Business North Carolina November 2021 by Business North Carolina

BUILDING NC: OUR PICKS FOR IMPOSING NEW STRUCTURES TINY TYRRELL’S TEST • BILL WILL’S 90 YEAR STORY • GORDON GRUBB’S IRONWORKS • SMALL-BATCH JAVA

Earth movers

NOVEMBER 2021 Price: $3.95 businessnc.com

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Generations of Weisigers have distributed Caterpillar equipment, creating a celebrated N.C. family business.

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+ DEPARTMENTS 4 UP FRONT 8 PILLARS OF N.C.

Mixing passions for golf, investing and philanthropy has led to a fulfilling life for one of Charlotte’s most prominent advocates.

NOVEMBER 2021

12 NC TREND

Small-batch java in Wendell; ruckus over solar tax credit deals; Coolest Things winner; Gordon Grubb’s biggest venture in Raleigh; pinnacle event of women’s golf; around the state.

82 TOWN SQUARE

Conover carves a distinctive niche as an innovator for manufacturing.

COVER STORY

COOL CATS

+ SPONSORED SECTIONS 28 ROUND TABLE: CYBERSECURITY

Experts discuss the ways enterprises can navigate the cybersecurity environment.

66 WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: TRAINING N.C.

CO V E R P H O TO G R A P H Y B Y J E F F S I N E R

Transportation improvements in Union County have helped create positive change and a better quality of life.

November 2021, Vol. 41, No. 11 (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.

An annual review of many of the state’s most impressive new commercial real-estate projects. BY CAROLINE ZUENDEL AND DAVID MILDENBERG

TYRRELL’S TURNAROUND

Population loss spurs North Carolina’s tiniest county to seek a rebirth. BY COLIN CAMPBELL

RAPID RESPONDERS

76 2021 EVENTS: SCENE SETTERS

Best Employers Awards Gala; Mid-Market Fast 40; N.C. CEO Summit.

BY TED REED

BUILDING N.C.

Through workforce development initiatives, community colleges help drive business and industry.

72 COMMUNITY CLOSE UP: UNION COUNTY

Running a big Caterpillar franchise for nearly a century is a Weisiger family tradition.

Leaders of growing N.C. middle-market firms reflect on reacting to an unprecedented business climate. BY COLIN CAMPBELL

Start your day with business news from across the state, direct to your inbox. SIGN UP AT BUSINESSNC.COM/DAILY-DIGEST. N O V E M B E R

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UPFRONT

► David Mildenberg

A BIG NUMBER

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PUBLISHER

Ben Kinney

bkinney@businessnc.com

e pack every edition of this magazine with lots of numbers. Often too many numbers and too little context. Some of my shrewd colleagues snicker at my insistence on backing up statements with data, preferring a more literary approach. I plead guilty. Too many editors locked the need for such attribution into my brain. But a number caught my attention this month that deserves more attention. The Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina says the pipeline of companies looking to relocate or expand in the state topped $100 billion for the first time in October. “It’s a nice milestone,” says Chris Chung, the public-private partnership’s CEO. In a sector known for boosterism, he’s earned a reputation for professionalism as head of the industry recruiting group since 2015. The $100 billion is based on a spreadsheet of potential deals that is updated monthly. North Carolina won’t win them all. Some won’t materialize. But the number reflects optimism for our state’s future. It also shows a bipartisan consensus among leaders about the value of more jobs and a stronger tax base. Our state leaders don’t agree on many important things. But welcoming companies of all sizes is a priority. It wasn’t less than a decade ago, Chung says, when the state missed out on some deals because lawmakers didn’t respond quickly enough. “We benefit as a state when there is strong bipartisan support,” he says. "It’s a key reason we have had a strong string of major announcements.” Nearly 20 projects of $1 billion-plus are eyeing North Carolina, and such major capital projects are becoming more common. “A billion-dollar project used to be a very big deal,” he says. “But you look at the announcements made in our state over the last year or two, like Centene, Apple and the Red Bull project [in Concord), and it’s different now.” Chung wouldn’t disclose the names

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on the $100 billion list, but he says they are mostly “the sectors that are on fire” and in which the state already has a strong track record. That suggests biotech, logistics and manufacturing. Challenges are all around, but it’s a good time to be in North Carolina. Last month’s 40th anniversary edition sparked lots of nice comments from readers, many of whom are keen observers of our state. It reminded me that life seemed simpler during a previous stint at Business North Carolina in the early 1990s. The formula was straightforward: Write accurate, informative and provocative stories that offer unusual insight into N.C. businesses, accompanied by some alluring photography and art. That remains the primary agenda, but journalism’s shift to a digital, more graphical world requires new skills, quick takes and continuous improvement. We're excited that we have a new associate editor, Jennings Cool, who brings talents that can help us keep raising the bar in print and online.

EDITOR

David Mildenberg

dmildenberg@businessnc.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Jennings Cool

jcool@businessnc.com

Colin Campbell

ccampbell@businessnc.com

Cathy Martin

cmartin@businessnc.com SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Edward Martin

emartin@businessnc.com SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR

Pete Anderson

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Vanessa Infanzon, Connie Gentry, Katherine Snow Smith, Ted Reed, Caroline Zuendel CREATIVE MANAGER

Peggy Knaack

pknaack@businessnc.com ART DIRECTOR

Ralph Voltz

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jeff Siner, John Gessner, Tim Sayer MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jennifer Ware

jware@businessnc.com AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST

Scott Leonard

sleonard@businessnc.com ADVERTISING SALES ACCOUNT DIRECTORS

Sue Graf, western N.C. 704-523-4350 sgraf@businessnc.com

Melanie Weaver Lynch, eastern N.C.

Jennings grew up in Charlotte and is a graduate of Appalachian State University. She’s written stories for our magazine and other publications over the last year while also offering content and marketing services for various clients. Being part of an entrepreneurial family has given her a sense of the grit needed to build a business. Welcome aboard, Jennings.

919-855-9380 mweaver@businessnc.com CIRCULATION: 818-286-3106 EDITORIAL: 704-523-6987

REPRINTS: circulation@businessnc.com

BUSINESSNC.COM OWNERS

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff PUBLISHED BY

Old North State Magazines LLC

Contact David Mildenberg at dmildenberg@businessnc.com.

PRESIDENT

David Woronoff

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BNC ONLINE

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

40th anniversary

media last month.

The weekly roundup feat. Natalie Hawkins, executive director, Moore County Partners in Progress

Lindy Lamiell

Social Media Sorceress at Clicksuasion Labs

40th anniversary

Bob Newell @Retriever32

Barden Culbreth @blculbre

@BusinessNC Congrats on a great October issue featuring 40 years of business. I started my career at Wachovia 6/10/81 and relied on BizNC for updates, news, and information about the movers and shakers then and now. Comparison stats most revealing my how we have changed!

The flashback issues they have been posting are the best.

Read these stories and more at

businessnc.com.

Great episode featuring all that beautiful Moore County, NC has to offer. Natalie Dean Hawkins, PMP we certainly share some of the same music preferences :-)

Trailblazers

September 1986 #BNCAT40

Michael Morris

Area Sales Manager at Forward Air Corporation Best coverage of NC then and now!

Thomas Salley @tsalley55

I am incredibly honored and privileged to be included on the @BusinessNC Trail Blazers 2021 list. Thanks to everyone who has educated, supported, encouraged, and challenged me along the way. I appreciate you.

Business North Carolina @BusinessNC Business North Carolina @businessnorthcarolina

Check out Business North Carolina’s weekly podcast on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. at businessnc.com/podcast/.

U.S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership Management and Circulation

ECU spinoff company aims to reduce surgery complications

Greenville Eastern North Carolina (ENC) Alliance @GreenvilleENCA This is awesome! Great feature piece on Perfusio by @BusinessNC. This company, started up with research at ECU, created a device that can let surgeons monitor perfusion – the rate at which blood is delivered to tissues – in real time, on a monitor.

