Business North Carolina March 2022

AND THE STATE’S TOP-RANKED HOSPITAL IS ...

MR. ROGERS TACKLES ECU’S CHALLENGES • ONLINE SELLERS GRAB SOME SPACE • BOOM RINGS TRIAD

Nantahala Outdoor Center stays afloat as a gem of N.C. tourism for five decades.

MARCH 2022 Price: $3.95 businessnc.com

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East Carolina University Chancellor Philip Rogers responds to a difficult enrollment outlook and health care industry challenges.

10 NC TREND Trendy online retailers grab some brick and mortar; Rocky Mount’s fire response; Triad’s main airport may soar with Boom Supersonic.

+ SPONSORED SECTIONS 24 ROUND TABLE: WOMEN IN SCIENCE Seven leaders discuss the expanding role of women in N.C. science.

32 COMMUNITY COLLEGES: IMPROVING LIVES The state’s community colleges show the way in providing N.C. businesses with a well-trained and talented workforce.

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COVER STORY

p STREAMS OF SUCCESS After 50 years of drafting a whitewater empire, Nantahala Outdoor Center retains a historic feel as it expands across the Southeast.

56 DESTINATION NC: CORPORATE & LEISURE TRAVEL Hospitality providers adjusted to crisis with a strong rebound, thanks to diverse attractions, open spaces and sensible health programs.

60 FARMING NC: EXPLORING AGRIBUSINESS Innovations and education are setting a bright future for North Carolina’s $96 billion farm economy.

March 2022, Vol. 42, No. 3 (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.

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p NORTH CAROLINA’S BEST HOSPITALS Our annual ranking highlights North Carolina’s top-performing medical centers based on federal and other data.

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Dan Barkin

MR. ROGERS’ TURN East Carolina University’s chancellor stares down declining enrollment and a challenging health care outlook.

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year ago this month, Philip Rogers became chancellor of East Carolina University, which went against the narrative in Eastern North Carolina of folks going to the city and not coming back.

Rogers, who turns 39 in March, grew up in Greenville and went to Wake Forest University. He came back in his 20s as an ECU policy analyst, then chief of staff for Chancellor Steve Ballard. He later became a top executive of the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C., for nearly eight years.

Before describing his current mission, he talks about why he returned. His roots are deep in Greenville. His great-grandmother graduated from East Carolina Teachers Training School in the early 1900s. His mother is a graduate. His wife, Rebekah Rogers, earned two of her three degrees from ECU. His father has been the pastor at Greenville’s Oakmont Baptist Church since 1986.

When Rogers left Greenville in 2013 for the ACE job, it was to learn how higher education works, then return. “I could then bring it back to Eastern North Carolina and apply [it] in my own hometown, in my own region.”

He wants ECU to focus on “being the national model for student success, on serving the public, and on advancing regional transformation.”

“Student success is the hottest topic in higher education right now. And we have an obligation to ensure that we see more students come into this university, succeed while they’re here and

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then leave this university with as minimal debt as possible. With an education that allows them to be a well-rounded citizen and contributor to society, and with a job and a career that can help them give back to the economy of Eastern North Carolina and our state.”

That’s it. Graduate more students; help them land good jobs; and help a struggling region improve its prospects.

It’s a traditional ECU mission. Things were different, at least in tone, with former Chancellor Cecil Staton, who came to Greenville in 2016 and lasted three years before resigning. Staton talked about ECU becoming “America’s next great national university. …This sleepy little school in Eastern North Carolina is not going to be a sleepy little school anymore.”

That is not how Rogers talks. There are very specific regional challenges, and he has to get everyone on board to meet them, daily. Here’s one: Soon there will be fewer 18-year-olds in most Eastern North Carolina counties.

So less about “Harvard on the Coastal Plain,” as one columnist described Staton’s vision. More about reversing enrollment declines, which requires, in part, admitting more students from poorer, rural areas and keeping them in school. Or adults juggling work and family and keeping them on track. That is what student success means. It is not a slogan.

It is the most critical job in higher education. Rogers understands the problem.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

▲ ECU’s $90 million life sciences building opened last year.

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Enrollment decline

ECU’s enrollment has declined since 2017 while the 16-university UNC system has grown. “If everyone else is growing and we’re shrinking, clearly there’s something that has to be done or we start to shrink the whole university,” ECU trustee Thomas Furr said in September.

ECU’s drop is a relatively recent phenomenon. In 2000, there were 18,750 students. By 2010, enrollment had grown 48%, to nearly 27,800, a faster rate than the rest of the system. The keys were the millennial wave and new degree programs. In 2008, Ballard said 37,000 was possible by 2017.

In the fall of 2017, ECU’s enrollment peaked at 29,131.

Since then, it has dropped nearly 4% to 28,021. Systemwide enrollment grew by nearly 5% in the same period. (Three other UNC System campuses have also shown declines: N.C. Central, UNC Greensboro and UNC Asheville.)

Another hot-button is the admission rate of high school applicants. ECU admitted 93.9% of fall 2021 applicants, the highest rate in the system, up from 62.2% in 2012. By comparison, N.C. State admitted 47.5% and UNC Chapel Hill, 20.4%. Excluding those two schools and the School of the Arts, the other 13 UNC campuses admitted 79.2% of applicants from high schools, up from less than 60% a decade ago.

With student success, the initial challenge is first-year retention. At Chapel Hill and State, an average of 95% make it to sophomore year. The rest of the system was at 79.5% for the group that arrived in fall 2020. ECU was at 80.5%.

The bigger challenge is getting them out. At ECU, the fiveyear graduation rate has increased from 57% for the group that entered in 2007 to 69.1% for students who started in 2016. (This includes individuals who start at ECU but finish, for whatever reason, at another school.) The UNC System strategic plan five years ago set ECU’s goal for the 2017 group at 70%, so it’s on track.

UNC System schools range widely on this. The historically Black UNC schools are in the 40s and 50s, and N.C. State (87.6%) and UNC Chapel Hill (92.9%) are at the top. In the middle are large schools like UNC Greensboro (60.4%), UNC Charlotte (74.4%), Appalachian State (80%) and UNC Wilmington (81.2%).

A social mobility index published by CollegeNET weights the percentage of low-income students, tuition, early-career salaries, and debt. ECU is in the top 10% of 1,550 schools in giving students a boost out of poverty. The number of lowincome students graduating increased 29% from 2012 to 2020.

When asked about the acceptance rate, Rogers talks about the mobility index and graduations for low-income students.

Transforming a region requires poor kids getting through college and into jobs.

Creating jobs

But they need to be good-paying jobs. That’s why the university received millennial campus designation — enabling public-private partnerships — on more than 500 acres in Greenville and on the coast beginning in 2015. A $215 million medical school next to Vidant Medical Center will replace a 40-year-old structure. The expanded campus

includes a former tobacco warehouse district renamed Intersect East, where companies and researchers can collaborate. It is near the $90 million Life Sciences and Biotechnology Building that opened in November, including the Golden LEAF Foundation-funded Eastern Region Pharma Center to train workers for the region’s growing pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.

Conflict travels

Within the past decade, ECU has secured funds for the new medical school, graduated the first dental school class, opened the life-sciences building and created the research district. But good news about ECU sometimes doesn’t travel west of Interstate 95.

More visible were conflicts between the UNC Board of Governors and then-Chancellor Staton. Greenville businessman Harry Smith, who served as board chairman in 2018 and 2019, wanted his alma mater and other UNC schools to be run more like a business. At an ECU trustees meeting in February 2018, Smith suggested that the school’s acceptance rate was too high, and part of its enrollment problem was because of the troubled football program.

ECU has a passionate sports fan ▲ ECU Chancellor Philip Rogers base with 57,000 ECU alumni working in the state, second only to N.C. State. When things aren’t going well, that’s a chancellor problem. In 2015, a popular coach was fired by the athletic director. ECU subsequently had three straight 3-9 football seasons.

Smith was making this point to the trustees: When you have a successful football or basketball program, it draws attention and helps increase applications. ECU’s “calling card,” he said, was a packed Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium “with kids having fun in a great atmosphere of Pirate pride.”

When ECU eventually bought out the athletic director in 2018, Staton’s take may not have sat well with Pirate Nation.

ECU was the “workhorse of the state,” he said, a school that was graduating doctors, nurses and teachers. “When we lose sight of that, it’s very unfortunate.” He said he was committed to a winning football program. “But we also have to keep a perspective here, and the long-term view that we are America’s next great national university, and we’re not going to be sidetracked on that journey, or that aspiration, by these kinds of things.” Staton would resign a year later.

I asked Rogers about ECU athletics. He said: “You have to identify ways for it to serve the catalyst of success within the institutional mission.

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Dan Barkin

“And whether that’s student experience or drives economic impact on game days, and it drives opportunities for cultural experiences for people across the region, I think it has a role to play. It has to be a very targeted and thoughtful one.” Last fall, ECU’s football team had its first winning record since 2014, going 7-5.

Health care challenges

Rogers also inherited ECU’s challenging health care role.

Vidant Medical Center was a county hospital that is now the flagship of Vidant Health, a not-for-profit major employer with hospitals and practices throughout the East. The center is the teaching hospital for ECU’s medical school. Both Vidant and ECU serve a lot of poor, underinsured folks, which poses financial challenges.

In 2016, a proposed merger of Vidant and ECU practices stalled. In 2019, Vidant and the UNC Board of Governors fought over appointments to the Vidant Medical Center board, prompting litigation and an eventual compromise.

A “joint operating agreement” for the medical practices was reached last year that will combine some management structures and planning efforts. “We are literally reinventing a 40-year partnership to build a rebranded academic health system that focuses solely on regional transformation in Eastern North Carolina,” Rogers says.

“We’re pretty deeply clinically integrated in terms of our physicians already.”

Local partners

ECU is also developing stronger relationships with community colleges. This is why Harry Ploehn, engineering and technology dean, was at the December groundbreaking of Wake Tech’s new campus in Wendell.

ECU’s bachelor program in industrial technology lets community college students with applied-science associate degrees transfer in as juniors. They can finish their ECU degree without leaving home. Most of the concentrations within the program are online.

“I think, as a university, we can’t just build it here and they will come,” Ploehn says. “Our community college partners know their communities. They’re the ones that have the easiest access to the K-through-12 schools. They also have the best access to their local industry partners.”

Industrial technology has a bioprocess manufacturing concentration focused on the “BioPharma Crescent,” the counties of Edgecombe, Johnston, Nash, Pitt and Wilson, with companies such as Novo Nordisk, Pfizer and Thermo Fisher Scientific. ECU is also offering degrees in industrial technology and industrial distribution logistics at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

ECU has also been the leader among UNC System schools in online classes. Between 2012 and 2019 — before the pandemic — ECU’s online-only enrollment grew nearly 43%.

Online-only students were nearly 25% of all students by 2019.

Online options also help ECU pull from urban areas. More ECU students are from Wake County than Pitt. ECU is about

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A MORE OPEN DOOR

Most UNC campuses have liberalized their admission policies.

Campus East Carolina University UNC Pembroke UNC Greensboro Appalachian State University Fayetteville State University UNC Asheville Winston-Salem State University UNC Charlotte Western Carolina University Elizabeth City State University N.C. Central University UNC Wilmington N.C. A&T State University N.C. State University UNC School of the Arts UNC Chapel Hill

Admission rate Fall 2021 Fall 2012 93.90% 62.20% 91.8 72 90.8 60 84.7 63.2 82.1 55 81.6 64 81.5 55.7 79.4 68.5 79.4 37.7 76.8 57.1 76 50.1 68 54.2 57.3 69.6 47.5 50 29.8 45.2 20.4 27.6 source: UNC System

transforming its region, but it is drawing students from all 100 counties, in person or online.

The view from the bridge

In December, I drove on the west side of Greenville to look at the hospital and medical school. Heading east to the main campus, I crested the rise of the bridge on the 10th Street Connector that opened in 2019.

Former Greenville Mayor Don Parrott lobbied the state to close the 10th Street gap. He said the new road “will really chart the front door of Greenville’s future and create that new gateway,” says Merrill Flood, ECU’s director of millennial campus planning and a former Greenville planner.

“Now, as you go through it . . . think about the names,” Flood says.

The bridge is named for Dr. Andrew Best, an AfricanAmerican physician who led the effort to desegregate ECU and Pitt County Memorial Hospital. The road is named for former Chancellor Leo Jenkins, who came to a 1,500-student college in 1947 and led its transformation into a university.

He and Dr. Best worked to create the medical school that admitted its charter class in 1977.

I was driving east on the bridge, and on the left, ahead, was the life-sciences building and on the right were the warehouses that will be the research and innovation hub. I was looking at, maybe, the future of Greenville, ECU and Eastern North Carolina. The region has had leaders such as Dr. Best and Jenkins. Now it’s Rogers’ turn. ■

Veteran journalist Dan Barkin went to high school in Newton, Mass., 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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Retail

Retail Economic Development Aviation Statewide

FRESH FONDNESS FOR BRICKS N.C. retail hotspots attract showrooms for trendy online sellers.

By Connie Gentr y

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here’s a new breed of retail entrepreneurs termed digitally native operators who are prioritizing North Carolina in their expansion plans with brick-and-mortar stores. And Charlotte, Durham and Raleigh are on the short list of fast-growing cities where these ecommerce retailers are opening their shops.

A recent example is Parachute, a Culver City, Calif.-based home-products brand that opened a site in Charlotte’s fast-developing South End neighborhood in February.

Parachute and other online retailers are adding stores because many consumers want to check out the products in person before heading to the internet. It also helps them stand out from thousands of online sellers and expand into their most promising markets.

“We’ve found that many customers come to the stores to touch and feel the product before going home to purchase online,” says Parachute CEO Ariel Kaye. The “conversion rate” is as much as 50% better in cities that have the company’s stores.

“I’ve always believed in the importance of physical retail and meeting our customers where they are,” says Kaye, who founded Parachute in 2014 with a focus on bedding products. It has since expanded into furniture, home decor and baby products.

Parachute’s first showroom opened in 2016 in Venice, Calif., with products designed in Los Angeles and manufactured around the globe. The Charlotte store will be the brand’s 14th showroom and first in the Southeast.

Charlotte made sense because it’s one of the company’s best markets and its anticipated growth creates opportunities to add a lot more customers, says Kaye, who Inc. magazine named one of its 100 Most Inspiring Women in 2020.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF PARACHUTE

▲ Parachute sells premium sheets, towels, robes, rugs and more.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF WARBY PARKER

▲ Warby Parker sells a variety of quality eyeglasses, sunglasses and contacts.

Parachute plans to have 30 stores open by the end of 2022. At nearly 4,000 square feet, Charlotte will be the retailer’s largest showroom and allow for additional products such as benches and nightstands. In addition to consumers, the company markets its products to hotels and designers.

Many shoppers appreciate that online purchases can be picked up at the showrooms. That’s also a key selling point for Walmart, Target, Kohl’s and other traditional big-box retailers that have built major online businesses over the years. Best Buy CEO Corie Barry says that 40% of online shoppers pick up their purchases at the retailer’s stores, even when most items are eligible for free next-day delivery.

