durham. Some new positions have been posted on LinkedIn.

RALEIGH

MORRISVILLE

A study by a pair of Florida universities concluded that the prices of homes in 15 major U.S. cities are overvalued by 50% or more, including Raleigh and Charlotte.

Poultry biotech Targan, previously called Applied LifeSciences & Systems, raised $35 million as it develops systems to improve the health of poultry. The company’s technology uses artificial intelligence, robotics and microfluidics to vaccinate as many as 100,000 chicks per hour. Mountain Group Partners and Raleigh-based NovaQuest Capital Management led the financing.

OXFORD D’Artagnan, a specialty food company distributor, will create 23 jobs in Granville County. The company will invest more than $4 million to locate a warehouse and distribution facility here.

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MORGANTON More than 600 people gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the new campus of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. The school will enroll 150 high school juniors this fall, then 150 more the following year. The state invested $85 million at the site to boost STEM education, complementing the existing campus in Durham.

LAUREL SPRINGS A 10-mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway will be shut down for almost two years to allow workers to complete a bridge replacement project. Work has begun on the $29 million project to replace the Laurel Fork Bridge in Ashe County. Completion is scheduled for November 2024.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FACEBOOK, VISITNC.COM

DURHAM

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ENERGY

ALL OF THE ABOVE Diversification is a common theme in North Carolina’s transition to clean energy, a move that’s intended to combat climate change by achieving net-zero emissions of carbon by 2050. Finding all its parts and keeping them in motion falls mostly to members of the state’s energy industry. Not only do they have to integrate clean energy sources, such as nuclear, solar and wind, and modernize delivery, they need to involve consumers more, all the while protecting the economic development advantage of inexpensive and plentiful power that the state has always enjoyed. Business North Carolina magazine recently gathered a panel of energy experts and industry leaders to discuss how this important resource affects the state, what the transition to clean energy will require and what the future holds.

Andrew Fusco

Kevin Martin

Michael Mazzola

vice president, member services and corporate planning, ElectriCities of North Carolina

executive director, Carolina Utility Customers Association

director of Energy Production and Infrastructure Center, UNC Charlotte

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consumer of refined petroleum products.

In March of 2022, North Carolina consumers and businesses used 11.7 million gallons of gasoline, 4.3 million gallons of diesel fuel and 313,000 gallons of jet fuel on average per day, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration. These amounts have likely increased given rising demand.

Those gallons fuel our economy. While an energy transition is underway, and Gov. Cooper has an aggressive Clean Transportation Plan, the reality is North Carolina’s economy will continue to need petroleum products into the future.

That also includes natural gas, which is important to power generation, home heating and economic development.

MCGOWAN: North Carolina has the country’s second-largest number of state-owned and -maintained miles of road. It’s the country’s ninth largest

MUNDT: North Carolina has a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to transition to a clean energy economy. It has been mobilizing to take advantage of it throughout Gov. Cooper’s administration.

North Carolina is a national leader in solar energy, having one of the largest numbers of solar installations. Now it can secure its status as a national leader in clean energy with the development of offshore wind energy. North Carolina has the greatest potential for offshore wind energy generation of any state on the East Coast. A study released

by N.C. Department of Commerce last

year found it and its supply chain could mean about 85,000 new good jobs and $140 billion in capital expenditures along the East Coast over the next 13 years.

The study says that North Carolina is well positioned to attract a significant portion of that investment and those jobs because it has the largest manufacturing presence on the East Coast and a highly skilled workforce to support it. At the state level, we’re working with business and industry as we move forward in this transition. The governor’s office policy staff has hosted roundtables, learning about their energy needs and challenges.

There are several avenues to ensure that a company’s environmental, social and governance — ESG — goals can be met. North Carolina can accommodate their energy needs, whether we’re recruiting them or helping them expand.

We’re working with N.C. Department of Transportation as it creates its Clean Transportation Plan 2.0. Duke Energy is finalizing its carbon-reduction plan in accordance with House Bill 951 — Energy Solutions for North Carolina — which was passed with bipartisan support and signed by Gov. Cooper in October. It requires utilities to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 as part of efforts to combat climate change.

David McGowan

John Morrison (moderator)

Jennifer Mundt

Southeast region director, American Petroleum Institute

president and CEO, E4 Carolinas

assistant secretary of clean energy economic development, N.C. Department of Commerce

American Petroleum Institute and ElectriCities sponsored the discussion, which was moderated by E4 Carolinas’ John Morrison. It was edited for brevity and clarity.

HOW DOES THE ENERGY INDUSTRY IMPACT NORTH CAROLINA’S ECONOMY? MARTIN: It touches everyone — residential, commercial business and industry. Industries use energy for transformation and production. We typically use energy on a larger scale and at greater intensity than other consumers. Our energy must be cost effective, so our operations can remain competitive in North Carolina. The two groups most sensitive to the price of energy are low-income residents and industries. The difference is that industry is mobile. If a manufacturer, for example, isn’t able to produce here in a costeffective manner, it can move elsewhere.

North Carolina competes globally, not only regionally.

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ENERGY

WHAT ARE THE ENERGY INDUSTRY’S WORKFORCE NEEDS? MCGOWAN: The oil-and-gas industry is dealing with an aging workforce and transitioning some workers to different jobs. Some offshore drilling operators, for example, are diversifying into offshore wind because many of their skills are applicable. Our industry continues to stress science, technology, engineering and math — STEM — education, which is important regardless of your chosen industry. Many groups work on the skilled trades piece, including the state’s community colleges. There are many opportunities in the energy industry for skilled folks who don’t have or want a four-year degree.

MUNDT: Toyota is creating about 1,800 jobs with its battery plant at the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, and VinFast will create up to 7,500 at Triangle Innovation Point in Chatham County with the state’s first electric vehicle factory. We need to work with the community colleges local to these plants, ensuring a strong supply of trained workers. That actually begins by making middle and high school students aware of STEM-related careers, some of which don’t require a four-year degree.

President Biden’s administration, for example, wants 30 gigawatts of offshore wind projects deployed by 2030. Meeting that goal will require thousands of welders to fabricate, ready and install the required equipment.

There aren’t that many welders currently available. NC TOWERS, the recently assembled Taskforce for Offshore Wind Economic Resource Strategies, is working with experts to detail the training and credentialing needed to work in the offshore wind sector. It involves hundreds of job titles, many of which require skills that apply to other clean energy work, including EV manufacturing.

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FUSCO: Our members have needed more line workers for a long time.

The state’s community colleges have done a great job establishing a preapprenticeship program for high school seniors that address that need. They take a one-semester program that teaches the basic requirements of an electric utility or contractor, who then recruit them into an apprenticeship. It’s a great opportunity for a lucrative and stable job. Municipal utilities see needs for other skill sets. Smart infrastructure, for example, demands communications and systems engineers and data scientists and analysts. Along with technical advancements, operational efficiencies are driven by residential customer needs and preferences, which are shaped by experiences with other entities such as Amazon. We need people who can identify and collect them then develop programs targeted at specific market segments.

MAZZOLA: We need a diverse workforce — skilled tradespeople, professional engineers and everyone in between. EPIC prepares engineers.

A major contractor with the U.S. Department of Energy, its mission is workforce development for energy companies clustered in and near Charlotte. People tell me that every time they turn around, there’s a UNC Charlotte trained engineer at work, whether at their company, a different company or starting their own company such as Ryan Kennedy and Atom Power, which is building the world’s first solid-state power distribution system for buildings.

MARTIN: North Carolina has a large military presence — fourth most by active-duty population nationwide. Don’t discount folks leaving the military and working within the energy industry. They bring a wealth of skills, from soft skills to technical skills, that translate well into the energy and manufacturing workforce.

Additionally, N.C. State University has programs such as Industrial Expansion

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Solutions, which does process engineering for manufacturers. U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Assessment Center program in North Carolina recently shifted to EPIC and gives students hands-on experiences in the energy industry. These programs can help train the next generation and help transition military personnel into the workforce. That’s extremely important as the workforce needs remain high.

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES OF PROCURING ENERGY TO MEET ESG GOALS? MARTIN: ESG is unique to each energy consumer. Some commodity manufacturers might prioritize energy price, while those in other industries might rank sustainability or carbon reduction higher. Every manufacturer that I know has a carbon reduction goal.

North Carolina’s natural gas system has been deregulated for many years. There are many opportunities within the natural gas system, for example, to procure based upon your corporate ESG. But we don’t see that as much with electricity.

We’re forced many times to purchase renewable energy credits and carbon offsets, which only offer a short-term gain. Many companies want long-term opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint. Electricity’s source — coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, etc.

— needs notation, so companies can choose power to meet their corporate goals, including ESG. I come from the electric utility sector. I’ve heard many arguments against electric competition for 20 years. Now I’m on the other side, and I see an opportunity. There must be a way that customers can make this happen by cooperating with electric utilities, so everyone wins.

FUSCO: Our members operate under one of two power supply arrangements.

Some receive wholesale power as part of Duke’s portfolio, so House Bill 951 will impact them the most. They’ll see the

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same benefits and costs seen by Duke’s other North Carolina customers. The other utilities manage their own portfolio and have a large stake in nuclear power.

If you look at the energy delivered to their customers, 96% to 98% is carbon free from Catawba nuclear stations.

ARE CERTAIN REGIONS IN THE STATE AT AN ADVANTAGE OR DISADVANTAGE IN REGARDS TO THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION?

about this regionally, there will be large turbine components, such as blades, that will need to be manufactured in coastal communities. And thousands of other components, such as cables, can be made throughout the state and transported to the coast. North Carolina’s central location and strong manufacturing presence means we could support offshore wind development along entire East Coast. That translates to more jobs statewide.

MUNDT: North Carolina as a whole has some significant advantages in the transition to a clean energy economy. The study that Commerce released last year found that the offshore wind industry and its supply chain can provide tens of thousands of family-sustaining jobs for North Carolinians and clean, renewable energy for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. When we think

MARTIN: Natural gas, which emits less carbon than coal when burned, has been dubbed the bridge to the future. But many industries fear that bridge is out.

We need natural gas to carry us through the energy transition, supplementing generation for the electric grid and offering an efficient means for heat processing. Eastern North Carolina’s natural gas supply is constrained. And it

already is a constrained resource, which will cause price spikes. That will hurt the competitive edge enjoyed by North Carolina. So, we need to be careful with the balance and transition. We don’t want to build an energy system that lacks customers. We’ll electrify what we can, when it makes sense and can be done competitively. But we’ll need natural gas for a long time, so we need to ensure natural gas supplies are adequate. I recently had two conversations about that supply. One industrial customer in western North Carolina, for example, was ready to move forward on a corporateapproved expansion. But its natural gas supplier couldn’t meet its need. And I spoke with leaders from an eastern North Carolina city who won’t recruit industrial natural gas loads because they feel the capacity to serve them is lacking.

Pipelines are trying to increase supply, but we need more than a bandage.

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ENERGY

FUSCO: Electricity transmission constraints predate issues with renewables.

They happen when generation is added or removed. So, as the energy supply portfolio changes, we must monitor the impact on energy delivery. A future impact will be electrification, specifically EVs. It won’t be with residential load, but Amazon, for example, placing a fleet of delivery EVs is significant. Or if a Sheetz convenience store wants to add an EV charging station, that’s a significant impact because it’s on a rural highway.

It’s not starting with robust infrastructure.

Duke provided a reasonable grid modernization proposal in the past, which was more than $10 billion. It’s significant for municipal utilities in terms of cost and the design and changes that need to be enacted. They’ve invested in their distribution systems to maintain reliability, but they haven’t needed to invest for different uses until now.

MORRISON: Nationwide, 80% of new generation is distributed resources — wind, solar and energy storage. That’s a very different sort of layout, and that’s happening today.

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THE NUMBER OF EVS IS EXPECTED TO INCREASE. HOW WILL THAT IMPACT THE OIL-AND-GAS INDUSTRY? MCGOWAN: There’s tremendous momentum around EV and battery factories, especially in the Southeast.

Hyundai and Rivian for example, are building in Georgia, and Tennessee has three projects — an SK Innovation battery plant and Ford and Nissan factories. And Toyota and VinFast are in North Carolina. Our members are involved in the clean-energy transition and have a desire to compete with other private-sector entities on a level playing field. Shell, through Shell Recharge Solutions, and BP, through Amply Power, for example, are engaged in the EV space, and both had an interest in recent North Carolina offshore wind lease sales. Others are pursuing emerging technologies and energy sources as they look to diversify their business model. They know adaptation is required, and they will rise to the challenge. But the reality, at least in North Carolina, is liquid fuels will remain the basis for transportation for the foreseeable future.

That’s particularly true on the commercial side, where EV replacements for heavyduty vehicles are still emerging.

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WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE ENERGY INDUSTRY? MARTIN: Innovation comes from many places. Toyota started in textiles, making looms and sewing machines. Then it had a great idea to get into the car business.

It has been a leader in hybrid technology for the transportation industry for more than 20 years. Think how much carbon it has saved. Don’t only look inside a cluster for the innovation it needs.

Look for transferable skills from other clusters, too.

MAZZOLA: Despite energy transition being linked to changing resources, many people are under the impression that the grid will remain static. Consumers’ current role in the grid is nearly nonexistent: Turn on the light switch, and power flows. But that’ll change as more renewable energy resources are added.

Consumers will become the smartest part of the smart grid. That’s reflected in Duke’s carbon-reduction plan. The utility says rates will shape use to better support carbon-free resources, such as increasing demand during the day, when solar power is generated. Some people think that other states and countries are ahead of North Carolina in achieving

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decarbonization because they’re attached to certain clean energy resources. But after reviewing Duke’s plan, I’d argue that North Carolina is committed to finding a reliable and affordable energy supply system that works for everyone.

Other states and countries can’t claim that. EPIC works with traditional renewable energy and advanced nuclear construction, so we’ll have some dispatchable reliable zero-emission sources of energy by 2050. Nuclear does that best, and it’s recognized worldwide. Only a few places resist its use. North Carolina receives more than half of its electricity from some of the world’s finest nuclear power plants. EPIC also is working on powersystem resiliency. It’s helping modernize the grid, for example, to reduce the economic impact of long-term loss of electricity caused by hurricanes.

MUNDT: This is an exciting time in the energy industry in our state. North Carolina is looking at the resources that our continental shelf can provide for offshore wind, whether its fixed-base or floating technology. North Carolina has the greatest potential for offshore wind energy generation of any state on the East Coast. It’s a burgeoning opportunity.

FUSCO: There are many opportunities to use conservation to reduce greenhouse gases. Utilities can align generation costs with the price it charges consumers. That can spur reductions in both, which are equally important. It leads to a win-win, especially when you talk about lowincome consumers.

expects small modular nuclear reactors to be a big part of meeting net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Some pump hydro scenarios would be new to North Carolina. There also is renewable natural gas, which is collected from organic waste. It’s developing in the state and getting attention. It has many potential positive contributions, from environmental protection to a less carbon intensive energy source. Carbon capture is big, too. Natural gas generation will be key to meeting the state’s carbon reduction goals, and carbon capture could play a role. The state Utilities Commission, from conversations I’ve had, is interested in how it would look for North Carolina. ■

MCGOWAN: Emerging technologies and resources, such as hydrogen or offshore wind, will play larger roles. Duke’s plan

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N.C. PORTRAITS

LEADERSHIP IN LAW FIRMS

BALANCED LEADERS

by Alyssa Pressler Lawyers are one of those things you hope you never need, but when you do, you want the best. The state is filled with top notch law firms specializing in all types of law, including those profiled on the following pages. In speaking with the firms, it was easy to find a common thread. Each of them champions their clients above all else and truly cares about the people they work with. Read on to learn more about Ward and Smith, Myers Bigel and Kaufman & Canoles.

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From left to right: Randy Ayers, Julie Richardson, Grant Scott, Jim Cannon, Needham Boddie

STAYING POWER Myers Bigel is a law firm people don’t leave very often. The average tenure for an employee is 16 years, according to shareholder James (Jim) Cannon, who has been with the firm since its inception 25 years ago.

“There’s a lot of loyalty, and as a result a lot of continuity,” he says.

In fact, there are five attorneys who can say they were one of the original 17 to form Myers Bigel by breaking away from Bell Seltzer during that firm’s merger with Alston & Bird in 1997. One of those five is D. Randal Ayers, who was recently included in the peer reviewed The Best Lawyers In America’s 2021-22 listing.

Another is Needham Boddie II, who began practicing patent law, which Myers Bigel specializes in, in 1994 when he joined Bell Seltzer after 10 years of experience in design engineering with Duke Power Company.

As a firm that focuses on patent law, particularly in the tech, chemistry and biology, and mechanical industries, their location in the heart of the Triangle in Raleigh allows each attorney to flourish in their area of expertise. This is true of Julie Richardson, who focuses on patent prosecution in the electromechanical arts with an emphasis on biomedical devices.

919-854-1400 myersbigel.com

Grant Scott, former shareholder and now counsel at Myers Bigel, is one of the attorneys with the most experience at the firm, having started his law career in 1991 like Cannon.

Cannon believes the continuity of the firm is one of the reasons for its success and, along with excellent service, why many of the firm’s clients, including the firm’s four largest clients, have remained loyal for more than 20 years.

But he’s not concerned about the future of the firm, either. A number of people at Myers Bigel have been there for decades, like Rohan Saba, a shareholder that has been at the firm since graduating from law school 20 years ago, and Erin Bobay, a shareholder who’s been at the firm since graduating law school 14 years ago, both of whom have already taken leadership roles in the firm’s management. Executive Director Ashley Woodruff has been with the firm 23 years, having served in many roles before assuming her current responsibilities almost 10 years ago.

“The hope would be that we’re able to continue the way we have, providing high quality service and keeping the informal, yet very professional environment we have,” he says. “I see in the people who are coming along the ability to sustain that.”

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LEADERSHIP IN LAW FIRMS

Frank Hirsch, Jr.

FROM VIRGINIA TO RALEIGH Kaufman & Canoles, P.C. has been operating in Virginia for over 100 years, but it’s still a relatively new business in the Raleigh area, having opened its first North Carolina branch in 2021.

Led by Frank Hirsch, Jr., the firm’s senior of counsel and chair of the Consumer Finance practice group, the Raleigh office was established to allow K&C to better serve the North Carolina clients they already had, as well as expand into the growing Triangle area.

Hirsch is no stranger to Raleigh, positioning him well to help grow the firm’s office in the city.

He has spent his entire legal career in North Carolina and has been in Raleigh since 2000. Since then, the city’s population has grown by 72%.

“The choice to open in Raleigh was more strategic than just geography,” Hirsch says. “Client synergies are always a driver.”

984-222-8100 kaufcan.com

This is why K&C has also been expanding its areas of expertise in the Raleigh market, Hirsch explains, into health care, litigation, labor and employment, IP, white collar, environmental, commercial real estate, financial services, as well as specialty practices in government contracting, cybersecurity, and ESOPs. Part of Hirsch’s role is to grow the Raleigh office and search for qualified lawyers focusing on these specialties.

Hirsch focuses on litigation, particularly the defense of financial institutions in class actions.

He found passion for this work after his career with Centura Bank prior to the bank’s sale to RBC. Hirsch’s favorite part of working with K&C is having the resources of a large, established firm, but with a focus on client work and quality service.

“Client focus, rate flexibility, relatively few conflicts concerns and schedule controls are simply better at K&C,” he says. “These make the practice of law fun and fulfilling.”

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IT TAKES TWO...

Brad Evans

CO-MANAGING DIRECTORS AT WARD AND SMITH

Devon Williams

Most law firms have one managing partner, but Ward and Smith is not like most law firms.

Ward and Smith, with nearly 100 attorneys in five offices throughout North Carolina, has always had two co-managing directors. “We believe two heads are better than one,” quips Brad Evans.

Evans, a Greenville-based litigator, joined the firm in 2003, and has served as one of those two heads since 2017. In 2021, Devon Williams, a Raleigh-based employment law attorney, joined Evans in the leadership role, after practicing at Ward and Smith since 2012.

Both Evans and Williams carry an active, full-time client-facing law practice, while serving as firm leaders.

“One of the best ways we can serve the firm is by practicing law, solving our clients’ problems and staying in close touch with our team members,” says Evans. “We know where the pain points are in any internal process, because we feel them just the same way everyone else does.”

800-998-1102 wardandsmith.com

“And we work well together to maximize each other’s leadership strengths,” Williams says.

“It’s a true partnership.”

Both co-managing directors acknowledge the way they run the firm is not in the mainstream.

“Ward and Smith has a different business model, and it’s a difference I am passionate about,” says Williams. “Many law firms say they function as a team, but we actually do. Our model is different in that we have no attorney originations, no sharp elbows about who owns a client relationship, and are united around the vision that we do what is best for our clients.”