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as required by 39 U.S.C. 3685 for Business North Carolina, published monthly at 1230 West Morehead St., Suite 308, Charlotte, NC 28208. Number of issues published annually: 12. Annual subscription price: $30. The general business office of the publisher is 1230 West Morehead St., Suite 308, Charlotte, NC 28208. Owner is Old North State Magazines LLC, a North Carolina limited liability company, 145 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines, NC 28387. Members owning 1% or more of total amount of shares are: Frank Daniels Jr., David Woronoff, Frank Daniels III, Jack Andrews, Lee Dirks (all c/o Old North State Magazines LLC, 145 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines, NC 28387). Extent and nature of circulation

Avg. no. copies each issue during previous 12 months

A. Total no. of copies printed` 30,421 B. Paid/requested circulation 1. Mail subscription 15,862 2. Sales through dealers/requested 2,896 C. Total paid/requested 18,758 D. Free/nonrequested distribution 1. Mail 11,278 E. Total nonrequested distribution 11,278 F. Total distribution 30,036 G. Copies not distributed 383 H. Total 30,419 I. Percent paid/requested circulation 62.45%

No. copies of issue published nearest to filing date 31,015 16,446 3,155 19,601 11,054 11,054 30,655 360 31,015 63.94% James B. Kinney, publisher

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BILL WILLIAMSON Passions for investing, golf and philanthropy have led to a fulfilling life for one of Charlotte’s most prominent advocates.

BY VANESSA INFANZON

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BILL WILLIAMSON

illiam H. Williamson III, who is known as Bill Will by his friends, likes to remind people he was born when Herbert Hoover was president. Williamson, 90, grew up during the depression, lived through World War II, and grieved the death of his parents at age 13. When his first child was born with autism, he chose a job as a stockbroker to provide a stable income for his family rather than pursue a career as a professional golfer. After attending Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., he chose UNC Chapel Hill because of its strong golf program. He graduated with a degree in economics and established himself as a top player, finishing second in the 1953 NCAA national championship and qualifying five times for the U.S. Amateur Championship. In his last appearance in that prestigious event in 1959, he lost a close match against a teenager named Jack Nicklaus. In 1955, Williamson interviewed with several brokerage houses with offices in Charlotte. At the time, financial advising wasn’t a popular career. But Ralph Van Landingham Jr., his initial boss at Harris Upham & Co., convinced Williamson that astute stock selection and salesmanship were valuable skills. After six years, he transferred to Reynolds & Co. and stayed for nearly two decade as a Charlotte leader for what became Dean Witter Reynolds and then Morgan Stanley. In 1985, he formed his own hedge fund, Williamson Investors, with Dean Witter Reynolds’ blessing. He built the business to more than $30 million under management before selling it and retiring in 2000. He remains an avid investor, reviewing his portfolio when he rises at 5:30 a.m. Beyond the markets, Williamson became active in many Charlotte nonprofits, serving as president or chairman of groups including the Arts and Science Council, Mint Museum of Art, Alexander Youth Network and Spirit Square. He was a key supporter of city ▲ Golf was his first love, but Williamson enjoyed great success as a financial adviser.

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and county ordinances that required 1% of the cost of new public buildings to be allocated for artwork. A supporter of the Charlotte-based Foundation for the Carolinas, he’s been involved in raising more than $100 million for various nonprofits over the years. After raising two children with his first wife, he’s been married for more than 40 years to Pat Locke Williamson, one of the first females elected to the Charlotte City Council. Williamson still golfs regularly and stays active in the sport, partly through his friendship with Harold Varner III, 31, one of the few Black players on the PGA tour. Williamson met Varner when he was attending high school in Gastonia and helped raise money for the golfer to attend national events early in his career. Comments are edited for length and clarity. My family has a motto: Modico augetur modicum. In Latin, it means [a little added to a little makes a lot] the power of compound interest. That’s been my guiding influence. Save your money and don’t spend it foolishly. Everything I’ve done in business has been built on that family motto. My father was a good business guy. He taught me everything about saving money and earning money. I had to do certain chores every day in order to get my weekly allowance. When he went away during World War II, I started working for the Charlotte News as a carrier. I started building my own account.

▲ Williamson says his grandchildren are important parts of his life.

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After I went to college, I went into the Army for active duty, mostly at Fort Jackson at the end of the Korean War. After I finished basic training and learned how to shoot machine guns, they had an opening as a bookkeeper at the Fort Jackson Golf Club. The brokerage firm I decided to go with was Harris Upham. The reason I joined them is the guy who ran the office, Ralph Van Landingham, Jr., had the best reputation for making money for the customer and not for the brokerage firm. I had to take a little less pay there, but I decided to go with the best trainer I could work for.

with [veteran pro] Morris Hatalsky. Harold made four natural birdies on the back nine on Pebble Beach. It was on TV, and I saw it. When he got back, I asked him to play as my guest at Quail Hollow. The key issue about Charlotte is how to handle growth. It includes how to deal with the need for low-cost housing. We also have a big need for homelessness issues: People who are on the streets and can’t survive without help.

[Van Landingham] taught me everything that led to my career as an investor. One [tip] was to buy into businesses that have a good, long-term path, and not to do the hot stock of the week from the brokerage firm. Think about businesses that are durable and will grow. I was able to go with him to visit companies. In those days, you could do that. I learned how to ‘kick the tires.’ [Pat Locke and I] met at the time Spirit Square was being resurrected. She was on the city council and I was in these arts organizations. She, being on the city council, helped me understand how politics work. I had gone on a trip with the Chamber of Commerce to Baltimore and Philadelphia. We heard about the 1% for art effort they’d done for those two cities. Pat and I discussed how we could get it done in Charlotte. We had to make all kinds of calls to line up the votes to do it. Golf taught me so much about dealing with hardships and tough times. You’re going to hit some bad golf shots. You’re going to mess up and you have to get over that. A lot of junior players couldn’t handle adversity. They did not understand how to use strategy to win golf matches. I think it [golf] helped me invest in stocks. In golf, you make a mistake, there’s no team to blame. If you hit a bad shot, it’s on you. If I mess up on a stock recommendation, it’s on me, not the analyst in New York who told me about it. I decided when I was older, I wasn’t going to get any better at golf, but I probably would get better at investing. Harold [Varner] and I met when he was still in high school in Gastonia. I had a guy who caddied for me and he told me, ‘Bill, there’s a young man in Gastonia who needs some help. He’s qualified to play in the First Tee championship at Pebble Beach.’ I called the PGA in Jacksonville, Florida; they have a fund to support young people to go to tournaments. He won the Pro-Am First Tee Open in 2007

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▲ Williamson met Harold Varner III when the PGA Tour pro was in high school in Gastonia. He co-sponsored Varner’s membership at Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Club.

I am buying stocks anytime I find a good idea. I call that, “taking it out for a date.” You don’t get married unless you go with somebody awhile. And you don’t want to get married to a stock until you really understand it, and you can’t learn it all in one day. More recently, I would say that Microsoft has been my best investment. I talked to my people eight years ago, and I asked, “Why aren’t you looking at Microsoft?” It had a huge number of customers that related to Microsoft, the software as well as other products. I felt like those customers, if given the opportunity to get a better product, would trade up and not jump over to IBM. Everyone is down on IBM right now. But they still have all these customers. They’ve got new management. You want to be looking at ways to invest in technology, not necessarily at technology companies, but who will benefit from the technology. ■

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NC TREND ■ ENERGY Page 14

Entrepreneurship

■ MANUFACTURING Page 16

■ REAL ESTATE Page 18

■ SPORTS BUSINESS Page 20

■ STATEWIDE Page 22

COFFEE CULTURE A GARAGE-BASED WENDELL BUSINESS IS AMONG THE STATE’S GROWING SMALL-BATCH JAVA ROASTERS.

BY COLIN CAMPBELL

▲ Michael Carty of Workbench Roasters sells his coffee beans at farmers markets.

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It was May 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic meant people were making fewer trips to coffee shops and grocery stores. They were brewing their java at home, and Carty was willing to deliver freshly roasted beans to doorsteps. Carty and his wife, Hedi, soon became a fixture at the Wendell Farmers Market, joining a couple of other coffee roasters selling beans on Saturday mornings. They’ve since added three other farmers markets in Raleigh and surrounding towns. Small-batch coffee roasting businesses have percolated across North Carolina in recent years. Many roasters are part of coffee shops that sell beans to in-store customers and ship through a website. Others are smaller, home-based operations, selling to online customers and at farmers markets. There’s no trade association for coffee roasters in North Carolina so it’s unclear exactly how many there are. A Google search turns up dozens of roasters, from Tribal Grounds Coffee near Cherokee to Chaos Coffee in coastal Bayboro. In addition to the small-batch roasters, the state is home to roasteries with larger operations: Counter Culture Coffee in Durham, Dynamite Roasting in Black Mountain, Larry’s Beans in Raleigh and Magnolia Coffee in Charlotte. Coffee drinkers, it seems, are willing to pay a little extra to buy local roasts rather than mass-produced beans. “People love to support local,” Michael Carty says. “At every market, we're asked, ‘How did you get into this? And where do you do

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MICHAEL CARTY

hen Michael Carty started roasting coffee beans at home, he wasn’t looking to start a business. The former Ford Motor engineering supervisor had just retired in 2019 and moved from Michigan to Wendell in eastern Wake County, and searching for the perfect cup of coffee had become a hobby. “My goal was to find the best flavored coffee bean I could, roast it myself, and be self-sufficient,” Carty says. But when he let neighbors and family try a few samples, they wanted more. He offered up his coffee beans for sale through a post in a neighborhood Facebook group, prompting orders within an hour. Only a few months after he’d roasted his first batch atop an old workbench in his garage, Workbench Roasters was born.