The company most identified with online retailing is also investing heavily in retail space. Amazon opened its first 4-Star store in North Carolina at Raleigh’s Crabtree Valley Mall in October 2020, carrying products that have been rated four stars or higher by customers and are top sellers online. The company had 33 similar stores open as of Jan. 1 and plans to add 12 in the coming months, including at the Streets at Southpoint center in Durham.

Amazon also has physical stores across other categories, including 24 bookstores, 24 Amazon Go convenience stores and 23 Amazon Fresh food outlets. It is opening its first clothing store, Amazon Style, in Glendale, Calif., later this year.

Eyeglass retailer Warby Parker was one of the first digitally native operators to open showrooms. It launched in 2010, then opened a flagship store in New York City three years later. It came to Charlotte’s Atherton Mill in March 2017 and now has four stores in the state.

“Over the past few years, we’ve expanded within North Carolina with locations at North Hills in Raleigh and the SouthPark

Mall in Charlotte [and Durham’s Streets at Southpoint], says Sandy Gilsenan, the company’s senior vice president of retail. The company’s revenue increased 38% last year to $540 million.

Fitness company Peloton and men’s fashion retailers Bonobos.com and Indochino.com have also opened showrooms in Charlotte and the Triangle. Bonobos, which is owned by Walmart, has a “guideshop” at Raleigh’s North Hills and in Charlotte’s Atherton Mill. Vancouver, British Columbia-based Indochino has a showroom at SouthPark and also operates one of its store-within-a-store concepts inside Nordstrom at Streets at Southpoint.

Allbirds, the hipster sneaker company founded in New Zealand, quietly opened a Charlotte store last year. ■

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Economic Development

RESILIENCY REQUIRED Hardship is no stranger to Rocky Mount as it responds to the devastating QVC fire.

By Edward Martin

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PHOTO COURTESY OF BOOGIELOU JOHNSON/ROCKY MOUNT TELEGRAM

ocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson shivered, though heat from the smoldering ruins drifted across the parking lot. “It takes 3,000 degrees to melt steel,” he says. But before him, massive beams twisted like a kid’s candy swizzle stick. “I stood there, watching N.C. Forest Service helicopters dumping water on [the fire] and thinking about the impact it was going to have on our community.”

A week before Christmas, Roberson had rushed to the distribution center of QVC, eight miles from downtown Rocky Mount.

The fire had flashed through the television shopping channel’s 1.2-million-square-foot fulfillment center, destroying 70% of it.

Three hundred workers on site at the time escaped. Unfortunately, one staffer was later found dead. A $20,000 reward for information of the fire's cause has been posted.

The devastation chilled Roberson and the community. In a region beset by decades of economic setbacks, some quarters see lessons in disaster recovery in how local officials responded.

Many were learned the hard way in 1999 when the Tar River

flooded during Hurricane Floyd, destroying a chunk of the area's economic base.

The QVC fire left 2,500 or more full-time and contract employees out of jobs. But while smoke was still rising, Edgecombe County Manager Eric Evans was talking with officials of Turning Point Workforce Development Board, the local arm of the state’s jobs commission. Within hours, the agency was setting up job fairs.

A few weeks later at the cavernous Rocky Mount Event Center, some 400 QVC employees queued up to meet with 40 employers including CSX, Cummins and Pfizer. Some had already signed up potential employees through virtual job fairs.

Others were hired on the spot, says Norris Tolson, president of Carolinas Gateway Partnership, the region’s public-private economic recruiting organization. “Fortunately, we’re in an aggressive growth mode in the region and have lots of jobs in the community,” he says.

QVC, which reported $8 billion in revenue during the first nine months of 2021, kicked in $100,000 toward an employee aid fund organized by Gateway, the Rocky Mount Chamber of Commerce, United Way and local businesses.

The Rocky Mount-based Golden LEAF Foundation says it is primed to possibly pump millions into efforts to attract replacement industries or help QVC rebuild. The group administers a $1 billion

▲ Most of the 1.2-million-square-foot QVC distribution center in Rocky Mount went up in flames in December.

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fund collected from the settlement for tobacco’s health impact.

Rocky Mount, whose population of about 50,000 is little changed from 20 years ago, has deep experience in responding to negative news, to be sure. It has spent three decades beating the bushes for pharmaceutical, logistics and high-tech industries to replace dwindling tobacco, textile and other legacy employers. The relatively new employers face an unusually tight labor market.

None of which indicates that the road ahead for the QVC employees is smooth, Tolson and others say. They come from nearly 20 eastern North Carolina and southern Virginia counties. The center remains a forbidding, blackened hulk, its future uncertain.

“We haven’t made any long-term decisions, but we know the building will be closed for an extended period and there won’t be work there for the foreseeable future,” says Illana McCabe, a spokeswoman for West Chester, Pa.-based QVC. The company is owned by Curate Retail, a public company that was formerly named Liberty Interactive.

Still, optimistic local officials hope that QVC’s guarded response means it will rebuild. “One whole section, their newest addition, was not even smoke-damaged,” Evans says. That section contains the computer brains of the highly robotic center. “When you consider that, from a business sense, if they built somewhere else, they’d have to start from scratch,” the county manager adds.

QVC built the center for about $80 million in 1999, making it an early tenant of the 1,460-acre Kingsboro megasite. It has invested millions more in upgrades and expansions. Tolson, Roberson and others say state and local agencies will likely make incentives available, as if recruiting a new industry.

After the fire, QVC provided $500 per worker and checks cover-

ing at least four weeks' pay. By February, however, workers opened mailboxes to find state-required notifications that they were permanently laid off.

“I’ve seen the likes of Centura [Bank] and Hardee’s leave town, leaving vacant buildings and big economic holes,” says Benton Moss, president of a Rocky Mount commercial and residential realestate firm.

Centura was one of the most painful, with its roots in 1898 as Planters Bank and Trust. After a series of mergers, its central office and other units moved to Raleigh in 2005, taking 1,000 Rocky Mount jobs. Hardee's, the fast-food chain born in eastern North Carolina, moved its headquarters in the same period, taking hundreds of jobs.

Since then, Gateway Partnership, the prime industrial recruiter for Edgecombe County, Rocky Mount, Tarboro and Nashville, has pushed diversification relentlessly. Tolson counts off successes such as the new Carolina Connector intermodal rail center, with about 300 direct and 1,300 spinoff jobs, and the relocation of the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles to the six-story, former Hardee's headquarters, with 500 jobs.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has about 3,000 employees and is regularly expanding.

Tolson says Gateway is negotiating with about 50 potential industries. “Our normal closure rate is about 10%,” he says, which could mean hundreds of job openings for former QVC workers.

“We’re still a poor community, with remnants of the old economy,” says Roberson. “But this time we’re not losing jobs because employers don’t want to be here.” ■

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Aviation

The Triad’s key airport gains respect while an aerospace innovator charts an uncertain course.

By David Mildenberg

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oom Supersonic wants to assemble its super-fast, 88-seat Overture jets at Piedmont Triad International Airport, a clear confirmation of Guilford County’s emergence as an aerospace industry hotspot.

The $500 million investment sounds like a dream come true for the First in Flight state and passengers who want to scoot from New York to London in three-and-a-half hours instead of six.

But don’t book that flight quite yet. Boom’s ability to deliver on its exciting promise hinges on solving difficult economic and environmental challenges.

The manufacturer’s proposal was hailed at a Jan. 26 event featuring North Carolina’s top politicians, Gov. Roy Cooper and legislative leaders Tim Moore and Phil Berger. The Denver-based company has pledged to employ as many as 2,300 workers, with an average annual salary of nearly $69,000 by 2032. Employees would build jets that cut flight time sharply at fares comparable to those charged for first-class business cabin seats.

To help win Boom’s commitment, the state set aside $107 million for the airport to grade and add infrastructure on hundreds of acres including property where Boom plans an assembly plant.

At the 2017 Paris Air Show, CEO Blake Scholl said Boom’s supersonic jet could be in service by 2023. He also cited a required $6 billion investment, implying significant outside financing, says

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Seth Miller, a New Hampshire-based industry analyst and journalist who has followed Boom for five years. Since then, Boom has disclosed orders from several operators including United Airlines, which wants 15 jets. Boom now projects supersonic travel in 2029.

“You don’t have an engineering plan, you don’t have a factory, you don’t have the funding to build the factory,” Miller notes. “So how do you transition from a cool set of renderings to actual assembly?”

“Blake tells the story very well, but ultimately there are various major milestones in the development of a new commercial aircraft program that have yet to be realized,” he adds. “And they have not hit any of the big public ones.”

Boom sent this comment via email: “We are on schedule with our Overture program, however we are being less open with our process for competitive and security purposes. We will reveal further information publicly when we are able to do so without risking security. United, JAL and the [U.S. Air Force] have voted with their funds based on information we’ve shared publicly.”

North Carolina vetted Boom, of course, and is proud to have defeated rival bids from Jacksonville, Fla., and Greenville, S.C. But the state structured the transaction to limit its financial risk. The approved $107 million “is hedged because the state has required that anything that gets done will have an alternative utility,” says PTI Executive Director Kevin Baker. “If, for whatever reason, we don’t have [Boom], the facility will be available for use by other aerospace manufacturing or as a hangar for a [maintenance, repair and overhaul] organization.”

The investment is advancing plans that PTI has been developing for many years. It has resulted in more than 8,600 jobs at

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOOM SUPERSONIC

BOOM TIMES

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the airport, about 90% related to building new jets at Honda Aircraft or servicing older ones at Haeco and Cessna or FedEx’s package-delivery operation. The airport offers about three dozen flights a day by four airlines, much less passenger service than at the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham airports. “This investment will allow us to get to the next level,” Baker says.

Boom has backing “from some pretty impressive people in the industry who know what they are doing,” says Mike Fox, president of the Greensboro-based Piedmont Triad Partnership, which promotes economic development. “Any new aircraft is far from a done deal, but we expect that Boom will make steady progress.”

Boom has raised more than $240 million from about 30 investors, according to the Crunchbase fundraising website. They include American Express’ venture arm and Menlo Park, Calif.-based Celesta Capital.

Interestingly, Boom’s major challenges aren’t engineering-related. “They know how to build it, and the physics is pretty straightforward,” Miller says. French and British manufacturers partnered to create the Concorde supersonic jet that Air France and British Airways flew between 1976 and 2003.

“But the reason there is skepticism is that it is a terribly inefficient aircraft” because so much fuel is required, he says.

Moreover, analysts have questioned the level of demand and whether airports will reject the service because of the noise of supersonic flights.

Boom says it will use sustainable aviation fuel and that no more than twice as much fuel will be used by its jets as conventional aircraft. It estimates there will be a market for about 700 jets in 2035, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But UBS analyst Myles Walton projects peak demand of 171 aircraft, while the International Council on Clean Transportation, which studies green energy use, expects no more than 30 sales, the newspaper reported in February. Fourteen Concorde jets entered commercial service during its three-decade run. ■ M A R C H

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li Lilly has been among the few U.S. pharmaceutical giants with relatively small operations in North Carolina.

That’s changing quickly.

The Indianapolis-based company is promising to add 1,100 staffers as it spends $1.5 billion in the state, including a $1 billion commitment at the Cabarrus County site where Philip Morris operated the world’s biggest cigarette plant for 27 years.

The Lilly plant is expected to employ about 600 people at five buildings over the next decade, joining a Durham operation under construction and slated to hire nearly 500 people, the company said in January 2020.

Less than two years ago, Lilly had about 135 employees in North Carolina, mostly salespeople, according to the N.C. Biotech Center.

Soon, the company will join Pfizer, Biogen, Novo Nordisk, Merck and other major pharma companies with big N.C. operations. Lilly has invested here before, buying Durham’s Sphinx Pharmaceuticals for $76 million in 1994 but closing its Research Triangle Park site in 2005. It also closed its Elanco animal health plant in Greensboro several years ago.

But Lilly is now making a big push in North Carolina with executives citing the manufacturing technology experience of the area’s labor force, its proximity to universities in the Triangle and Charlotte with strong science and technology programs and its access to major transportation networks.

It’s a big win for Concord and Cabarrus County, where officials have worked for years to recover from the 2009 closing of the Philip Morris plant. The giant cigarette maker formerly paid an annual property tax of $7 million, then representing about 10% of Concord’s base. Average salaries topped $60,000.

In 2014, the startup Alevo battery company said it planned a plant that would employ thousands. It cited backing of $1 billion

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from European investors. Then-Gov. Pat McCrory said, “This is going to be the greatest job announcement ever in North Carolina.” But Alevo’s technology didn’t pan out, and the company was dismantled in federal bankruptcy court.

Four years later, city and county officials are pledging $62 million in property tax reductions for Lilly over 10 years, says Page Castrodale, executive director of the Cabarrus Economic Development Center.

Lilly is also in line for about $25 million in state incentives if it meets its job and investment targets at the two North Carolina sites. The Durham and Concord plants are expected to offer average wages of about $70,000 to $73,000 annually.

Cabarrus and Concord offered similar property tax incentives for the big beverage packaging hub involving Red Bull, Rauch and Ball Corp. announced last summer, except that included seven years of tax breaks, Castrodale says. That hub is also at The Grounds, which is the renamed former Philip Morris property.

Lilly is expanding as it seeks to gain market share in drugs and products for treating diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s. In the last five years, it has invested $4 billion in global manufacturing, including $2 billion in the U.S., according to the Endpoints News website, which covers the pharma business. The company expects revenue of about $28 billion and to invest $7 billion in research and development in 2022.

Lilly has brought 16 new products to market in the past eight years and plans to bring another five in the next two years, including obesity and Alzheimer’s products, Endpoints News reported.

“We’re fortunate that community leaders are trying to be very intentional about growth,” Castrodale says. “This shows the importance of prioritizing economic development that brings more jobs to our area.” ■

PHOTO COURTESY OF ELI LILLY

LILLY BLOOMS

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2/18/22 7:30 AM

CHARLOTTE CHARLOTTE Duke Energy is targeting its energy generated from coal to represent less than 5% of total generation by 2030 and to fully exit coal by 2035. Coal has made up more than 25% of the electric company’s power supply for many years.

CHARLOTTE Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper and his wife, Nicole, gave $10 million toward the Charlotte Mecklenburg Main Library that is under construction in uptown Charlotte. The library has raised $115 million of its $143 million goal.

The city of Charlotte’s home values grew by $242 billion during the past decade, bringing the total to $338 billion, Zillow reports. The increase was $71 billion in 2021.

STATESVILLE A joint venture of White Point Partners, MRP Realty and Barings will develop a 400,000-square-foot office tower on a 1.2-acre parcel in the South End area.

The site now has a Walgreens store.

Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams plans to add 180 jobs as it invests $324 million to expand its plant here, according to an agreement with the N.C. Eco-

PHOTOS COURTESY OF DUKE ENERGY, CHARLOTTE MECKLENBURG LIBRARY

Single-family rental companies acquired at least 4,100 area homes, condos and townhouses, mostly in the $300,000 price range, over a 12-month period in Mecklenburg, Gaston, Union, Cabarrus and Iredell counties, a study by the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative shows.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan got a 31% salary raise to $7.5 million in 2021, part of his total compensation of $32 million. His pay was cut in 2020 amid the pandemic. BofA reported $32 billion in net income last year.