Evans agrees. “At Ward and Smith, our organizational chart is a circle, with our clients at the center. Every single one of us, including the co-managing directors, organize ourselves around what is best for our clients. That keeps us aligned as we discuss possible directions and goals.”

“We are both focused on enabling our attorneys to continue to innovate efficient legal solutions for our clients, and attract and retain top-tier talent,” Williams adds.

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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Established giants and enterprising newcomers promise big things for North Carolina.

By Lawrence Bivins

record run of corporate relocations and expansions has kept the dirt flying across North Carolina.

This year’s rankings of major new-job announcements over the past year include powerhouses such as Amazon, Eli Lilly and Toyota Motor. But the list also features lesser-known names such as Boom Supersonic, VinFast and Jaguar Gene Therapy, each promising big operations based on revolutionary new technology.

Meanwhile, the state continues to rack up gains in traditional industries including beverages, building products and distribution.

Several international entrants expect to make a major mark, led by Vietnam’s VinFast; Japan’s Toyota Motor; and Austria’s Red Bull. But some home-grown firms also show up, including Victra, Glen Raven and MegaCorp.

Cabarrus County, which is northeast of Charlotte, had a particularly notable year with large projects unveiled by five companies.

One note of caution: Not all projects pan out as expected. As economic and business conditions change, companies revise strategies both up and down.

These are the top 25 economic development projects, ranked by promises of job creation, announced from June 2021 through May 2022.

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1. VINFAST

Hanoi, Vietnam

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NEW JOBS: 7,500 COUNTY: Chatham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $4 billion NC CASH INCENTIVES: $316.1 million over 32 years

North Carolina’s decades-long quest for an automobile assembly plant came to fruition with a March announcement by VinFast, part of the Vingroup conglomerate founded by billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong.

The company, which delivered its first electric vehicles in Vietnam in December, says it will start assembling vehicles in Chatham County’s Moncure community in July 2024. Total state and local investment, including roads and utilities around the plant, could top $850 million if VinFast meets its targets for jobs and investment. The 2,150-acre Triangle Innovation Point was among 29 sites in 29 states that VinFast officials considered before narrowing their search to Moncure and Savannah, Georgia. Founded in 2017, the company intends to make electric SUV models expected to trade for more than $40,000.

2. MACY’S

New York, New York

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NEW JOBS: 2,800 COUNTY: Rowan PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $584 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2.3 million over 12 years

Aichi, Japan

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NEW JOBS: 1,750 COUNTY: Randolph PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $1.2 billion NC CASH INCENTIVES: $79.1 million over 20 years for first phase

Toyota’s first North American battery plant will support the company’s 10 U.S. automotive assembly sites, while providing a high-profile jolt to the Triad’s reputation as a manufacturing center. Expected to begin operating in 2025, the site will initially feature four production lines, with two more anticipated later. Average salaries are likely to top $62,000. Each line will deliver enough lithium-ion batteries to power 200,000 vehicles.

Access to renewable energy was among the factors leading the Japanese automaker to the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite. Electric and hybrid vehicles currently comprise 25% of Toyota’s sales, a number the company hopes to increase to 70% by 2030.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF VINFAST, MACY’S, TOYOTA

By mid-2024, China Grove is expected to be the home of a 1.4 million-square-foot fulfillment center that will serve customers of the storied American retailer. The site is slated to account for 30% of Macy’s digital supply-chain capacity. Online sales make up about a third of sales at the company, which operates about 725 stores. New Jersey-based Silverman Group is collaborating with real estate advisory firm Avison Young in developing the property at the 85 North Logistics Center. Macy’s executives cited the region’s strong labor market and highway network as the factors leading them to Rowan County.

3. (TIE) TOYOTA MOTOR

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3. (TIE) BOOM SUPERSONIC Denver, Colorado

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NEW JOBS: 1,750 COUNTY: Guilford PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $500 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $87.2 million over 20 years

Gov. Roy Cooper described the company’s choice of Piedmont Triad International Airport for a manufacturing site “both poetic and logical” given North Carolina’s history as the birthplace of flight. The company aims to shake up the commercial aviation industry with its Overture jet expected to fly at twice the speed of sound while burning sustainable aviation fuels. The company’s factory will span 400,000 square feet and be LEED-certified. Boom says it plans to begin production in 2024, with test flights by 2026.

5. AMAZON

6. KROGER

Bellevue, Washington

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Cincinnati, Ohio

NEW JOBS: 850 COUNTIES: Alamance, Cumberland, Johnston and Pender PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $200 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: 0

NEW JOBS: 700 COUNTY: Cabarrus PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $92 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2.3 million over 12 years

The country’s largest supermarket chain plans to deploy artificial intelligence, robotics and other advanced technologies at a 200,000-squarefoot customer fulfillment center in Concord. Annual pay is expected to top the Cabarrus County average of $41,255. The company, which owns Harris Teeter, operates similar fulfillment centers in four other states.

Plans call for expansions in at least seven other U.S. locations as Kroger expands its home-delivery business.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BOOM SUPERSONIC, AMAZON, KROGER

E-commerce giant Amazon employs 27,000 North Carolina workers and has invested $5 billion at more than 25 Tar Heel operations. It’s quickly become among the state’s biggest employers over the past few years.

Amazon typically doesn’t seek state incentives, but it benefits from local support in some cases. For example, its 1 million- square-foot warehouse at Fayetteville’s Military Business Park, expected to open late this year, is receiving $2.5 million in incentives from county and city governments.

Another 620,000-square-foot center with an expected 500 jobs is being built in Smithfield in Johnston County.

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7. ELI LILLY

Indianapolis, Indiana

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NEW JOBS: 600 COUNTY: Cabarrus PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $1 billion NC CASH INCENTIVES: $12.13 million over 12 years

Concord’s former Philip Morris property, now known as The Grounds, will be the backdrop of Eli Lilly’s planned five-building campus that will include manufacturing and logistics facilities, a qualitycontrol lab and a utilities plant. The company’s 800,000-square-foot project complements Eli Lilly’s new manufacturing site in Durham, a $470 million project announced in early 2020. Both sites will focus on producing injectable medications for diabetes patients and others.

8. VICTRA Raleigh

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NEW JOBS: 592 COUNTY: Pitt PROJECTED INVESTMENT: n/a NC CASH INCENTIVES: 0

Jasper, Indiana

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NEW JOBS: 450 COUNTY: Lenoir PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $13.5 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $3.88 million over 12 years

MasterBrand Cabinets, a division of Fortune Brands Home and Security, is the largest maker of kitchen and bathroom cabinets in North America. Demand for kitchen cabinetry is the primary driver of its expansion in Kinston, where the company is doubling its existing workforce over the coming five years. Wages for new jobs are expected to exceed the Lenoir County average of about $40,000 annually. Aristokraft, Diamond, Kemper and Woodcrafters are among the company’s brands.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ELI LILLY, VERIZON

Victra is a Verizon Wireless dealer that operates 1,600 locations in 49 states. Its contact center in Winterville handles inbound customer calls, outside sales and tech support for store-based personnel. Rich Balot co-founded the business in 1996 as an undergraduate student at East Carolina University in Greenville. In April, the company announced its acquisition of Las Vegas-based Go Wireless, boosting its national workforce to 7,000 employees.

9. MASTERBRAND CABINETS

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10. RED BULL/RAUCH

Salzburg, Austria / Vorarlberg, Austria

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NEW JOBS: 400 COUNTY: Cabarrus PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $740 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $1 million/$3.1 million, both over 12 years

A joint venture by the two Austrian companies will create a regional manufacturing, filling and distribution hub at The Grounds in Concord.

It’s said to be the largest economic investment in Cabarrus County history. Canning company Rauch and beverage giant Red Bull will share 500 acres at the once-sprawling Philip Morris plant, ultimately operating 1.4 million square feet and 800,000 square feet of space, respectively. Rauch says it will add about 320 jobs over 12 years, while Red Bull projects 90 in the same period. Pay will average more than $50,000 a year, the companies said.

11. BESTCO

12. AMGEN

Mooresville

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Thousand Oaks, California

NEW JOBS: 394 COUNTY: Iredell PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $177 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2 million over 12 years

JOBS: 355 COUNTY: Wake PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $550 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $11.6 million over 12 years

Amgen develops and manufactures medications for hard-to-treat illnesses in cardiovascular health, neuroscience, oncology and other fields. The public company broke ground for a 220,000-square-foot facility in Holly Springs, which will open in 2025. Annual compensation is expected to top $119,000. The southern Wake County town beat out Houston for the project, which joins North American Amgen plants in California, Ohio, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RED BULL, AMGEN

BestCo began as a candy confectioner in South Africa in 1894.

Today, the company operates from a 47-acre campus in Mooresville and is owned by Santa Cruz Nutritionals, a California-based manufacturer of over-the-counter lozenges and medicinal gummies. The expansion increases BestCo’s footprint in Iredell County to 1 million square feet and will push its local payroll to 1,000 employees. New jobs will pay an average of about $51,000 annually.

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13. (TIE) MEGACORP LOGISTICS Wilmington

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JOBS: 300 COUNTY: New Hanover PROJECTED INVESTMENT: n/a NC CASH INCENTIVES: 0

Denise and Ryan Legg founded MegaCorp in 2009 and have built a 375-person workforce in the Wilmington area. The company helps customers arrange transportation and logistics. The latest expansion will add 300 jobs to its Port City payroll, at salaries averaging nearly $63,000 per year. MegaCorp considered Jacksonville, Florida, and Cincinnati, where it also has facilities, for the expansion. While the project didn’t receive incentives from the state, the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County approved a combined $500,000.

13. (TIE) POLYWOOD Syracuse, Indiana

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MEGACORP LOGISTICS, POLYWOOD, THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC

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JOBS: 300 COUNTY: Person PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $61.6 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $3 million over 12 years

Polywood ranked 13th in our 2019 Top 25 list after the Indiana-based maker of outdoor furniture picked Roxboro for its second manufacturing site. Less than three years later, the company plans an expansion expected to nearly double its North Carolina workforce. Polywood founder and CEO Doug Rossi cited strong community support and an excellent talent pool as the prime factors leading the company to double down on its investment in Person County.

15. THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC Waltham, Massachusetts

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JOBS: 290 COUNTY: Pitt PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $154 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $4.53 million over 12 years

Thermo Fisher’s recent North Carolina investments include last year’s $17.4 billion acquisition of Wilmington-based PPD, a clinical research business, and a $500 million expansion plan in Greenville that was unveiled in late 2020. It followed up in Pitt County with another expansion announced in September that would increase its production of liquid, prefilled syringes and solid-dose medications. The company also has operations in Asheville, Durham and High Point. It arrived in Greenville in 2017 via the $7.2 billion acquisition of Patheon.

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16. (TIE) SMART WIRES San Francisco, California

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JOBS: 250 COUNTY: Durham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $21.5 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2.82 million over 12 years

With wind and solar accounting for a growing share of electricity moving onto the grid, modern solutions are necessary for managing power flow. Smart Wires’ grid optimization technology was conceived after a 2003 blackout that left millions in the Northeast without power.

Founded in 2010, the privately held company began searching for a new headquarters location once Bay Area cost-of-living factors made it hard to recruit workers. Company officials considered Austin, Atlanta and Denver before selecting Durham and its 50,000-square-foot space at Imperial Center.

16. (TIE) SCIENCE 37

18. SERVICE OFFSITE SOLUTIONS

Culver City, California / Raleigh

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Raleigh

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JOBS: 250 COUNTY: Wake PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $1.5 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $3.34 million

The Triangle’s reputation as a clinical trials hotbed delivered another win with the announcement by Science 37 that it would consolidate its headquarters in Morrisville. The public company says its system of decentralized trials enables faster participant enrollment, greater diversity of patient populations and improved retention. Administrative, legal, HR and IT professionals will help comprise Science 37’s North Carolina workforce, earning average salaries of more than $114,000.

JOBS: 235 COUNTY: Lee PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $11 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2.05 million over 12 years

A 40-acre site north of Sanford will be home for a 240,000-square-foot factory that will produce residential frames for homes across the Carolinas. Service Offsite Solutions says its components reduce construction timetables by as much as 10 days. The firm was founded in Raleigh in 2020. Jobs will pay an average of about $50,500.

19. (TIE) BALL CORPORATION ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

JOBS: 220 COUNTY: Cabarrus PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $383.8 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $3.1 million over 12 years

In support of Red Bull and Rauch’s plan for a $740 million processing and canning project, Ball is creating an adjacent operation. Ball, which dates to the 1880s but no longer makes glass canning jars, produces aluminum beverage containers. It will supply cans to Red Bull and other regional customers. A scarcity of aluminum cans led to expansions in Europe, the United Kingdom, Pennsylvania and Kentucky over the past two years. The public company had a market cap of $24 billion in early June.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF SMART WIRES

Broomfield, Colorado

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19. (TIE) TECHNIMARK Asheboro

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JOBS: 220 COUNTY: Randolph PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $62 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $1.11 million over 12 years

Technimark manufactures injection-molded components for customers that include health care, consumer packaging and industrial buyers. The company, which Don Wellington founded in Asheboro in 1983, is acquiring a 204,000-square-foot building formerly occupied by a maker of medical kits. The space will enable Technimark to boost its health-care related business. Last year, New York City-based Oak Hill Capital bought control of the company, sharing ownership with Pritzker Private Capital and Technimark management.

21. HÄNS KISSLE Haverhill, Massachusetts

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JOBS: 219 COUNTY: Gaston PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $42 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2.2 million over 12 years

Founded in 1984, Häns Kissle makes packaged salads, entrees, dips, and desserts for convenience stores, supermarkets and food-service enterprises. The private company based near Boston will build a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing site in Apple Creek Corporate Center, a 330-acre industrial site near Gastonia. Salaries will average about $42,000. The new operation will enable Häns Kissle to add market share in the Southeast.

22. GLEN RAVEN Burlington

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JOBS: 205 COUNTY: Warren PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $82 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $1.5 million over two years

The Gant family has operated the company since 1880. It supplies fabric to commercial, industrial, military, marine trades and other buyers around the world. The Norlina plant produces Sunbrella, a synthetic yarn that is among the company’s signature products. Grants from the One North Carolina and Building Reuse programs are supporting the expansion, which involves new construction and the renovation of a 1970s-era plant.

23. (TIE) CORNING Corning, New York

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JOBS: 200 COUNTY: Catawba PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $150 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2 million over 12 years

Corning’s various North Carolina operations now employ 4,500 fulltime workers. Its longtime partnership with AT&T is driving growth at Hickory’s Trivium Corporate Center, where it manufactures optical cable.

The company became the first tenant at the 378-acre park in 2018, followed by American Fuji Seal, Cataler and Gusmer Enterprises. AT&T will utilize Corning fiber as it builds its 5G networks.

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23. (TIE) JAGUAR GENE THERAPY Lake Forest, Illinois

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JOBS: 200 COUNTY: Durham PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $125 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2.36 million over 12 years

Jaguar Gene Therapy develops solutions to genetically determined diseases such as Type 1 diabetes and autism. Founded in 2019 by former AveXis executives, it has raised more than $140 million from Eli Lilly, Goldman Sachs and others. The company, which has another lab in Cary, will occupy 165,000 square feet in Research Triangle Park.

25. (TIE) NATURE’S VALUE Coram, New York

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JOBS: 183 COUNTY: Forsyth PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $19 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $1.96 million over 12 years

Cleveland, Ohio

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JOBS: 183 COUNTY: Iredell PROJECTED INVESTMENT: $324 million NC CASH INCENTIVES: $2.72 million over 12 years

North America’s largest retailer of paint and coating products will add 36,000 square feet to its Statesville manufacturing site and construct an 800,000-square-foot distribution and fleet transportation center. The expanded complex, which also is adding four new rail spurs, will help support Sherwin-Williams’ 4,500 company-owned stores. It employs 2,400 people in North Carolina and has operated the Statesville plant since 1993. More than $16 million in local incentives have been approved for the project.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SHERWIN-WILLIAMS

Winston-Salem’s Whitaker Park will be home for the vitamin supplier’s 426,000-square-foot testing, production and distribution facility, which the Long Island-based company hopes to occupy by November. The manufacturer of dietary supplements and other products has a small site in nearby Lexington. It paid $10.5 million for its new building, which was once part of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco’s campus.

25 (TIE) SHERWIN-WILLIAMS

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PROSPERITY CUP

BEST STATE FOR BUSINESS

Best state-level business recruitment/retention success (Site Selection magazine, 2021 & 2022)

(Chief Executive magazine)

States recognized for exceeding standards for investment and job creation.

(Area Development magazine)

North Carolina’s 2021 SCORECARD 23,748 announced jobs

(compares with 20,026 in 2020)

$10.01B

announced capital investment (compares with $6.3B in 2020)

$1.83B

new annual payroll Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina

BIGGEST jobs announcements 2021

2020

2019

2018

Centene

3,237

Lowe’s

1,600

Amazon

3,000

Allstate Insurance

2,250

Apple

3,000

Amazon

1,200

AvidXchange

1,229

Infosys

2,000

Google

1,000

Bandwidth

1,165

Chewy

1,200

Triangle Tyre

800

1,000

Charter Communications

655

Amazon

600

Bioagilytix Labs

878

Microsoft

930

Publix Super Markets

Pratt Whitney

800

Q2 Solutions

749

Honeywell International

source: Business North Carolina

750

source: Business North Carolina

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The North Carolina Economic Development Association honors top achievers at its annual convention, including last month’s gathering in Wilmington. The award winners worked on the state’s most high-profile successes in attracting corporate entrants.

By Jennings Cool Roddey and David Mildenberg

AWARD OF EXECUTIVE ACHIEVEMENT

D DAVID SPRATLEY

former senior assistant secretary of finance, North Carolina Commerce Department

avid Spratley has received little notice for his key role in attracting companies to North Carolina for nearly two decades. The veteran state employee “loathes the spotlight,” says Dan Gerlach, a Raleigh consultant who led the Golden LEAF Foundation for a decade.

But the N.C. Economic Development Association is bringing Spratley out of the shadows, honoring him with its Award for Executive Achievement. The award came as Spratley left his state job to join the Nexsen Pruet law firm in mid-June.

“There is not one other individual active in his career that has had his hands on the success of so many economic development projects in North Carolina,” says Melissa Smith, vice president of business recruitment and development for the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.

The Ohio native came south to attend UNC Wilmington. He joined the N.C. Commerce Department in 1996 and spent much of his career there, except for a two-anda-half year stint at accounting giant KPMG from 2001-04. In 2014, he joined the new, public-private EDPNC as vice president for business recruitment. Five years later, he returned to Commerce as senior assistant secretary of finance.

He was a major designer of state incentives to persuade companies to select North Carolina, particularly the Job Development Incentive Grant program. JDIG, as it’s called, offers reimbursements of personal income tax withholding for companies that meet commitments for new jobs and investment.

Lawmakers increased the program’s scope in recent years to help North Carolina win some major projects after decades of losing some high-profile deals to other states.

“There’s no debate: Projects would have been lost, consultant relationships marred, and our incentives arsenal weakened without [Spratley’s] essential influence as the rational arbiter between Commerce and EDPNC,” says Ryan Nance, director of economic development at North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives. “While his name and face never appear in the announcement credits or ribbon-cuttings, his fingerprints are pervasive in service to our state’s counties and communities.”

What is the most important step North Carolina can make to become more attractive for economic development?

Long-term response: Education. Adequately fund and fully support education at all levels.

Short-term response: North Carolina, like most of our competitor states, has very little product (quality industrial buildings and sites) to market to companies. No matter how much a company may want to locate or expand, they can’t do so without a building or site that meets their operational needs.

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PRESIDENTIAL AWARD

A JIM FAIN

retired secretary, N.C. Department of Commerce

fter a lengthy career in finance that included leadership of First Union National Bank’s Triangle market, Fain was named commerce secretary by Gov. Mike Easley in 2001. He spent the next eight years in the post, leading the department during a period of significant gains and turmoil as traditional industries of furniture, textiles and tobacco faded and high-tech, health care and financial-services companies expanded.

Site Selection magazine cited North Carolina for having the nation’s best business climate five times between 2001-06 as companies such as Quintiles, Credit Suisse, Fidelity Investments and Volvo Construction added jobs. During Fain’s tenure in state government, the state expanded the types of companies eligible for tax credits when adding new jobs and reorganized the amount of credits available for the least-prosperous counties.

Fain is a Hendersonville native whose grandfather was a co-owner of that city’s newspaper. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science and an MBA from UNC Chapel Hill. His first job was at Home Bank and Trust in Hendersonville.