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▲ Workbench Roasters lets customers smell the beans and find their favorite variety.

it? And how do you do it?’ There's a lot of curiosity because people are so used to just going to the grocery store and picking up a bag of coffee and not really understanding where it comes from.” The Cartys bring along a container of raw green coffee beans to every event, as many people have never seen coffee in its original form. Workbench orders the beans from a distributor that sources them from growers in Central and South America, as well as Africa and Asia. “When we get a new variety of bean, I'll roast it at a light roast, a medium roast and a dark roast. We'll cup those and see which ones we like the best — if any of them,” Michael Carty says. “We do a lot of experimenting and tasting.” He keeps a spreadsheet detailing the perfect roasting process for each bean, citing time and temperature. It’s not as simple as locking in settings on a roasting machine and walking away. “I'm watching the color change,” he says. “I'm smelling the beans. When I do a dark roast, I'm looking at the smoke that's coming off the beans.” Carty can’t control the temperature inside his unair-conditioned garage, a seasonal fluctuation that can affect how a batch turns out. He’s building a “roast house” structure in his yard that will be climate-controlled. In an expansion push, he’s upgrading from a 3-pound roaster to one that can handle 10 pounds of beans at once. That will allow for a wholesale business, supplying beans to a local coffee shop. But don’t look for Workbench coffee to land in your neighborhood grocery store. That would make quality control harder because unsold bags could go stale after sitting on shelves

for months, he says. Workbench delivers and ships coffee within 48 hours of roasting the beans with the Cartys dropping coffee on local doorsteps often within hours of roasting. “We control every aspect of it, 100%,” Michael Carty says. “I don’t want to grow to the point that we have to give that up.” Workbench has partnered with Wendell’s Bearded Bee Brewing Co., which uses its beans to make its Bee-Rista Coffee Amber beer. The beans have also been used in coffee-scented soaps and coffee-flavored bagels. When Carty wants a vacation, Workbench suspends production for a few days, notifying online customers that their order will be delayed. Carty doesn’t want to return to the 50to 60-hour workweeks of his engineering days. “I’ve always said if we were 30 years old, I would have a different view on where I want this business to grow,” he says. “We have room to grow still ... but it's kind of the perfect retirement gig for us.” ■

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NC TREND

Energy

RENEWABLE RUCKUS BUSINESS INTERESTS SUE OVER N.C. TAX COLLECTORS’ DIM VIEW OF SOLAR TAX CREDIT DEALS.

BY COLIN CAMPBELL

he N.C. Chamber, the state’s primary business lobby, typically chooses its words carefully. So its language in a letter criticizing the N.C. Department of Revenue’s stance in a dispute over tax credits turned a lot of heads. “This case, followed closely across the country, threatens North Carolina’s reputation as a welcoming place to do business, one where investors can rely on the word of the legislature. If the [department] were to prevail, the state’s business climate would be jeopardized and one of its tools — tax incentives — would be crippled.” That’s how the Chamber is characterizing a legal dispute between insurance companies and the Department of Revenue over the agency’s handling of solar energy tax credits. The agency has forced N.C. Farm Bureau and several other insurers to repay tax credits they received years ago for helping fund hundreds of millions of dollars in solar energy developments. The companies sought to take advantage of a 2009 state law intended to inject more money into the solar industry. That law broadened the types of tax payments that were eligible for the renewable energy tax credit program, including the gross premiums

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taxes paid by insurance companies. The insurance companies didn’t install solar panels themselves. Instead, they worked with third-party companies that arranged funding for solar projects and then claimed tax credits. Businesses and wealthy investors use tax credits to provide a dollar-for-dollar reduction in income tax liability. The companies contend the agreements meant they were valid investors in the solar developments, clearly eligible to take the credits. But the Department of Revenue ruled the third-party companies were selling tax credits in a manner considered illegal under federal tax law. The state agency pointed to terms that indicated the insurers’ investment returns were guaranteed regardless of how much revenue the solar developments generated. “Farm Bureau received a predetermined, set number of credits for a predetermined, set amount of money,” the department argued in legal filings. “The return did not vary in any way. … Because the cash-for-credit transactions were in substance sales, not investments, the transactions failed to comply with North Carolina law.” Farm Bureau spent $26.8 million in solar projects before the tax

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credit program expired in 2016; the Department of Revenue demanded that it pay $25.6 million in back taxes, which it did last year after an administrative law judge upheld the agency’s interpretation of the law. The decision caused other businesses that weren’t involved in solar tax credits to take notice of the state’s position. A December letter from the N.C. Chamber to Cooper slamming the Department of Revenue’s stance on tax credits was signed by dozens of large companies and influential N.C. business people including Hugh McColl Jr., Ward Nye, O. Temple Sloan and Jim Whitehurst. “I’m really hearing that [the stance is] shaking the confidence of investors across multiple sectors that the state of North Carolina is going to follow the policies it adopts,” says Ivan Urlaub of the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association. His Raleigh-based nonprofit was involved in drafting the 2009 tax credit law, and it has filed briefs in the case arguing that the insurance companies’ actions were exactly what lawmakers wanted to incentivize. N.C. Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who co-sponsored the 2009 legislation, says the state “is dead wrong on this.” She recalls that lawmakers wanted insurance companies to help “jumpstart” the solar industry, because the state was in the middle of a recession and insurers had ample cash to invest. With the new tax credit programs, solar “just exploded at a time when jobs were plummeting,” Harrison says. According to the Sustainable Energy Association, North Carolina added more than 1,000 megawatts of solar capacity in 2015, shortly before the tax credit expired. New solar capacity add-

ed in 2020 was less than half that amount, although industry advocates say other regulatory hurdles and pending litigation are also to blame for the decline. In its lawsuit, Farm Bureau says the Department of Revenue — starting when Gov. Roy Cooper took office in 2017 — “has administratively overruled the state’s renewable energy policy, encroaching on the General Assembly’s constitutional authority. In support of this power-grab, the Department mistakenly invokes federal tax doctrines developed to pursue income tax abusers, imposing them against a North Carolina gross premiums taxpayer and mutual insurance company that invested in good faith responding to the General Assembly’s call.” At least two other lawsuits are pending on the same topic. Farm Bureau’s case is before N.C. Business Court Judge Adam Conrad, who was appointed by Gov. Pat McCrory in 2016. A hearing was held last month. Conrad is also overseeing a separate lawsuit brought by Georgia-based Monarch Tax Credits, one of the companies that

brokered arrangements between insurance companies and solar developers. Opponents of the Department of Revenue’s decision scored a victory in September in a third lawsuit. Chief Administrative Law Judge Donald van der Vaart sided with Integon National Insurance, which used the tax credits. Winston-Salem-based Integon is owned by industry giant Allstate. Van der Vaart was N.C. secretary of environmental quality while McCrory was governor. He often took a business-friendly approach to regulation. In July N.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby appointed him to his post. In the Integon matter, he wrote that the Department of Revenue in 2018 “inexplicably and perhaps whimsically reversed its position for the first time.” His ruling said that the actions indicate that “after three years of costly litigation and potential harm to future investments in North Carolina renewable energy projects, DOR is simply asking for this case to go away.” The Department of Revenue did not respond to an interview request for this story. ■

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NC TREND

Manufacturing

A STAR IS BORN

B Y DAV I D M I L D E N B E R G

he verdict is in: The Western Star Trucks 49X Vocational Truck is the “Coolest Thing Made in North Carolina” after nearly 42,000 votes were cast in a contest sponsored by the N.C. Chamber and Old Dominion Freight Line. The competition was aimed at highlighting the critical role of manufacturing in North Carolina. Nearly 7,800 companies make up more than 10% of the state’s total employment base and 18% of economic output. Total annual N.C. manufacturing output topped $104 billion in 2018. The heavy-duty truck is assembled by Daimler Trucks North America in Cleveland in Rowan County and includes parts made at Daimler’s plants in Gastonia and Mount Holly. The three operations employ more than 5,000 people in the state. Corporate parent Daimler of Germany is arguably best-known for its Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

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▲ German automotive giant Daimler makes huge trucks in Rowan County.