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nomic Investment Committee. The company could receive more than $3 million in tax rebates if targets are met.

HUNTERSVILLE Winston-Salem-based grocer Lowe’s Foods opened its new concept store on Feb. 18, bringing live entertainment and spaces to a traditional supermarket. The goal is to create a community hub. The store expects to employ 100 people.

EAST

WILMINGTON Wilmington International Airport opened a concourse that increased its space by 75% to 162,800 square feet. The total project cost $68 million, including $35.5 million from the Federal Aviation Administration.

WILMINGTON The Army Corps of Engineers, which deals with flood management, is considering relocating from Eagles Island near

downtown because of frequent flooding.

There’s no timeline for a relocation, but a spokesperson said flooding has damaged equipment. The corps has operated on the island for more than a century.

GOLDSBORO Mt. Olive Pickle Company is adding 167 jobs in a $35 million expansion here.

The expansion will add two facilities, totaling about 290,000 square feet. The private company sells 230 million jars of pickles annually.

FAYETTEVILLE

KINSTON West Pharmaceutical Services will create 70 jobs and spend $70 million on capital investments as part of expanding its manufacturing campus here. The company is eligible for as much as $300,000 in performance-based incentives from the One North Carolina Fund.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF WILMINGTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Amazon plans to construct a 1.3-million-square-foot fulfillment facility in Military Business Park, which could employ more than 500 full-time workers and hundreds of other part-time roles.

The warehousing facility will be located on 94 acres and is projected to launch operations in 2023.

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GREENVILLE Two Pitt County nonprofits, Aces for Autism and the Center for Science Technology and Leadership Development, will receive a share of more than $1 million in grants from the Golden LEAF Foundation. The foundation’s board awarded $1.08 million in funding to support projects through the Open Grants Program and $562,678 in increased Disaster Recovery Grant Program funding.

TRIAD

CAROLINA BEACH Carolina and Kure beaches will be seeing improvement thanks to a $20 million beach renourishment project. The Pleasure Island project, which aims to prevent beach erosion, faced funding uncertainty over the past year. The contract was awarded to Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co.

GREENSBORO

Greensboro-based Biscuitville, which has 60 stores and new ones planned in Kings Mountain and Lincolnton, switched its coffee contract to Community Coffee.

The Baton Rouge, La.-based coffee seller has been run by four generations of the Saurage family. Concord’s S&D Coffee and Tea had been Biscuitville’s coffee partner for many years.

qualify for spots in the event, with cars including Audis, Toyotas, Porsches and Carroll’s car of choice, Ferraris.

WINSTON-SALEM Lowes Foods partnered with DoorDash for grocery delivery from more than 70 Lowes supermarkets in North Carolina and South Carolina. Lowes is based here.

THOMASVILLE

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BrassCraft Manufacturing plans to create nearly 100 jobs in a $13 million expansion, nearly doubling its workforce.

The maker of plumbing products was formed in 1946. The new jobs in Thomasville include assembly personnel, engineers, managers and support staff.

TRIANGLE About 6,500 residents were evacuated from their homes due to a fire and fears of an explosion at the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant in early February. Wake Forest University canceled classes for a few days as a precaution.

Local developer Roy Carroll is fielding a car in the Le Mans 24-hour road race in France in June. Only 60 cars worldwide

Fourth-quarter net income was $278.8 million, up 46.9% from $189.8 million a year ago. The locally based company is among the biggest U.S. truckers.

Old Dominion Freight Line reported record annual revenue of $5.25 billion.

WENDELL Cary developer CSC Group filed plans for a development including 227 singlefamily detached homes and townhomes in this east Wake County town. The homes will be situated on 71 acres alongside 7.3 acres of open space.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHRIS VARNER, LOWES FOODS

Soelect, a battery startup that develops and manufactures advanced solidstate battery components designed for electric vehicles, raised $11 million in Series A funding. The company said Lotte Ventures led the investment, with participation from GM Ventures and KTB Networks.

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WEST ASHEVILLE The cost to rent an apartment here increased by 25% over the past year, making it the most expensive city for renters in North Carolina. An analysis done by Apartment List found the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $1,336.

RALEIGH Crabtree Valley Mall, developed and built for $20M in 1972 by Sam Longiotti and other investors, is reportedly up for sale. Tax value is about $400M at the mall now anchored by Belk and Macy’s stores.

RALEIGH

Google opened its initial office and is speeding hiring after announcing plans to bring an engineering hub to Durham.

More than 100 were hired in 2021, topping the company’s goal. Google says it may eventually employ more than 1,000 workers in Durham.

CHAPEL HILL UNC Chapel Hill has begun the formal design process of the Porthole Alley Redevelopment project, which includes renovating a building and demolishing others in the 100 block of East Franklin Street to make way for new construction.

The goal is to better connect the university to downtown and improve entry to the campus.

BioDelivery Sciences International agreed to be acquired by Stoughton, Mass.-based Collegium Pharmaceutical for about $600 million. BDSI was formed in 1997. Its main product is the Belbuca drug that treats chronic pain.

IHS Markit does not expect it will create the 250 jobs promised in its incentives agreement with the state but remains “committed to Raleigh,” according to a memo. The news comes as the global company combines with New York-based S&P Global. The state has terminated its conditional approval for $2 million worth of incentives for the company based on its statements, which cite changes in work patterns because of COVID-19.

Citrix Systems, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based software company that employs about 700 people here, was acquired for $16.5 billion by private-equity companies Vista Equity Partners and Elliott Investment Management.

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BOONE Appalachian State University’s percentage of electricity supplied from renewable hydroelectric and solar power will increase from 2% to 18% later this year.

The change stems from a plan to transition the university-owned New River Light and Power to a new power provider, Carolina Power Partners.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CRABTREE VALLEY MALL, PRATT & WHITNEY

DURHAM

Pratt & Whitney is on track to open its $650 million plant here in November.

The building will be about 55 feet high and cover 1.1 million square feet and is expected to employ 800 workers.

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WOMEN IN SCIENCE

FORMULA FOR SUCCESS The numbers reveal the hard fact: Women were 48% of U.S. workers but filled only 27% of science, technology, engineering and math — STEM — jobs in 2019, according to the U.S. Census. While that’s up from 38% and 8%, respectively in 1970, the relatively low participation shouldn’t diminish the importance of the role that women, particularly those in leadership positions, play in science. Business North Carolina magazine, with the help of Raleigh-based Merz Aesthetics, the world’s largest dedicated medical aesthetics business, recently gathered a panel of experts to discuss the state of women in science, why it’s important, how it’s changing and what needs to be done to expand it.

The discussion was held at the new global headquarters for Merz Aesthetics and moderated by Business North Carolina Associate Editor Colin Campbell. It was edited for brevity and clarity.

Photography by Bryan Regan

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2/17/22 10:22 AM

PICTURED BELOW, FIRST ROW:

LAURA GUNTER

president, North Carolina Biosciences Organization

SAMANTHA KERR

chief scientific officer, Merz Aesthetics SECOND ROW:

TERRI PHILLIPS

chief medical affairs officer, Merz Aesthetics

MEG POWELL

founder and CEO, 501 Ventures

CHRISTY SHAFFER

partner, Hatteras Venture Partners; managing director, Hatteras Discovery THIRD ROW:

AMANDA TAYLOR

Durham site lead, Merck

CHRISTINE VANNAIS

PANELISTS

chief operating officer, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies

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can I turn something scientific into a practical application?

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE THAT YOU WANTED TO PURSUE A CAREER IN SCIENCE? HOW HAS YOUR PASSION FOR SCIENCE EVOLVED BETWEEN THEN AND NOW?

switch to the business side of science.

Early on, I translated science for the lay person. That’s helped me over the years in different roles, including at NCBIO. I talk to legislators about complicated issues. They can’t be broken into simple

KERR: It was my curiosity. I want to understand how and why things work.

That takes you down a path to research.

It’s how I started and how I remain.

POWELL: I went to where my natural talents worked best. I loved chemistry because once I learned a concept, I could apply it more broadly. It made sense to me. It’s that insatiable curiosity that continues today.

SHAFFER: I attribute my scientific curiosity to a middle school teacher.

She was an excellent teacher. And I was very curious. She gave me a lot of extracredit work. That got me hooked on it.

soundbites.

TAYLOR: After spending time on the shop floor and implementing ideas, I began working with a plethora of PHILLIPS: I’m the child of health care practitioners — a dentist and a nurse.

There were many medical books at home, and I got into them all the time. I love being a student. It’s my favorite profession. So, medicine was a natural choice, because you never stop learning. I considered becoming a lawyer because I had this vision that they mostly worked in law libraries. I thought that constantly being around books would be great. Then I discovered that’s not what lawyers do. That’s what law clerks do. So, science and medicine became my inspiration.

people. Coaching, mentoring and developing them is inspiring to me. I enjoy watching them go from struggling with an issue to understanding it then growing and prospering. That’s the reason I moved into a leadership role.

It drives me and makes me want to stay in my current career. Pharma and biopharma have a noble mission, and I love knowing that my daily contributions help make a huge impact on humanity.

You certainly can develop leadership skills, but it starts as an innate ability to connect with and help people.

VANNAIS: I’ve always loved nature, being outdoors and camping. That came from my family. I had an aunt who ran a laboratory. As a child, I would pick plants and make tinctures. I was curious about GUNTER: A teacher in middle school and my high school chemistry professor, who was a Ph.D. chemist and had worked in industry before choosing to teach, sparked my interest in math, science and chemistry. They all made sense to me. I ended up being a laboratory aide for a couple years in high school. That really spurred my interest.

TAYLOR: I love math and chemistry.

My high school chemistry teacher, who also taught my father, took me under his wing. I was his lab assistant. He encouraged me to study engineering, not chemistry. I’m a chemical engineer.

My curiosity continues today. How

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the environment and its creatures. That kept me in science. But I’m not a scientist. I’m a safety professional and lead an organization. It’s a different path but under the same umbrella. Leading an organization that makes products that help people gives me joy and satisfaction.

Even on the horrible days, I feel like I’m adding value. That keeps me going.

HOW AND WHY DID YOU TRANSITION TO A LEADERSHIP ROLE? GUNTER: I earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry then worked on independent projects in labs. But I was more social than that. So, I decided to

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VANNAIS: It happened over time. I

be a CEO, and I fought it for a year.

didn’t say today I’m going to be a leader.

I told them I wasn’t the right person.

It took time to discover the joy and value

One day the board chair told me that

in being a leader. It’s a skill that some

I had something that’s uncommon —

people lack.

common sense and good judgement.

That’s why they wanted me to be CEO. I thought everyone had those traits.

KERR: There wasn’t a day when I woke up and declared I will be a manager or leader. It was something that someone else identified in me. I’ve had many mentors, and they said, ‘You should take on this team.’ But I was happy tending to my own research. They insisted, so I grew and started enjoying it. That one person gives you a little push, then you recognize the ability in yourself.

POWELL: Developing people is an important part of leadership, but there’s more to it. It also involves assembling the right people into a team and applying it to the problem. I really enjoy that part, knowing the pieces or parts and how to fit them together to solve the big problems.

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SHAFFER: It’s so much easier when you surround yourself with people who support you. When I was at Wellcome, which became Glaxo Wellcome, I was asked to be a project leader. I was younger than everybody else on the team, but I was responsible for working with the chemists, biologists and pharmacologists. I had a passion for that product. I understood how it worked and how it could help patients.

They let me make some mistakes, but they always caught me. And they helped me. I think all of us probably have had people like that at some point in our lives. I did not want to

PHILLIPS: I’ve experienced being identified as a leader when I didn’t feel like I was. That happens to women more than men. Most men aren’t afraid to jump in with both feet, even if they’re not really sure about the situation where they’re landing. Most women wait until they’ve checked off every box and 10 more that say they’re qualified. I’m teaching my three daughters not to do that. When someone with experience identifies your talent or skill, believe them.

Embrace and develop what they see.

Many women struggle with trusting their abilities.

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DO FEWER FEMALE ROLE MODELS MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN TO PURSUE A CAREER IN SCIENCE? PHILLIPS: There’s no question. If you

OK and you can do this. I try to be that

that you react to something might

advocate to the people that I mentor.

not be how someone else would, but that doesn’t mean you made a mistake.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD MENTOR AND

HOW DO YOU BUILD AN

A GOOD BOSS?

ORGANIZATION WHERE EVERYONE

don’t see yourself represented, then you

IS EMPOWERED TO SUCCEED?

don’t believe it’s for you. I had some great

SHAFFER: Mentors truly care about

male mentors because there weren’t

you. They see your success as part

KERR: You have to treat everyone

any women who could mentor me.

of their role or job. I had a female

equally. Each of your team members

mentor who had been Pfizer’s head of

is exceptionally skilled at some things

research years ago. I was nervous to

and not others. Early on, someone

meet her at first because I had read

asked why I was forcing a person to do

about all her accomplishments. She

a particular task that he hated. I was

arrived in a denim jacket and boots, a

trying to develop him. When I refocused

reflection of her love for horses. We

him on what he was really good at,

hit it off immediately. She asked me

he blossomed.

what I liked about my job. I spent 15 minutes telling her. Then she asked me

PHILLIPS: Women like to be around

KERR: I recently received a LinkedIn

about what I didn’t like. That took 90

other women, and men like to be

message from someone who reported

minutes to explain. The most important

around other men. That’s human nature.

to me about 15 years ago. She has

thing she said came at the end of our

So, to ensure you’re not creating a

became a team leader at a great

conversation. She asked what are we

corporate culture that excludes people,

organization, but she doesn’t have any

going to do. She was with me and

you need to embrace inclusion. It’s

female peers. She needed support, so I

wanted to make my job better.

a common term today, but it means

sent her a number of suggestions that

everything. People have to feel

have worked for me. Your confidence

POWELL: I’ve had some amazing male

can falter without peers or role models.

mentors in my life. But the majority of

It can be very isolating, and that’s when

them were professional because that’s

you have self-doubt. When I walked into

what we have in common, and that’s

an engineering lecture as a student, I

where they can help. It’s important to

was one girl in a sea of many boys. That

find mentors who represent your whole

would make anyone do a double take,

self. As your career develops, you’re

even if the situation was reversed. We

not only growing professionally. You’re

have to have confidence in each other

growing personally, too. They know

and ourselves.

what string to pull and that next-level question to ask.

TAYLOR: There were few women

welcome. That requires diversity.

TAYLOR: Diversity inclusion is absolutely part of it. Leaders have to own some of

working as engineers when I started.

GUNTER: I recall a particular boss

that, too. It’s not uncommon for women

It’s hard. It’s lonely. You support your

who cared about me and his role as a

to sit in the back of a room full of men.

co-workers as an advocate, mentor,

mentor. He gave me the opportunity to

How do you change that? It’s thinking

friend and colleague. Those are the

step out and maybe make a mistake.

about how you include people. Eventually

people you have to rely on for help.