He cites the Global TransPark in Kinston as the most noteworthy project of his Commerce career. “It took foresight by a number of people and it was more promise than reality for a long time. But the recruitment of Spirit Aerosystems gave it life and a lot of ancillary businesses have grown up around that.

“Economic development is hard work and the key is to put infrastructure in place to make it attractive to employers,” he says. “Infrastructure includes good schools and other community services, not just buildings.”

After leaving the department, Fain set up a public policy and economic development consulting business in Raleigh. While still involved in some civic groups, Fains says “vocationally I’m a loafer. I mostly get up in the morning glad I live in North Carolina.”

ECONOMIC DEVELOPER OF THE YEAR

F IRENA KRSTANOVIC

economic development director, Town of Holly Springs

ast-growing Holly Springs made headlines in 2021 by attracting two giant biotech companies promising to add a combined 1,000 jobs over the next few years. At the center of those deals is Krstanovic, who has been working on attracting businesses to the Wake County city for more than 20 years, including the last six as economic development director.

In March 2021, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, announced plans to invest $2 billion and build one of the industry’s largest North American plants. It is expected to open in 2025 and eventually employ 725 people.

Then in August 2021, biotech leader Amgen said it would build a manufacturing plant in Holly Springs. It broke ground in March at the site, where 355 jobs with an average salary of $120,000 are expected to be added.

“The state has been doing everything right when it comes to making North Carolina more attractive to businesses looking for a place to call home,” Krstanovic says. “They had the foresight to create the North Carolina Biotechnology Center years ago to move our focus towards clean manufacturing and high-paying jobs, which has clearly paid off. They’ve also been supporting municipalities with key incentives so local economic development teams can be competitive in the marketplace.”

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EMERGING LEADER OF THE YEAR

T SAM RAUF

senior economic development manager, Wake County Economic Development

he Cary native, who moved to his Wake County post in May, is honored for his work over the past four years as a senior project manager for Chatham County Economic Development. Rauf started with handling business retention and later took over attraction and business recruitment work.

Rauf was one of the many players in recruiting VinFast, the Vietnamese-owned company that plans an auto assembly plant in Chatham County that expects to employ 7,500. VinFast says the plant near Moncure will begin assembly of electric vehicles in 2024. Rauf is a graduate of Roanoke College. He was part of Business North Carolina’s Trailblazers feature in 2021, which recognizes key business leaders under the age of 40 who work in smaller cities.

What is the most important step North Carolina can make to become more attractive for economic development?

“The best thing North Carolina can do right now to strengthen its economic development efforts is to heavily invest in site identification and development,” Rauf says. “As the recent economic development success in North Carolina points to, we have an incredible mix of talent, quality of life, and business climate that makes our state one of the best places for businesses and professionals in the country. Our track record proves that.”

INNOVATION OF THE YEAR

I ROBERT VAN GEONS

CEO and president, Fayetteville Cumberland Economic Development

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mproving broadband access has been a major initiative for Fayetteville and Cumberland County, leading to the award for innovation provided to the region’s economic development group and CEO Robert Van Geons. Efforts have included working with North Carolina lawmakers to establish the Core Innovation Center space in downtown Fayetteville to promote tech-minded entrepreneurs and small businesses and attracting broadband providers Segra and Metronet for extensive infrastructure projects.

Since taking his Fayetteville post in 2017, Van Geons has emphasized the importance of a competitive data infrastructure needed to compete in an increasingly digital-dominated world. In March, Indiana-based Metronet launched its fiber network in Fayetteville as part of a $75 million investment plan for the region. Its fiber will provide service to much of Cumberland and parts of Hoke County, helping the region catch up with other N.C. areas in terms of access to high-speed internet.

Van Geons is a graduate of Catawba College with a master’s degree in economic development from the University of Southern Mississippi. He previously recruited industry in Rowan and Stanly counties.

What is the most important step North Carolina can make to become more attractive for economic development?

“With our economy growing at a red-hot pace, now is the time to reinvest a portion of these gains into education, workforce development, and re-entry programs.

From an economic development perspective, reducing barriers to employment will increase our labor force from which employers can recruit while also providing a better future for the next generation of North Carolinians.”

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DEAL OF THE YEAR (SMALL MARKET) RAYBOW PHARMACEUTICALS, TRANSYLVANIA COUNTY

I JOSH HALLINGSE

VP of small business development and business retention, Wilmington Chamber of Commerce

n March, Raybow USA announced plans to triple capacity at its Brevard pharmaceuticals plant. The Chinese-owned company will invest $15.8 million, and the expansion is expected to create 74 jobs.

As executive director of the Transylvania Economic Alliance, Hallingse was part of the team that helped facilitate Raybow’s expansion. Last November, after more than six years in Brevard, Hallingse moved to the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce to oversee small business development and business retention. He’s a graduate of UNC Charlotte with a master’s degree from Appalachian State University.

DEAL OF THE YEAR (MIDSIZE MARKET) TOYOTA MOTOR, RANDOLPH GUILFORD MEGASITE

N BRENT CHRISTENSEN

CEO and president, Greensboro Chamber of Commerce

KEVIN FRANKLIN

president, Randolph County Economic Development Corp.

ews that Japanese automaker Toyota Motor would develop a factory for building electric vehicle batteries got international coverage in December 2021. But the megasite project started a decade ago as the land began to be assembled. Leaders of the effort included Franklin and Christensen.

The plant, which is expected to begin operating in 2025, is set for the 1,800-acre Greensboro-Randolph Megasite on the edge of Randolph and Guilford counties.

Toyota projects a $1.29 billion investment that will lead to 1,750 jobs initially, with expectations of a much larger operation down the road.

Franklin, a former town manager, has worked for Randolph’s economic development group since 2013, including three years as president. Christensen became Greensboro’s chamber president in 2015 after holding similar posts in Mississippi and Gainesville, Florida.

DEAL OF THE YEAR (LARGE MARKET) APPLE EXPANSION, WAKE COUNTY

A ASHLEY CAGLE

assistant executive director, Wake County Economic Development

ttracting a 3,000-employee Apple campus to Research Triangle Park is the type of deal that many economic developers dream about. But Ashley Cagle lived the experience, serving as primary project manager throughout the recruitment of the tech giant. In April 2021, Apple announced its plans to invest $1 billion at the new Wake site and its Catawba County data center, while also pledging $100 million for a fund to support schools and community initiatives.

The RTP jobs are expected to pay an average annual salary of $187,000.

Cagle is a UNC Charlotte graduate who joined the Wake County nonprofit in 2014. She previously led economic development in Montgomery County. She is president of the Triangle chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Women network.

What is the most important step North Carolina can make to become more attractive for economic development?

Create and execute proactive and accessible investments in infrastructure and site readiness.

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North Carolina’s pugnacious treasurer relishes stirring up entrenched institutions.

By Mike MacMillan Photos by Christer Berg

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ale Folwell has put himself in collections. It’s not that the North Carolina state treasurer necessarily objects to paying the charges he incurred for a checkup at a Winston-Salem hospital; it’s more that he wants “to see exactly what a person goes through when they don’t pay their medical bills.”

The amount is small, a few thousand dollars, but the objective is big: bring yet more attention to what he says is the “weaponization of credit” on the part of the hospitals and the damage this inflicts on those at the lower rungs of the economic ladder. This, he says, can be ruinous.

Folwell’s antipathy for large hospital systems is well documented. It appears to be reciprocated if a July 2019 email from a Cone Health executive in Greensboro to the State Health Plan is representative. Characterizing state plan executives, including Folwell, as “sorry SOBs,” the writer suggested that they “burn in hell.” To date, Folwell’s quest to establish better transparency in hospital pricing has had a certain tilting-against-windmills quality to it, but it’s hard to doubt his sincerity. In late May, he upped the ante again and backed a N.C. House bill intended to “limit the ability of large medical facilities to charge unreasonable interest rates and employ unfair tactics in debt collection.”

The North Carolina Healthcare Association avers that it has moved on. The trade group’s lobbyist, Cody Hand, says, “We’re not bothered by what the treasurer does or doesn’t say about us,” he says. “We would be happy to work with (him) to design a plan of care that puts the state employees and retirees in the driver’s seat.”

The little guy The collections matter shines a light on what appears to be a key element of Folwell’s approach to running the treasurer’s office. He tends to view things filtered through personal experiences, whether it’s his mother’s job on a hospital switchboard or his years spent collecting garbage in Winston-Salem. His sympathies lie with the little guy. It is, he says, in his Quaker blood to be “fair and just.”

Folwell has racked up some notable successes during his nearly 20-year career in state government. He cites his role in helping improve the state’s workers’ compensation program finances while serving as assistant commerce secretary under Gov. Pat McCrory. During his tenure, the system went from a deficit of about $2.5 billion to a surplus of $1 billion in part by levying a surcharge on employers and more closely scrutinizing payouts.

Other major achievements he invokes include his efforts to expand organ donation awareness and a bill moving the cutoff date for children entering kindergarten from October to August.

The lifelong Republican has been elected treasurer twice, both times by about 5.5 percentage points, even as Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, won at the top of the ballot. In 2016, he defeated Dan

Blue III by about 244,000 votes out of 4.45 million cast. He won again in 2020, beating Ronnie Chatterji by 275,000 votes, this time with 5.35 million votes cast.

Of his current position, he likes to say, “We’re in the checkwriting business,” referring to the 950,000 or so North Carolinians who depend on the state for health care and retirement benefits.

Here again, he has taken this responsibility personally, traveling the state and handing out payments from North Carolina’s Unclaimed Property Division, which is part of the treasury. In March, he delivered $2,593.04 to the United Way in Montreat. More recently, he delivered $9,900 to the March of Dimes in Wilmington.

Ask me anything The treasurer’s office is located in a nondescript building in an office park just north of downtown Raleigh. The place suggests someone who is frugal with the public purse; there is a standardissue conference room flanked by a warren of offices and cubicles.

This day’s agenda includes the weekly Council of State meeting, with Gov. Cooper, Attorney General Josh Stein, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and others. This week it is being held via Zoom. Folwell dials in from a windowless room via a computer sitting atop three volumes of the general statutes of North Carolina. When it’s his turn to speak, he recognizes the work done by bank tellers and calls out an individual teller for flagging an instance of check “whitewashing” (erasing and overwriting the name of the original recipient in order to divert funds).

Following the meeting, Folwell returns to the conference room to host his monthly “Ask Me Anything” call with the media.

(No other statewide elected official has a similar event.) One subject of inquiry this day is his effort to recoup an $80 million hit to the pension plan as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent freezing of trading in Russian assets shortly after the start of the war. Folwell hosted a conference call with 27 state treasurers (or their representatives) with the goal of challenging federal laws on sovereign immunity that make it impossible for states to sue to recover the loss.

In North Carolina’s case, the assets are held in its public equity portfolio, split between index and actively managed funds.

Though the $80 million is practically a rounding error in a plan with $113 billion in assets, Folwell sees a principle at stake.

Wall Street has been another target for the treasurer, who came into office vowing to reduce the fees paid by the state’s pension plan. By his count, he’s saved about $250 million over the course of his tenure. But critics question if it’s been a pennywise, pound-foolish approach.

Andrew Silton, who served as chief investment officer for the state plan from 2001 to 2005, notes that the S&P 500 more or less doubled from 2015 through December 2021. Over that time,

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cash held in the plan was as high as 10% of overall assets, well above the 1% target in the plan’s investment policy documents.

Holding cash proved wise as the S&P 500 Index swooned about 20% in the first six months this year, but the longer-term impact of too much cash on the plan has been significant, according to Silton.

I give us an A-plus for the business certainty for anyone who wants to relocate or expand in North Carolina – Dale Folwell “As of Dec. 31 (2021), I estimate the opportunity cost of not having invested in equities to be about $11 billion,” says Silton, against the $250 million savings in fees. “His own (Folwell’s) investment policy calls for the plan to have 1% cash. It calls for 42% equities. He has consistently run the equities somewhere in the mid-30s.”

In response, Folwell points out that he inherited the investment policy with its 1% cash cap, along with $14 billion in uncalled capital commitments made to various alternative strategies that would need to be funded. New plan documents raise the cash limit to 5%. While not directly addressing the question of opportunity costs, he notes that the “plan had $89.1 billion (in assets) as of December 31, 2016 and has $114 billion in early June, 2022,” even as it paid out $33 billion between 2017 and 2021.

The plan’s annual return totaled 7.78% during the five years ending March 31, encompassing most of Folwell’s tenure. This exceeded the 6.5% assumed rate of return put in place on December 31, 2020 but trailed the long-term policy benchmark of 8.46%.

Another aspect of Folwell’s stewardship of the pension plan has drawn praise, including from Silton. Unlike many peers, the treasurer has systematically overseen the reduction of the plan’s anticipated rate of return from 7.25% to the current 6.5%. This rate dictates the amount of money that has to be set aside to meet future pension obligations to retired state employees. The higher the assumed return, the smaller the contributions that governments and plan participants need to make to meet actuarial requirements.

Politics tends to steer plan administrators toward an optimistic view of the markets. This, however, has the effect of pushing problems into the future. If the plan fails to achieve the projected return, it can come up short on cash to pay beneficiaries. North

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Carolina’s state pension plan has historically been well funded.

The Pew Charitable Trust reported last year that the plan was 88% funded, using 2019 data, placing North Carolina ninth among the states. By comparison, the plans in Illinois and New Jersey are around 40% funded.

“It sends the right signal,” says Silton of the lower assumed rate of return. “It’s more realistic.”

Folwell is one of only two N.C. treasurers who have reduced the plan’s assumed rate of return over the past 60 years and, as he says, “I’ve done it two times in four years.”

The bigger picture Later at a meeting of the Local Government Council, a considerable amount of energy was spent on the financial problems of Spring Lake in eastern North Carolina, a town with a population of 12,000 and a budget of about $13 million. Among other things, a state audit earlier this year reported that about $430,000 was missing. The former Spring Lake finance director was charged with embezzlement, bank fraud and identity theft in June.

The LGC, which is chaired by Folwell, oversees about 1,100 local governments around the state. It assumed control of Spring Lake’s finances last October. Under Folwell’s direction, the commission is putting the town back on a sustainable financial footing. Perhaps a minor matter in a state with a $25 billion annual budget, it’s emblematic of the nuts-and-bolts philosophy of government that appeals to the former motorcycle mechanic.

His view: “If we keep addressing all these little things, we’ll get to the big things.”

There are big things to consider. The state continues to grow and compete against places like Austin, Texas, California’s Silicon Valley and other favored locations for expanding companies.

While Folwell declines to comment specifically on the $1 billionplus in economic incentives used to help attract the likes of Apple, Google, and Toyota to the state, he is generally opposed to large corporate incentives used to lure industry.

He questions the government’s ability to pick economic winners and losers. Incentives or not, he is confident North Carolina is well-positioned to win economic development battles.

“I give us an A-plus for the business certainty for anyone who wants to relocate or expand in North Carolina,” he says. “Regulatory and tax certainty are two of the biggest (considerations).

And now we’re seeing a phase-out of the corporate income tax (over the next 4.5 years), going to zero.”

One important piece is missing in the state’s economic arsenal, he says, which brings the discussion back to one of his favored topics. In his view, North Carolina is missing a huge opportunity to lead the nation in reducing health care costs. It will be an “economic gold rush if North Carolina becomes known as the state with transparent health care,” he says. “This is the No. 1

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▲ More transparency in health care pricing would make the state more attractive to business, Folwell says.

issue for businesses thinking about starting or expanding.”

Citing research suggesting that hospital consolidation leads to higher-cost care, he’s repeatedly criticized the sale of Wilmington’s New Hanover Regional to Novant Health and Asheville’s Mission Health to HCA Healthcare. He also denounced Atrium Health’s May announcement to partner with Downers Grove, Illinois-based Advocate Aurora Health Care, which would create the fifth-biggest U.S. hospital system. He said taxpayers “pick up the tab for tax-exempt, multibillion-dollar investment companies disguised as nonprofit hospitals.”

The hospitals say increased scale leads to better health care, more opportunities for employees and a stronger ability to negotiate pricing with large insurers.

On another big picture issue, Folwell observes that North Carolina is poised to take advantage of the global shift toward sustainability. The state consumes four times more energy than it produces. At the same time, it ranks No. 3 nationally for total solar power capacity, trailing California (by a lot) and Texas.

And, as Folwell notes, there’s a lot more sunlight out there as well as wind and biomass. More fully leveraging these renewable resources could reduce energy costs for the state’s consumers and make North Carolina more attractive for businesses looking to relocate, he says.

These kinds of big ideas could potentially provide a launch pad for a run at the governorship in 2024, should he decide to drive his 890-pound Honda Gold Wing motorcycle into the ring.

Least likely person North Carolina is often held up as emblematic of the economic polarization that has afflicted the country as a whole, with a growing, increasingly prosperous urban population and small towns stagnating. On the one hand, there is Apple moving into the Triangle with plans to pay average wages of $185,000 a year.

On the other hand, there are towns like Spring Lake. Squaring that circle won’t be easy.

Folwell seems most comfortable speaking to those places he calls the “arms and legs of the state” — the small towns and cities that found themselves steamrollered by decades of “world is flat” globalism. He’s an advocate for better access to rural broadband, improved public education, and more affordable utilities. Like health care, he views this as a way to have a real impact on the poverty and lack of opportunities that persist in much of small-town North Carolina.

Folwell’s career has shown that there is more than one way to ascend to statewide office. As he puts it, “I’m the least likely person to be in this position.” He seems to mean both his idiosyncratic personal history and his willingness to take on the “three biggest cartels in the United States — the Wall Street cartel, the health care cartel, and the prescription drug cartel.” This has not, he says, made him popular with the powers that be.

“First year (in office) I got 64 Christmas cards,” he says. “This year I got five, and two of those were to deceased treasurers.” ■

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Treasured portfolio

N

orth Carolina’s treasurer has major influence, including having fiduciary responsibility for the state pension fund that provides retirement benefits for more than 950,000 people. The treasurer also oversees the State Health Plan, which provides benefits to 750,000 current and retired public employees. Unlike most states, it’s an elected position.

Lots of longevity North Carolina has had only five state treasurers in the last six decades.

Edwin Gill (1953-1977)

Richard Moore

As treasurer, Moore gained national attention for advocating for shareholder rights, earning an appointment to the executive board of the New York Stock Exchange.

The Wake Forest University bachelor’s and law degree graduate expanded the treasurer’s investment management operation to include more alternative investing strategies. After losing a Democratic primary bid to become governor in 2008, he became CEO of First Bancorp in 2012. The Southern Pines-based company has 113 offices in the Carolinas and $10.6 billion in assets.

Janet Cowell

The Laurinburg native passed the State Bar exam and practiced law but never earned a bachelor’s or law degree. After serving in various state jobs, he was appointed treasurer in 1953 and was re-elected four times.

North Carolina received its first Triple A bond credit rating during his tenure.

Harlan Boyles

(1977-2001)

The Lincoln County native and UNC Chapel Hill accounting graduate won six elections as he became a widely admired expert on the state’s finances. He was known for a tight-fisted fiscal approach that limited state borrowing, earning his nickname as the “Keeper of the Public Purse.”

(2001-2009)

(2009-2017)

The Wharton MBA was a Raleigh city councilor and state senator before winning two elections for treasurer. She then became CEO of Girls Who Invest, a New York-based nonprofit. In January 2021, she was named CEO of Dix Park Conservancy, a publicprivate partnership developing the 300-acre park near downtown Raleigh.

Dale Folwell

(2017-present)

He’s the first Republican to hold the job since David Jenkins, who had the post during the Reconstruction era from 1868-1876.

He served four terms in the N.C. House of Representatives.

HIGHEST-PAID STAFFERS About 25 department employees earn more than Folwell, whose current annual salary is $140,116.

Jeffrey Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . Investment Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $317,750 Chris Morris. . . . . . . . . . . . . Investment Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276,750 Craig Demko . . . . . . . . . . . . Investment Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263,102 Ronald Funderburk . . . . . . . Investment Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246,727 Rhonda Smith . . . . . . . . . . . Investment Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243,096 Frances Lawrence . . . . . . . . Chief Financial Officer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242,754 William Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . Investment Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231,382 Troy March . . . . . . . . . . . . . Investment Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230,626 Matthew Krimm . . . . . . . . . Investment Operations Director . . . . . . . . . . 210,533 Michael Nichols . . . . . . . . . Investment Portfolio Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . 207,074 Source: Raleigh News & Observer from state database

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Annualized returns of State Retirement Systems (As of March 31, 2022)

State Retirement Systems holdings

Time 12 months. . . . . .

3 years . . . . . . . .

5 years. . . . . . . . .