“Thanks to the NC Chamber and Old Dominion for their support of the Coolest Thing Made in NC,” Erik Johnson, plant manager of the Daimler plant in Cleveland, said in prepared remarks. “We’re incredibly proud of the products we build, including the Western Star 49X, and we’re prouder still of our workforce in the state helping to build those trucks with precision, with quality and with dedication.” Other finalists in the contest were the Caterpillar 938M Wheel Loader made in Clayton in Johnston County; Seqirus Flucelvax Influenza Vaccine made in Holly Springs in Wake County; Honda Aircraft’s HondaJet Elite S made in Greensboro; and George’s BBQ Sauce, a vinegar-based condiment made in Nashville in Nash County. With Internet websites showing pricing for new models ranging from $165,000 to $225,000, the Western Star truck isn’t for weekend warriors. Its broad range of uses

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WESTERN STAR TRUCKS, HONDAJET, SEQIRUS, CATERPILLAR, GEORGE'S BBQ SAUCE

A HEAVY-DUTY TRUCK MADE IN ROWAN COUNTY RUNS DOWN ITS COMPETITION.

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▲ Other Coolest Things finalists were George's BBQ Sauce; HondaJet Elite S; Seqirus Flucelvax Influenza Vaccine; and Caterpillar 938M Wheel Loader.

FAST FACTS Manufacturing output

$104 billion (2018)

Share of N.C. gross state product 18.3% Manufacturing firms in N.C.

7,792 (2017)

Manufacturing employment

473,000 (2018)

Share of nonfarm employment 10.4% Average annual compensation

$72,291 (2018)

Manufactured good exports

$32.8 billion (2019)

Top export markets

Canada 20% Mexico 11% China 9.5% (2019)

source: National Manufacturers Association

include “hauling timber from deep in the woods, accessing remote mining operations far off-road or hauling heavy equipment to construction sites,” according to a Daimler press release. Daimler also owns High Point-based Thomas Built Buses, a leading school-bus manufacturer that was last year’s winner in the inaugural Coolest Things Made in North Carolina for its Saf-TLiner® C2 Jouley™ Electric School Bus. The Daimler truck outlasted better-known food entries including Cheerwine from Salisbury, Bright Leaf hot dogs from Smithfield, dill pickles from Mount Olive, and Texas Pete hot sauce, which is made in Winston-Salem. The winner was chosen by popular vote, through the chamber’s website, with the Western Star 49X receiving 2,725 votes in the

final round. Altogether, more than 41,700 votes were cast as the field was narrowed down in three rounds of voting. The Daimler plant in Cleveland, about 45 miles north of Charlotte, is the largest Freightliner truck factory in the U.S., with about 2,200 employees. The plant opened in 1989 and makes the Western Star and Freightliner’s Cascadia trucks. The back-to-back wins by Daimler Trucks subsidiaries was pure coincidence, says chamber spokesperson Jennifer Dart. Each company has its own employee base and a different location. To be sure, some encouragement from company leadership helped boost voting participation by staffers, Daimler Trucks North America spokesman Fred Ligouri adds. ■

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NC TREND

Real Estate

TOWERING ABOVE SKYSCRAPERS AREN’T IN THE PLAN, BUT GORDON GRUBB EXPECTS RALEIGH IRON WORKS TO BECOME A LANDMARK.

BY CONNIE GENTRY

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RENDERING COURTESY OF RALEIGH IRON WORKS

here’s an unofficial contest underway in Raleigh: Who will build the tallest building? It’s a competition that veteran City of Oaks developer Gordon Grubb isn’t entering. “I’m shocked at the number of rezonings,” Grubb says, alluding to the Raleigh City Council’s approval of taller high-rises and the bevy of developer requests for buildings that will stretch 20 to 40 stories. “We are very happy doing five stories, ▲ Raleigh Iron Works, shown in a rendering, will be Gordon Grubb's biggest venture. and that’s proven to be a competitive advantage during COVID,” says the founder of Raleigh-based Grubb Ventures. Leasing activity at his projects has surged in recent months, partly because Works, because so many of the monuments and buildings in Raleigh were built with steel that came from Peden Steel,” Grubb says. many tenants prefer stairs over elevators, he says. Grubb bought the site from the Peden family for $10 million in Members of the Grubb family have been prominent N.C. developers for generations. Gordon’s great-grandfather constructed a 2017 and formed a joint venture with Atlanta-based Jamestown seven-story building in Salisbury in 1910 that was reportedly then in 2020. The Georgia development company has lots of adaptive the state’s tallest steel-beamed office building. His father con- mixed-use experience, including Optimist Hall in north Chartinued the legacy and, in 1987, Gordon joined Charlotte-based lotte, Chelsea Market in New York City and Ponce City Market Grubb Properties. That company, now led by his brother, Clay, is in Atlanta. A tour of Ponce City with Jamestown CEO Matt Bronfman expanding across the nation. Gordon split off in 2002 to start Grubb Ventures, preferring to convinced Grubb that “their place-making [expertise] would help focus on the Triangle and, in most instances, developments that us take Raleigh Iron Works to a whole different level. They bring are within a 10-minute drive of his Raleigh home. His specialty great retail and tech contacts, and we bring the local experience is infill projects on the outskirts of the central business district, and contacts.” Construction is underway with letters of intent pending with particularly in the Five Points neighborhood or along tree-lined Glenwood Avenue. In September, he bought Beta Center, a 12- several prospective tenants. It will include three key structures: acre tract on Glenwood with two small office buildings, for $17.5 The Forge residential building, with 219 apartments; the threestory Bow Truss Building, with 83,000 square feet of office and million. A $2.5 million renovation is planned. But the Grubb project everyone is talking about is on Atlantic retail space; and the Double Gable Building, featuring retail, resAvenue, an industrial corridor that serves as a connector route taurant, and office space on the first level and 65,000 square feet into downtown. Instead of shooting for the sky, Gordon is digging of office space on the second floor. The office spaces will include outdoor terraces and an adult into city history to develop Raleigh Iron Works, a $150 million live-work-play community. It is his company’s largest undertaking slide connecting the second floor to the plaza between the Gable to date and second adaptive reuse of a historical property. Located Building and The Forge. The apartments range from 430-squareat the former Peden Steel mill, it is near the Five Points and Mor- foot furnished units targeting entry-level workers to unfurnished two-bedroom units. Monthly rents will start at about $1,200. decai neighborhoods, about 2 miles north of the center city. “Interest in both office and retail has been strong and the de“There’s a whole story and authenticity around Raleigh Iron C A R O L I N A

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mand for residential has been unprecedented,” he says. A mid-2022 opening is expected. Grubb’s first adaptive reuse project was Dock 1053 across the street from the Iron Works at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Whitaker Mill Road. The property, which Grubb acquired in 2014, was built in 1955 as a distribution center for the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., or A&P. Sam Crutchfield, Grubb Ventures’ director of commercial leasing and acquisitions, talked his boss into checking out the property, which had a leaky roof and lots of graffiti. “We had done the Oaks at Fallon Park [a residential infill project with homes from the high $600s to $1 million], between Five Points and this Whitaker Mill/Atlantic Avenue intersection, so we had worked our way down close to here,” Grubb says. Dock 1053 now houses a variety of retail and office tenants including Lynnwood Brewing Concern and the Hummingbird restaurant.

Works and find ways to make Atlantic Avenue more pedestrian-friendly. The Iron Works will include options for shared work spaces that Grubb expects to become more popular as the pandemic eases. Demand remains high for the shared work space community at Dock 1053. Traffic congestion, pedestrian accessibility and housing affordability still concern Grubb. “Raleigh is behind on infrastructure,” he says. “We have to think more about transit and light rail options.”