Most mistakes can be unwound.

all of that becomes the way you run

There are going to be times when

Sometimes you have to get out there

your business.

you’re alone, and you have to go to

and do something. It may not be quite

someone who will tell you that it’s

the right thing, but that’s OK. The way

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WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU CAN GIVE A GIRL WHO WANTS TO PURSUE A CAREER IN SCIENCE? TAYLOR: Don’t give up. It will be hard, but keep trying. Establish an expansive network of people who can and will help you. You don’t need to have close relationships with all of them. Things change fast. You grow, develop and learn different skills. If you say I’m going to be at a specific point or job in 20 years, it’s not going to happen. I encourage the people who I mentor to look at all the options. It’s good to build experience when you’re young then focus as you get older, when you better understand yourself and the opportunities.

GUNTER: Asking for help is key. My daughter is in college, and she calls me often to ask questions. They’re good questions, and I’m happy to talk through them with her. But some are program specific, and I don’t have the answers.

But somebody does. Find those people.

You have to engage. That’s a key component. You can’t know at a young age where you’ll end up. I wouldn’t have been able to describe my current job, even if it existed, at that point. You have to give yourself the chance to evolve.

PHILLIPS: It has never been easier to network, thanks to social media. When people contact me through LinkedIn, I’m happy. I’ve called complete strangers because they saw something that I was doing or a path that I took, that appealed to them. I do that all the time.

The generation behind us has a lot there.

I won’t say they’re less afraid to do it, but they’re certainly savvy enough to know how to network on social media.

It’s easy; just DM them. When you’re 18 years old, don’t say you’re going to be a doctor or chemist. Expose yourself

to different things. You don’t have to follow a straight or narrow path. I started college when I was 16 years old. I don’t recommend it. I made sure my children explored different options. There are so many career choices available.

VANNAIS: There was a period in my career when I felt I had to be sharper and better than everyone else, especially if I was the only woman or feeling isolated. I would take notes then research on the side. Now I ask questions. But that takes confidence, which took time to develop. Are we teaching our girls those skills? Are we raising girls and boys the same way when it comes to asking questions and taking risks, even if they aren’t 100% ready? That’s a community and cultural issue. I love being asked questions, and most people do. I’m not a Ph.D. scientist, but the best time of my week is going into the lab and hanging out with people who can tell me about some really cool stuff.

freshman, you don’t have to decide what you’re going to be at age 30, let alone 40 or 50. It took me until I was about 40 to realize that I’m really good at selling the business or components of science. Listen to yourself.

Understand what you’re really good at, because you’re going to be great at that. It’s going to take a lot of hard work.

There are consequences to every choice you make. As a science undergrad, you’ll spend entire afternoons in one lab while some of our friends go to classes three hours a week. But that dedication brings opportunities, so don’t shy away from it. You have to take the longest view sometimes to get through a chemistry or anatomy lab. They aren’t always fun in the moment.

KERR: Believe in yourself. Don’t turn down any opportunity, even if it seems like a sidestep. You have to grab everything and be passionate about what you do.

SHAFFER: Students often ask me what they should do, and I always turn it around and ask them what their passions are. Then I tell them what a great time it is to be in science.

There’s nothing we can’t do with our understanding of science. It’s a great field with many different jobs. You’ll figure it out.

HOW DO WE GET TO A POINT WHERE WOMEN AND MEN ARE EQUALLY REPRESENTED IN SCIENCE?

POWELL: Don’t close a door until you absolutely have to. As a college

POWELL: I graduated from pharmacy school in 2000. My class was 75% women. There are pockets within science that employ predominantly women. You see that in the contract research organization industry, for example, where most workers started

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their career as a nurse. It’s the opposite

It’s a big problem in the United States.

for solely personal reasons. And in

in engineering. So, the answer is

Other countries do a good job with it.

retrospect, it was the best professional

different when you get down to that

I have a team in Frankfurt, Germany.

decision I could ever make. It opened

next level. Over the last few years,

Women there do not suffer for taking

up the world of entrepreneurship. In

with the pandemic closing schools and

the first year of their child’s life to be at

the moment, it felt like I was giving

forcing people to work from home,

home. They jump right back onto the

up a lot. And for the first six months,

we’ve seen how much work that we

career path they left and do so in their

I introduced myself as a former vice

have to do in regards to equality. I’ve

own time and their own way..

president at GSK. A decade later, I call

seen reports that U.S. women have

myself a serial entrepreneur and am on

taken on an additional 40 hours of work

SHAFFER: There was a young woman in

my fourth startup. Christy’s reassurance

each week on average compared to

our company, and I talked to her about

was vital to making that happen. Over

four by men. So, until you can get parity

returning to work after she had her first

the last year, there has been no greater

outside a work environment, there’s no

baby. She wondered why I thought she

joy for me than 3 p.m., when my

way you can get parity inside it. How we

wouldn’t. As a mother, you’re pulled in

kids get home from school. We have

get there is the question.

many directions. You might feel guilty

childcare, so I’m not responsible for

about working. I offered to talk to her

watching them, but being able to see

TAYLOR: It starts with having conver-

if she started having those feelings.

them then instead of in the evening has

sations with middle school students. By

She called about a month after she had

been a blessing. I would never give that

the time they get to high school, they’re

the baby and said she didn’t think she

up at this point. I heard a career coach

already on a career path. It also requires

wanted to return to work. I told her she

say there’s no such thing as work-life

showing girls the opportunities that exist.

could come back anytime. Maybe she

balance. It’s work-life integration. Men

They can be an engineer, plant manager,

would feel different when her child was

and women are recognizing that reality.

environmental health and safety

in kindergarten. She returned to work

If the pandemic truly ended after six

professional, or a physician. They don’t

after about three or four years, and it

months or a year, it would have been

have to pigeonhole themselves.

was like she never left. She ended up helping start a company after we were

KERR: It starts with school students,

acquired. I’m sure that she’s passed

speaking with them so they see real

forward that idea. Many women and

people and hear our stories and how

men say they’re not going back to

we got to where we are now. In the

how they worked before the COVID-19

pharmaceutical industry, for example,

pandemic. We’re at a time in our

the majority of lower-level jobs are held

industry when there are many available

by women. But as you go up the ranks,

jobs. People are seeking flexible and

the percentage shifts toward men.

adaptable companies. Companies have

That’s when it comes down to having a

to figure out how do to proceed in this

network and supporting and giving each

new environment. Those that return to

other confidence to move up and not

the old ways will be at a disadvantage

second guess ourselves.

when it comes to finding workers.

HOW DOES BALANCING WORK AND

POWELL: I first met Christy Shaffer

FAMILY AFFECT WOMEN’S CAREERS?

a year after I had my first child. Over

WHAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED?

lunch, she told me that it was normal to feel conflicted and shared examples

PHILLIPS: We must figure out how to

of how she managed it. You have to

keep more women on their career path

see yourself in someone else. I made

once they start their childbearing years.

a significant professional decision

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2/17/22 10:23 AM

easy to fall back into old work-life habits.

I’m hopeful its duration has embedded new behaviors.

GUNTER: After my second child, I worked for a while. But I couldn’t get her in daycare, and everything was compiling against me. At that time, Dr. Hamner, the N.C. Biotechnology Center’s president, was contemplating retirement and reminiscing about his career and life. He offered me some advice: I could always get another job, and whatever I decided was going to be OK. So, I stepped away for a bit, taking the opportunity to see if the grass was greener. I realized that there’s no perfect answer. We can be good employees, leaders and parents without looking like everybody else in the neighborhood,

country or on television. We can forge our own path. But that can be hard, so we need to communicate that it’s OK. Your decision only needs to work for you and your family.

KERR: The pandemic has forced many people to work from home for a couple years. Their work and life are intertwined more than ever. I continually remind my team that we all have to make time for ourselves. This is harder when you are working from home, and you can stay on your computer 24/7. As the pandemic ends, the return to normality, whatever that may be, will require many discussions, understanding and leadership. This is a new age. I hope that we take the opportunity to change things that should be changed, because sometimes when there is a significant event,

there is disruption. This gives us an opportunity to think differently. I like that.

TAYLOR: The pandemic has afforded mothers flexibility that I didn’t have when my children were young. That may be the only good thing that comes from it. We’ve demonstrated that it’s possible to work from home without things falling apart. Maybe we don’t work that way forever. Maybe we create a hybrid approach of working from home and in the office. I went back to work after having a baby. I was the only female professional in an organization of 200 people. You do what’s right for you and your family. If it’s stay home, then stay home. If it’s come back, then come back. Whatever the decision, don’t feel guilty about it. ■

Sponsored by:

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Greetings!

The NCCCS is a modern, unified system that is outstanding in its scope and transformative in the lives of all those it reaches.

Our “Great 58” community colleges are tirelessly fueling North Carolina’s job engine, making it a greater global competitor for business and industry. Our colleges nurture entrepreneurship and support the business community by providing employers, both large and small, with an unparalleled workforce. Students who attended N.C. community colleges from July 2009 to June 2019 accounted for 33% of all North Carolina wage earners, totaling 1.7 million people and $60 billion earned in fiscal year 2020. Our graduates are loyal. Three years after graduation, 77% of community college students remain employed in North Carolina.

We have strong partnerships with business and industry in North Carolina and beyond to provide student internships, apprenticeships and customized training. We produce skilled professionals with the ability to think critically and perform expertly – technicians, practitioners, leaders.

From upskilling to reskilling to changing careers, our community colleges stand ready to provide business and industry with a well-trained workforce. In today’s competitive climate, our Customized Training can deliver (students/graduates/employees) who are degreed, certified or credentialed in your economic sector. Our experts are knowledgeable across an array of sectors: Healthcare, Biopharma, Life Science, Advanced Manufacturing, Food & Beverage and many more. Take the first step by meeting with our experts who can strategically align our course offerings to meet your market needs.

We have great opportunities in March to connect with you. Please join us for the following upcoming events: • ApprenticeshipNC Annual Conference March 15-16, Hotel Ballast, Wilmington • Small Business Center Network Annual Conference March 15-17, Hilton Garden Inn, Hickory This is an exciting time, and I know we will do great things together. I look forward to working with all of you.

Sincerely,

Thomas A. Stith III President, North Carolina Community College System

nccommunitycolleges.edu

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2/17/22 1:39 PM

IMPROVING LIVES North Carolina’s economic successes are underpinned by its skilled workers.

Their role will only grow in the future, so the N.C. Community College System is ensuring they’re prepared. More than 525,000 students studied at the system’s 58 campuses during the 2020-2021 academic year. Many enrolled in classes and programs geared toward specific industries and companies, an approach the system has followed for more than 50 years.

Discover how that strategy is improving communities and lives through the examples in this section.

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COMMUNITY COLLEGES ACROSS THE STATE ALAMANCE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Burlington, Graham | alamancecc.edu

EDGECOMBE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Rocky Mount, Tarboro | edgecombe.edu

RANDOLPH COMMUNITY COLLEGE Asheboro | randolph.edu

ASHEVILLE-BUNCOMBE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Arden, Asheville, Candler, Marshall, Woodfin abtech.edu

FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE, Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Spring Lake faytechcc.edu

RICHMOND COMMUNITY COLLEGE Hamlet, Laurinburg | richmondcc.edu ROANOKE-CHOWAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE Ahoskie | roanokechowan.edu

BEAUFORT COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE Washington | beaufortccc.edu

FORSYTH TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Kernersville, King, Walnut Cove, Winston-Salem forsythtech.edu

BLADEN COMMUNITY COLLEGE Dublin | bladencc.edu

GASTON COLLEGE Belmont, Dallas, Lincolnton | gaston.edu

BLUE RIDGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Brevard, Flat Rock, Hendersonville blueridge.edu

GUILFORD TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Colfax, Greensboro, High Point, Jamestown gtcc.edu

ROWAN-CABARRUS COMMUNITY COLLEGE Concord, Kannapolis, Salisbury | rccc.edu

BRUNSWICK COMMUNITY COLLEGE Bolivia, Carolina Shores, Leland, Southport brunswickcc.edu

HALIFAX COMMUNITY COLLEGE Weldon | halifaxcc.edu

SAMPSON COMMUNITY COLLEGE Clinton | sampsoncc.edu

HAYWOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE Clyde | haywood.edu

SANDHILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE Pinehurst, Raeford, Robbins, Carthage sandhills.edu

CALDWELL COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND TECHNICAL INSTITUTE Boone, Hudson | cccti.edu CAPE FEAR COMMUNITY COLLEGE Burgaw, Castle Hayne, Hampstead, Wilmington cfcc.edu CARTERET COMMUNITY COLLEGE Morehead City | carteret.edu CATAWBA VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE Conover, Hickory, Newton, Taylorsville cvcc.edu CENTRAL CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE Dunn, Lillington, Pittsboro, Sanford, Siler City cccc.edu CENTRAL PIEDMONT COMMUNITY COLLEGE Charlotte, Huntersville, Matthews | cpcc.edu CLEVELAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE Shelby | clevelandcc.edu COASTAL CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE Jacksonville | coastalcarolina.edu COLLEGE OF THE ALBEMARLE Barco, Edenton, Elizabeth City, Manteo albemarle.edu CRAVEN COMMUNITY COLLEGE Havelock, New Bern | cravencc.edu DAVIDSON COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE Bermuda Run, Lexington, Mocksville, Thomasville | davidsonccc.edu DURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Durham, Hillsborough | durhamtech.edu

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ROBESON COMMUNITY COLLEGE Lumberton | robeson.edu ROCKINGHAM COMMUNITY COLLEGE Wentworth | rockinghamcc.edu

ISOTHERMAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Columbus, Rutherfordton, Spindale isothermal.edu

SOUTHEASTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE Whiteville | sccnc.edu

JAMES SPRUNT COMMUNITY COLLEGE Kenansville | jamessprunt.edu

SOUTH PIEDMONT COMMUNITY COLLEGE Monroe, Polkton, Wadesboro | spcc.edu

JOHNSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE Clayton, Four Oaks, Smithfield | johnstoncc.edu

SOUTHWESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE Sylva | southwesterncc.edu

LENOIR COMMUNITY COLLEGE Kinston, La Grange, Pink Hill, Snow Hill, Trenton lenoircc.edu

STANLY COMMUNITY COLLEGE Albemarle, Locust | stanly.edu

MARTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE Williamston, Windsor | martincc.edu

SURRY COMMUNITY COLLEGE Dobson, Elkin, Mount Airy, Pilot Mountain, Yadkinville surry.edu

MAYLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE Burnsville, Newland, Spruce Pine | mayland.edu

TRI-COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE Marble, Murphy, Robbinsville | tricountycc.edu

MCDOWELL TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Marion | mcdowelltech.edu

VANCE-GRANVILLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Creedmoor, Henderson, Louisburg, Warrenton vgcc.edu

MITCHELL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Mooresville, Statesville | mitchellcc.edu MONTGOMERY COMMUNITY COLLEGE Troy | montgomery.edu NASH COMMUNITY COLLEGE Rocky Mount | nashcc.edu PAMLICO COMMUNITY COLLEGE Bayboro, Grantsboro | pamlicocc.edu

WAKE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE Cary, Morrisville, Raleigh, Wake Forest, Zebulon waketech.edu WAYNE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Goldsboro | waynecc.edu WESTERN PIEDMONT COMMUNITY COLLEGE Morganton | wpcc.edu

PIEDMONT COMMUNITY COLLEGE Roxboro, Yanceyville | piedmontcc.edu

WILKES COMMUNITY COLLEGE Sparta, West Jefferson, Wilkesboro wilkescc.edu

PITT COMMUNITY COLLEGE Winterville | pittcc.edu

WILSON COMMUNITY COLLEGE Wilson | wilsoncc.edu

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SPONSORED SECTION

2/21/22 9:27 AM

Finding your way forward is easy when choosing Fayetteville Technical Community College.