10 years . . . . . . .

15 years. . . . . . . .

20 years. . . . . . . .

Actual returns Long-term Policy Benchmark 4.1%. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6% 8.5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 7.8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 7.3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9 6.1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 6.7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

(March 31, 2022) Type of investment Market Value % of Assets Public Equity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $37.2 billion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.8% Fixed Income and Cash. . . . . . . . . . . . 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.5 Pension Cash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 Private Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Opportunistic Fixed Income. . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Core Real Estate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 Inflation-Sensitive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Non-core Real Estate. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Multi-Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Total $113 billion

STEPPING UP

D

oes Dale Folwell want to be governor? He won’t answer the question directly, but his relentless statewide travel to address civic organizations and Republican groups and heavy media presence hint that he would relish the opportunity.

Commitments to private-asset classes Dale Folwell has trimmed state pension fund investing in alternatives to stocks and bonds, compared with the two previous treasurers. These are new commitments.

2002-2008. . . . . . . . . . . . $14.9 billion . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Richard Moore) 2009-2016. . . . . . . . . . . . $31.5 billion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Janet Cowell) 2017-2022. . . . . . . . . . . . $6.2 billion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Dale Folwell) Source: State Treasurer’s office

Jumping from the treasurer’s office to the Governor’s mansion has never happened in North Carolina. A more traditional path is from the attorney general or lieutenant governor slots. And most pundits say the leading contenders to succeed Roy Cooper after the 2024 elections are Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, or Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has quickly developed a strong following with conservative Republicans.

Still, Folwell could be a formidable candidate because of his “countrypolitan style” of politicking, according to Mac McCorkle, a professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Government. Countrypolitan refers to the outlying counties in a metropolitan area. They tend to be more conservative than the cities, are growing rapidly and tended to favor Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. “[Folwell is] a reformer but otherwise very conservative and could have some crossover appeal in a general election,” McCorkle says.

Joe Stewart, a longtime political aide and government affairs official in Raleigh, notes that Folwell has something of a built-in constituency in the 950,000 current and former state employees who are enrolled in health care and pension plans. The State Employees Association of North Carolina, which tends to lean Democrat, has twice supported him for treasurer, citing his “experience to manage our members’ retirement funds wisely.”

Robinson’s focus on social issues and Folwell’s emphasis on lunch-pail matters provide different populist agendas. Folwell, who typically defers questions on nonpocketbook issues, has been in elective office or held a government job since 1993.

Robinson had never run for office until his election in 2020.

“Folwell has a pretty strong record to point to,” Stewart says. “He’s as tenacious as any state legislator I’ve ever worked with.” ■

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISITNC.COM, JOHNSTON COUNTY

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Iredell County’s Toter turns pellets into trash and recycling products.

By Jennings Cool Roddey mployees are laser-focused inside Statesville’s Toter plant. Some monitor the molding process; others imprint and assemble finished products.

Inside the warehouse is loud and warm, but staffers are hard at work, creating everyday products from small, plastic pellets.

Wastequip is a manufacturer of waste-handling equipment. The company acquired Toter, including its 30-year-old Statesville plant, in 2007.

Wastequip employs about 325 people in North Carolina, which is roughly 10% of the company’s total workforce across 47 locations in North America. The corporate office led by CEO Marty Bryant is in Charlotte’s SouthPark neighborhood, while its two plants in the state include the Statesville Toter site and Amrep, which makes garbage-truck bodies, in Salisbury.

Toter trash and recycling bins start as raw material, typically created from burning natural gas or crude oil, and undergo the company’s patented molding process, in which molds are filled with plastic micro-pellets.

They then move to an oven that melts the plastic while the machine rotates. Following rotation, molds are cooled, trimmed, marked and assembled.

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▲ In the 1960s, Toter created its first product, a cart system for curbside garbage collection.

“There is magic in motion, so to speak,” says Nick Daddabbo, director of product management for Wastequip. “Taking little pellets all the way to a full cart.”

Daddabbo, who joined the company in November, oversees product management responsibilities across the brands, including development processes, working up new product ideas and future strategies. He has worked in product management and development leadership for more than 20 years.

In 2020, Toter started using a robotic machine for mass production. The company still uses its older machines, though the newer model “is safer for employees, puts out more product over time, runs all the time, and is just as good in quality,” Daddabbo says. Though the newer machine is automated and could run 24/7, a skilled technician oversees the process to ensure it is working properly.

Wastequip introduced its corporate responsibility program, CORE, in 2020. Toter’s goal was to reduce the amount of virgin resin — or resin that has never been used in a product — in cart manufacturing by 25%. It became known as Project25, the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainability.

The gas and crude oil used to create Toter cans can’t be replaced, and the process to obtain it can disrupt ecosystems, explains Kristen Kinder, vice president of research and waste stream sustainability for Wastequip.

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▲ Nick Daddabbo, director of product management for Wastequip

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W

astequip was founded in 1989 by the late Charles Walton in Beachwood, Ohio.

Marty Bryant has been CEO since 2012 and is a former president of Dana Corp.’s Light Vehicle Products division, where he led 15,000 employees at 82 locations. Wastequip has been owned by private equity companies for many years, including HIG Capital of Miami, which bought the business in 2018. The company does not disclose its finances.

▲Two-wheel residential waste and recycling carts come in 32-, 48- and 96-gallon sizes. Toter also manufactures medical-waste carts, utility carts, bear-tough locking carts and more.

“To lessen these environmental impacts, manufacturers can use recycled resin, which can come from consumers or other industries, to displace the virgin resin they use,” she says.

The twist: the bins made with less virgin resin should not compromise longevity and durability. “If we made a cart that had recycled content and it only lasted half as long, it actually would have a larger carbon footprint than if we had not used recycled (content),” says Kinder.

After testing to push the limit, Toter exceeded its goal and created the EVR-Green Cart, which has a cart body made entirely without virgin resin. These carts are created using the same patented molding process used for the company’s traditional ones.

“The [cart] body is 100% recyclable. It is made from postindustrial resin,” Daddabbo says. “It is recyclable and is made from recycled products.”

Daddabbo says that “leave more behind than you take” is a mantra of Wastequip. “That [mantra] drove our Project25 and CORE initiatives.” ■ J U L Y

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RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA

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SPONSORED SECTION

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APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

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RTI INTERNATIONAL

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EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

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FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

SMALL BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CENTER (SBTDC)

76

GUILFORD TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

92

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE

78

JOINT SCHOOL OF NANOSCIENCE AND NANOENGINEERING

94

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

80

N.C. AGRICULTURAL AND TECHNICAL STATE UNIVERSITY

96

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE

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NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM

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UNC NUTRITION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

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RESEARCH APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

NORTH CAROLINA

Preparing the problem-solvers of tomorrow Appalachian State University serves NC by advancing research, knowledge and innovation

Dr. Baker Perry, National Geographic Explorer and professor in App State’s Department of Geography and Planning, led a successful return expedition to Mount Everest in April and May 2022, coordinating the maintenance of weather stations at the top of the world. The expedition built upon the record-breaking National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition in 2019. Photo by Dawa Yangzum Sherpa/National Geographic

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nder the leadership of Chancellor Sheri Everts, Appalachian State University’s research enterprise has grown substantially since 2014. Last year, the university set a record for external funding from grants and contracts, and plans for future growth in research and creative activities continue.

One of the hallmarks of App State is its emphasis on undergraduate research, which gives students the opportunity to work side by side with faculty and present their findings at regional, national and international conferences.

“The advancement of knowledge through scholarly and creative activities is fundamental to our teaching mission,” said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Heather Hulburt Norris, who added that such pursuits keep faculty current in their fields, leading to valuable classroom experiences for students, and also provide significant benefits to society through the generation of new knowledge, innovations, discoveries and processes.

App State is home to multiple research institutes and centers, including the Appalachian Energy Center, Center for Appalachian Studies, Center for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, Transportation Insight Center for Entrepreneurship, Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Institute for

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Health and Human Services and Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies.

With funding from the North Carolina General Assembly and Governor Roy Cooper, App State broke ground on the first phase of its future Innovation District in March 2022.

The first academic building in the Innovation District will be the Conservatory for Biodiversity Education and Research.

Proposed additional facilities include renewable energy labs and spaces for research, multidisciplinary projects, teaching and demonstration.

Read more about recent research endeavors at App State:

Dr. Baker Perry leads climate science expedition to the world’s highest mountain Dr. Baker Perry, National Geographic Explorer and professor in App State’s Department of Geography and Planning, led a successful return expedition to Mount Everest this spring, coordinating the maintenance of weather stations on the world’s highest mountain.

On May 9, the National Geographic Society expedition team, in collaboration with a group of elite climbing Sherpas, installed a new weather station at Bishop Rock, located just

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Smith Department of Chemistry and Fermentation Sciences, was awarded a grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center to study medications proposed to treat triple-negative breast cancers, which he said have “the least number of and least effective treatment options available.”

According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation Inc., a diagnosis of triple-negative breast cancer means the three receptors that fuel most breast cancer growth — estrogen, progesterone and the HER-2 gene — are not present in the tumor, and common treatments like hormone therapy are ineffective. Approximately 10% to 20% of breast cancers are triple negative.

Assistant professor Dr. Michael Reddish, left, and Ethan Harris ’22 test samples in the lab in fall 2021 to investigate treatments for triple-negative breast cancer. Photo by Chase Reynolds

below the summit of Mount Everest, at an elevation of 8,810 meters (28,904 feet).

The installation, along with essential maintenance of four other automatic weather stations at various points on the mountain, builds upon the record-breaking National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition in 2019.

The Bishop Rock installation replaces the Balcony station (elevation 8,430 meters, or 27,657 feet) installed in 2019.

The Balcony station, which was impacted by severe weather, was the world’s highest automatic weather station at the time of installation.

This weather station network on Everest provides unparalleled and critical data on how climate change impacts the planet.

Data from the stations — managed by Perry at App State in collaboration with other partners — can help communities respond to climate risks that threaten the lives and livelihoods of more than 53 million people who live in the Himalayan Mountains region.

Examining ancient evidence in mass extinctions App State’s Dr. Sarah Carmichael describes her job as similar to that of a crime scene investigator — and the evidence she examines is more than 350 million years old.

Carmichael — a geochemist, a National Geographic Explorer and a professor in App State’s Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences — specializes in Devonian period research, studying the causes and effects of mass extinction events that occurred 350–417 million years ago.

“The Devonian period contains pulses of extinctions that, taken together, constitute one of the top five most severe mass extinction events in Earth’s history,” Carmichael said.

“The events decimated coral reefs and marine ecosystems and changed the evolutionary trajectory of fish.”

Many scientists have studied these extinctions — thought to be caused by anoxia (oxygen loss) — but the reasons behind the change in oxygen levels remain a mystery, Carmichael said.

For clues, scientists study fossils and chemical compositions preserved in rocks.

By studying extinction events from the past, Carmichael said scientists can look for similar trends in sediments today — and better understand and predict potential outcomes.

Real-time wind, temperature and precipitation measures from the stations are also improving climber safety on the main Mount Everest climbing routes. Worldwide, the data are enabling scientists to learn more about climate at high altitudes and its impact on glacier health and water supply, Perry said.

App State team researches treatments for aggressive breast cancer An App State research team is investigating effective treatments for one of the most aggressive types of breast cancer — with the goal of reducing adverse side effects.

Dr. Michael Reddish, assistant professor in App State’s A.R.

Dr. Sarah Carmichael is pictured during a field expedition in Mongolia in 2018, where she and her team evaluated specimens preserved in volcanic rocks. Photo by Felix Kunze

Interested in research at App State?

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RESEARCH EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

NORTH CAROLINA

BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS FOR PROGRESS ECU CONNECTS RESEARCH, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITIES TO BENEFIT THE REGION AND BEYOND East Carolina University continues to deliver on its motto, Servire -- “To Serve” -- through partnerships that catalyze regional transformation. Faculty, students and staff collaborate with industry, health care and other community organizations to find solutions that improve health, educational outcomes, economic prosperity, workforce and community assets. Campus and community stakeholders use shared knowledge, expertise and resources to build a better tomorrow for our region, state and communities across the globe.

FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE WORKFORCE The coupling of expert faculty researchers with cutting-edge technology and innovative approaches means that ECU can produce top-notch scientists, innovators, educators, health care professionals, entrepreneurs and other employees that meet the workforce needs of employers.

The new Life Sciences and Biotechnology Building is home

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to the Eastern Region Pharma Center, a partnership joining the university with 15 pharmaceutical companies and five community colleges to build a workforce that answers industry demand.

Through partnerships with the military and industry, ECU makes higher education affordable and accessible for both traditional and non-traditional students. Military service members can find educational opportunities that support career advancement through ECU’s Bachelor of Science in Industrial Technology and Industrial Distribution & Logistics programs. Both programs are part of the initial in-person offerings onboard Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. ECU can provide Department of Defense personnel in and out of uniform with pathway options that enhance their current career progression or support transition to new careers in the growing pharmaceutical, aerospace or equipment manufacturing sectors in eastern North Carolina.

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Breaking ground on Intersect East, a hub where industry and businesses can tie into ECU’s research and talent.

More information at intersecteast.com/leasing

Medicine put the university’s mission into action – reaching into underserved areas to deliver needed care to community members.

Providing students in health professions with these real-world experiences allows them to be prepared for the challenges and opportunities they will face after graduation.

FROM COLLABORATIONS TO ADVANCEMENT Similarly, ECU’s College of Education founded the Rural Education Institute as a response to community need. The Institute supports rural scholars to return to their home regions armed with tools to address the opportunities for growth in rural communities and families. By tailoring programming to focus on issues specific to the rural education system, ECU is helping to give young students and educators a leg up when compared to those who receive education from establishments with access to more resources.

ECU facilities and partnerships also offer opportunities for businesses and organizations to collaborate. The Bureau of Business Research, housed in the College of Business, provides business leaders, communities and policymakers with insightful research to transform eastern North Carolina into a stronger, sustainable and more resilient region. The Small Business and Technology Development Center provides management counseling to help business owners make better business decisions and offers specialized assistance in exporting, technology commercialization, and government contracting. Additionally, the RISE29 internship program partners emerging student entrepreneurs with businesses located in rural communities to support business plans, marketing strategies, expansion opportunities and succession planning to create or retain jobs in those communities.

Opening soon on ECU’s Research and Innovation Campus is Intersect East, a center of innovation located within Greenville’s National Register Historic Tobacco District adjacent to downtown

amenities and ECU’s main campus. With this new facility, industry and business partners will enjoy additional access to university research capabilities that foster advancement, collaboration, innovation and job growth.

FROM RESEARCH TO READINESS As a public research university with a mission to bring about positive change and transformation, faculty and student researchers consistently reach across departments and across county lines to help ready eastern North Carolina and its neighbors for tomorrow.

Set on the beautiful Outer Banks is the Coastal Studies Institute, a multi-institutional research and educational partnership led by ECU. The program uses an interdisciplinary approach and scientific advances to provide effective solutions to coastal problems. Student and faculty researchers focus their studies and data collection on subjects like coastal erosion, sea level rise, fisheries, resource management and marine renewable energy.

These researchers are working each day to better understand and find answers to the complex issues that affect not only coastal North Carolina, but coastal systems around the globe.

Researchers in the College of Health and Human Performance are working on a study funded by the Office of Naval Research to enhance the readiness and resilience of our service members.

The two focus areas of the study address improving recovery from mild traumatic brain injury and prevention of musculoskeletal injuries. Advancing the understanding of these injuries will enable improved medical care for our service members, strengthening our forces and setting them up for a better future after service.

ECU is focused on providing the expertise and resources that support practical solutions for a stronger, more prosperous North Carolina. Contact ECU Research, Economic Development and Engagement to learn about potential partnership and research opportunities for your business or community.

To learn more about ECU’s research, economic development and engagement, visit rede.ecu.edu

SHARON PAYNTER

EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

acting chief research and engagement officer paynters@ecu.edu 252-328-9471

Research, Economic Development and Engagement 201 East Fifth Street, Greenville, NC 27858 252-328-9471 rede.ecu.edu

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RESEARCH FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

NORTH CAROLINA

Rescue training in a swift water tank

SERVING THE COMMUNITY A NEW COMPLEX WILL PROVIDE STATE-OF-THE-ART RESCUE TRAINING FOR FLOODS, FIRES AND OTHER HAZARDS Fayetteville Technical Community College is building a facility that will revolutionize opportunities for emergency personnel to train for swift-water and flood-water rescues.

FTCC’s Swift Water Rescue Training Center will be a stateof-the-art indoor facility at the College’s new Regional Fire & Rescue Training Center.

The 8,400-square-foot Swift Water Rescue Training Center will house an 88,000-gallon tank with eight pumps that can blast water up to 7 knots per hour to simulate realistic flood situations.

The center will be able to operate daily and offer a wide variety of rescue scenarios, including submerged vehicles and enclosed areas, different weather situations, water temperatures, current flow, obstacles, night rescues and other challenges.

FTCC moved to create the Swift Water Rescue Training Center because of the need to provide specialized swift-water and flood-water rescue training to emergency personnel in a world that is increasingly flood-prone. It can be difficult and dangerous to arrange such training on a regular basis in natural, outdoor settings. Meanwhile, certified swift water rescue personnel

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are required to undergo regular retraining to maintain their credentials. There are more than 40 certified swift water rescue teams in North Carolina.

“This facility will serve a critical training need for emergency personnel in Cumberland County, eastern North Carolina and beyond,” said FTCC President Dr. J. Larry Keen. “Dangerous flood and swift-water situations can happen almost anywhere,” Keen said. “It is vitally important that emergency responders have specialized training in these instances. With this new facility, FTCC will be able to provide that training.”

FTCC’s Swift Water Rescue Training Center will be the only indoor facility of its kind on the East Coast of the United States.

The center’s tank and technology are being provided by Fathom Tanks of Georgetown, Texas, which operates its own indoor swiftwater facility. The FTCC facility is expected to open in late 2022.

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RENDERING OF THE TRAINING CENTER PROVIDED BY HH ARCHITECTURE

training programs for fire and emergency personnel from Cumberland County and beyond. The first phase of the regional center includes a 24,000-square-foot building with classrooms, apparatus bays, simulation labs and offices; a technical rescue complex with a 4-story training tower; and a 3-story “burn building” where live burning exercises can be conducted. It is expected to be completed by the end of August. FTCC’s Corporate and Continuing Education division plans to begin offering classes at the new Regional Fire and Rescue Training Center this fall.

The second phase of the project includes the Swift Water Rescue Training Center, as well as an Aircraft Burn Simulator and two additional burn buildings. Other specialized training opportunities will include Technical Rescuer certification, vehicle extrication, trench rescuer, confined space rescuer, farm rescuer, and communications tower rescuer.

FTCC is the only college in North Carolina to offer sophisticated, high-level training which includes multiple burn buildings, an aircraft trainer, rappelling tower with high zip line capability, and trench collapse training. The full project is expected to be completed by June 2023.

The Regional Fire and Rescue Training Center and Swift Water Rescue Training Center are expected to boost the local economy, as individuals from well beyond Cumberland County seek out the specialized training and visit local hotels, restaurants and businesses.

“This Center will provide hands-on specialized training in a wide variety of emergency situations,” Keen said. “Firefighters and first responders will be able to do their jobs more effectively and safely, and their training will pay dividends to the people they are able to help.”

Keen said the Fire & Rescue Training Center and the Swift Water Rescue Training Center are the result of hard work by many, including Cumberland County’s legislative delegation, the County’s Board of Commissioners, the Cumberland County Fire Chiefs Association, the North Carolina Community College System and the College’s Board of Trustees.

He said FTCC is honored to be able to serve firefighters and other emergency personnel. “FTCC is thrilled to be able to provide training in this state-of-the-art Center for the courageous men and women who step up through their professional calling to serve the emergency needs of citizens throughout

Rendering of FTCC’s new Regional Fire & Rescue Training Center

A submerged vehicle in a swift water tank

our communities, states, and our nation,” Keen said. “This Center represents the culmination of the strong value and deep appreciation shared by many in our community and across our state who recognize why the work of our emergency service workers is critical.”

For over sixty years, Fayetteville Technical Community College has been a pillar of Fayetteville and Cumberland County, providing members of the community opportunities to pursue a high-quality education offered conveniently and affordably. The mission of FTCC is to serve its community as a learning-centered institution to build a globally competitive workforce that supports economic development. FTCC offers over 286 academic programs of study leading to the award of associate degree, certificate, or diploma. FTCC’s Corporate and Continuing Education division provides a broad range of classes including courses in high school equivalency, personal interest, and career and job training. The Small Business Center, which operates under the umbrella of Corporate and Continuing Education, provides training to meet the needs of new or existing businesses and industries. As members of a North Carolina community college, FTCC’s faculty, staff, and leadership are honored to provide training to meet the needs of employers and the community and help individuals pursue a better quality of life through the pathway of education.