Two rail lines are located near the Iron Works including a line paralleling Atlantic Avenue and Wake Forest Road that is mentioned as a potential state-organized commuter rail line. “The growth is coming whether we want it to or not,” Grubb says. “As a developer, I generally welcome growth, but we need to be smart about it; we have to move faster and think bolder.” ■

Growing up, not out

“The traction at Dock 1053 is what made us ultimately decide to expand in that area,” Grubb says. “It’s just so convenient to downtown and we’re seeing all of these nodes that are close to downtown starting to prosper. The whole Triangle is growing like I’ve never seen before.” Nearby Wake Forest Road is a development hotspot with a Wegmans supermarket and Charlotte-based Spectrum Co.’s 33-acre Northside Center project, which is considering buildings as tall as 20 stories encompassing 2,000 residential units and 1.5 million square feet of office space. Then there’s the East End Market proposed by SLI Capital principals Bryan Kane and Atlas Stark. It has received City Council approval for an 11-story building next to Dock 1053. Finally, Auburndale Properties of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., wants to develop 20-story buildings at 2114 Atlantic Ave., a warehouse site adjacent to the Iron Works. “I like to see Raleigh growing up instead of out,” Grubb says, adding that a second phase at the Iron Works projects a 7-story building. A pedestrian bridge is under review to connect the new development and Dock 1053. Grubb is working with the city to expand the greenway up to the Iron N O V E M B E R

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NC TREND

Sports Business

BIG SWINGERS TWO BUSINESS LEADERS CHAMPION THE RETURN TO NORTH CAROLINA OF THE PINNACLE EVENT OF WOMEN’S GOLF.

B Y K AT H E R I N E S N O W S M I T H

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N O R T H

▲ Famed golfer Annika Sorenstam is planning to play in her first U.S. Women's Open since 2008. She won the tournament at Pine Needles in 1996.

“I spend a lot of my time in markets outside of North Carolina. Several of my direct reports are in California,” Bryant says. “Playing golf with them enables me to forge really personal relationships that make managing them from a distance much more effective.” The Holding family-controlled First Citizens is acquiring New York-based CIT, creating a national company with assets topping $100 billion. Federal regulators were still studying the deal in mid-October. Both women see the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open as a distinctive vehicle for business people — male and female — to build their business relationships. “It’s very accessible. You don’t have to devote the entire week to it. You can get there from Greensboro or Charlotte or Wilmington or Raleigh very easily, so you can either make it a day trip or

PHOTO BY KEITH ALLISON

ope Holding Bryant, vice chairman of First Citizens BancShares, laughs when she thinks back to her involvement with the U.S. Women’s Open in 1996, the first of three times that Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines has hosted the major championship. “Golf was probably a little more pronounced in the workplace then than it is today. Very early on I realized I could either play golf or I could stay back in the office and answer the phone for all the men who were playing golf,” she says. “The decision to play golf came very easily.” From June 2 to 5, the U.S. Golf Association will hold the 77th U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles with 75,000 fans expected to attend. This tournament, considered the ultimate competition in women’s golf, is projected to create an economic impact of about $20 million. The purse is likely to match the $5.5 million awarded at this year’s championship in San Francisco. It will be aired on NBC and the Golf Channel and draws professionals and amateurs from about 25 countries. These numbers make it hard to remember golf was largely seen as a man’s game, especially for amateurs, until a few decades ago. Bryant is co-chairing the Open steering committee with Kathy Higgins, CEO of the Raleigh-based Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a nonprofit that advocates for children. It is one of 14 national championships conducted annually by the USGA. It is open to professional female golfers and amateur females with a handicap index that doesn’t exceed 2.4. Like Bryant, Higgins has made golf a part of her life and career, which includes 30 years with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. “Golf puts women in a position to network in a much different way,” she says. “When you’re in the boardroom and on the green, you are in conversations that have traditionally been exclusive to men. It creates an opportunity for conversations with access to information and decision-making.” Spending several hours outside together also allows time to form personal connections with clients and coworkers as well as friends and family.

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stay overnight,” Bryant says. “You get four or five hours out there with no cell phones. It’s a wonderful escape.” Tournament organizers are offering options ranging from individual tickets for one day to packages for groups for several days with access to food and beverage pavilions and rounds of golf.

Peggy Kirk Bell’s legacy

PHOTO BY KEITH ALLISON

The Open has developed a reputation for being fan friendly. “The (competitors) are so engaging with autographs. You can get so close to the rope lines and really see all the golf and follow it,” says Allison Burns, the event’s senior championship manager. “It’s really neat to see how much it means to the players to see their fans and to see those junior golfers.” Kinsley Smith, 16, of Raleigh plans to volunteer at the tournament and already has a favorite. “I like Nelly Korda because she won the Olympics this year and she’s really accomplished,” says Smith, a St. David’s School student who has a 1.6 handicap and practices three to four hours a day. “And I like Lexi Thompson because she hits the ball really hard. She’s not afraid. She just goes after it." Thompson was 12 when she became the youngest qualifier at the 2007 Open at Pine Needles. Smith started playing golf at age 8. She competes on the Peggy Kirk Bell Girls Golf Tour, which is organized by Girls Golf of

America, a Greensboro-based nonprofit. Bell was an LPGA Tour charter member who owned the Pine Needles resort from 1953 until her death in 2016. “The backdrop (of the tournament) is the legend of Peggy Kirk Bell. Mrs. Bell has a legacy as a golfer, as supporting the game of golf and as supporting the business of golf,” Higgins says. Bell popularized “Golfaris” or “golfing safaris” for men and women. They were especially important for women who were hesitant to pick up a club for the first time at their local private or public course full of men who had been playing golf for years. “Her approach was to break down the game of golf into bite-size learning opportunities. She just had a certain levity about her and a philosophy that golf should be fun,” Higgins says. Bryant counts Bell as a mentor she got to know through golf and by being involved with the U.S. Women’s Open each time it’s been hosted by Pine Needles. “The forum provided an opportunity to develop really personal relationships with people like [former Duke Energy executive] Roberta Bowman and Kathy,” she says. “I have friendships and business partnerships through this that have lasted decades.” Her golf game has progressed as well, though not as much as Bell might hope. “My handicap is a solid 19,” Bryant laughs. “I’m definitely spending more time on the job than on the course.” ■

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NC TREND

Statewide

ENERGETIC PLANS

ov. Roy Cooper signed a milestone energy bill into law on Oct. 13 that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% from the state’s power plants by 2030. The bill received bipartisan approval as North Carolina joined Virginia as the sole Southeast states to pass legislation establishing requirements for greenhouse emissions. “Putting real and enforceable carbon reduction targets into the law, North Carolina is working to reduce the effect of climate change on marginalized populations, while putting our state at the

▲State leaders agreed on major energy reforms in October.

forefront of the clean energy economy and the jobs that it brings,” Cooper said at a signing ceremony. To achieve the targets, coal-fired power plants operated by dominant utility Duke Energy are expected to be retired early, replaced by a mix of alternative fuels for electricity. The N.C. Utilities Commission is charged with developing a plan to meet the goals with input from Duke and advocacy groups. The new law also allows Duke to seek multiyear rate increases and performance-based earnings incentives from the Utilities Commission, measures favored by the company but opposed by some manufacturers. “Why all of a sudden do you need multi-year rate planning, which only serves to create greater profits for the utility and lets them consolidate their centralized power,” says Kevin Martin, executive director of the Carolina Utility Customers Association, a Raleigh-based nonprofit. But Senate Pro Tem Phil Berger said “it was critically important that the leaders of our state come together to agree on legislation for our energy future, and we did that. The framework we put in place ensures continued reliability of energy here in North Carolina.” ■

PATH OF PROGRESS

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N O R T H

North Carolina doesn’t win them all, of course. Ford considered the state before selecting a west Tennessee site for a new $5.6 billion electric vehicle plant. ■

PHOTO COURTESY OF NC GOVERNOR’S OFFICE

orth Carolina’s pipeline of companies looking to relocate or expand in the state topped $100 billion for the first time, says Chris Chung, CEO of the Economic Development Partnership. Recruiters are working on 240 projects involving 78,000 potential new jobs. About a fourth of the activity involves investments by companies based in other nations. Major sectors with expansion plans include biotech and life sciences, food and beverage, automotive, chemicals and plastics. Chung says the state started the year with 157 projects in its pipeline, several of which concluded with announcements of expansions. The most prominent is Apple’s plan for 3,000 jobs at a new Research Triangle Park operation. Other big expansions announced this year include a $154 million, 290-job project by Thermo Fisher Scientific in Pitt County; 355 new jobs at an Amgen plant in Wake County; and Polywood’s plans for 300 jobs at an outdoor furniture manufacturing site in Person County.