With over 280 academic programs of study and a broad range of Corporate and Continuing Education programs, FTCC serves students safely, conveniently, and attentively with a caring, devoted staff including success coaches who build relationships with students from the beginning of their educational journeys and up through graduation. FTCC’s traditional, online, and virtual classes give students many options, and all campus locations operate under strict safety protocols. Many programs are available 100 percent online.

FTCC is a win-win situation: tuition expenses are considerably lower than at four-year colleges, yet the quality of education is high. FTCC graduates who continue their education at 4-year colleges perform well. Whether a recent high school graduate, a transitioning military member, or a workforce member seeking to upgrade or learn new skills, students find that FTCC helps them save money, prepares them for career success, and provides a broad educational experience to include a sense of community as well as opportunities for personal growth through leadership and participation in various campus clubs, organizations, and athletics.

FTCC offers programs specifically designed for seamless transfer of academic credits to 4-year colleges/ universities. In addition to universitytransfer programs, FTCC offers programs in the areas of business, computer technology, engineering, healthcare, human service technology, media and fine arts, public safety, and skilled trades. Fayetteville Tech offers excellent, safe options for study time, such as the newly renovated Paul H. Thompson Library with private areas

designed with high-tech smart boards for collaboration and team-building among classmates, computer labs with helpful technical support, and outdoor areas surrounded by the beautiful campus and nature.

FTCC is proud to be a military-friendly and Best for Vets college! The Transition Tech program for transitioning soldiers provides credentials in various occupations to help soldiers succeed in the civilian workforce. FTCC is home of the All American Veterans Center, staffed by veterans who support other veterans by understanding their needs and assisting by offering specialized services and educational counseling and support.

Students can choose from many high-quality programs through FTCC’s Corporate and Continuing Education area. Education to pursue a high school equivalency diploma, to quickly gain the necessary job skills for career success or advancement, to support area businesses and industry with specialized training, or to pursue a personal hobby or special interest are just a few of the many examples of how Corporate and Continuing Education helps students and the

greater community.

With scholarship opportunities, financial aid assistance, counseling services, athletics, and a broad range of academic program offerings in both credit and non-credit programs of study delivered conveniently and affordably, FTCC is proud to open its doors to all who desire to learn and pave the way forward to a brighter future through education.

Find your way forward at Fayetteville Technical Community College!

Dr. J. Larry Keen, President

2201 Hull Road Fayetteville, NC 28303 910-678-8400 FAYTECHCC.EDU M A R C H

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Winning!

Sandhills Community College is home to two-time National Men’s Golf Champions, the Flyers. Winners on and off the course, Sandhills students and graduates continue to achieve success.

Pinehurst and the surrounding area is a major retirement mecca, creating employment opportunities in hospitality and healthcare. Construction trades, engineering, landscape gardening, and advanced manufacturing are also popular career tracks.

Sandhills was the first comprehensive community college in NC to offer a transfer degree program. Today, the College offers nine degrees that transfer to four-year universities and many 2+2 technical programs allowing students to take classes at Sandhills and move into a bachelor’s program at a participating university. The college also has partner programs with UNC, NC State, UNC-W, UNC-P, ECU, and St. Andrews, Franklin, and Methodist Universities.

Due to donors’ prodigious generosity, Sandhills offers two full years of classes free of charge to local high school students through The Sandhills Promise. To qualify, students must successfully complete four SCC classes when in high school.

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3395 Airport Road Pinehurst, NC 28327 910-692-6185 SANDHILLS.EDU

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2/17/22 1:43 PM

GTCC: YOUR FUTURE STARTS HERE Make opportunity happen Guilford Technical Community College is where students, faculty and businesses make amazing happen every day. GTCC goes beyond developing innovative education and training programs to provide valuable support to students in and out of the classroom. At GTCC, students have the opportunity to succeed in achieving their degree or certification debt-free.

Amazing programs: GTCC continues to offer more online courses and resources than ever across a broad range of industries. Students can choose from more than 80 programs in careers in the hottest industries, including aviation, healthcare, law enforcement, and computer-integrated machining, just to name a few.

Amazing support: In addition to financial aid, grants, scholarships and other assistance, GTCC offers a full array of support services to reduce barriers to training and education. These services include help with food insecurity, transportation, technology needs, counseling resources and more — making it possible for students to focus on building a better future.

Amazing partnerships: As a recognized leader in workforce training, GTCC is committed to partnering with companies and other organizations to meet the hiring needs of county and statewide employers. For example, the aviation program has a proven track record of student job placement with major employers like HAECO Americas, Honda Aircraft Company, Textron and large commercial airlines. The college’s Truck Driving School is in its third year helping attract and train much-needed qualified drivers. GTCC also continues to partner with area industries by providing flex lab space for installing equipment in order to train employees in welding, robotics and other highly technical skills — all at the college’s innovative 242,000-square-foot Center for Advanced Manufacturing.

Partner with GTCC and see what amazing results are possible. Learn more about new opportunities for professional workforce development and training at Guilford Technical Community College. Visit us at gtcc.edu/workforce-training.

601 East Main Street Jamestown, NC 27282 336-334-4822 GTCC.EDU/WORKFORCE-TRAINING M A R C H

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Wake Tech Named to Newsweek’s Top Online Colleges List Years of innovation and investment in Wake Tech’s online programs is attracting well-deserved recognition. The college consistently ranks at the top for online instruction and was recently named to Newsweek’s prestigious list of America’s Top Online Colleges 2022.

It was the only North Carolina community college to make the list, which includes some of the most respected colleges and universities in the country.

The rankings, presented by Newsweek and Statista Inc., are based on responses from more than 9,000 people who participated in online college degree programs in the U.S. Respondents rated institutions on: organization and accessibility, support and service, cost of programs, perceived organizational reputation, expected success and practical relevance of contents.

Wake Tech offers more than 90 online degrees, diplomas, and certificates – more than any community college in the U.S.

919-866-7000 ONLINE.WAKETECH.EDU

Get the edge for success Whether students want to improve job skills, transfer to a four-year institution, or complete a credential and enter the workforce, Edgecombe Community College provides the edge to help students succeed.

With campuses in Tarboro and Rocky Mount, the college offers education and training that is both relevant and life enhancing. First-rate programs in health care, business and industry, and arts and sciences provide practical skills and enable graduates to excel in their careers, homes, and communities.

Among the newest offerings is the college’s program in Agribusiness Technology. Graduates can pursue traditional careers in farm operations as well as leading edge professions in agriculture technology.

In 2021, ECC and North Carolina A&T State University signed an agreement that will enable ECC Agribusiness Technology graduates to transfer seamlessly into N.C. A&T’s bachelor’s degree program in agriculture education.

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pStudents in Edgecombe Community College’s Agribusiness Technology animal care class learn how to care for a baby goat.

C A R O L I N A

TARBORO CAMPUS 2009 W. Wilson Street, Tarboro, NC 27886 ROCKY MOUNT CAMPUS 225 Tarboro Street, Rocky Mount, NC 27801 252-823-5166 | EDGECOMBE.EDU SPONSORED SECTION

2/18/22 10:53 AM

Better Skills.

Better Jobs.

PCC Supports Adult Learners.

In the spring of 2021, Pitt Community College partnered with the John M. Belk Endowment, myFutureNC and four other North Carolina community colleges to focus on meeting the educational needs of adult learners.

The collaboration produced the “Better Skills, Better Jobs” campaign to encourage North Carolina’s adult learners to return to college and either complete training they started but didn’t finish or acquire skills in a new area of interest that leads to more gainful employment.

With fall semester underway, PCC teamed with the Belk Endowment once more, this time with Greenville ENC Alliance and Pitt County Economic Development, to organize the “Better Skills, Better Jobs” job fair. The event fostered engagement between area employers and prospective workers while increasing awareness of local career and educational opportunities.

The fair drew 440 adult jobseekers and 171 Pitt County high school students to the Greenville Convention Center, where they met with nearly 100 representatives from area business and industry and various community partners, including Pitt County

Schools, East Carolina University, Greenville Utilities, NCWorks, Tradesformers, Vidant Health and the N.C. Coastal Society for Human Resource Management. A luncheon held between the event’s morning and afternoon sessions focused on adult learners and the significant number of Pitt County residents who have completed some higher education but have no academic credentials.

“Workforce is the number one challenge for business and industry; it is a big issue,” said David Horn, Greenville ENC Alliance Director of Investor and Community Relations.

“Addressing big issues often requires big ideas – and the ‘Better Skills, Better Jobs’ Fair was just that.”

Dr. Johnny Smith, PCC Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement, said the fair was a perfect example of what can be accomplished when leaders from local government, education and business work together.

“Pitt County has nearly 39,000 adults who have some college training but no degrees, diplomas or certificates,” Smith said. “We want them to come back to school to finish what they

started to improve their career mobility prospects and their chances of landing jobs that offer sustainable wages.”

For adult students who do enroll at PCC, the college established an Adult Learning Center on campus dedicated to serving their interests.

To accommodate the busy schedules of its intended customers, the center is open Monday-Saturday at various times, including hours outside of the typical workday. Call (252) 493-3052 or email PCCALC@email.pittcc.edu for more details.

1986 Pitt Tech Road Winterville, NC 28590 252-493-7200 PITTCC.EDU M A R C H

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FUELING NORTH CAROLINA’S JOB ENGINE. Join the roster of companies partnering with the North Carolina Community College System for your higher educational and training needs. From startups to global corporations, we fuel North Carolina’s job engine.

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2/17/22 1:46 PM

ONE MODERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM TRAINING YOUR WORKFORCE. 58 colleges 525,000+ students enrolled Third largest community college system in the U.S.

COUNTLESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR COMPANIES. Short-term workforce training Career and technical education options Registered ApprenticeshipNC Program – yielding 170% ROI to employers Small Business Center Network – helping 650+ businesses get started each year, creating or retaining 3,800+ jobs annually Customized training and professional development – trained 21,700 people last year, serving 1,012 companies

ApprenticeshipNC Customized Training Small Business Center Network

nccommunitycollege.edu M A R C H

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Nantahala Outdoor Center retains a historic vibe while expanding its whitewater empire.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NOC

By Jennings Cool

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arly bypassers saw the Tote ‘n Tarry as a simple roadside motel and gas station saddling a stretch of the Nantahala River in Swain County — surely one of the prettiest spots in North Carolina. The late Horace Holden Sr. saw the location as an opportunity to create what has become an iconic tourism venue set amid a national forest and a short drive from the eastern entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Holden grew up in Atlanta and became a canoeing enthusiast who started a popular summer camp along the Chattahoochee River near the Georgia capital in 1961. With a vision to entertain visitors with safe, exhilarating outdoor adventure, he purchased the North Carolina property in 1971. He asked his longtime Atlanta friends John Payson and Aurelia Turpin Kennedy to help start an outdoor retreat that would enable visitors to paddle through the river’s rapids on 12- or 13-footlong rafts. In 1972, they opened Nantahala Outdoor Center, which attracted 800 rafting guests on the Nantahala and 400 about 45 miles away at the Chattooga River in north Georgia.

In the ensuing 50 years, the NOC has entertained visitors with about 7 million trips as they churn through large boulders in rafts typically carrying six or eight people and a guide. Last year, NOC guided approximately 120,000 rafting trips, the most in the past decade.

Today’s NOC extends beyond the 500-acre Bryson City campus to include seven outposts on six rivers in four states.

The business employs 150 full-time staff members, with staffing reaching 700 during the peak summer season.

It’s a marked change from the early days when employees would prepare meals for guests, run a guide trip and clean a hotel room, all in the same day. Visitors then could paddle the Nantahala and Chattooga rivers, shop at a convenience store and grab a sandwich at River’s End Restaurant. Employees wore all the hats and included the Kennedys’ daughter Catherine, who started working at NOC at 16.

NOC debuted the same year as the release of Deliverance, a thriller about four Atlanta businessmen canoeing down a remote Georgia river. The movie, which was filmed on the Chattooga, won three Academy Awards and popularized whitewater rafting. Payson Kennedy was actor Ned Beatty’s stunt double in the movie.

“Without Horace’s visionary attitudes, the NOC would never have come into existence and my life, along with so many others, would certainly look completely different,” says Catherine Kennedy, who lives on site and remains a part owner and board member. Her children, now 38 and 40, were raised at the center, marking a third generation of Kennedys for whom paddling whitewater rapids is a family tradition.

Kennedy’s first canoe trip was at age 8 with her dad’s Boy Scout troop. She fell in love with paddling while growing up primarily in Atlanta. “I loved it. Whitewater was what I was most excited about in the world.” She manages the center’s fleet of more than 60 buses, oversees the government permits required to operate the rafting business and drives a bus to transport guests as needed.

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While Kennedy says she isn’t quite sure of her current job title as of today, she carries 50 years of background information on the operation. She even guided NOC’s first trip of its golden season last year, which was also her 65th birthday. “It was a special trip.”

The center’s main campus offers a variety of activities such as rafting, zip lining, mountain biking, restaurants, shopping and lodging including cabins, the Dogwood Motel, group camping and bunkhouses. Crowds tend to be the largest in June, July and August, though the “shoulder seasons” are increasingly popular.

NOC has also served as a key training site for paddlers including more than 20 Olympians. The most famous are 1992 gold medalists Joe Jacobi and Scott Strausbaugh, along with Evy Leibfarth, who at 17 became the youngest female to compete in the Olympics’ canoe single slalom competition at last year’s Tokyo Olympics. She grew up in Bryson City and entered her first competition at NOC when she was 6.

For most of its history, NOC was an employee-owned company led by the Kennedy family. In 2012, Atlantic Investment Co. bought a majority stake in the business.

Atlantic is controlled by Atlanta’s Courts family, whose holdings included real estate and an investment banking

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▲Nantahala Outdoor Center’s arrival in 1972 changed western N.C. tourism.

company that was acquired in 1969 by Reynolds Securities, a predecessor of Morgan Stanley. “[Atlantic] has helped us move the needle forward,” says Leigh Boike, the center’s executive vice president.

About 30 people now have equity stakes in the business, many of them current and former employees, says Boike. Colin McBeath, a veteran hotel and resort manager in Colorado, Alaska, Arizona and Canada, was named president last May.

Rapid growth in the Southeast To make its adventures more accessible, NOC expanded beyond the Nantahala and Chattooga, adding rafting rental and gear shops and guided tours along the Chattahoochee, Ocoee, French Broad and Pigeon rivers.

“We do rivers really well,” Boike says. The seven river outpost locations across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee include outfitter stores in Gatlinburg, Tenn., at Asheville’s Grove Park Inn and at the main campus.

“NOC originated as a whitewater rafting company, and it is the activity we are most known for,” says Boike, who first visited when she was 8 and has worked there since 1998. “NOC is one of the largest outfitters probably in the United States, definitely in the Southeast,” she says.