Interested in learning more about FTCC and the new training center? Visit faytechcc.edu

FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE 2201 Hull Road, Fayetteville, NC 28303 910-678-8400 faytechcc.edu

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RESEARCH GUILFORD TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

NORTH CAROLINA

GAME-CHANGING GTCC FUELS INNOVATION IN LOCAL AND NATIONAL AVIATION SCENE Since it began in 1970, the aviation program at Guilford Technical Community College has soared. And now, given the “boom” in aviation, GTCC is poised to offer a new pipeline of skilled labor in the field.

A bit of background: In January 2022, Boom Supersonic announced that it will build the world’s fastest, most sustainable aircraft, the Overture, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The supersonic jet will fly at twice the speed of most passenger airplanes, and it will utilize sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Boom’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, slated to be 400,000 square feet on a 65-acre lot, will create more than 1,750 jobs with an average salary of $69,000 per year. Boom’s Overture Superfactory will also grow North Carolina’s economy by about $32 billion over 20 years.

In large part, Boom chose North Carolina for its ability to produce trained workers. Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, told Spectrum News, “With some of the country’s best and brightest aviation talent, key suppliers, and the state of North Carolina’s continued support, Boom is confident that Greensboro will emerge as the world’s supersonic manufacturing hub.”

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Naturally, GTCC responded to the opportunity, developing plans to build an expansive 100,000-square-foot aviation center on its Cameron Campus. This new facility will complement the existing T.H. Davis Aviation Center, located adjacent to the runways at Piedmont Triad International Airport, and will allow for expansion of GTCC’s aviation programs. And the cost? It’s well worth it, given the impact of Boom’s investment in the area.

GTCC is firmly on its way to securing $37.4 million for its new aviation center, and college leaders may take bids for the initial construction as soon as May or June 2023, with the hope of completing construction by 2027.

Leaders in education and economic development agree that Boom’s presence in Greensboro will create vital new opportunities for area and state students. GTCC is uniquely positioned to meet the specialized demand, already offering cutting-edge programs in aerospace manufacturing, aviation systems, aviation electronics (avionics), and aviation management. Students can also enroll in the Aviation Manufacturing Quick Careers Program (AMQCP) in areas such as composite technology and aircraft structural repair.

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earning stackable credentials that will make them highly desirable in the growing field of aviation.

In fact, all students at GTCC can earn a wide variety of credentials. They can pursue certificates, diplomas, and associate degrees, with program lengths ranging from a few weeks to two years. Aviation students can even earn a bachelor’s or master’s degree on-site at GTCC, thanks to an articulation agreement between the college and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

In addition, GTCC’s aviation program is deeply rooted in the local business community, including collaborative partnerships with entities such as HondaJet and HAECO. Business partners provide crucial work-based learning for students seeking apprenticeships, internships, and mentorships.

Through 2032, Boom expects to create 200 additional opportunities via internships for students who attend publicly funded North Carolina universities, community colleges, or technical schools. This type of on-site education allows students to immerse themselves in the field of aviation, learning by doing, all with the support of experts. Day and evening classes are available to GTCC’s aviation students, allowing them the flexibility to take advantage of experiential learning.

The potential for expanding business relationships, particularly via landmark companies like Boom, is beyond promising. According to Nick Yale, GTCC’s director of aviation programs and industry veteran with 25 years of field experience, local companies already request classroom time with aviation students, sending recruiters to get in front of them.

Representatives from Boom Supersonic have also begun visiting GTCC to discuss possibilities for collaboration.

And what about tuition? Financial aid and scholarships are available to all GTCC students, and many are able to attend at minimal or no cost, breaking down financial barriers to lucrative careers. Even outside of the classroom, GTCC offers students innovative solutions for their non-academic needs.

The Titan Link program at GTCC provides above-and-beyond support for challenges related to housing, transportation, food insecurity, and more. GTCC’s Food Nutrition Services Employment and Training (FNS E&T) program offers additional support to area students and community members who receive food stamps. These additional services include specialized job search support, skills and interest assessment, and connections to workforce training and continuing education opportunities.

Community-focused innovators like GTCC are essential to providing accessible, equitable access to cutting-edge training.

Think of the college tagline: Make Amazing Happen. GTCC’s aviation program is taking it to a brand new elevation.

ABOUT GTCC Guilford Technical Community College is the fourth largest of 58 institutions in the North Carolina Community College System. Serving 27,000 students annually from five campuses and a Small Business Center, GTCC offers more than 80 programs of study, including flexible, low-cost options for earning associate degrees, diplomas, and certificates. GTCC is rooted in innovative education, training, and partnerships.

Make amazing happen. Visit us online at www.gtcc.edu

GUILFORD TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE 601 E. Main Street, Jamestown, NC 27282 336-334-4822 info@gtcc.edu

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RESEARCH JOINT SCHOOL OF NANOSCIENCE AND NANOENGINEERING

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WORLD-CLASS FACILITY A NORTH CAROLINA RESEARCH GEM ATTRACTS THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST FROM ACADEMIA, GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY Housed inside the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN), a 105,000-square-foot, LEED Gold Certified research facility, is the Joint School’s Institute for Research Technologies (JSIRT). It holds more than 100 state-ofthe-art pieces of equipment for use in micro and nanofabrication, imaging, analytical characterization, synthetic biology, advanced materials design, and computational research. JSNN is a unique academic collaboration between North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It builds on the strengths of both institutions to offer innovative, cross-disciplinary graduate programs in research areas where nanoscience and nanoengineering play a key role, including synthetic biology, materials science, computational nanotechnology, and environmental science and sustainability.

JSNN offers master’s and doctorate degrees in nanoscience and nanoengineering as well as graduate certificates in advanced materials, micro and nano devices, systems and synthetic biology, STEM entrepreneurship, medical sciences, instrumentation, and nanoscience. In collaboration with Georgia Tech, JSNN is a partner in the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure

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Corridor, funded by the National Science Foundation’s National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure program.

JSNN has received outstanding research contributions from faculty and students. Under the leadership of Dr. Sherine Obare, who in 2019 took the helm of leading JSNN as its second dean, enrollment at the school has increased by 35%, external funding has grown by 54%, and the school was recognized in 2021 by Insights into Diversity for novel initiatives that increase women’s careers in nanotechnology. Talented faculty from various disciplinary backgrounds have fostered significant innovation at JSNN. The fee-for-use-based resources and equipment are available to academic, government, and industry users. In addition to the equipment, users have access to highly skilled staff and worldclass specialized training. JSNN serves academic, industrial, and governmental researchers across the U.S. and around the globe.

The advanced microscopy instrumentation includes the only Helium Ion Microscope in the Southeast. A brand-new microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) scanner, installed in March 2022, produces high-resolution 3D images of a variety of artifacts and organisms.

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Dr. Shyam Aravamudhan, director of JSNN core facilities, said, “We provide 24/7 open access to laboratories, equipment, tools, and support for nano and microscale lithography, fabrication, synthesis, characterization, design, and computation, as well as hands-on training in a shared user environment. There is no other place in Piedmont that offers access to such a stellar facility with world-class equipment and access to our expert staff.”

JSNN’s world class facility has also led to exciting research innovations. A recent patent titled Amphiphilic Hybrid Nanomaterials by Drs. Daniel Herr, Hemali Rathnayake, and Kristen Dellinger would enable the tech industry to manufacture high performance computer chips at reduced cost. It also creates a potential path for dissolvable prosthetic devices and promises to help address the global computer chip shortage of computer chips.

This shortage, creating a deficiency not seen in decades, stalls the production of millions of products, including cars, smartphones, household appliances, computers, and much more. Current production of computer chips relies ‘top-down’ manufacturing, in which designed structures are etched into a functional substrate, creating a significant amount of material waste. This invention represents a ‘bottom-up’ approach that builds functional nanostructures as needed, in a way that is similar to how our bodies create cells, with very little wasted material.”

Furthermore, JSNN researchers use bio-based and bioinspired tools to help usher in a new era of information processing. A new convergent technology called Semiconductor Synthetic Biology promises to transform semiconductor manufacturing and information processing technologies and achieve this twenty-year vision. Several JSNN faculty co-authored and contributed to the first SemiSynBio roadmap in 2018. The JSNN faculty, whose collaborative team addresses the roadmap’s key information storage challenges, are becoming world leaders in this emerging field, with support from an NSF grant, “DNA Mutational Overwriting Storage.”

The memory industry realizes the critical need to explore alternative storage materials. Due to the absence of alternatives, an information storage crisis is imminent. With the demand for memory growing exponentially, the JSNN DMOS team’s environmentally sustainable DNA-based data storage system does not require resource-intensive de novo DNA synthesis. This breakthrough system exhibits the potential to augment or replace state-of-the-art digital memory platforms, which are rapidly approaching their physical limits. This collaborative DMOS team,

led by Dr. Reza Zadegan, includes the following JSNN researchers: Drs. Shyam Aravamudhan, Daniel Herr, Eric Josephs, and Dennis LaJeunesse, accompanying a number of leading industrial and academic stakeholders engaged through the SemiSynBio Roadmap. Thus far, the team has demonstrated the enormous potential of DNA-based information storage. They also suggest and are working to verify that DNA digital memory provides far superior spatial capacity, energy efficiency, and information durability compared to other sophisticated memory materials.

In a recent patent, Lithium Recovery from Wastewater, Dr. Hemali Rathnayake and Dr. Sheeba Dawood (a JSNN alumna) are co-founders of Minerva Lithium, a JSNN spin-off. Together they developed a method to capture lithium from water. By 2030, half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. will be electric, fueling increased demand for lithium batteries. But mining this relatively rare element is detrimental to the environment, and lithium is not common in the U.S. This technology can also be tailored to remove toxic substances like lead and heavy metals from water.

Their newly patented technology removes valuable chemical elements from wastewater in 24-48 hours. Focusing on lithium because of high demand, the technology can trap lithium from water with a yield of 90% in less than 24 hours, a tremendous improvement over traditional lithium recovery, which can take more than one year with a success rate of 30-65%.

JSNN is a place for talent and innovation. The facility, the equipment, and the brilliant faculty make it one of the state’s points of pride and a place for research advancement.

If you are interested in learning more about accessing research equipment, enrolling in graduate programs, or fostering collaborations, please visit jsnn.ncat.uncg.edu.

Visit us online at www.jsnn.ncat.uncg.edu

SHERINE O. OBARE, PHD dean and professor, Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering North Carolina A&T State University and UNC Greensboro

2907 E. Gate City Boulevard, Greensboro, NC 27401 336-285-2800

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RESEARCH N.C. AGRICULTURAL AND TECHNICAL STATE UNIVERSITY

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Professor Beatrice Dingha shows students how hemp benefits from intercropping.

HEMP RESEARCH HELPING FARMERS NAVIGATE A NEW FIELD For some farmers, hemp sounds like the cash crop of their dreams. Since Congress made hemp farming legal in 2018, it has been the hot new topic in agriculture, bringing hope to North Carolina farmers still recovering financially from the decline of the tobacco industry. The fast-growing plant can yield seeds, flowers, fibers and oil, all of which can theoretically fetch high prices on the hemp market — enticing thousands to try growing it.

But there’s one problem for current and future hemp farmers: it’s a new field, with little long-term research to guide eager farmers on their journey.

Enter the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, which is performing research that ultimately will educate farmers on commercial hemp production. Researchers are studying a variety of aspects of hemp farming — from pests and pollination to production and profits — to help growers maximize the crop’s potential and minimize the risks associated with growing it.

As they reach conclusions, the researchers will share their findings with farmers and agricultural Extension agents through symposia, seminars, pamphlets, websites and other means — all with the goal of painting a full picture of the realities of hemp production.

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Abolghasem Shahbazi, Ph.D. is working on methods of extracting CBD oil from hemp plants.

“The plant has a lot of potential, but people are jumping into something without considering what they need to do first,” said Obed Quaicoe, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education.

His team is using a $500,000 grant from the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to examine the financial risks of growing hemp.

Hemp is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world, once grown in fields owned by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. But there’s not a wide body of research on the best conditions for growing hemp, the pests it attracts or the economic ramifications for farmers growing it.

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grow hemp, which made it impossible to study the plant’s biology or its potential as a crop. Hemp comes from cannabis, the same plant that produces marijuana. And though it’s legal once again to grow hemp in North Carolina, marijuana is a different story. State officials regularly test hemp farmers’ plants for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. If a cannabis plant contains more than .3 percent THC, then it’s marijuana and must be destroyed.

That’s just one of the risks of hemp farming. Others include pests, mold and market saturation, which is where Quaicoe’s interests lie. Too many farmers are investing time and money into growing a crop they know little about, he said. As of August 2021, there are 1,500 hemp growers licensed through the state’s Industrial Hemp Commission; however, according to Quaicoe, many of those farmers have been so excited about the potential that they failed to line up buyers, which has been financially devastating for some.

“You have all these output from farmers and literally not enough people to buy the flowers or the fiber from them to process,” he said.

“When that happens, it chokes the market. And if you don’t get a good price, you get your head underwater.”

THE BENEFITS OF INTERCROPPING Beatrice Dingha, Ph.D., often finds herself walking through rows of hemp at the N.C. A&T Farm, inspecting the plants, monitoring the soil, keeping an eye out for bees and bugs, her specialty.

Dingha, a research associate professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design, is examining how hemp benefits from intercropping — growing two or more other crops so close together that they interact biologically. The research is being funded in part by a $230,000 grant from the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, which promotes sustainable farming practices.

Dingha and her team are using three crops for this grant-funded research: hemp, cowpeas (black-eyed peas) and either okra, squash or watermelon, which are dependent on bees for pollination.

The bees are an important part of Dingha’s research, and not just because she’s an entomologist. Bees seek out cowpeas for nectar.

The more pollinators there are in the fields, the greater the yield of cowpeas. And that means more nitrogen in the soil, something needed to produce a healthy hemp crop. Dingha is experimenting with four varieties of cannabis plants to see which one reacts best.

“If we can have cowpeas that produce nitrogen, then we might be able to cut down on the amount of fertilizer that we use,” she said.

Her team’s research has another important implication for hemp

farmers: it demonstrates the importance of farmers having a second or third crop to sell income if something happens to the hemp.

“They should not rely only on hemp, because we all know that hemp is a delicate crop,” she said.

PERFECTING PRODUCTION A delicate crop, indeed. It needs the right temperature, the appropriate amount of fertilizer, the correct irrigation, the proper protection from pests and weeds. Any variations, and the crop could fail, costing farmers their livelihoods until next season.

Ghasem Shahbazi, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design, has spent the last four years investigating the optimal growing conditions for hemp — specifically what varieties produce the best CBD oil. The agricultural and biological engineer, who specializes in bioenergy research and product development, is a member of the N.C. A&T Industrial Hemp Team, which is now in the second phase of research funded in part by a grant from the USDA Evans-Allen Research Program.

Like the other researchers in the college, Shahbazi’s goal is helping farmers remove the guesswork from planting, cultivating and selling this often-misunderstood plant.

“Some people by nature only look at the positive side,” he said.

“They only look at the price and potential and income and say, ‘Wow. I need to jump in there with both feet.’ But a lot of people couldn’t sell their hemp in years past because of the lower quality, or because of a lack of connection with a buyer.”

The first phase of the team’s work began with Arnab Bhowmik, Ph.D., the assistant professor of soil science and soil microbiology who is responsible for the part of the research that takes place on the farm. He planted two varieties known for their production of buds that produce high quality CBD oil to assess what grows best under what circumstances.

With grown plants in hand, Shahbazi extracted and purified the CBD oil, running it again and again through the university’s smallscale biorefinery machine. The second phase, which began in 2020, is focusing on how the quality of the soil impacts the quality of the CBD oil.

Results from both phases will help farmers choose their varieties more wisely — and temper their expectations.

“We tell them that they need to be careful,” Shahbazi said.

“Usually in these situations, there are people who have a lot of money that they can throw at risky things. Farmers don’t have unlimited money to throw at risky things.”

To learn more about hemp research at N.C. A&T, visit us online at www.ncat.edu/caes

NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURAL AND TECHNICAL STATE UNIVERSITY 1601 E. Market Street, Greensboro, NC 27411 336-334-7500 ncat.edu

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RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM

NORTH CAROLINA

TOGETHER WE CONNECT TRAINING DEVELOPMENT AND TALENT ACQUISITION

Our state continues to need scientific, engineering, and technical talent to support rapid industry growth. High-technology sectors continue to add jobs that pay above national averages. From 2020 through 2022 the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) announced nearly 15,000 new jobs totaling a $19.3B economic impact. The biopharma sector alone needs nearly 5,000 jobs in the next 3-5 years. Now is the best time to transition or advance in your career, but how does one get to make this dream a reality? BioNetwork, the life science training initiative of the NCCCS, works with colleges, companies, and students to connect talent development and talent acquisition needs of the life science industry. BioWork is a great place to start.

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Sarah Cote shows us that a career path can have many chapters. After working in several distinct professions, Cote landed a career in the biopharma industry that brought together all of her skill sets. She is a graduate of the singlesemester BioWork course which is designed to give students the foundational skills for a career in biopharma manufacturing.

COMMON THREAD On a “whim,” she decided to sign up for classes at Central Carolina Community College and found that she loved the work. Cote got an associate degree in machining technology and worked at a local manufacturing company. “I started as a machine operator, and four months later, I was promoted into the machine shop, becoming the only female who had ever worked in that department,” she says. “My grandfather was a master tool-and-die maker, but I didn’t know that until after I was already in the industry. Learning that was neat – sometimes you don’t know where your interests stem from.”

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Eventually she went back to school and got a second associates degree, this time in respiratory therapy.

“I really loved that work,” Cote says. “When you’re caring for people, you are paying it forward in a way. One day, you or somebody in your family might be in that same situation, and you want them to receive the best care possible. So, when you become a medical professional, you strive every day to do that.”

After working as a respiratory therapist for five years, it was time for a change. Cote explored the biopharmaceutical industry.

LEARNING THE ROPES Cote first heard about the BioWork course through connections on LinkedIn. “I communicated via LinkedIn with people who worked at Pfizer and other companies,” she recalls. “They said, ‘The BioWork class is only one semester, and it will give you a good baseline to see if you’ll like pharma.’ So I took the class with Dr. Lisa Smelser at Central Carolina Community College and realized that pharma was exactly where I wanted to be and what I’d been missing this whole time.”

While BioWork sets out to provide students with science education, that is not the only goal of the course, Smelser says.

“We do focus on hands-on technical skills to give students confidence, especially if they are making a transition like Sarah’s from a different field,” she says. “But we also spend a lot of time making sure that students understand things like shift work and contract positions. That career development piece is a permanent and important part of the experience. We want to make sure that we’re setting them up for success so they can articulate their transferable skills, walk out the door with a very strong resume, and be confident when talking with potential employers.”

LANDING THE JOB Cote’s early work experience in pharma brought great opportunities and tough choices.

“After I finished in August 2020, Dr. Smelser would hook us up with these virtual career fairs through BioNetwork,” she says.

“I work on the CDA/Fill Team,” says Cote, who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biology on the side. “We weigh out raw material to the entire site. We are the start and finish to everything – the process starts with the raw materials being distributed and finishes with the fills being completed.

“Pfizer is a great place to start out and grow your career over time, and I enjoy being a part of a growing industry with a main focus of patient care.”

Cote believes her earlier work experiences helped prepare her for her new career.

“If you take the machines and the medical background and the people work, that’s everything that a pharmaceutical job is,” she says. “I’d love to be an inspiration for young girls who really don’t know what direction to take. Pharma is a great career path with a lot of good benefits, so if they take a chance, try it out, and they end up making a career out of it, that would be great to see.”

Learn more online at ncbionetwork.org/biowork

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RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA MILITARY BUSINESS CENTER

NORTH CAROLINA

FRONTLINE OF THE FUTURE North Carolina – the Frontline of the Future - is home to a highly capable and diverse innovation ecosystem, fully capable of supporting America’s warfighters worldwide. Fortunately, North Carolina is also home to the best infrastructure in the country to help industry- and academia-based innovators to win and successfully execute research and development opportunities with the Department of Defense (DoD).

The North Carolina Defense Technology Transition Office (DEFTECH) is a statewide resource of the North Carolina Military Business Center (NCMBC). Focused on technology transition, DEFTECH scours the state for business and university researchers who are developing new technologies with defense applications. These technologies may fit in one of many research and development (R&D) categories, including human performance, medical and biomedical, advanced textiles, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity and many more. Once identified, DEFTECH helps these innovators to introduce their advanced technologies to DoD, and assists them in navigating DoD agencies and R&D acquisition processes.