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Signet Jewelers, the parent company of Kay’s, Zales and Jared, will acquire Diamonds Direct for $490 million from New York privateequity company Blackstone. The deal is expected to close in January. Bermuda-based Signet has 2,800 stores in the U.S. Diamonds Direct was started by Israel’s Arabvov family in Charlotte in 1995 and operates 22 stores. It was sold to Blackstone in 2015.

EAST GOLDSBORO Washington, N.C.-based Pamlico Air plans to add about 250 jobs and invest $6.6 million at its air-filter plant here, citing strong demand for its products.

ROCKY MOUNT Carmel, Ind.-based SePro plans to add 20 employees to a current staff of 12. The company sells landscaping and ornamental horticulture products.

SPRING LAKE The municipal finances of this city of 12,000 was taken over by the Local Government Commission because of concerns it might default on debt service payments totaling more than $220,000 that are due in November.

WILMINGTON Gastonia-based Southwood Realty bought the 456-unit Avalon Apartments for $79 million from Evolve Companies. It was the highest-priced apartment deal in New Hanover County this year. The complex opened in 2007 with 84 units added this year.

FAYETTEVILLE Fayetteville State University acquired Bronco Square Shopping Mall, a strip mall located near the campus. A Chick-fil-A and Starbucks are expected to open in the mall in the coming months.

CHARLOTTE

PHOTO COURTESY OF SIGNET JEWELERS

CHARLOTTE

PolyQuest, a manufacturer of post-industrial thermoplastics (PET) resins based here, acquired the U.S. division of Manalpan, N.J.-based Faith Group, complementing its distribution and manufacturing processes of lightweight plastics.

Truist Financial plans to consolidate its downtown Winston-Salem branches and close 35 offices around the state, including two each in Asheville, Charlotte, Raleigh and Wilmington. Truist has closed or consolidated at least 401 branches in the past 15 months, about half of its branch-reduction initiative to be finished by early 2022.

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NC TREND

Statewide

AvidXchange went public, raising about $700 million after selling shares at $25. It helps companies automate their accounts payable systems and employs more than 1,500 people. The IPO put its market value at about $5 billion.

Charlotte’s two big banks had strong third quarter results. Bank of America said profit jumped more than 57% to $7.7 billion. Revenue gained 12% to $22.8 billion. Truist Financial earned $1.6 billion and revenue of $4.6 billion. Both banks exceeded analysts’ estimates.

Crescent Communities named Brian Natwick as CEO, succeeding Todd Mansfield, who has led the developer since 2011. Natwick has worked for Crescent for 15 years, most recently as president.

CLAREMONT German-owned Pöppelmann Plastics USA will add 133 jobs at its plant here that makes plastic pots and horticulture products. The salaries will average about $45,000.

CARY Duke Health plans a 40-bed hospital here in 2026, joining an urgent care center that is expected to open in 2023. The state approved the plan after Duke shifted 40 inpatient beds from its Duke Raleigh hospital.

DURHAM Gene therapy company StrideBio plans to double its 100-person workforce in the next year at its local lab and offices. The company closed an $81.5 million financing round in March. GeneCentric Therapeutics received a $4.5 million investment from Burlingtonbased Labcorp. The two companies will collaborate on developing RNA-based gene signatures for cancer. It follows a previous Labcorp investment in the local company.

CONOVER Textile-Based Delivery, also known as Nufabrx, raised $10 million from six investors. The company produces garment products that administer pain relief medicine to those who wear them.

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GlaxoSmithKline will relocate its offices from Research Triangle Park to downtown in early 2022. The new space at the American Tobacco Campus is smaller than at RTP, where Glaxo and its predecessors have been prominent occupants for decades. The move involves no loss of jobs.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AVIDXCHANGE, PÖPPELMANN PLASTICS,

TRIANGLE

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UNC Health plans a $252 million, 40bed hospital in Research Triangle Park near The Frontier development. It is slated to open in 2026.

HOLLY SPRINGS

The federal government awarded drug manufacturer Seqirus a $35 million contract to develop two pandemic influenza vaccines. The Australia-based company develops vaccines at its plant here.

RALEIGH North Carolina State University said Charlotte-based Lincoln Harris and partner Goldman Sachs will lead a Centennial Campus redevelopment. Site work on the 32-acre “earn/live/work/play” project could begin next year, though the full development is expected to span over a decade and add 2 million square feet of space. Science 37, which has dual headquarters here and Los Angeles, joined forces with the special purpose acquisition company LifeSci Acquisition II Corp. The combined company is publicly traded. The merger provided $235 million to Science 37, which develops technology for clinical trials.

Fujifilm Diosynth broke ground on its $2 billion biologics production facility here. The 1-million-square-foot plant is expected to employ 725

PHOTO COURTESY OF FUJIFILM

with an average salary of almost $100,000. It is scheduled to open in 2025.

Tim Yeaton, a Red Hat executive vice president and chief marketing officer, will retire in 2022. The IBM-owned company promoted Leigh Day to senior vice president. Now head of Red Hat’s brand experience team, she will become CMO in January.

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NC TREND

Statewide

Marius Pharmaceuticals raised $6 million in equity funding, according to an SEC filing. The startup is seeking approval for an oral testosterone softgel.

TRIAD

Guilford College named Kyle Farmbry as its 10th president, effective in January. He is a professor of public administration at Rutgers University-Newark and the first African American to lead the local college. He previously was dean of Rutgers’ graduate school.

▲ Kyle Farmbry

Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd., based in Singapore, paid $68 million for three properties in the Airport Distribution Center campus of Greensboro and $51 million for a 30-acre property in Whitsett.

N O R T H

cal Disorders and Stroke to study concussions in school-aged children. Eleven other academic medical centers are participating.

Cone Health named Michelle Adamolekun as its chief people and culture officer, overseeing human resources. She has been an executive at Novant Health.

HIGH POINT

GREENSBORO

Statewide_November 2021-2.indd 26

is part of a $10 million grant from

NorthState and Lumos Networks will operate as an independent company after parent Segra sold its commercial enterprise and carrier business to Cox Communications. In 2020, Segra acquired NorthState, which has provided local telephone service since 1895.

provements. Formed in 2013 by Alex and Connie Matisse and John Vigeland, it now employs 120 people. Allegiant and Sun Country airlines started new flights between Asheville Regional Airport and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Sun Country is the newest carrier at the Asheville airport.

East Rutherford, N.J.-based biotech Cambrex plans a $30 million, 78-job plant here. The jobs will have average salaries of about $96,000.

MOUNT AIRY Manakin, Va.-based crushed-stone producer Luck Stone acquired Ararat Rock Products, which has quarries here and in Eden. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Luck Stone has a quarry in Pittsboro.

The city of Asheville bought 11 acres of undevelopment land next to the Carolina Day School’s athletic complex for $1.5 million. A park is expected to be built on the site.

WEST

Catawba Valley Brewing, which has produced beer here since 1999, was acquired by the owner of Apalachicola, Fla.-based Oyster City Brewing. Catawba Brewing has brewpubs in Morganton, Charlotte and Wilmington.

ASHEVILLE East Fork Pottery, which makes ceramic products, raised $3 million from the Pentland Group to pay for capital im-

MORGANTON

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GUILFORD COLLEGE, WAKE FOREST SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, ALLEGIANT

First Bancorp completed its purchase of Dunn-based Select Bancorp. The $325 million all-stock merger was announced in June. The combined bank has $10 billion in assets and about 120 offices. The company named Adam Currie as its chief banking officer and Elizabeth Bostian as chief financial officer. Both are based in Greensboro.

B U S I N E S S

Wake Forest School of Medicine the National Institute of Neurologi-

SOUTHERN PINES

WINSTON-SALEM

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ROUND TABLE

CYBERSECURITY

CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Today’s economy lives on the internet, and the COVID-19 pandemic has helped it thrive there. Goods and services are sold and bought in increasing amounts, and more employees use it to work remotely every day. While that’s good, there’s some bad, too. Data breaches, for example, are growing larger and ransomware more powerful. And when those happen, businesses are often left holding the bag. What they can do with that bag, or avoid it altogether, is changing because of new laws and lingering effects of the pandemic. Business North Carolina and trade group NC Tech Association recently gathered a group of experts to discuss the current cybersecurity and privacy environment and ways North Carolina businesses and organizations can navigate it.