Along with offering guided trips and rentals, NOC sells

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NANTAHALA OUTDOOR CENTER

Nantahala is a Cherokee term for “land of the noonday sun,” reflecting the scenic 8-mile gorge on the north end of the 40-mile river flowing near today’s Georgia and North Carolina line. Cliffs as high as 2,000 feet overlook both sides of the river, making for little sunshine except at midday and a typically cool temperature even in summer months. The Nantahala Dam, which was completed in 1942 to impound Nantahala Lake, controls the river’s flow with a balance of limiting flooding and providing consistent water flow needed for whitewater sports.

The river is known for its wide range of rapids that attract both beginner and expert paddlers capable of traversing dangerous Class VI rapids. Two-lane U.S. 19/74 runs along the river. Most of the area became the Nantahala National Forest in 1920.

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Pigeon Outpost

French Broad Outpost

Pig

d Rive roa hB nc Fre ver n Ri eo

Gatlinburg

NOC Gatlinburg

I-40

I-40

NOC Asheville

Asheville

r

Bryson City

Ocoee Outpost

N a nt a h a l

Nantahala Outpost Outp

NORTH CAROLINA

I-85

Outfitters Store

Riv

at

er

O co ee R i v

er

a

I-26

t o o ga River

TENNESSEE

Ch

SOUTH CAROLINA Greenville

Chattooga Outpost Ch att ah ooc hee

R i v er

GEORGIA

I-26

Chattahoochee Metro Outpost

I-85

Chattahoochee Roswell Outpost Atlanta

▲NOC’s main campus in Bryson City is 150 miles from Atlanta and 190 miles from Charlotte.

kayaks, paddling gear, apparel and other products.

About 450 employees work at NOC’s main campus during the prime season. Revenue increased by 21% over the past two years, including a 17% gain at the North Carolina locations, Boike says.

“I know from my own observations — and observations from folks around me — that things have been really busy” at U.S. paddle-sport destinations, says Mark Singleton, executive director at American Whitewater, a Cullowhee-based nonprofit that promotes the preservation of whitewater rivers.

“It’s a tough business because in the tourism industry, you constantly have to reinvent yourself or reinvent your product,” he says. “With the pandemic, we are seeing a reconnection with nature and a reconnection with family, and that is driving an increase in participation.”

Singleton worked for NOC for about 13 years, including serving as vice president of marketing, before joining American Whitewater in 2004. He recalls that busy years at the center’s main campus in Bryson City correlated with strong tourism at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is about 28 miles northeast. Last year, a record 14.1 million people visited the national park.

“NOC is a destination for tourism, and the [national park] is a destination for tourism.”

NOC has a significant impact on the region’s economy, adds Chris Cavanaugh, founder of Magellan Strategy Group, an Asheville consultant. He’s prepared end-of-sea-

son guest surveys for the center for about five years. “Just under half of all their guests say that NOC is their primary reason for their trip to the region,” he says.

While NOC attracts many first-time visitors, its repeat business is notable. “One of the things we have measured is that they have incredible brand loyalty among their guests. As much as anything, there is a level of trust among first-time and repeat guests,” Cavanaugh says.

The end-of-season surveys reveal consistent, high-level guest satisfaction as measured by a net promoter score, a standard way of measuring satisfaction.

“That is extraordinary when you think about the fact that the river experience is subject to the whims of the weather. It is subject to varying river levels and a variety of many other factors out of NOC’s control,” he says.

Much has changed since the Kennedys and Horace Holden Sr. started NOC. But Catherine’s affinity for sharing a love for whitewater has remained constant. She still paddles — for work and for play — several times a week, depending on the time of year. ■

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uke University Hospital of Durham and Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital of Greensboro tied for top honors in this year’s annual ranking of North Carolina’s best hospitals. Even in legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last year, the quality of the Blue Devil basketball program was not a factor.

Rather, Business North Carolina’s annual list is calculated using more than 25 health care metrics, including information collected by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The report includes patient-satisfaction surveys, as well as infection, readmission and mortality rates for common procedures.

Other factors include safety report cards by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit The Leapfrog Group, distinction awards from insurer Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and national performance ratings from U.S. News & World Report.

Duke’s largest hospital moved up from second in 2021 and fourth a year earlier. Its affiliate in Durham, Duke Regional Hospital, tied for third, moving up from 13th last

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year. The former county-owned hospital became a partner with the university system in 1998 and changed its name from Durham Regional Hospital in 2013.

Meanwhile, Moses H. Cone has been a longtime top performer, ranking sixth last year, second in 2020 and first in 2019. It is the largest hospital owned by Greensborobased Cone Health.

Several other big North Carolina hospitals moved up sharply this year. UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill tied for third after ranking 10th in 2021, while WakeMed Health & Hospitals of Raleigh improved to fifth from 15th a year earlier. Among the state’s smaller independent operators, CaroMont Health of Gastonia ranked eighth and CarolinaEast Health System of New Bern was 12th.

The methodology used to create our list tends to favor large institutions, which gain more points based on national awards and performance rankings. Fewer procedures are often performed at smaller hospitals, which eliminates them from some of the categories that are used for our calculations.

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2/18/22 7:41 AM

DUKE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL DURHAM

BEDS: 957 2021 RANK: 2 PRESIDENT: THOMAS OWENS

Duke University Hospital placed the final piece of its 11-floor Duke Central Tower — a $265 million project whose 490,000 square feet includes 350 beds — when it welcomed Duke Children’s Hospital in December. It occupies the tower’s first four floors, where larger rooms accommodate patients’ parents for stays that can stretch for months.

There also is an in-house pharmacy service, two pediatric catheterization labs, family zones and activity rooms.

Oncology, transplant, orthopedic and neuroscience units had already relocated to the tower. Their former rooms will be renovated.

Duke Health’s heart transplant program is among the nation’s top six by volume. Last year, its surgeons implanted a new-generation artificial heart in an adult patient, marking a first in North America. Another groundbreaking case involved the country’s first heart transplant after circulatory death in a pediatric patient. This type of transplant is not new for the hospital, whose surgeons performed the first such procedure involving an adult patient in 2019.

MOSES H. CONE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL GREENSBORO

BEDS: 529 2021 RANK: T-6 PRESIDENT: PRESTON HAMMOCK

Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital’s parent — 13,000-employee Cone Health — and Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Healthcare mutually ended a merger deal last year that would have created an $11 billion system. Officials said they could better serve their communities by remaining independent. The deal would have given Sentara a better foothold in North Carolina, where it only owns Albemarle Regional in Elizabeth City.

Mary Jo Cagle became Cone Health’s CEO in June, the first woman and physician to hold the position. She joined the Greensboro-based health-care system in 2011, when she was named chief quality officer, and she most recently served as chief operating officer. Terry Akin, who had been CEO since 2014, had announced he would step down once the merger with Sentara was complete. President Preston Hammock has led Cone hospital’s day-to-day operations since 2019.

DUKE REGIONAL HOSPITAL DURHAM

BEDS: 369 2021 RANK: T-13 PRESIDENT: KATIE GALBRAITH

Duke University Health System’s $102.4 million Behavioral Health Center opened at Duke Regional in April. The center combines services that were offered at Duke University and Duke Regional hospitals. It includes 42 private patient rooms, two secure courtyards, an expanded emergency department with 18 private treatment spaces and 30 outpatient clinic rooms.

For 45 years, the hospital has served Durham, Orange, Person, Granville, Alamance and surrounding counties. It employs more than 3,500 people. President Katie Galbraith has held several responsibilities at Duke since 2001 and has served as Duke Regional’s leader for about eight years.

TIED

UNC HOSPITALS CHAPEL HILL

BEDS: 929 2021 RANK: T-10 PRESIDENT: JANET HADAR

UNC Chapel Hill has received more than $1 billion in research awards for two straight years. UNC Hospitals and its affiliated medical school account for a big chunk of the funding. The sister organization of UNC Rex Healthcare is a national leader in medical innovation.

Two major construction projects are underway on the Chapel Hill campus: a 172,000-square-foot School of Medicine medical education building, which is expected to open in November, and a 357,000-square-foot surgical tower slated for early 2024. The tower in front of N.C. Memorial Hospital will feature modern surgical spaces and better patient rooms.

UNC Hospitals is an academic medical center and teaching hospital that is part of UNC Health Care, which owns or operates a dozen hospitals in North Carolina. UNC Health had revenue of about $4.4 billion in its 2020 fiscal year.

It has among the strongest credit ratings among U.S. hospitals.

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UNC REX HEALTHCARE RALEIGH

BEDS: 660 2021 RANK: 1 PRESIDENT: ERNIE BOVIO

The UNC Health affiliate opened its $170 million hospital in fast-growing Holly Springs in southeastern Wake County in November, adding 50 inpatient beds, operating rooms, seven labor-and-delivery rooms and an emergency department. About 300 people staff it. Meanwhile, its main campus in west Raleigh is adding a $65 million, 144,000-square-foot cancer center in March. It will supplement suburban cancer treatment sites in four other Wake County locations.

UNC Rex ranks second in market share in Wake County with about 24% of patient revenue, trailing WakeMed Hospitals and Healthcare, according to Fitch Ratings. The unit earned an operating margin of about 7% in the 2021 fiscal year, which is likely to expand to 9% in coming years, the ratings agency estimated.

UNC Rex is the sole hospital in North Carolina, and among only 23 nationally, to receive a top A rating every year since the nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based Leapfrog Group started rating hospitals for patient quality and safety in 2012.

WAKEMED HEALTH & HOSPITALS RALEIGH

BEDS: 726 2021 RANK: T-16 CEO AND PRESIDENT: DONALD GINTZIG

WakeMed was founded in 1961 and now has a leading 44% market share of its primary Wake County service area, a 2% increase over the past two years, according to the Fitch Ratings credit service. The not-for-profit organization has complexes in southeast Raleigh, Cary and north Raleigh, with a network of more than 400 primary-care and specialty physicians.

Fitch reported that a $60 million addition at the Cary location added 60 beds, bringing its total to 208, when it was completed last year.

WakeMed had operating income of $39.5 million in its 2020 fiscal year, producing an 8.2% margin, according to a Fitch. The organization employs more than 10,000 people.

ATRIUM HEALTH CABARRUS CONCORD

BEDS: 457 2021 RANK: T-6 VICE PRESIDENT: ASHA RODRIGUEZ

Atrium Health Cabarrus, the only acute-care hospital in its namesake county, has plans to add a fifth floor and 30 beds to its Cabarrus County Heart and Vascular Tower, which opened in 2019 at a cost of $115 million. The $47 million addition is in response to findings in the 2021 State Medical Facilities report that pointed to Cabarrus’ need for 22 more acute-care beds to meet its growing population. The floor will add those beds and eight from Hayes Family Center, which is on its campus. Construction is expected to start next year and be complete in 2025.

Other recent investments include an updated women’s center at the hospital, whose operations are overseen by facility executive Asha Rodriguez and Roy Hawkins Jr., who was named Atrium’s north market president in September. A former hospital CEO in Florida, Hawkins also oversees Atrium’s Stanly and University City hospitals, along with standalone emergency departments in Huntersville, Harrisburg and Kannapolis.

ATRIUM HEALTH CAROLINAS MEDICAL CENTER CHARLOTTE

BEDS: 907 2021 RANK: 12 VICE PRESIDENT: D. CHANNING ROUSH

Construction is underway for Charlotte’s first four-year medical school, an effort backed by Atrium Health, Wake Forest Baptist Health and Wake Forest University. Wake Forest School of Medicine-Charlotte will be a neighbor to Atrium’s flagship, Carolinas Medical Center, when it opens in 2024. Plans call for about 3,500 students enrolled in more than 100 specialized programs, creating a massive economic impact for the Charlotte region. Atrium and Wake Forest Baptist partnered in a 2020 merger with the combined organization governed by a board led by Atrium officials.

Atrium expects the school’s graduates to help staff its expansions. It filed three projects with regulators in October, including adding 75 beds at Carolinas Medical Center, 36 in Pineville and 12 at the University hospital in northeast Charlotte. The three projects represent a combined $155 million investment.

Atrium also is building a $53.8 million hospital in Steele Creek in Mecklenburg County that will open in 2024, the same year it plans to open a $154 million, 160,000-square-foot hospital with 30 beds in Cornelius. In February, it opened Atrium Health Union West, a 40-bed, 150,000-square-foot hospital in Stallings. Other projects include standalone emergency departments in the Ballantyne and Mountain Island areas of Mecklenburg County.

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CAROMONT REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER GASTONIA

BEDS: 435 2021 RANK: 3 CEO AND PRESIDENT: CHRIS PEEK

Growth is the name of Gastonia-based CaroMont Health’s current game, which includes a $90 million criticalcare tower at its hometown CaroMont Regional Medical Center. Set to open early next year, its 146,000 square feet is spread across four floors and includes 26 private intensive-care rooms, centralized nursing stations and administrative space.

The tower is part of a $350 million, five-year investment by the health-care system. The biggest project is a $196 million, 66-bed hospital in Belmont scheduled to open next year. It will have an emergency department, operating rooms, labor-and-delivery unit and imaging services. The hospital is being built near Interstate 85 and Belmont Abbey College, which will offer health care courses in partnership with CaroMont. The not-for-profit system also has opened an urgent care site in Belmont and a primary care office in nearby Cramerton.

NOVANT HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN MEDICAL CENTER CHARLOTTE

BEDS: 597 2021 RANK: 11 COO AND PRESIDENT: SAAD ETHTISHAM

In January, UNC School of Medicine welcomed the first nine students to its Charlotte campus, which is based at Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center. It’s the Chapel Hill-based school’s third branch campus. It has a capacity of 30 third- and fourth-year students, and studies focus on health equity. The effort began in 2020, when Novant, UNC Health and UNC School of Medicine agreed to expand medical-education, research and clinical services.

Like its peer Atrium Health, Novant is enlarging its Charlotte region footprint to serve a growing population. Construction on the $180 million Ballantyne Medical Center is underway in south Charlotte with an opening likely in 2023. The project includes a 168,000-square-foot, 36-bed hospital and medical office building. Last spring, regulators approved Novant’s $178.6 million Steele Creek Medical Center, which will cover 186,000 square feet and have 32 beds. It’s expected to open in 2025.

State regulators also recently granted Novant approval to add 35 acute-care beds at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. The Winston-Salem health care system spent about $2 billion to purchase Wilmington’s dominant provider in February 2021. It also is building a $210 million, 66-bed hospital in nearby Scotts Hill that is slated to open in 2024.