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In addition to seeking out researchers developing defenserelated technologies, DEFTECH also develops market intelligence and sources future DoD and Homeland Security technology requirements to the innovation ecosystem statewide. DEFTECH builds relationships with DoD and military service agencies that develop requirements and acquire technologies - including the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Army Futures Command, Marine Corps Systems Command, US Special Operations Command and the military services’ rapid fielding organizations - and leverages these relationships to identify, distribute and help innovators to compete for federally-funded research and development opportunities.

DEFTECH particularly targets and helps businesses to compete for and win defense-related Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) and various Other Transaction Authority (OTA) R&D acquisitions.

DEFTECH employs various methods to engage and communicate with the innovation ecosystem in our state.

Innovators can explore the DEFTECH website at www.DEFTECH.nc.gov, review current and anticipated SBIR,

PHOTO CREDIT: AIR FORCE SENIOR AIRMAN ALEXANDER COOK

PROMOTING DEFENSE TECHNOLOGIES IN NORTH CAROLINA

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Left: An 82nd Airborne paratrooper using a tactical robotic controller for an expeditionary modular autonomous vehicle during a field exercise.

PHOTO CREDIT: AIR FORCE MASTER SGT. LEKENDRICK STALLWORT; ARMY SGT. MARITA SCHWAB

Below: Special Forces conduct a high-altitude, lowopening jump from an Air Force MC-130J Commando II.

STTR and other federally-funded R&D opportunities, and contact DEFTECH by email or phone to register in the DEFTECH network. Once connected, innovators can engage in DEFTECH’s Mobilize community (https://nc-defensetechnology-transition-office.mobilize.io/network-groups) to network with other businesses and receive updates and teaming opportunities. Finally, businesses can contact DEFTECH to attend the weekly, virtual Coffee Call series and other DEFTECH webinars and in-person events - such as the Defense Technology Symposium in Fayetteville on July 26 - that regularly connect innovators in North Carolina with technology acquisition agencies in DoD and other federal agencies. DEFTECH works daily to ensure that North Carolina remains the Frontline of the Future.

DEFTECH is one component of the North Carolina Military Business Center (NCMBC), a statewide business development and tech transition entity of the State of North Carolina embedded in our community colleges and headquartered at Fayetteville Technical Community College. Charged by the General Assembly with growing the

defense economy – the second largest sector of our state’s economy ($66 billion annual impact) – the NCMBC business development, DEFTECH and strategic industry staff members serve businesses in all 100 counties from 15 offices across the state. For more information about the NCMBC, visit www. ncmbc.us, and register for free daily federal contract notices at www.MatchForce.org.

Visit us online at ncmbc.us | deftech.nc.gov | matchforce.org | cybernc.us

NORTH CAROLINA MILITARY BUSINESS CENTER Courtney Smedick, MS-IMC, director of operations 910-678-0193 courtney@ncmbc.us

DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION OFFICE Colonel (Ret.) Denny Lewis, director 703-217-3127 lewisd@ncmbc.us Twitter: @ncmbc

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RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

NORTH CAROLINA

As part of TreeCo’s forestry research, the inner stem of a Poplar tree has been gene-edited to appear NC State red.

RESEARCH COMMERCIALIZATION FOSTERS ENTREPRENEURIAL, ECONOMIC AND INNOVATION EXCELLENCE NC State is a powerhouse in research commercialization. We’ve established a streamlined process that connects our faculty with industry partners in order to bring new, innovative technology to the marketplace. NC State research has sparked more than 190 startups and spinoffs, which, alongside our students and alumni, generate $6.5 billion of North Carolina income each year. It’s not surprising that the George W. Bush Institute listed us as one of the top 20 universities for innovation impact.

NC State promotes a culture of entrepreneurial and innovation excellence. As the leader of a National Science Foundation I-Corps, we teach teams of researchers how to shepherd their discoveries and inventions into the marketplace.

Training includes customer discovery and market research.

Teams are also connected to mentors as they decide how best to enter markets.

Since 2010, NC State has been executing a unique seed-funding program that supports short-term, commerciallyfocused research projects. Supported by Chancellor Randy Woodson, the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund awards university

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innovators up to $50,000 to strengthen the commercial potential of our researchers’ intellectual property. The fund helps bridge the gap between public and private funding and encourages products and technology that tackle some of society’s most pressing problems.

In the past 12 years, the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund has awarded $3.9 million and generated $74.9 million in follow-on funding. Awards aren’t limited to a single discipline. Sponsored projects have turned sawdust into packaging materials, created coatings to protect stealth aircraft, accelerated the industrial purification of biotherapeutics and developed microgel-based materials that mimic blood platelets.

PhotoCide Protection, Inc., is just one of the 32 startups launched thanks to the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund. Founded in 2018, PhotoCide Protection’s technology combines cellulose with photosensitizers to fight various pathogens on surfaces.

The company has developed fabrics, plastics and coatings that disinfect themselves. This mitigates the spread of infectious diseases that are transmitted via high-touch surfaces.

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reported $547 million in research expenditures. On Centennial Campus, a premier research park right on campus and the Office of Research Commercialization’s homebase, more than 70 corporate, government and nonprofit partners work alongside faculty members and students. NC State research has led to more than 1,500 patents and 600 products reaching the market total so far.

National organizations have taken note of our success.

After analyzing universities’ invention disclosures, issued licenses and options, gross licensing income, formed startups, cited patents and graduates in STEM fields, the nonprofit Heartland Forward ranked NC State University second among all U.S. public universities, and seventh among all universities, in research technology transfer and commercialization. The Association of University Technology Managers listed NC State as first in active licenses and options and fourth in startups launched among universities without a medical school for fiscal year 2020. The Milken Institute, an economic think tank, labeled Raleigh one of the top 10 best-performing large cities in the United States and cited the collaboration and innovation fostered by NC State — especially Centennial Campus.

Research commercialization is key to NC State’s mission of “Think and Do.” From laboratory to industry, NC State research has the power to solve global challenges. Innovative ideas are transformed into measurable, tangible benefits. Embodying “Think and Do,” our researchers are improving the world, one discovery at a time.

Another startup, TreeCo, edits genes to breed healthier forests and, in turn, a more sustainable future. Using CRISPR, TreeCo can shorten the growing cycle of trees and implement other enhancements, like better drought or frost tolerance. Not only does this technology help grow more resilient trees faster — it can also help meet the rising demand for biofuels, plastic alternatives, and sustainably manufactured textiles and paper.

These successful projects are fostered by NC State’s Office of Research Commercialization. The office helps our faculty members evaluate, protect and license their technology. By facilitating commercialization of research discoveries, the office helps drive economic growth. For fiscal year 2021, NC State

Jack Wang, left, and Rodolphe Barrangou founded TreeCo.

For more details, visit research.ncsu.edu

NC STATE UNIVERSITY Campus Box 7018, Raleigh, NC 27695 research.ncsu.edu

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RESEARCH RTI INTERNATIONAL

NORTH CAROLINA

INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION REACHING AROUND THE WORLD FROM NORTH CAROLINA For more than six decades, RTI International’s commitment to innovation has led to landmark scientific discoveries, gamechanging research, and life-saving program implementation.

Our impact is felt in countries around the world, from the Philippines to Guatemala, Tanzania to Indonesia.

But you don’t have to travel far from RTI headquarters in Research Triangle Park to see how we’re improving lives and serving clients. Founded in 1958 by Triangle-area universities and government and business leaders in North Carolina, we are motivated by a deeply felt responsibility to serve the people of North Carolina, from Murphy to Manteo, and to deliver on behalf of private- and public-sector clients in our state.

We view innovation as a strategic imperative for success.

Our clients choose us because we bring innovative solutions to bear on complex problems. Client-centricity drives us to take an outside-in view of innovation and trains our sights on producing high-quality research and delivering technical services solutions that maximize resources.

Whether individual citizen, policymaker, or government or private partner, we want you to thrive. For example, we know

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North Carolinians worry about their healthcare. We apply our expertise in health across a span of focus areas, including commercial healthcare. We recently established RTI Health Advance to deliver evidence-based, practical solutions for business and clinical leaders that advance healthcare in North Carolina and across the United States.

Working on behalf of clients, our researchers analyze and evaluate issues and trends that impact health policy and care delivery worldwide. We bridge boundaries through technology, using expertise in areas such as telehealth to customize solutions for federal and state health agencies and improve access to care right here in North Carolina.

We recognize the importance of the military community to our state. Nationally, North Carolina has the fourth-largest active-duty presence and the eighth-largest veteran population.

To serve those who have served, we helped determine the effectiveness of Stellate Ganglion Block injections in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. With support from our internal commercialization team, RTI scientists developed the Wearables Research and Analytics Platform (WRAP) SPONSORED SECTION

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to test wearable sensors to monitor military health through longitudinal studies.

RTI is also part of the North Carolina Center for Optimizing Military Performance (NC-COMP), bringing together expertise in research, medicine, health, fitness, engineering, materials, and manufacturing to allow for accelerated creation and deployment of solutions that fill critical military personnel performance gaps. Through NCCOMP, we help prevent injury and improve recovery times for our military members, help soldiers better function in multi-stressor environments and enhance baseline physical and mental performance.

North Carolina, like other states, has been hit hard by the opioid crisis. RTI partners with federal, state, and local government agencies, community-based organizations, and foundations to develop and evaluate strategies to prevent substance use and misuse. Our research benefits not only the populations we study but those served by the practitioners and policymakers who apply our findings in their own communities.

In 2021, we launched the Idea Lab for Equitable Economic Development. Through this collaboration, we are exploring ways to reduce extreme wealth inequality and create resilient economies. Our research into small southern cities shows the importance of reinvention and innovation in places like Boone and Wilmington.

We recently analyzed the costs and benefits of Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA), an innovative, North Carolina-based, multiyear residential program providing care and education to people with substance use disorder. The program results are compelling: TROSA saves the state $7.5 million annually by preventing arrests, incarceration, and emergency hospital visits.

Our innovative spirit drives us to take on the world’s greatest challenges, including climate change and protecting our environment. Last year our scientists received federal funding to develop a cost-effective CO2 capture system and commercially viable CO2 utilization solutions for the cement industry. We are also investing in the study and removal of harmful “forever chemicals” present in our air, rivers, groundwater, and landfills, and disposed of at our military bases and manufacturing facilities. Our groundbreaking work to help

identify lead in drinking water in childcare facilities in North Carolina—and around the nation—has made children safer.

A highly skilled team of scientists and engineers in our Center for Water Resources has designed, developed, and implemented integrated services and solutions for complex water issues, helping clients respond to water resource challenges using cutting-edge technologies, advanced analytics, and actionable information. The team’s state-of-theart approaches and analysis tools help build understanding and planning around climate resiliency, mapping and modeling, and risk assessment, preparing communities for natural disasters and weather events. We conduct this work here at home and in countries across the globe.

Our mission to improve the human condition globally starts at home. Innovation is a key enabler for the realization of our mission, the strength of our impact, and the reach of our contributions to a better future. We continually grow our partnerships in North Carolina to address the challenges of today and unlock the possibilities of tomorrow.

RTI International is an independent nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition.

RTI INTERNATIONAL 3040 East Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 919-541-6000 rti.org

RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute. RTI and the RTI logo are U.S. registered trademarks of Research Triangle Institute.

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RESEARCH SMALL BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CENTER

NORTH CAROLINA

SBIR/STTR Specialist John Ujvari presenting at The Chesterfield / LaunchBio in Durham

FUNDING INNOVATION SBTDC HELPS SMALL BUSINESSES UTILIZE SBIR FUNDING TO DEVELOP NEW TECHNOLOGIES The higher the risk, the less funding that is available. Such is the quandary of every entrepreneurial, innovation-driven small business that is seeking R&D funding to develop a technology. Triangle Environmental Health Initiative (TE) in Durham and OpiAID in Wilmington are two companies that have faced this challenge.

Enter the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, a highly competitive three-phase award system that rewards technological innovation of small businesses in critical needs of the federal government. Enacted in 1982, federal agencies with more than $100 million in extramural R&D are required to set-aside 3.2% of their budget for the SBIR program.

SBIR has played a significant role in funding early-stage innovations that are deemed too risky for other entities, such as equity investors and banks. Over $1.4 billion has been awarded to innovation-driven small businesses in North Carolina since the program was launched.

Small businesses that earn Phase I awards can obtain

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a maximum of $256,000 over six months to fund concept development and feasibility studies. Phase II awardees can receive up to $1.5 million to work on protype development of their technology. Eleven federal agencies currently participate in the SBIR program.

The North Carolina SBTDC is equipped to help small businesses tap into the opportunity that the SBIR program provides. Founded in 1984, the SBTDC was the first Small Business Development Center in the nation to be officially recognized as providing specialized technology commercialization services. The SBTDC is a business and technology extension program of the UNC System, administered by NC State University and operated in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The SBTDC’s Technology Development and Commercialization program assists eligible small businesses with incorporating SBIR into their funding strategies, identifying appropriate agencies and topics, and providing proposal reviews. The SBTDC also regularly offers SBIR SPONSORED SECTION

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workshops across the state and online.

“We take a holistic approach towards serving our clients,” said John Ujvari, SBIR/STTR Specialist at the SBTDC. “We see businesses as a whole and provide education and counseling when specific needs arise. Thousands of innovators have attended our trainings and utilized our oneon-one counseling services.”

Resources available to North Carolina small businesses through the SBIR program have grown in recent years, as funding has ballooned from $53.3 million in 2012 to $96.6 million in 2021. Clients of the SBTDC have been taking advantage of the opportunity, receiving 88 percent of all SBIR/ STTR funding awarded to North Carolina small businesses.

Between 2012 and 2021, North Carolina’s small businesses were awarded 939 Phase I and 452 Phase II awards, worth a total of $718 million. Of the 389 unique awardees, 64 percent were SBTDC clients.

The SBTDC’s expert counsel has helped startup Triangle Environmental Health Initiative (TE) leverage funding from the SBIR program to develop its technologies. TE was founded in 2016 to transform the way we think about and use our waste. TE develops water and sanitation technologies with a focus on resource recovery, including non-potable water for flushing toilets.

TE has earned three Phase I and two Phase II awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As a result of this funding, TE was able to prove the technology concepts of their wastewater treatment products, pilot and commercialize the products, and establish valuable connections to commercial partners.

“As a small business with limited finances, the SBTDC was a great, free resource to strengthen our early SBIR proposals. We received key insights into reviewer approaches and why many companies struggle to receive SBIR funding,” said Tate Rogers, Founder/Principal of TE. Tate Rogers

Conducting research at Triangle Environmental Health Initiative

Founded in 2019, OpiAID is developing technology to personalize treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) to make it safer and more effective. Their 14 team members are developing a decision support tool that collects and collates data from a patient’s health record to provide timely and actionable data to support clinical decision-making. This allows for just-in-time interventions that can save a life.

OpiAID won a SBIR Phase I grant from the NIH to develop a biometric algorithm capable of detecting withdrawal and relapse with a wrist worn device. OpiAID has applied for a Phase II grant to commercialize this technology.

“SBTDC’s one-on-one counseling and workshops have been great. We are excited for the opportunity to help clinicians provide even better care for our neighbors in recovery,” said OpiAID founder David Reeser.

In 2021, the SBTDC’s Tech Team worked with 362 clients and helped them obtain over $50 million in funding, including SBIR/STTR, angel investment, and venture capital.

Given these results, the SBTDC continues to be recognized as an important part of North Carolina’s ecosystem for technology-based small businesses.

Whatever your business destination, we can help you find your way. Visit sbtdc.org.

Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn & Flickr

SMALL BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CENTER 5 West Hargett Street, Suite 600, Raleigh, NC 27601 919-715-7272 sbtdc.org

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RESEARCH THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE

NORTH CAROLINA

LEADERS IN THE MAKING RESEARCH-FOCUSED STUDENTS GAIN FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE IN THEIR FUTURE CAREERS At the University of North Carolina Asheville, students across more than 30 majors take their learning outside of the classroom and into the real world through undergraduate research projects, closely mentored by faculty who are experts in their fields. With about 3,300 students, UNC Asheville is known for its dynamic, leadership-focused, relationshipdriven education. As the original home of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), the site of the first National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), UNC Asheville continues to set a high bar with research projects that address pressing issues, merge technology and social commentary, and support the local economy.

CHEMISTRY STUDENTS DRIVE RESEARCH FOR DEVELOPING A CUTTING-EDGE ANTIBIOTIC GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Professor in Molecular and Chemical Biology Amanda Wolfe and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Ryan Steed are combining their research specialties of Medicinal Chemistry and Biomolecular Chemistry, respectively, to develop a new antibiotic that treats

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Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a form of bacteria that is currently antibiotic treatment-resistant.

Their initial research, conducted entirely with UNC Asheville undergraduate research students, has been promising. “This new antibiotic would be able to eliminate drug-resistant strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa because it works in a novel way,” explains Wolfe regarding the new antibiotic that her studentdriven team is developing.

The project, which recently received a National Institutes of Health Academic Research Enhancement Award of over $380,000 to support six students with stipends to continue developing their research over the next three summers (2022-2024), was piloted in an upper-level laboratory course with chemistry undergraduates collecting data over multiple semesters. “This aspect is pretty unique and demonstrates the applied and cutting-edge education-focused research that we provide our chemistry majors at UNC Asheville.” Adds Steed, “The student involvement and impact that our undergraduates experience aligns UNC Asheville in the prestigious company of other elite research-active undergraduate institutions.”

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NEW MEDIA STUDENTS WITH “EPIC” OPPORTUNITIES UNC Asheville Assistant Professor of New Media Victoria Bradbury integrates gaming skills and technology at the service of art and social commentary.

With the assistance of student research assistants, including a music technology major who designed the score, Bradbury recently created Blue Boar VR - a virtual reality game developed on the Unreal Engine featuring her 10th-great grandmother, who was tried and convicted in the Salem Witch Trials.

“I have taught physical computing in my advanced interactive class, and being able to interface that with Unreal [is] really exciting,” says Bradbury. She surmises her students will also enjoy “employment possibilities” stemming from learning “a variety of software applications in addition to VR.” She continues, “There is a lot of interest in Unreal because of the broad applications – not only as a game engine. Unreal is being used in industry, and Epic Games is headquartered right here in North Carolina – in Raleigh.”

After completing Blue Boar VR, Bradbury was awarded a $44,000 Epic MegaGrant from Epic Games so she and her students could work on tying together Epic’s Unreal Engine – the software used in games like Fortnite – with physical computing using microcontrollers.

The award was applied to two 2021 grant-funded projects with three students hired on for roles including games programming and sharing the web and social media work.

Bradbury hopes that disseminating this grant-funded work online and through conference presentations will bring attention to new possibilities in new media art and design, interactive design, and new media pedagogy.

MANAGEMENT STUDENTS IN REAL-WORLD BUSINESS Students rarely get the opportunity to gain substantive experiences with real businesses outside of an internship, yet, Susan Clark, associate professor of management at UNC Asheville, provides students the chance to do just that. Each year, approximately 12 top management students are selected to be part of a consulting practicum that offers direct support to a local Western North Carolina business. In spring 2022, Clark and her students, through an ongoing relationship with the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, partnered with local business Darë Vegan Cheese.

In this student-led consulting practicum course, undergraduates apply theoretical knowledge to develop a strategic business plan and identify teams to contribute innovative deliverables to help a business scale up production, sales, and success.

While working with Darë Vegan Cheese, the students conducted extensive market research and determined an ideal target customer.

They also identified strategic business partners and initiated national distribution pathways to sell more products. From their experience, students gained concrete expertise to add to their resumes and portfolios and received real-world job market preparation.

“We completed multiple projects, including legal analysis, certification feasibility studies, and real-time business development strategies [to develop] a living business plan that the CEO can use to maximize her potential for success,” said Darden Smith, a student in the business development team. She feels her most valuable takeaway from the project which will be “applicable to success after graduation” was “working with the teams to produce exceptional content with academic rigor and professional excellence, all within budget and on a precise timeline.”

At UNC Asheville, these are just a few examples of students engaging in undergraduate research projects at the frontiers of their fields. Through real-world research projects, students gain invaluable experience in collaborative project design, data analysis, and communication, and are applying in-demand skills at the forefront of their communities and workforce.