PANELISTS

Brooks Raiford (moderator)

Bill Chu

Steve Cobb

president and CEO, North Carolina Technology Association

software and information systems professor, UNC Charlotte

chief information security officer, One Source Communications

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C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

10/21/21 10:39 AM

Brooks Pierce sponsored the discussion, which was moderated by NC Tech Association President and CEO Brooks Raiford. It was edited for brevity and clarity. This presentation reflects the personal views of the speakers in their individual capacity. It does not represent the views of their respective organizations or employers. The information contained herein is intended for informational

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC FORCED MORE PEOPLE TO WORK FROM HOME. WHAT CYBER SECURITY ISSUES HAS THAT CREATED? CHU: Cybersecurity vulnerabilities are more pronounced than in the prepandemic era. It used to be inside and outside the company. That has blurred. It’s all the way to your home, too. We have technology that, in theory, can deal with these issues. But it isn’t always properly implemented. That exposes holes in the strategy.

expense of security at the pandemic’s start. They quickly gave access to customers and clients. They made technology changes, often without advice from a security expert. They may have tried to implement protections, but the pressure of survival forced them to cut corners. Many of those cut corners haven’t been fixed. HOW HAS THE INCREASE IN REMOTE WORKING AFFECTED THE USE OR RISK OF RANSOMWARE?

COBB: Many companies chose connectivity and convenience at the

QUICK: We’re not necessarily seeing new attack vectors for malware or ransomware. We’re seeing that people are more susceptible to some of the methods that have been used for years, for example, failing to recognize a suspicious email link while working at home. They say they were distracted — maybe their child needed something — or they thought it was from work. If you’re in an office and focused on work, you may be less inclined to click that link. It also seems the bad guys using ransomware are more patient. They gain access and wait for a critical moment instead of jumping on the first opportunity to shut down a system or extract data. I don’t know why, but I feel like I see that more.

Clara Cottrell

Kim D’Arruda

Will Quick

senior counsel, compliance and privacy, BASF

director, technology, health care and antitrust section, consumer protection division, N.C. Department of Justice

partner, Brooks Pierce

purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice or a substitute for obtaining legal advice from an attorney. The information in this presentation is based on our current interpretation of recent developments and its implications on businesses. This is a very fluid area and thus further changes and variations in interpretation remain very likely.

COTTRELL: Home networks are now being used for work. There also is a physical security aspect. Employees are coming and going, maybe at the office a day or two each week. Your workforce may not immediately recognize who’s an employee, a visitor or someone who shouldn’t be there at all. We look at security risks such as tailgating, when an employee unknowingly gives an intruder physical access to a place of business. That likely will happen more frequently as employees see their colleagues less in person and more online.

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ROUND TABLE

CYBERSECURITY Ransomware also is much more than just ransomware. It’s evolving. It used to be ransomware locked you out of a device or system. Maybe you don’t pay to unlock it, because your great backup system can get you rolling again. So, you tell the perpetrators to pound sand. More and more ransomware also includes data exfiltration. So, when you say you’re not paying the bad guy reveals that they’ve taken a data packet, and they’ll put it on the dark web unless you pay. COBB: We do quite a bit of frontline incident response. Ransomware is one of the most common that we encounter. We see evidence of attackers staying longer in systems, especially those that may offer a bigger payout. But in cases involving small and midsize businesses, it’s often a quick cash grab. The ransomware is deployed on a Friday afternoon, and you arrive to that pain Monday morning. It’s interesting how our culture views ransomware. These are businesses that are stood up, but we provide some legitimacy to the perpetrators. Everyone believes that you pay the ransom. They believe they’re working with someone who will keep their word. That’s not true many times. That interaction plays a role in ransomware use, development and expansion. D’ARRUDA: It’s definitely a problem. Home networks may lack security. Passwords may not be changed as frequently as they were in the office. We’ve had 361 reports of ransomware this year as of the end of September. We think that number is low. The first thing every morning, I review the breach notices that arrived overnight. At first, when ransomware started to be reported, few listed it because of how North Carolina’s statute defines a

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breach. Many people said entering and encrypting a system wasn’t technically a breach because data never left the system. Now there is exfiltration of data, and that probably makes most a breach, according to our definition. HOW DO YOU DEFINE REASONABLE SECURITY MEASURES? WHAT TRIGGERS BREACH REPORTING RESPONSIBILITIES? D’ARRUDA: It’s definitely a problem. Home networks may lack security. Passwords may not be changed as frequently as they were in the office. We’ve had 361 reports of ransomware this year as of the end of September. We think that number is low. The first thing every morning, I review the breach notices that arrived overnight. At first, when ransomware started to be reported, few listed it because of how North Carolina’s statute defines a breach. Many people said entering and encrypting a system wasn’t technically a breach because data never left the system. Now there is exfiltration of data, and that probably makes most a breach, according to our definition. CHU: We need to train security people. And we need to do a better job providing every information-technology person with an understanding of security. That will answer some questions about reasonable security. But we’re not doing that. UNCC has the same problem as everybody else. The curriculum is full. There are so many things that we need to teach, and security isn’t always seen as one. It’s relegated to a few courses. Many employees, even technical employees, have little security knowledge. They believe it’s for security people, and they add cost to a system. So, if your system administrators, software

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developers and managers understand security, perhaps you won’t need to spend as much on it. A consortium of North Carolina community colleges and universities, including UNCC, recently received a $2 million National Security Agency grant to establish a business center for cybersecurity. It’ll fund education and outreach activities. COBB: Many small and midsize organizations and businesses, including K-12 educational systems, struggle with cybersecurity, whether paying for it or changing employee behavior around trusted and longtime business functions. Email, for example, isn’t a trusted communication platform. You typically can’t verify a sender. IT folks need security awareness for sure but so do frontline employees. That will make them suspicious, raising concern about things that seem out of place. We interact with organizations hit by ransomware. Many don’t have an IT budget per se let alone a cybersecurity budget. We’ve seen resistance to implementing cybersecurity measures. It’s a struggle for companies who haven’t considered the risks and impacts of a cybersecurity incident. Many businesses, especially small ones, won’t survive one. The IT community needs to do a better job of informing business owners and managers about risks and impacts, so they can decide what’s reasonable. The first step is awareness training. Then maybe it’s easy to implement things that significantly reduce risk such as multifactor authentication, which, for example, would require a user to log in then enter a code sent in a text. We consider that reasonable. Attorneys can discuss liability around negligence — what you know, what you don’t know. Education is a key piece of protection, and we just don’t do a good job of it.

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HOW CAN SMALL AND MIDSIZE BUSINESSES IMPROVE THEIR CYBERSECURITY POSITION? COBB: Technology, such as two-factor or multifactor authentication, is something we recommend at access points to services or applications. It’s easy to implement and reduces risk. But it isn’t a silver bullet. Many people believe antivirus software is sufficient, but it isn’t anymore. Attackers can overcome it. Consider endpoint tools such as endpoint detection and response or endpoint protection platform, which look at behavior analytics among other things. If you use these, make sure somebody is watching for their alerts. We’ve seen instances when red flags were raised but no one was there to take action. Preparation is one of the best things that a company can do. Leadership should discuss a response plan, which includes fulfilling legal reporting requirements, before an incident. The moments afterward, when everyone is flying around in different directions, aren’t the time to create one. COTTRELL: There are many benefits from programs such as email testing and training. Vendors can implement them. They don’t require much infrastructure work from the business, and

they pay dividends. Technology mitigating and blocking attacks is great, but if you haven’t trained employees to recognize a phishing email, then it’s all for naught. QUICK: I wish I had a nickel for every time I discovered that a client never took away network administration rights from the administrative assistant. I don’t know how technical that is to do, but it’s a basic thing. Be careful who has administration rights and who has the ability to access data that they don’t need. It can make a huge difference in a bad guy’s ability to access your system or data. SEVERAL STATES HAVE ADOPTED COMPREHENSIVE PRIVACY LAWS. WHAT DO THEY DO AND HOW DO THEY DIFFER FROM WHAT’S ON NORTH CAROLINA’S BOOKS? QUICK: Post-incident laws that require reporting after a data breach have been around in the United States for about 20 years. Those laws focus on what a company has to do to give notice after a breach but generally don’t provide any rights to control what data a company stores about a person. The first big law of that sort that effected U.S. businesses was the European Union’s General