WAKE FOREST BAPTIST HEALTH HIGH POINT MEDICAL CENTER HIGH POINT

CAROLINAEAST HEALTH SYSTEM NEW BERN

MISSION HOSPITAL ASHEVILLE

FIRSTHEALTH MOORE REGIONAL HOSPITAL PINEHURST

FRYE REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER A DUKE LIFEPOINT HOSPITAL HICKORY

PRESIDENT AND CEO: JIM HOEKSTRA BEDS: 351 2021 RANK: T-13 PRESIDENT AND CEO: G. RAYMOND LEGGETT III BEDS: 350 2021 RANK: T-6

CEO: CHAD PATRICK BEDS: 730 2021 RANK: T-4

CEO: MICKEY FOSTER BEDS: 390 2021 RANK: T-4

CEO: ROD HARKLEROAD BEDS: 355 2021 RANK: T-16

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NOVANT HEALTH FORSYTH MEDICAL CENTER WINSTON-SALEM

WAKE FOREST BAPTIST MEDICAL CENTER WINSTON-SALEM

DUKE RALEIGH HOSPITAL RALEIGH

NOVANT HEALTH MATTHEWS MEDICAL CENTER MATTHEWS

CATAWBA VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER HICKORY

WAKEMED CARY HOSPITAL CARY

ATRIUM HEALTH PINEVILLE CHARLOTTE

HAYWOOD REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER A DUKE LIFEPOINT HOSPITAL CLYDE

NASH UNC HEALTH CARE ROCKY MOUNT

IREDELL HEALTH SYSTEM STATESVILLE

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PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: CHAD SETLIFF BEDS: 921 2021 RANK: T-6

CEO: JULIE ANN FREISCHLAG BEDS: 885 2021 RANK: 15

PRESIDENT: BARBARA GRIFFITH BEDS: 186 2021 RANK: T-26

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: JASON BERND BEDS: 146 2021 RANK: 19

PRESIDENT AND CEO: EDWARD BEARD BEDS: 258 2021 RANK: T-23

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT: TOM HUGHES BEDS: 921 2021 RANK: T-6

VICE PRESIDENT: ALICIA CAMPBELL BEDS: 235 2021 RANK: T-16

CEO: GREG CAPLES BEDS: 189 2021 RANK: T-29

CEO: L. LEE ISLEY BEDS: 345 2021 RANK: 42

PRESIDENT AND CEO: JOHN GREEN BEDS: 247 2021 RANK: T-37

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These are the top acute-care hospitals in the state with 50 or more beds based on the percentage of patients who would recommend the hospital to others, as of December 2021. The ranking is based on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, a survey completed by adult hospital patients between 48 hours and six weeks after discharge.

Rank

HOSPITAL

location

1

Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Health - Davie Medical Center

2

patient score%

last year’s ranking

Bermuda Run

91

N.A.

FirstHealth Moore Regional

Pinehurst

85

1

3

Duke University Hospital

Durham

84

T-4

4

UNC Rex Healthcare

Raleigh

84

T-2

5

AdventHealth Hendersonville

Hendersonville

84

T-4

6

Duke Regional Hospital

Durham

81

T-11

7

UNC Hospitals

Chapel Hill

81

T-4

8

The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital

Greensboro

80

T-16

9

Catawba Valley Medical Center

Hickory

80

NA

10

Carteret Health Care

Morehead City

80

NA

11

CarolinaEast Health System

New Bern

79

T-7

12

Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital

Elkin

79

T-16

13

Novant Health Huntersville Medical Center

Huntersville

78

T-22

14

Harris Regional Hospital (Duke LifePoint)

Sylva

78

NA

15

Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Winston-Salem

77

T-16

16

Watauga Medical Center

Boone

77

T-22

17

Mission Hospital McDowell

Marion

77

NA

18

WakeMed Health & Hospitals

Raleigh

76

T-77

19

Duke Raleigh Hospital

Raleigh

76

T-16

20

WakeMed Cary Hospital

Cary

76

NA

21

Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center

Charlotte

75

T-22

22

Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center

Wilmington

75

T-11

23

Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center

Bolivia

75

NA

24

Atrium Health Cabarrus

Concord

74

NA

25

Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center

Winston-Salem

74

T-11

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BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD OF NORTH CAROLINA

THE STATE’S LARGEST HEALTH INSURER RECOGNIZES HOSPITALS FOR THEIR QUALITY OF CARE IN CERTAIN SPECIALTIES, BASED ON CRITERIA INCLUDING PATIENT SAFETY AND RESULTS AND INPUT FROM THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY. THE HOSPITALS LISTED HERE WERE DESIGNATED AS BLUE DISTINCTION CENTERS AS OF EARLY JANUARY.

Atrium Health Cabarrus

Duke Regional Hospital

Bariatric surgery; cardiac care; spine surgery

Bariatric surgery; cardiac care; knee and hip replacement; maternity care; spine surgery

Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center Knee and hip replacement; adult liver transplant-deceased donor; adult bone marrow/stem cells transplant; pediatric heart transplant; pediatric bone marrow/stem cells transplant

Atrium Health Mercy

Duke University Hospital Spine surgery; adult lung transplant; adult liver transplantdeceased donor; adult bone marrow/stem cells transplant; adult pancreas transplant; pediatric heart transplant; pediatric bone marrow/stem cells transplant; pediatric liver transplant; pediatric kidney transplant

Bariatric surgery

FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital Caldwell UNC Health Care

Bariatric surgery; cardiac care; maternity care; spine surgery

Maternity care

Cape Fear Valley Medical Center

Frye Regional Medical Center, A Duke LifePoint Hospital

Bariatric surgery

Bariatric surgery; spine surgery

CarolinaEast Medical Center

Harris Regional Hospital, A Duke Lifepoint Hospital

Cardiac care; maternity care

CaroMont Regional Medical Center Knee and hip replacement; maternity care; spine surgery

Maternity care

Haywood Regional Medical Center, A Duke LifePoint Hospital Knee and hip replacement; maternity care

Carteret Health Care Bariatric surgery

Iredell Health System Knee and hip replacement; maternity care

Catawba Valley Medical Center Bariatric surgery; maternity care

Lake Norman Regional Medical Center Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement; maternity care

Duke Raleigh Hospital Spine surgery

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Mission Hospital

UNC Rex Healthcare

Bariatric surgery

Bariatric surgery; cardiac care; knee and hip replacement; spine surgery

Moses Cone Hospital Cardiac care; knee and hip replacement; spine surgery

Vidant Medical Center Bariatric surgery

Nash UNC Health Care Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement; maternity care

Vidant North Hospital Knee and hip replacement

Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement; spine surgery

Wake Forest Baptist Health-Davie Medical Center Knee and hip replacement

Novant Health Kernersville Bariatric surgery

Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center Bariatric surgery; cardiac care; knee and hip replacement

Novant Health Rowan Medical Center

Wake Forest Baptist HealthHigh Point Regional Medical Center Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement

Wake Forest Baptist HealthLexington Medical Center Knee and hip replacement

Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Onslow Memorial Hospital Maternity care

Pardee UNC Health Care Knee and hip replacement

Rutherford Regional Medical Center Knee and hip replacement

Sentara Albemarle Medical Center Knee and hip replacement

UNC Hospitals Bariatric surgery; cardiac care; knee and hip replacement; spine surgery; adult heart transplant; adult liver transplant-deceased donor; adult bone marrow/stem cells transplant; pediatric heart transplant; pediatric bone marrow/stem cells transplant; pediatric kidney transplant; adult kidney transplant-deceased donor; adult kidney transplant-living donor

Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement; spine surgery; adult heart transplant; adult bone marrow/stem cells transplant; adult pancreas transplant

WakeMed Cary Hospital Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement; maternity care

WakeMed Raleigh Campus Knee and hip replacement; maternity care; spine surgery

Wesley Long Hospital Bariatric surgery; knee and hip replacement

Wilson Medical Center Knee and hip replacement; maternity care

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U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT

Abd om ina l ao Aor rtic tic v ane alve ury s sm u Bac rge rep ry k su air rge r y Can cer Car diol ogy / he Chr art onic sur ger obs y truc Col tive on c pulm anc ona er s Dia ry d urg bet isea ery es / se end ocr Ear inol , no ogy se a nd t Gas hro troe at nte rolo Gyn gy / eco GI s logy urg ery Hea rt a ttac k Hea rt b ypa ss s Hea urg rt fa ery ilur e Hip frac ture Hip rep lace me Kid nt ney failu re Kne e re plac em Lun ent g ca nce r sur Ma ger tern y ity c are Pne um onia Stro ke Neu rolo gy/N eur Orth osu ope rge dics ry Pul mo nolo gy Uro logy

Hospitals listed here are ranked regionally or nationally by U.S. News & World Report, which assesses performance in various adult specialties and selected lower-acuity procedures that require a reduced level of care. Patient survival is weighted heaviest, while safety, staffing and other factors are also considered.

Nationally ranked National rank High-performing in this specialty or procedure

AdventHealth Hendersonville Alamance Regional Medical Center

•

Hendersonville Burlington

•

Atrium Health Cabarrus

Concord

•

•

•

Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center

Charlotte

•

•

•

Atrium Health Cleveland

Shelby

•

Atrium Health Lincoln

Lincolnton

•

Atrium Health Pineville

Charlotte

•

Atrium Health Union

Monroe

•

Betsy Johnson Hospital

Dunn

•

Fayetteville

•

•

•

•

Gastonia

•

•

Sanford

•

Duke Raleigh Hospital

Raleigh

•

Duke Regional Hospital

Durham

•

Duke University Hospital

Durham

•

FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital

Pinehurst

•

Frye Regional Medical Center, A Duke LifePoint Hospital

Hickory

•

Haywood Regional Medical Center, A Duke LifePoint Hospital

Clyde

•

Iredell Health System

Statesville

•

Cape Fear Valley Medical Center CarolinaEast Medical Center CaroMont Regional Medical Center Central Carolina Hospital, A Duke LifePoint Hospital

New Bern

•

•

•

•

•

•

• • •

•

• •

•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

•

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

• • •

•

•

•

•

• •

•

•

•

• 35 39 •

• 36 33 32 44 •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• 31 22 35 42

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

•

•

•

source: U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals (2020-21), based on American Hospital Association data, Medicare data and physician surveys

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DESTINATIONS NC

CORPORATE & LEISURE TRAVEL

HOME REMEDY Tourism was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. But North Carolina’s hospitality industry adjusted better than most states and is poised for a rebound, thanks to diverse attractions, open space and public health programs.

Thirty miles from the mainland evershifting sands form North Carolina’s Outer Banks. They’re a front-row seat to Mother Nature’s grand show. “The wind blows harder, the waves break bigger and you just feel connected with nature and the elements, in a deeper way,” says Lee Nettles, a longtime coastal resident and Outer Banks Visitors Bureau’s executive director. “Even on our busiest week, it’s possible to walk out onto the seashore and look in either direction and not see another person.

I think it’s important, especially in this day and age, to feel small and kind of recognize your place in the world.”

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Outer Banks tourism took off in the 1940s, and visitors continue to come from far and wide to watch wild horses graze, 300 bird species pause during their migrations and dolphins leap from blue water. They climb towering lighthouses that steered sailors through treacherous waters — the Graveyard of the Atlantic. In between, they visit National Park Service sites, tour museums, shop, fish, boat, swim and enjoy soft sand under their feet.

Dare County, which stretches from Hatteras to Duck, is at the Outer Banks’ heart. Visitors spent a record $1.4 billion there in 2020, according to VisitNC, the

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tourism promotion arm of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. But it wasn’t smooth sailing for the tourism industry everywhere in the state that year, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Stay-at-home orders were issued around the world to slow the pandemic’s spread, nearly stopping the tourism industry in the process. “The last year and a half have had challenges,” Nettles says. North Carolina visitors spent $19.7 billion in 2020, 32% less than the prior year, and 86 of the state’s 100 counties recorded less visitor spending. Tourism employment followed SPONSORED SECTION

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suit, declining 26% to 178,685.

Leisure travel is behind most of North Carolina tourism’s success during the pandemic, setting up a quicker than expected recovery. “We expect this summer to be as strong, if not slightly stronger, than last year,” says Jim Browder, Crystal Coast Tourism Development Authority executive director. “Beaches and mountains will continue to be in high demand.”

Business travel, including meetings and conventions, has lagged, but it’s expected to return. “You can’t form new relationships over Zoom,” says Andrew Schmidt, president and CEO of Greeville-Pitt County Convention and Visitors Bureau and recently named president of the North Carolina Travel Industry Association. “You can’t top face-to-face.”

North Carolina offers what tourists changed by the pandemic want: plenty of things to do in a safe environment.

Its variety of attractions, spread from its 300-mile-long shore to the highest mountain in the East, did much to keep

its tourism industry afloat during the pandemic. Other efforts also helped the tourism industry find calm waters.

Count on Me NC, for example, was a public health program that helped business create a safe environment and then promote their efforts to residents and visitors alike.

SPORTS The Little League Softball World Series was played in Greenville’s Stallings Stadium in August 2021, the first of a five-year run in the city.

Though COVID-19 restrictions blocked international entrants and limited each entry to 99 spectators, 10 U.S. teams participated in the tournament, which was covered by ESPN. “That’s the thing about sports tourism,” Schmidt says. “It’s valid exposure for your city. That and outdoor leisure and recreation are the two markets that stayed stable throughout COVID across North Carolina.”

North Carolina is the ticket for sports enthusiasts. “The great thing about

North Carolina is you’ve got such a variety of sports and event-watching opportunities, from equestrian to baseball and college football with tailgating,” Schmidt says. “And let’s not forget college basketball. You could absolutely do a ‘sports vacation.’”

Many auto-racing fans regularly travel to North Carolina. It’s home to the NASCAR Hall of Fame and many short tracks where its inductees got their start. More than 50,000 gathered for the 2021 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which also is home to the first four-lane dragstrip and a 4/10-mile dirt track.

Traditional stick-and-ball sports are a win with tourists, too. The NFL’s Carolina Panthers, NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes play in North Carolina. There are 12 minor league baseball teams. There’s professional soccer and of course golf.

Pinehurst — the home of American golf — will again host the U.S. Open in 2024, and the PGA Tour has regular stops in Charlotte and Greensboro.

A distant view of Charlotte from Crowders Mountain State Park, a popular destination for hikers and rock climbers, near Gastonia.

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DESTINATIONS NC

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OUTDOOR RECREATION The Outer Banks’ 100 miles of shoreline and Crystal Coast’s 85 miles offer extensive oceanfront opportunities for children, couples and groups. Many are set in wide-open spaces. “People are wanting to get out and travel, and outdoor recreation is an excellent option,” Schmidt says.

It’s no different in western North Carolina, where 6,684-foot Mount Mitchell stands taller than any other peak east of the Mississippi River. There is hiking, camping, golf, biking and places that welcome the family dog.

“Our fresh, wide-open spaces and longstanding reputation for health, wellness and connection with nature have drawn

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Located on 8,000 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Biltmore Estate is a popular western North Carolina destination.

travelers to heal and rejuvenate for more than a century,” says Victoria Isley, president and CEO of Explore Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Besides its natural beauty and cultural legacies, Asheville is also known for its distinct arts and music scene, small boutique retailers, talented street performers, craft beverage purveyors and its highly creative and collaborative food scene.”

This spring, Asheville Wellness Tours will offer “Forest Bathe in the Light of the Full Moon,” a guided twilight nature walk inspired by Shinrin-Yoku, the Japanese art of immersing oneself in a forest environment. “In many ways, Asheville has always been North Carolina’s creative frontier,” Isley says.

“Surrounded by the highest peaks in the eastern U.S., residents of this mountain city are driven by a proud, rugged spirit of independence and creativity. There’s so much to love here.”