To learn more about UNC Asheville visit us online at www.unca.edu

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ASHEVILLE One University Heights, Asheville, NC 28804 828-251-6600 webmaster@unca.edu

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RESEARCH THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

NORTH CAROLINA

POWERING THE ECONOMY THROUGH A STRONG INFRASTRUCTURE AND WORKFORCE Since its founding in 1789, UNC-Chapel Hill has served as an engine to drive North Carolina’s economy. Over two hundred years later, Carolina continues to invest in critical infrastructure to grow and attract new industries to the state and generate the workforce needed to staff them.

NEW SCHOOL FOR DATA SCIENCE & SOCIETY Recent announcements by Google and Apple to locate major operations within the state will create great demand on its workforce of data scientists, software engineers, and machine learning and AI innovators. To support the needs of our data-intensive industries, the university will establish the new UNC School for Data Science and Society in the fall of 2022.

UNC’s Data Science School will foster the region’s next generation of data science leaders. Beyond teaching the elements of managing and interpreting data, it will train students to apply data science to solve complex problems that achieve public good. Built on a cross-cutting model, the new school will feature faculty with joint appointments in other schools to ensure the

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expertise required to apply data science skills. Both graduate and undergraduate programs will be offered, as will training opportunities for campus and industry partners.

TAPPING DIGITAL HEALTH’S BUSINESS POTENTIAL The oceans of data generated by today’s digital society, especially within the health care industry, offer transformative business opportunities.

A case in point – the unique collaboration of Dr. Eric Weimer in the UNC School of Medicine and Katherine Newhall, PhD in the UNC College of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Mathematics. Their work intersected after Weimer, an organ transplant specialist, wondered if mathematical modeling could enhance the precision of matching patients in need of organ transplants to donated organs compatible with their immune systems.

Enhancing a process that had previously been conducted in labs using tests and the best judgment of doctors, the two collaborated on a predictive mathematical model to better SPONSORED SECTION

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refine compatibility determinations. Ultimately, they enlisted experts from Microsoft to develop a machine learning process that trains computers to amplify the accuracy of these multifaceted risk assessments.

Weimer and Newhall’s process was supported by UNC’s Digital Health Venture Studio, a novel program which rapidly advances promising digital health technologies. The team completed an intensive and competitive venture development process that culminated with Epulate, a startup currently pursuing venture capital for an AI model and workflow tool that taps a national database and helps match patients to immunologically compatible donor organs.

NEW INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SPACES Since the late 1950s, UNC-Chapel Hill has launched over 844 new businesses for the State of North Carolina, creating over 89,000 jobs. Building on that legacy, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz has committed the university to a new chapter of catalyzing regional economic growth.

An innovation district in downtown Chapel Hill is sparking business and industry growth along the Franklin and Rosemary Street corridor. A central feature of the plan is a 20,000-square-foot UNC Innovation Hub housed within a newly renovated Grubb Properties commercial building across the street from campus. The Grubb building will feature wet labs to provide much needed co-working space for UNC life sciences startup ventures. BioLabs North Carolina will be one of the first tenants. Announced last fall, BioLabs and the university are developing a strategic partnership to increase the number of startups established through UNC-Chapel Hill faculty research.

NC Collaboratory. These investments recently paid off for North Carolina in the form of a $65 million award from NIH to establish a new Antiviral Drug Discovery Center at UNC. While READDI is built solidly on the back of UNC’s scientific expertise, it has been developed with a critical eye to the role it can play in regional economic development – creating opportunities for other North Carolina research universities and for industry.

PARTNERSHIP WITH COMMUNITY COLLEGES As part of a commitment to forge new connections to North Carolina’s community colleges, UNC has partnered with Central Carolina Community College to help launch NEXT LEVEL, a new comprehensive business startup program funded

by NC IDEA that targets entrepreneurs building scalable businesses with potential national or worldwide reach. The CCCC Small Business Center and Innovate Carolina will work together to develop programming for these prospective high-growth business owners.

NC INVESTMENTS IN ANTIVIRAL RESEARCH PAY OFF Carolina’s status as a top-ranked global research institution for virology and infectious disease is paying major dividends for the state of North Carolina. UNC’s Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI) links the university’s virology experts with researchers and industries worldwide. Founded with internal seed funding from the UNC Vice Chancellor for Research, and supported by the Eshelman Innovation Institute, READDI has attracted funding from RTI International, the NC General Assembly and To partner with us or to join our growing footprint of innovation space, please visit innovationhub.unc.edu.

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RESEARCH THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE

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TRANSFORMING POWER WHAT’S NEXT FOR ENERGY IN NORTH CAROLINA UNC Charlotte’s Energy Production & Infrastructure Center (EPIC) is helping North Carolina meet its goal to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

Groundbreaking research and preparing students as leaders in dynamic, evolving fields are driving this effort.

“EPIC’s founding mission prioritizes its role as a workforce developer,” said Mike Mazzola, Duke Energy Distinguished Professor and director of EPIC for The William States Lee College of Engineering. “Knowledge transitions when our students graduate and start their careers, deepening our impact on the field of transformational energy.”

A recent $41.2 million investment from the N.C. General Assembly for “Engineering North Carolina’s Future” allows UNC Charlotte to recruit an additional 2,000 students over the next five years in engineering, computer science and data science – as well as hire additional world-class faculty and expand facilities and academic programs.

With support from the U.S. Department of Energy and more than 250 regional partners, here are four ways UNC Charlotte is driving unparalleled advancements in critical areas of need for North Carolina.

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MICROGRID RESILIENCE Microgrids – networks of electricity users with a central supply source – attach to a centralized energy grid; their design allows them to function autonomously if the primary grid becomes inoperable. Across North Carolina, microgrids provide essential backup – and keep communities operating – during major power outages.

In EPIC’s Duke Energy Smart Grid Laboratory, researchers are developing ways to strengthen microgrids to improve their resilience. A $3.5 million grant from the DOE is supporting development and testing of control strategies to enhance the reliability of microgrids stateand nationwide.

“Through our partnership with DOE, we are demonstrating how microgrid technology helps communities better prepare for and mitigate the costs associated with power disruptions — more equitably and safely than today,” said Robert Cox, EPIC’s associate director. “EPIC is on the leading edge of a solution to a problem that will improve lives throughout North Carolina.”

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NUCLEAR CONSTRUCTION Nuclear energy, the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon electricity behind hydropower, is a clean energy option. However, energy companies have shied away from it due to a combination of factors, such as permitting issues, construction of infrastructure that houses the reactor, and the cost and time to complete projects.

With support from the DOE’s National Reactor Innovation Center, EPIC is showing how “digital twins” help reduce overruns, making nuclear energy more affordable and attainable. Most used in advanced manufacturing, a digital replica of the as-built infrastructure is used by inspectors, designers and constructors to answer questions that arise during construction and reduce downtime.

Currently part of the DOE’s Advanced Construction Technology Initiative led by GE Hitachi, the approach is solidifying EPIC as part of the nation’s go-to research team for bringing digital techniques to nuclear construction, according to Cox. “Our work is getting the U.S. back on track to complete nuclear projects on cost and on time,” he said.

SECURING ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE Critical energy infrastructures are constantly vulnerable to intentional disruptions by hackers and cyber criminals, whose interference damages supply chains and other business operations – such as last year’s attack on the Colonial Pipeline.

A solution lies in the development of security features integrated into a system’s hardware in addition to its software, eliminating the need for passwords – widely considered any system’s weakest link. Fareena Saqib, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, who leads UNC Charlotte’s Hardware and Embedded Security Lab, is researching ways to make hardware security an intrinsic feature of any device. “Any device should — and can — be responsible for keeping itself secure,” she said.

As part of the federal government’s priority to fill thousands of cybersecurity jobs that require specialized training, Saqib is leading a consortium of universities that is developing certification programs in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. These programs, supported by the

U.S. Department of Defense and National Security Agency, are available to transitioning military personnel and first responders through UNC Charlotte and its three consortium partners across the country.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SOLUTIONS As North Carolina emerges as a key hub for electric vehicle manufacturing with more than $1 billion in recent investments

by Toyota and VinFast, and Arrival announcing its North American headquarters in Charlotte, EPIC is developing ways to support the state’s leadership in this growing industry. Last winter, EPIC unveiled PoleVolt™ , an innovation with potential to benefit car owners who live in multifamily housing or urban areas without a dedicated charging source.

Harnessing energy from existing infrastructure and street lights, this technology – currently in a pilot phase – is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technology Office and was developed in partnership with Duke Energy, the city of Charlotte and the Centralina Regional Council.

“PoleVolt™ is a great example of what can be accomplished through a productive public-private partnership,” said Cox. “It shows how researchers and students – working collaboratively with industry experts – apply research to real problems and develop cost-effective solutions that support people as well as regional industries.”

For more details, visit epic.charlotte.edu

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE 9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223 704-687-8622 charlotte.edu

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RESEARCH UNC NUTRITION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

NORTH CAROLINA

PRECISION NUTRITION RESEARCHING HOW EACH OF US CAN EAT UNIQUELY FOR OPTIMAL HEALTH An internationally recognized center, the UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) conducts innovative basic and translational science to establish how individual differences in nutrient requirements and responses to diet affect our nutritional needs.

The NRI is a unit of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is located on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, NC. NRI principal investigators hold faculty appointments in the departments of Nutrition and Psychology and the School of Social Work at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Their research questions nutrient roles in disease prevention and risk with an emphasis on some of the most urgent nutrition-related, chronic health concerns facing our society today—brain health, cancer, and cardiometabolic diseases— across the lifespan from periconception through aging.

Our scientists have demonstrated, in specific populations, the need for certain essential nutrients, the high-risk nature of some diets, the link between obesity and cancer, and the

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prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. This work explores the impact of gene-environment and gene-nutrient interactions by using advanced approaches including nutrigenetics, epigenetics, nutrigenomics, metabolomics and microbiomics.

The NRI houses research cores that offer a wide range of services to researchers. Cores offer shared resources including cutting-edge technologies, high-end instrumentation, technical support, and education. NRI cores enhance and expand the collaborative capabilities of research at the institute, at the North Carolina Research Campus, across the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, and throughout the worldwide research community.

NRI Research Cores Animal Metabolism Phenotyping Human Research Metabolism and Metabolomics Precision Nutrition

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The Human Research Core features one of the few wholeroom human calorimeters in the United States. This advanced research suite uses indirect calorimetry to evaluate a research participant’s 24-hour energy intake and expenditure. The suite is equipped with a bed, treadmill, bathroom, airlock chamber for food delivery, ports for blood draws, and entertainment options. Data can be collected without interruption during meals, sleep, and light activity. The whole-room calorimeter is essential for studies on energy balance and fuel use.

MISSION: To understand how nutrition affects personal health through our leadership in precision nutrition research, finding how differences in our genes, gut bacteria, metabolism, and environment shape our individual disease risk.

VISION: To use scientific discovery to ensure optimal health through individualized nutrition.

Located in the greater Charlotte region, Kannapolis is a blossoming community, steeped in history, full of charm, and currently experiencing a remarkable renaissance in its downtown. The people who make up the NRI have wide-ranging expertise and skills—professors of nutrition, psychology, and social work and psychiatry, postdocs, laboratory technicians, doctoral students, interns, administrators, and administrative support staff—and have come to Kannapolis from all parts of the world. As diverse as this community is, they have agreed on a set of values to which they commit themselves while conducting their work in service of the NRI mission and vision: Integrity; Innovation; Collaboration; Dedication; Research Excellence; and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the NRI was launched in 2008 as a primary partner of the North Carolina Research

Campus. The institute is housed in a 125,000-square-foot building featuring state-of-the-art laboratory and research spaces, clinical facilities, and offices and meeting areas.

With this advanced facility and technology, NRI research scientists are making important discoveries for worldwide health. In turn, this intellectual capital is fueling an economic engine to attract business opportunities and create new jobs for North Carolinians. The NRI is training a skilled biotechnology workforce that serves life sciences and nutrition companies located in the Piedmont.

As a nonprofit research center at UNC-Chapel Hill, part of the state university system, the NRI receives an annual state appropriation, and is additionally funded by federal and other research grants, and private donor gifts to explore new scientific ideas, recruit the world’s best scientists, and provide hands-on education and mentoring of students. The NRI embraces the University’s mission, which includes public service, by producing annual training workshops, symposia, and seminars for scientific researchers, and a full slate of free programming to translate the good works of the NRI for the public.

The NRI welcomes inquiries for collaborative opportunities and its service cores and encourages everyone to learn about precision nutrition in order to Eat Uniquely.

For more information, visit us online at uncnri.org

UNC NUTRITION RESEARCH INSTITUTE Suzanne Dane, director of development Nutrition Research Institute University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 500 Laureate Way, Kannapolis, NC 28081 704-250-5008 suzanne_dane@unc.edu

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RESEARCH THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT WILMINGTON

NORTH CAROLINA

OUT OF THE LAB AND INTO THE WORLD UNCW’S NEW COASTAL AND OCEAN SCIENCES DOCTORAL DEGREE INTEGRATES ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITH THE AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM

by Venita Jenkins

UNC Wilmington’s new Ph.D. in Applied Coastal and Ocean Sciences builds on the university’s 50-year history of marine sciences research and education by providing students with a robust marine science degree alongside additional learning and training and opportunities to develop dynamic entrepreneurship and technology development skills.

The new doctoral program, set to begin in fall 2022, leverages UNCW’s unique coastal location and has the potential to contribute to the regional and national blue economy. The blue economy encompasses a broad range of economic and sustainable uses and benefits of the ocean, including fisheries, aquaculture, biotechnology, maritime transport, tourism and recreation, energy and mineral resources, waste management and impacts of climate change.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

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estimates that oceans contribute $1.5 trillion annually to the global economy.

“The Applied Coastal and Ocean Sciences program formally integrates entrepreneurship topics to help students envision new applications for their ideas in business, policymaking, and other areas of targeted problem solving,” said Dr. Steve Skrabal, graduate program director and chemistry and biochemistry professor. “Our graduates will not only be prepared for the academic job market but also well-qualified to enter the workforce in the private and policy sectors or as entrepreneurs starting their businesses.”

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Center for Marine Science. Dr. Jennifer McCall, assistant professor in the Clinical Research Program, and her husband, Sam McCall, founded SeaTox Research Inc., which focuses on drug discovery and developing natural products into new bio-actives, as well as developing faster, easier-touse testing for toxins that might contaminate commercial seafood. SeaTox Research is one of a number of commercial tenants in MARBIONC. Science also meets innovation in the development of an instrument to measure coral health indicators called CISME, “Coral In Situ Metabolism,” by Dr. Alina Szmant, coral reef ecologist and former marine biology professor, and Dr. Rob Whitehead, a Center for Marine Science research specialist.

“With the ACOS degree, we will educate and train scientists who can think about how to get their discoveries out of the laboratory and into the world, making a positive impact,” said Dr. Stuart Borrett, associate provost for research. “UNCW has a strong history of preparing stellar scientists skilled at working on basic, curiosity-driven research questions. With this program, we will position them to collaborate effectively with entrepreneurs or become professional innovators themselves. Most importantly, we will encourage them to ask research questions and pursue discoveries that seek solutions to critical problems and address the needs of society.”

The blue economy is critical for North Carolina, which possesses the seventh-longest coastline in the U.S. – the longest along the Atlantic seaboard, and the second-largest East Coast estuary, Skrabal said.

“Given growing societal dependence on coastal and marine systems in the face of daunting marine environmental challenges, partnerships between communities, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and UNCW – as the state’s coastal university – are critical for building deep understanding in marine sciences,” said CMS Executive Director Ken Halanych.

Research at CMS encompasses 108 faculty members from within all UNCW colleges. CMS researchers work around the world to address societal issues and understand environmental change. Such research includes: Development and deployment of the Seahawk-1 nanosatellite for remote sensing of ocean properties from space Development of potential pharmaceuticals from marine organisms Development of coral protection and spawning techniques Development and application of ocean sensors, including one for monitoring carbon dioxide in the ocean Maintenance and study of marine algae species, including those involved in harmful blooms Studies of perfluorinated compounds, including Gen-X and other contaminants in surface waters, rainwater and groundwater in the Cape Fear region Marine aquaculture of economically important fish and shellfish species Studies of sea-level rise and shoreline changes Coastal Ocean Research and Monitoring Program (CORMP) provides data for improving maritime safety, weather and ocean conditions, climate change forecasting, and underwater autonomous vehicles for ocean sensing

“Our faculty expertise related to emerging coastal issues, our excellent infrastructure with a growing entrepreneurial emphasis, coastal location, and connections with coastal constituents create a synergy that allows Ph.D. students a distinctive opportunity for understanding and pursuing applied research relevant to coastal communities in the state and across the globe,” said Skrabal.

For more details, visit uncw.edu/cms

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON 5600 Marvin K. Moss Lane, Wilmington, NC 28409-5928 910-962-2301 uncw.edu/cms

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RESEARCH WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

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GASTON COUNTY

GROWING POPULARITY More and more companies, many with international ties, are choosing Gaston County because of its workforce, location and bright future.

GNT Group is globally known for its natural food colorings, including EXBERRY. It’s made from fruit, vegetables and edible plants and is found in many everyday grocery items. “I can’t disclose all our customers, but when you see ‘food and vegetable juice for color’ on a label, that’s likely EXBERRY,” says Stefan Hake, CEO of GNT USA. “It’s in yogurt varieties, sports drinks, vitamin-fortified drinks, fruit snacks, cereals — anything you can think of.”

More than 11,500 tons of it is produced annually. That’s enough to color 40 billion servings of food and drink.

GNT, which counts customers in 75 countries, is headquartered in the Netherlands and has offices in South America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. And as part of the manufacturer’s recent strategic growth plan, it chose to launch a North American expansion from Gaston County.

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Hake says Gaston County’s reputation for workforce and infrastructure, including a copious supply of water — a key ingredient in making natural food colorings — sealed GNT’s decision. “Gaston County has a history of training people in the textile industry, and that played a big role,” he says.

“And within 300 to 400 miles of our factory, we can have farmers who we can build that relationship with to supply our facility. When you look at the labor force, the infrastructure and road access, it became pretty clear that North Carolina, and specifically Gaston County, were very competitive.”

GNT announced a $30 million factory on 50 acres in Apple Creek Corporate Center in 2020. It was the Dallas industrial park’s first tenant. In fact, Apple Creek didn’t exist when GNT started its search for a North American location.

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“When we talked to [Gaston County Economic Development Commission officials] three years ago, we just saw grass,” Hake says. “It’s a big undertaking for the county to do all the grading and get all the permits; there’s risk involved. But we felt very comfortable, and we started in October 2021, and we opened our facility on time and on budget.”

GNT isn’t the only company that has recently chosen to locate or expand in this corner of North Carolina. Five of Apple Creek’s 10 sites, for example, were purchased or under option when it opened in May. “The success of the park happened much faster than anyone anticipated,” says Leslie Campbell, Gaston EDC’s director of business recruitment.

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Crowders Mountain State Park; An aerial view of the F.U.S.E. District, home of the Gastonia Honey Hunters baseball team; The historic, renovated Loray Mill; The Gastonia Technology Park; The Gastonia Convention Center

provide a complete package of amenities for companies that we locate,” says Donny Hicks, Gaston EDC’s executive director. “This includes having speculative space and shovel-ready sites available with utility systems that support their needs and a unified, clean permitting process to ensure they can build as quickly as possible with reduced risk.” But workforce, location and a bright future are the biggest.

AVAILABLE WORKFORCE KNOLL America is one of nearly a dozen German manufacturing companies in Gaston County.

As of last October, foreign direct investment here accounted for almost $400 million and 1,000 new jobs, according to Gaston County. “We’ve always had a strong presence of foreign companies in the region,” Campbell says.

“[Charlotte Douglas International Airport] plays a big role in that.

[Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina] has been a great partner in recruiting companies.”

Workforce availability attracted KNOLL America, which manufactures, engineers and distributes conveying, filter systems and pumps used by metal processors, to Gaston County. It announced an initial investment of $7.9 million to relocate its headquarters and factory to Apple Creek from Michigan in June 2021.

Construction is underway on the factory, which is expected to open in April and create 31 jobs. “We always felt like Gaston has a good labor workforce,” says KNOLL America CEO Lothar Burger.

“And they’re more of a hands-on workforce. They’re not city slickers.

We needed people who weren’t afraid to get dirty fingers.”

The Apprenticeship 321 program provides training “for those who enjoy working with their hands,” according to its creator, Gaston College. That’s done through job-specific courses, mentorships and tuition-free education that are paired with paying positions at more than 30 local companies. Occupation pathways include HVAC, industrial electrician, machine set-up operator, welder, tool and die maker, mechatronics technician and several medical fields. The college’s Career and Technical Education Division trains students for skilled trades and fields related to science, technology, education and math — STEM — among others.

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GASTON COUNTY training programs with companies,” Campbell says. “The college plays a critical role in our ability to successfully recruit companies.”