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ARTS & CULTURE

Photo courtesy of esquirehotel.com

Many North Carolina cities, including Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington and Winston-Salem, offer venues for large gatherings, events and productions. “We’re very wellpositioned for arts and culture,” Schmidt says. “A lot of national productions come through here.”

Stages statewide welcome Broadway musicals, such as “Hamilton,” Opera Carolina productions and professional dance troupes such as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Charlotte Ballet. Major-label recording artists from every musical genre perform at clubs, theatres, arenas and expansive outdoor venues.

Museums statewide meet myriad interests. Mount Airy, for example, is home to the Andy Griffith Museum and was the basis for his iconic television show. North Carolina’s strong role in the country’s military might is on display at U.S. Army Airborne & Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville. And in Kitty

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At Barrister’s in the Esquire Hotel in Gastonia, visitors enjoy Southern-inspired cuisine in an elegant, renovated space with soaring 20-foot-high ceilings.

Hawk on the Outer Banks, the Wright Brothers National Memorial details how manned flight first took off.

Accommodations, amenities and activities are safe and ready. “Our biggest challenge is balancing the demand of the many visitors that return year after year

with the abundance of new visitors that wish to return as well,” says the Crystal Coast’s Browder. “It’s a great problem to have right now.”

— Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

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ONE-TWO PUNCH Innovations and education are setting up a striking future for North Carolina agriculture and agribusiness.

Butler Farms raises hogs. They help with the bottom line in the traditional ways, but the animals have taken on a new role, though passive in nature.

They provide the farm and surrounding neighborhood with electricity, even if others nearby are in the dark.

The Harnett County farm captures methane released from its hogs’ waste, burning it in a power plant to generate electricity. It makes more power with a solar-panel farm, which is complemented with battery storage.

That keeps power flowing at night and on overcast days. Both feed into the farm’s award-winning microgrid, which was developed in partnership with

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the local electric cooperative — South River EMC — and North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives in 2017. The microgrid supplements and diversifies South River’s traditional power distribution system and ensures the farm and several surrounding homes have power during outages.

Agriculture, including food, fiber, and forestry, is North Carolina’s largest industry, according to the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It contributes $95.9 billion to the state’s economy each year and employs nearly 1 in 5 of its workers. Getting it to that point took a lot of hard work. Moving it forward

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will require innovation, including the energy used in agriculture and the education that will help create it.

MODERN TECHNOLOGY New sources of energy, and the technology to create, deliver and use them, are increasing efficiency at agricultural operations statewide, says Jim Musilek, vice president of innovation and business development for North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives. “Cooperatives are working with our agricultural members to help identify new ways to reduce farms’ carbon footprints, lower operating costs and provide SPONSORED SECTION

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An Alleghany County farm in the Appalachian Mountains.

added resiliency, productivity and convenience,” he says. “Examples of these efforts include ground-breaking energy projects, the electrification of farm equipment and processes, and efforts to reduce farm-energy costs.”

Microgrids, electric equipment, such as irrigation pumps, forklifts and tractors and indoor agriculture are just a few ways that electric cooperatives are helping boost their agricultural customers’ operations. In the process, customers are moving away from fossil fuels, lowering costs and creating economic opportunities.

White Rock Farms in Anson County, for example, has hog facilities,

A Christmas tree farm near Boone in the Blue Ridge Mountains. More than 20% of the Christmas trees sold in the United States each year come from North Carolina.

chicken houses and a Jersey dairy.

Through a partnership with Pee Dee Electric and North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives, it received a $25,000 grant from Beneficial Electrification League, an innovation-focused national

collaborative. The farm is converting an animal waste lagoon pumping system to a large single-phase electric motor from a diesel engine. The new motor is a more affordable alternative to the three-phase power that typically is

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used to manage livestock waste.

“Using a large horsepower singlephase electric motor is a game changer, and in this case it’s a winner for everyone involved,” Musilek says.

“White Rock Farms will save on diesel fuel, have less downtime and more productivity. It stands as a model for other farmers looking to integrate similar technology.”

As North Carolina welcomes more food manufacturing, demand for transport refrigeration units — TRUs — is growing in step. They’re needed to move the sector’s perishable products.

The cooling units on traditional TRUs use diesel fuel, which brings a host of environmental concerns. So, eTRUs — electric and hybrid powered TRUs — are rolling out in response.

Musilek says electric cooperatives and utilities are building infrastructure to support eTRUs. “These systems aren’t new, but they are becoming more environ-

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PHOTO CREDIT: JAMES PARKER/N.C. A&T STATE UNIVERSITY’S COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Sanjun Gu, a horticulture professor at N.C. A&T State University, is part of a team researching ginger as a viable crop for North Carolina farmers. Ginger has both strong health benefits and a high profit margin, making it a desirable boutique crop for small farmers.

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mentally friendly and efficient as they make the switch from gas to hybrid engines,” he says. “Food processors, the cut-flower industry, even computers and other items that require climate-controlled transport, can benefit from these trucks.”

Electrification in all its forms is a component of N.C. Electric Cooperatives’ BEST Solutions initiative, which provides customized tools and technologies to help agricultural, commercial and industrial co-op members save money, improve efficiency and reach sustainability goals. “Electricity prices are fairly stable — more so than diesel fuel and propane — so to the extent farm owners can mitigate their fuel cost risk by using electricity, that’s something they are interested in,” Musilek says.

PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT North Carolina’s agriculture industry receives support beyond technology. Educational institutions are training a new generation of workers, who have the skills to create and implement innovations.

Kenrett Jefferson-Moore is a professor and Department of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education chairwoman at N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro. She is convinced that the agriculture industry’s continued prosperity is tied to innovation.

“Thanks to continued improvements in technology, precision agriculture and the use of drones, I believe we’re moving in the right direction, and the sky’s the limit,” she says.

N.C. A&T’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences offers 21 undergraduate majors and five master’s degrees. It added a Ph.D. program in November, enrolling its first five students for the spring 2022

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An automatic robotic arm harvesting lettuce in a hydroponic farm is one example of how technology is being used to advance agriculture.

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semester. Students specialize in one of five concentrations: food science, human nutrition and health; sustainable agriculture and environmental sciences; agribusiness and applied economics; agricultural and extension education; or sustainable animal production and health. From research to teaching, public policy to marketing, life sciences to biotechnology, its graduates choose from a wealth of professional pathways, JeffersonMoore says. Some may go on to careers supporting farms, where technology is thriving.

N.C. A&T opened its $6 million Extension and Research Farm Pavilion for agriculture research and education on its 492-acre research farm in

Greensboro in September. Its 17,000 square feet includes a 500-seat auditorium, classrooms, labs, conference room and kitchen. It will be used to conduct research and deliver educational programming to students, farmers and the community. Additional projects planned for the space include an amphitheater; a community and urban food complex with a dairy, research labs, classrooms; and a smallbusiness incubator.

The pavilion was built with funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

“Many of our students want to be part of an industry where they can contribute to society through

their profession, and we must have food to sustain ourselves,” JeffersonMoore says. “We also have a growing population, and in the years ahead we will have to feed so many more people. It’s important for students to earn different ways of improving our efficiency and production as well as making sure food is accessible to everyone.” ■ — Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.

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UNCOVERING TREASURE Consumers want more peanuts and products made from them. That’s putting North Carolina farmers and their bumper crop in a sweet spot.

Brad West is a fifth-generation farmer in the Wayne County community of Fremont. He and his family work about 6,000 acres. They grow a variety of crops, including cotton, sweet potatoes, corn and soybeans, and have a small community strawberry patch. They raise turkeys and pigs, too. “This was my

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great-great grandfather’s farm,” he says.

“I come from several generations of farmers, so I guess when I grew up, it was kind of a no brainer that I would get into the family business. I didn’t know anything else.”

West and his family have been growing peanuts on 1,200 acres since

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2007. He describes his 2021 crop as “above average.” He isn’t alone.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that 2021 was a near-record year for peanuts. North Carolina farmers, for example, harvested 114,000 acres, 9,000 acres more than the year prior.

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The yield per acre of 4,350 pounds exceeded the 2020 estimate by 450 pounds and the state’s 10-year average by almost 350 pounds. And, at 496 million pounds, the state’s peanut production increased 21% from the year prior.

March is National Peanut Month, and North Carolina peanut growers and lovers have much to celebrate. “North Carolina ranks fifth in the nation in peanut production,” says Ashley Collins, CEO of the North Carolina Peanut Growers Association. “We grow a variety of peanut here called the Virginia type, which is used primarily in gourmet nuts, such as the peanuts you find in stores and specialty food markets.”

Collins says about 500 North Carolina farmers plant peanuts in April and harvest them in October and November. It wasn’t long ago when there was only a few. West, a member of the North Carolina Peanut Growers Association Board, remembers when a quota system, which lasted 60 years, discouraged peanut farming. “In Wayne County, there was one farmer who had about 2 acres worth of quota, and that was it,” he says. “After the quota system ended [with the passage of the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill], we waited a few years and then started, and we’ve been raising peanuts about 15 years.”

The decision to grow peanuts is paying off for West and his family.

They have a history of growing cotton, but when cotton prices plummeted almost 20 years ago, they paused planting it for a few years and looked for a different crop that would thrive in Wayne County’s acidic, leached soil.

“We felt peanuts were more profitable than soybeans or corn, so we got into peanut production,” he says. A contract with Virginia-based shelling company Birdsong Peanuts helped their operation take off.

West and other peanut farmers are reaping the rewards of a booming consumer market that loves peanuts and products made from them. National Peanut Board statistics show peanut consumption per capita was up 3% in 2021 over the previous year, a record M A R C H

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of them are extra-large, medium, No. 1s, No. 2s. There are different size variations on those peanuts.”

The contracts between peanut farmers and shelling companies don’t constitute a quota system. Farmers can plant peanuts on as many acres as they want. But there’s no guarantee that a shelling company will buy any peanut beyond what’s stipulated in the contract. “We graded 242,000 tons of peanuts in North Carolina [in 2021],” Hoggard says. “The most I know of on record was 246,000. And I think the second-largest graded crop on record was 243,000. We have the potential of having the second-largest crop on record.”

West says the popular, low-cost and nutritious peanut has a bright future. “I believe the future of agriculture is in edible crops,” he says.

“And peanuts are very important from a nutrition standpoint and from a feedthe-world standpoint.”

West enjoys growing peanuts. “[They] are a fun crop to raise, and they are a pretty crop — the race, the bush,

the vine and the way it looks in the field. I just enjoy it,” he says. Harvest is his favorite. Peanuts are legumes, like kidney beans and black-eyed peas, so they don’t grow on trees like pecans or almonds. The National Peanut Board says peanut plants, which top out at about 18 inches, flower then drop a “peg,” which grows into the soil.

Peanuts form on each underground.

West says when harvesters turn over the soil, treasures that have been NORTH CAROLINA growing all summer are unearthed.

“You know, when you ride by a cotton field, you can see bolls, and you can see what’s out there,” he says. “But with peanuts, you don’t know what’s out there other than vines, because it’s under the ground. And I like the surprise of seeing what we’ve got and how the peanuts look. I just think peanuts are an enjoyable crop, and I enjoy raising them more than anything else we raise.” ■

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— Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.

Got To Be NC is an initiative on behalf of the N.C. Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services to promote the state’s agricultural products and goods. Their mission is to promote and expand markets both domestically and internationally in support of the state’s $95 billion food, fiber and forestry industries.

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PHOTO COLLAGE COURTESY OF GOTOTBENC.COM

for the industry. “That comes down to about every American consuming about 7.9 pounds of peanuts [over the course of year],” Collins says. The National Peanut Board says peanut butter accounts for 56% of all peanuts consumed in 2021. Snacks used 19% of the crop, and 17% went into candies.

Only 5% was sold as in-shell peanuts.

Peanuts are a commodity. Farmers sign contracts with shellers, who buy a predetermined amount of peanuts at a certain price, based on the peanut variety. But before harvested peanuts are sent to the sheller, they are graded. “Peanuts have to get graded at least twice if they’re marketed for human consumption in the United States,” says Gregory Hoggard, grading administrator with the N.C. Department of Agriculture Cooperative Grading Service. “We inspect them at the farmer stop level, when they’re coming out of the field, and when they get to the peanut mills. Then if we inspect them again for the outgoing quality, that’s when they’re sized and some of them are in their shells. Some

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Families or individuals own about 85% of North Carolina’s farms. They play a large role in the state’s agriculture industry, whose economic impact is poised to surpass $100 million.

Pick up a carton of eggs at your local grocery store, and chances are good that they were laid at Braswell Family Farms in Nash County. The nation’s second-largest Eggland franchise, which also sells eggs under its Natural Choice banner, has been in the egg business for nearly a half century. “We’re a fourth-generation family farm,” says Trey Braswell, company president. “Our business began in 1943, when my greatgreat-uncle J.M. Braswell and great-grandad E.G Braswell purchased Boddie Mill.”

Braswell’s father, Scott, launched the family farm’s egg operation in 1979. Today, Braswell Family Farms has a flock of about 1.7 million egg-laying hens, which produce about 1.4 million eggs each day. It has 225 employees and helps about 40 small family farms raise egg-laying chickens. “So, we not only have our

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own production facilities, we are able to help others thrive and provide for their families through our partnerships with other family farms,” Braswell says.

Farms run by families and individuals are an important part of North Carolina’s agriculture industry, which contributes $95.9 billion to the state’s economy, according to Michael Walden, the recently retired William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and extension economist at N.C. State University. They represent about 85% of the 39,452 North Carolina farms counted in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2017 Census of Agriculture, the most recent available.

Corporate farms, on the other hand, made up about 7%.

Family farms will continue to contribute to agriculture’s economic impact, which N.C. Agriculture Secretary Steve Troxler believes will soon surpass $100 billion. “This is an industry with a bright future” he said in a January interview.

“Food and fiber production will always be essential. And, as our population grows, so does the market for food, housing and other amenities.”

Before getting into the egg business, Braswell Family Farms was known for raising high-quality young hens — pullets — for the egg industry. That work is only a portion of what it does today. It also mills feed and markets its eggs to retail grocers such as Harris Teeter, Publix and Lowes Foods. “Our company is certainly different now than it was back in the day, when the industry was

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more segmented,” Braswell says.

“Some farmers produced feed, others would produce pullets, someone else would produce the eggs and someone else packed bags. But now we are vertically integrated.”

From ever-expanding operations like Braswell Family Farms to smaller growers, North Carolina agriculture and agribusiness are on the rise, says Walden, who has been studying and forecasting the economic impact of the state’s agriculture industry for more than 40 years. “North Carolina is very good at producing many agricultural products, but over the years, there has been a big shift from crop products like tobacco to more meat and other animal products,” he wrote in a 2021 report.

Braswell Family Farms hasn’t strayed from its founding principles.

“Those who came before me put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get the company to where it is today,” Braswell says. “I hope to continue building on that strong foundation. We want to grow our people, our products and our partnerships. While I am getting ready to dip my toes into beef, I think eggs will always be our focus. And we’ll continue to look for opportunities to complement that, and we’ll always look for ways of diversifying our operation.” ■ — Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.

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