KNOLL America has established a temporary office at Gaston College’s Center for Advanced Manufacturing, while waiting for its buildings to be completed.

“We have negotiated for advanced technical training at the college, and we have some youngsters from high school in the Apprenticeship 321 program, where we will train them in our products and equipment,” Burger says. “Michigan treated us well, but we are here for the long haul, and our employees have a permanent home, so a long-term relationship is important for us. It creates loyalty for our customers.”

CTL Packaging, which has

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operations in France and Spain, set up its factory a decade ago, when it purchased 100 acres at Gastonia Technology Park on U.S. 321, not far from the interchange with Interstate 85. It produces plastic tubing for consumer products, such as makeup, for Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, and others. “The projected investment was $100 million over 10 years, and we’ve reached now about $60 million worth of capital put into this company,” says CTL Packaging USA CEO Manuel Diez. “And we will continue to put money into it for the foreseeable future. We are very much in line with what we started with our objectives.”

CTL’s workspace is filled with sophisticated equipment. “And we have plans to add more and keep growing our investment in the

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U.S,” Diez says. Staffing it requires a team effort. Gaston College’s workforce program previously partnered with the company, which has added other methods of finding local talent for jobs whose pay ranges from $15 to $40 per hour.

“We are designing internal training processes to bring people up to speed and bring them into our production process,” he says.

“We need a very quick turnaround to teach people how to use our machines, and that has been our focus internally the last two or three years. We are starting an apprentice program … and we had a bunch of students come from high schools a few weeks ago to tour, so we can attract some individuals to the process of what we do.”

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PRIME LOCATION Gaston County covers about 356 square miles, which ranks it 73rd among North Carolina’s 100 counties. But it punches above its weight when it comes to people.

It had 228,618 residents in July 2020, according to the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management, making it the state’s ninth most populous. “The cities have developed great downtowns and have worked to build housing near the center of cities to attract young families,” Campbell says. “Health care growth has seen a new hospital in Belmont. There are more higher-end multifamily projects in Belmont and Gastonia, offering new and different housing options.

And there’s continued expansion of the greenway system.”

KNOLL America discovered an established “neighborhood” when it arrived in Gaston County. “There is a huge German community in the Charlotte-Gastonia region, and the region was heavily into textiles,” Burger says. “There is a great sense of community, when you see there already are some German subsidiaries in this corridor. And you have to have the quality of life. The cost of living is not as high as New York. All these things play a large role in the growth of a company.”

Burger also points to Gaston’s central location. “My customers are [original equipment manufacturers] who make milling machines, drilling and sewing machines, and we also have direct customers like Boeing or FedEx or GE Aviation, which makes

turbines for aircraft, and they have machines that make the parts, and they have our equipment as well,” he says. “Usually, big customers buy machines to make a big part, and we are part of those machine tools. I’ve always been interested in technology and high-end equipment, and I decided to help this German company start in the U.S. Apple Creek fit our needs the best, and the county was flexible when they fulfilled our need for 12 acres.

And it was very important to have the logistics. We can reach 80% of our customers in one day. I like the small-town atmosphere, and there’s a lot of opportunity to move something here, a lot of international business and young professionals.

It’s not as saturated as other places, and that’s kind of good.”

Gaston’s East Coast location

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GASTON COUNTY Apple Creek Corporate Center

and logistics connections were big drivers in CTL’s decision, too. “We developed a new technology about 15 years ago, and we wanted to test this technology in a country with enough market to allow us to test, and we chose the U.S. because it’s the largest cosmetic market in the world,” Diez says.

“So, 50% of that market happens in the eastern side of the U.S. — in New York, New Jersey, a little bit of Pennsylvania — but the problem is people want to leave New England because it’s too expensive. The South is where you see a lot of companies settling, like North and South Carolina and Georgia. So, we

identified that from the beginning.

In the end, we chose North Carolina, and we had a great deal from the county, and we’re very happy to be here.”

Hake says choosing Gaston was the right decision for GNT for many reasons, but access to farmland was one of the biggest. “The local

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GASTON COUNTY farm connection is a long-term process,” he says. “What we’re doing now is some field tests with farmers to see what we can grow, some varieties of carrots and sweet potatoes. It’s a long journey.

You can’t rush nature. And we’re very happy in Gaston County. I couldn’t ask for a better partner than the EDC, and the community has welcomed us with open arms.

We’re very happy with everything and look forward to a long-term partnership.”

THE LONG HAUL CTL sources raw materials from across the United States and imports components from Europe. “We bring in a 40-foot container every two or three days, and we truck out pretty much the same amount,” Diez says. “We

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don’t make the contents, just the packaging, and we’ve made about 32 million pieces this year … in this facility so far, and we continue to grow at about a 20% rate. We continue to invest, and we continue to grow. We aim to be in the top three manufacturers in the U.S. in the next four or five years.”

Burger says KNOLL America has made a long-term commitment to the U.S. and Gaston County.

“We want to find local vendors, invest in local talent like we do in Germany and make sure we don’t become mediocre,” he says. “We want to show we can be the leader in the industry. We need good talent, where everyone wants to work and everyone has windows.

Everything is open — no cubicles.

I think these days, especially for the younger generation, it’s not so

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much about money as it is a good benefits package, working flexible hours. You don’t want to spend eight hours in an ugly place.”

Hake calls Gaston County residents industrious. “I think that’s an interesting point in today’s society, that we got a little bit away from the ‘making,’ and it should get more credit,” he says. “What we have experienced from those we have hired is that they are very proud of what they make. You need a combination of everything — people to think strategically, people with ideas and people who will get their hands dirty to make something. It’s in the DNA of Gaston County to make products.

We’re all in this together.” ■ — Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

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GASTONIA MIXES HOMETOWN FEEL WITH BIG CITY AMENITIES When Walker Reid reminisces about his hometown, where he now serves as mayor, he almost always mentions that in a few years it may not look like the same city he once knew. And he’s right.

Gastonia, whose history is steeped in entrepreneurial spirit, started as a mill town. But it’s transforming into one of the region’s best places to work, live and play.

Gastonia is growing because it offers modern amenities typically found in big cities while retaining a hometown feel. No where is that mix more evident than downtown, which continues to be a popular choice for location scouts working on commercials, television shows and movies. A quick 20-minute drive from well-connected Charlotte Douglas International

Airport, it most recently welcomed FUSE — Franklin Urban Sports and Entertainment District. While office space has been part of the mixeduse development since it was proposed about five years ago, it also is home to plenty of residential space, including Loray Mill Lofts, Trenton Mill Lofts and Center City Crossings, whose 90 apartments are under construction.

The heart of FUSE is CaroMont Health Park. It’s where the Gastonia Honey Hunters, one of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball’s newest clubs, plays its games. While America’s pastime may be its primary use, the multiuse stadium can be reconfigured to host other events such as concerts, festivals and youth sports tournaments.

FUSE offers more than a fun time. There’s plenty of good eats steps away. Choose from upscale eateries, such as Webb’s Custom Kitchen, which is inside a former theater, pitas, pizza, Italian food, Dominican dishes, soul food, Mexican food and more. And craftbeer maker Durty Bull Brewing will open later this year to complement Cavendish Brewing.

There’s plenty more attractions, from shopping along East Franklin Boulevard and at Eastridge Mall to cruising Rankin Lake in a rented paddle boat. And if you’re a history buff, visit African American Museum of History and Culture at Loray Mill and Schiele Museum of Natural History, an affiliate of Smithsonian Institution. ■

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PIEDMONT LITHIUM DIGGING ITS WAY INTO GROWING BATTERY INDUSTRY It’s not gold that lies about 325feet deep along a 24-mile stretch that runs from the ClevelandGaston County line to Lincoln County. But the tin-spodumene found there is almost as valuable.

It contains the country’s highest concentration of lithium, which when turned into lithium hydroxide becomes a vital component of the rechargeable batteries that power electric vehicles, smartphones and other devices.

Belmont-based Piedmont Lithium completed a bank feasibility study in December for its Carolina Lithium Project in Gaston County, which it says could be one of the world’s largest and lowest-cost producers of lithium hydroxide once a state mining permit and county rezoning are obtained. The company aims to produce about 160,000 tons of spodumene concentrate annually, which will create about 22,700 tons of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

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enough for about 500,000 EVs. Cashing in on the North Carolina deposit isn’t a simple process. “After spodumene is quarried, it goes through a concentration process that removes other minerals, such as quartz and feldspar, which, in some cases, are sold for other applications,” says Piedmont Lithium President and CEO Keith Phillips. “The spodumene is then processed with other natural products, like soda ash and lime, to produce the finished product: battery-grade lithium hydroxide. The demand for lithium is expected to more than double from 2021 levels by 2025 and continue to grow by nearly seven times the 2021 level by 2030.”

Phillips cites a recently completed economic impact study by UNC Charlotte Professor of Financial Economics John Connaughton. It details the financial benefits — to the company and the community — of tapping into the tin-spodumene deposit. “The project will provide an estimated $210 million in labor compensation over the first five years,” Phillips says. “Additionally, the

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study projected $3.9 billion in total economic impact in the first five years, including $1.2 billion economic impact in construction alone.”

The Lithium Project has 33 employees with plans to hire about 400 more. Many of those mechanics, electricians and controlroom operators will be trained through a developing partnership with Gaston College’s Center for Advanced Manufacturing.

Pillips says starting annual salary for some of those positions is $82,000. “We have worked diligently to establish ourselves as a good corporate neighbor in the community, forging partnerships and supporting key organizations such as Habitat for Humanity of Gaston County, the Schiele Museum, Gaston College, the local chambers of commerce, Adopt-A-Highway, the Gastonia Honey Hunters, and many more local businesses and not-for-profit organizations,” he says. ■ — Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

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GASTON GROWING AS A TOURIST DESTINATION While Gaston County sometimes is hidden by Charlotte’s shadow, its future as a tourist destination grows brighter by the day. Whether they arrive for the day, weekend or longer, visitors are welcomed with a continuously growing itinerary of things to do and places to eat, drink and stay.

Visit North Carolina, the tourism promotion arm of Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, says Gaston County visitors spent $201.5 million in 2020. While that’s 30.9% less than the year prior thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and its stay-athome orders, Michael Applegate, Gaston County’s director of tourism development, says that amount is rising again. “We won’t have 2021 figures until August, but we track all of our hotel activity weekly, and as of April 2021, we began surpassing 2019 levels not just 2020 levels,” he says. “So, 2019 was an historic year for tourism, and we’ve been surpassing that on a weekly basis.”

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County has 15 incorporated towns, with county seat Gastonia in the middle, Belmont and Mount Holly in the east, and Kings Mountain and Cherryville in the west.

Each community offers unique adventures, whether you want a day outside on a river or inside at a museum.

Visitors also can unwind at eateries, craft breweries, distilleries and name-brand lodging. “We’re right here in a quickly growing metro area, but we have access to two rivers, multiple lakes and state parks with dozens of miles of hiking trails,” Applegate says. “We try to focus on hike-bike-paddle. We’re a hotbed for it in the Southeast at a location that’s easy to get to, and that’s our story to tell.”

OUTDOORS Applegate fields many questions about Gaston County. And a few years ago, someone asked for the can’t miss attraction. “I said Crowders Mountain, because that’s the icon,” he says. “That’s where people take their selfies. That’s were C A R O L I N A

people get out of their cars and say it’s where they want to go.”

Pet-friendly Crowders Mountain State Park has 11 trails through its 5,210 acres, which are a 15-minute drive west of downtown Gastonia.

Hikers can climb to the mountain’s 1,625-foot summit — one of two peaks in the park — or walk the 12-mile Ridgeline Trail. The park’s 7-acre lake is open for fishing, and there’s family-oriented camping sites and ones that are ADA accessible.

The largest piece of Catawba Lands Conservancy land is near Spencer Mountain, where the South Fork River flows through hardwood forests, pasture lands and flowerfilled meadows. The South Fork Trail and South Fork River Blueway offer hiking and access for kayaks and canoes, respectively. They are part of the larger Carolina Thread Trail. It opened in 2007, creating a network of trails, greenways, blueways and conservation corridors that link 15 counties in the Carolinas. Seventeen segments of the trail are in Gaston.

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GASTON COUNTY acres have been designated for a 19-mile trail that connects Spencer Mountain to Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, where 380 acres wait to be explored. “We have great outdoor spaces, and we do what we can to protect them and sustain them, and at the same time keep them open for recreational experiences,” he says.

Catawba Riverkeeper, a nonprofit that advocates for the protection and preservation of its namesake waterway, rents kayaks, canoes and stand-up paddleboards at The Boathouse on the South Fork River. Its Thursday Evening Paddle Series, which features guest speakers, launches from seven different sites from April through June. “What better way to promote the foundation than hosting people on the water and

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educating visitors about why we protect this resource,” Applegate says. “Whether it’s on land or on water, we’re going to do everything we can to protect and preserve this natural resource. Let’s protect it then activate it. Let’s have a plan.

Let’s let new residents know they have great spaces to enjoy as well.

And by virtue of doing that, we’re telling people from Richmond, Virginia, to Atlanta, spend a few hours here and explore.”

Mount Holly will have a place to learn about the forest environment when the Mountain Island Educational State Forest opens on about 2,000 acres. “A visitors center is under construction,” Applegate says. “And the center is going to be a great combination of preservation and active education with access for the public.”

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INDOORS Don’t worry if inclement weather forces you inside. There are plenty of things to do, starting with Schiele Museum of Natural History in Gastonia. A Smithsonian Institution affiliate, it houses the Southeast’s largest collection of mounted land mammals. It has a planetarium, gift shop, and live animal and interactive exhibits. There’s a nature trail and recreations of a Catawba Indian village and 18th century farm out back, all under tall trees.

A short drive north to Dallas brings you to Gaston County Museum, where exhibits dive into the county’s rich heritage, including its strong ties to the textile industry.

See what it was like to stay at a Victorian-era hotel by viewing three rooms filled with period furnishings.

There also is a carriage display,

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sculpture garden and train depot built in 1903.

Go further northwest to Cherryville, and visit the C. Grier Beam Truck Museum. It’s inside the gas station where legendary hauler Carolina Freight started and is filled with trucking memorabilia.

HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS Much of the recent visitor spending dip is linked to a lack of business travel. But leisure travel was less affected by COVID. “[Gaston County] added 25% more hotel capacity since 2019, and it’s in demand,” Applegate says.

Recent additions to Gaston lodging include a Hilton Garden Inn and a Fairfield Inn & Suites in Gastonia and a Home2 Suites in Belmont, which is within walking distance of Belmont Abbey College.

Outdoor patio at The Esquire Hotel

There also is the Esquire Hotel in downtown Gastonia, just a few blocks from the Franklin Urban Sports and Entertainment District.

It’s home to residential and retail projects, a variety of eateries and CaroMont Health Park, a multiuse venue that hosts the Gastonia Honey Hunters baseball team’s home games.

Urban renewal is happening countywide. “We’ve seen a growth in craft beverage and distillery

places, and there are great places to spend some down time after a day of outdoor recreation,” Applegate says. “Visit the downtowns, and see what they’re doing with their programming, with a summer music series and festivals. Each town is becoming an attraction within itself.” ■ — Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

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HEALTHY NEWS IN GASTON COUNTY CAROMONT HEALTH- BELMONT In September 2020, CaroMont Health entered a long-term partnership with Belmont Abbey College to build a hospital and medical campus adjacent to the private college. CaroMont Health plans to open the facilities, located off Exit 27 on I-85 South, in late 2023 or early 2024. This campus is part of CaroMont Health’s commitment to invest more than $300 million in new and expanded facilities in the Gaston County area by the end of 2024.

CAROMONT REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER This will be a 5 floor, 66-bed, 265,000-square foot hospital, including: • 54 inpatient beds • A 12-bed observation unit • 16 emergency department rooms • A labor & delivery unit • Suites for surgery, OB/GYN, endoscopy & bronchoscopy • Imaging and diagnostic services • Five waiting areas along with chapel and cafeteria amenities CAROMONT MEDICAL OFFICE COMPLEX The four-floor buildings of the office complex will include: • 100,000-square-foot medical office • 240,000-square-foot parking deck

A STRONG COMMUNITY IMPACT CaroMont Health-Belmont is projected to encounter as many as 16,000 patients by its first year, growing to 30,000 by year three. It will add approximately 150 jobs to the region.

The construction of this second hospital in Belmont will extend CaroMont Health’s clinical network to better serve communities in the eastern portion of Gaston County.

For more information, please visit caromonthealth.org.

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GREENSHOOTS — Revitalizing rural N.C.

THE NEXT BOOMTOWN Granville County’s Oxford is poised for growth as the Triangle sprawls northward.

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n a few years, Oxford is going to look different as the Research Triangle area expands up Interstate 85 to the middle of Granville County.

It is a county seat with about 8,600 residents, roughly 22 miles north of the outer edges of Durham and 25 miles or so from Raleigh’s Outer Loop. The population is expected to double over the next decade.

Oxford has about 3,900 housing units within its 6 square miles. The city has approved, or has under consideration, developments for nearly 4,000 more residential units, says City Manager Alan Thornton. Some are outside the city limits and have submitted annexation requests so they can get water, sewer and other services.

The median home value of about $137,000, according to the U.S. Census, is much more affordable than in Wake County, where the median sales price has topped $400,000. New single-family homes in Oxford will probably sell in the mid-200s to mid-300s.

Thornton uses a map displaying blue and red splotches to show what’s happening. The blue reflects three approved developments that are under construction, with more than 200 acres of grading, utility lines and roads being built. “All these together are close to 750 new homes,” he says. The 13 red developments are still in planning phases.

One 76-acre red splotch was approved for annexation in March. It calls for more than 300 single-family homes and townhouses on the Oxford Loop Road, where most of the action is. The owner was CAB Granville in Wilkesboro, but the conditional zoning application also came from APG Capital of Raleigh, led by longtime developer Jim Anthony. APG is active in nearby Youngsville, where northern Wake County’s growth has already reached past Wake Forest into Franklin County.

About 18 months ago, Anthony said that “national homebuilders are taking positions up in Oxford because the Durham people don’t have any place that they can buy. Supply is so severely constrained there.” One blue splotch is a 302-home subdivision, The Meadows at Oxford, being built by Woodlands, Texas-based LGI Homes.

Thornton draws attention to a red tract next to the 76-acre CAB Granville property. It’s called the Hunt Property and covers 540 acres.

He pulls out a preliminary sketch showing planned housing. “All you really need to do is take a look at the number here at the bottom,” he says. It shows 1,335 homes, most of them single-family.

“Up until eight months to a year ago, we were only looking at one or two developments having interest in Oxford, and within the last year, it has just exploded,” says Thornton.

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The city has been getting ready. It passed a new uniform development ordinance last year. Around five years ago, about the time Thornton arrived, the city launched a $100 million project to upgrade its water and sewer lines. Many of the pipes were a century old or older. The city also partnered with nearby Henderson and Warren County to upgrade a 1970s-era water treatment facility at Kerr Lake, doubling its capacity.

Thornton, an Appalachian State University graduate who grew up in the furniture belt in Conover, has been managing towns in North Carolina since 1987, including Hudson, Trinity, Erwin, Southport and Tarboro. He took his current job in 2017.

Thornton is an unabashed cheerleader for Oxford. During a tour of the city, he pointed out the giant Revlon plant and the CertainTeed shingles factory, Ideal Fastener, and Bridgestone Bandag. These companies have helped keep Oxford’s population steady in recent decades, even as many rural towns lost population. A Miami-based frozen food company, Meel, announced last fall it is coming to Oxford with a couple of dozen jobs to start.

“We need to make Oxford a little funky, a little weird . . . have some different things going on, seek some things that are just different,” says Thornton. “Everything doesn’t need to be a bail bond or an attorney’s office. We need some things that are different and funky and unique, and the ball is now kind of rolling towards that direction.”

In other words, Oxford needs more than just a once-a-year hot sauce contest.

He swung through downtown and pointed out Tobacco Wood Brewing and Strong Arm Baking and the Orpheum, an old theater reborn as an event venue. He pointed to the new Innovation Coworking at First National Oxford, in an old bank building, where spaces have been going fast.

Then there’s the old armory building, which the city acquired as the National Guard started consolidating its facilities. It sits on three acres, and the city has had inquiries. Thornton sees it as a strategic piece of what Oxford will become. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of what you can do there. I want to wait for the right project.”

Some small towns hope that lightning will strike and a massive new industry will show up. It usually doesn’t happen. Oxford may be different.

“Oxford is no longer a sleepy little town,” Thornton says. “It is something whose time has come.” ■

PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF OXFORD

BY DAN BARKIN

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