Data Protection Regulation because of its broad scope. Not long after GDPR, the California Consumer Protection Act was passed. It was the first comprehensive U.S. privacy law to give individuals the right to decide how their data is collected, corrected or deleted, and sold or shared. That’s a big shift. Virginia and Colorado have passed laws similar to CCPA. North Carolina is among about a dozen states that have or had similar legislation in the works. I look at this ever-evolving patchwork and help businesses be as compliant as possible. It can be a difficult task. But it often starts by asking where your business operates — not so much where you’re headquartered. There are triggers in the California, Virginia and Colorado laws, for example, that might apply to any client that’s operating beyond North Carolina. So, we’re looking at a broad set of laws. Beginning in late 2019 or 2020, more clients were trying to thread the needle by complying with respect to consumers located only in California or EU countries — i.e., only giving those residents the comprehensive rights. But now there’s more acceptance of applying the same set of privacy rights across the board. It becomes too difficult when you get an email from somebody in North Dakota and one from somebody in California, both inquiring what data you have on

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CYBERSECURITY them and both living under different data handling requirements. It takes a lot of resources, often more than businesses realize and are willing to put on the table. There are solutions, but it’s still a process. D’ARRUDA: North Carolina’s comprehensive law stalled. It may or may not return. More states are looking at comprehensive laws. As more states adopt them, it may be easier for companies to treat everyone’s data and information the same regardless of where they live. Companies may not want to do something different for each state. So, some states may see the benefits of a law without enacting one. COTTRELL: We cross our fingers every day, hoping for a Federal Trade Commission regulation or federal bill before it gets out of control. The security breach laws across all 50 states and territories are similar. But comprehensive laws will start conflicting with each other soon. The Uniform Law Commission offered a uniform privacy law. It’ll be interesting to see how that progresses, and I think we all will be watching to see if states start picking it up. Virginia and Colorado’s comprehensive laws are more friendly to businesses. Some information, for example, isn’t necessarily connected to a ‘consumer’ as California has defined one. So, hopefully those states are the models that actually proliferate. HOW DOES SECURITY AND PRIVACY DIFFER BETWEEN BUSINESSTO-BUSINESS AND BUSINESS-TOCONSUMER INTERACTIONS? COTTRELL: The immediate concept of B2B is you’re working only with businesses, which aren’t people. So,

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you don’t have to worry about data protection from a personal information security breach perspective. In B2C, you might have a person’s information such as credit card information or social security number. But comprehensive data protection laws don’t necessarily distinguish between people and businesses. A B2B company, for example, may have more personal information, though not necessarily personal identifiable information, that falls under the scope of some state laws. Personally identifiable information, which is more likely in a B2C context, is more likely to fall under security breach laws, which include reporting obligations. B2B companies have to think about the business contacts and end-user data they collect and hold. If you’re selling to a distributor, for example, but collecting information about who’s using your products, then you could have personal information or data that’s protected under comprehensive laws but not necessarily personal information under security breach laws. QUICK: I review vendor contracts, identifying obligations for companies that might hold data of our clients or B2B clients that provide a service to a B2C. We look at each contract’s language, reporting obligations and who they may have to indemnify if the breach is on their side. Data privacy and cybersecurity are issues wherever you are in that chain. There have been a number of incidents where I’ve had a client say, ‘Hey, here’s what happened. This service provider had a breach. They told me about it. What does the vendor have to do?’ I look at the contract, and there’s an ironclad indemnity, and they don’t have to do anything other than maybe tell their customer. That happens more than I wish. So, it’s important to know those relationships on the front end.

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D’ARRUDA: There are several definitions of personal information. In North Carolina’s Identity Theft Protection Act, it includes a person’s first and last name in combination with other things. And a person can be an individual, partnership, corporation, trust or cooperative association. So, it can be B2B. When a company has information on a business, especially a small one, it could be using a social security number as a tax identification number. You may think you’re handling one, when it’s actually the other. One thing all businesses can review is their legacy systems: People store data that they don’t need on a server that they think isn’t connected. Then inevitably someone gets into it. People need to do a checkup, find out what they have, identify what they need and discard what they don’t. That way it’s not available for when somebody gets in your system. COBB: Many companies don’t have a data classification policy, so they don’t know what data they have. Different parts of a business or organization do different functions. Sometimes security incidents or breaches are isolated. But if you don’t know what data was exposed, it’s extremely difficult to have legal discussions because you’ve added an unknown. Ensure your business or organization knows what data you’re working with and what data is important to you. Identify your crown jewels, especially intellectual property, that attackers may want and where it lives. That’s information that most organizations haven’t thought through but need to. ■

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Running western North Carolina’s Caterpillar franchise has been a Weisiger family tradition for nearly a century.

By Ted Reed Photos by Jeff Siner

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ressure? What pressure? It’s just that when Cabell Weisiger Cornelson was born on June 23, his grandfather was running the family business and his mother was in line to run it. Cab’s mother, Amanda Weisiger Cornelson, who returned to work in September after a 10-week maternity leave, isn’t sure if her infant son will one day be in charge. “Oh man, it’s too early for that yet,” she says. “If he’s interested, we’d love to have him here.” Meanwhile, Cab’s grandfather Ed Weisiger Jr., president and CEO of 95-year-old Carolina Tractor & Equipment since 1991, is impressed with his daughter and son-in-law’s parenting skills. “I don’t remember being as comfortable as they are. I remember being very stressed.” As for Cab’s future, Weisiger agrees having four generations photographed for this story is pretty cool. Still, he adds, “Nobody has put a crown on his head yet.” While certainly no kingdom, CTE is one of North Carolina’s largest privately held companies with $800 million in revenue last year and $900 million expected this year. A concern for succession and a commitment to stewardship have helped it beat the odds. “Most (family) businesses fail over time,” Weisiger says. “We’re fighting taxation, chaos and entropy to make this work.”

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▲ Formed in 1925, Caterpillar had annual revenue topping $50 billion before the pandemic. It sells equipment through 161 dealers in 192 countries, including two N.C. groups.

Although it operates in five states, CTE is anchored in western North Carolina, where it was founded. The headquarters moved from Salisbury to Charlotte in 1971. Today, four generations of Weisigers live within a few miles of one another in south Charlotte’s Eastover, Cotswold and South Park neighborhoods. The Weisiger concept of a family business does not mean just immediate kin at the 1,600-employee company. “It’s more than us,” Weisiger says. Mike Tropsha, general manager of the Carolina Cat construction division and a 10year company employee, says, “There’s a balance between a family environment with a family feel and the ambition and capabilities of a modern,sophisticated company.” CTE’s executive team includes former senior leaders at GE Capital, SPX Flow and Sealed Air. Weisiger doesn’t disclose profit but says 2020 set a record,

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overcoming expectations for a difficult year because of the pandemic. “It’s amazing what $6 trillion from the federal government can do. I give the federal government a lot of credit. The CARES Act created confidence and demand, which was helpful for us. Being in the Southeast, we also benefited from population growth.” Despite chip shortages and supply-chain issues, this year’s profit will approach the 2020 record, Weisiger says. Housing starts are the best correlation for CTE’s revenue, and more than 700,000 single-family homes were under construction nationally in August, the most since before the recession of 2007-09 and a third higher than a year earlier. “Demand is strong, even if supply is not. We’re missing out on some equipment sales, but I don’t know what the gap is between what we could sell and what we have to sell.” Peoria, Ill.-based Caterpillar remains the core of CTE, making up 60% of revenue. The world’s leading manufacturer of heavy equipment has about 40 dealerships in the U.S. It split North Carolina into two regions in 1951, awarding the eastern half to road contractor Gregory Poole. His grandson, Gregory

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Poole III, is the third generation to lead the company. CTE is among the nation’s oldest Caterpillar dealers with 30 offices in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. The N.C. staff totals about 1,100, including 475 at the north Charlotte headquarters, which houses administration, sales and service. While everyone has seen yellow Caterpillar equipment, it’s technology that stands out at the corporate office. In a small room called the “fishbowl,” interactive wall screens monitor the operations of about 10,000 pieces of Caterpillar equipment that CTE has sold.

Tech smarts Cellular antennas enable information flow to provide “an idea of the health of the fleet in our territory,” says Jason Ritchey, general manager of construction technology firm Sitech, a CTE affiliate. “We use software to tell customers how they’re doing — it’s the coolest stuff in the company.” Monitoring also enables customers to anticipate maintenance needs. CTE also offers drones that can survey construction sites, and Caterpillar construction equipment comes with computer equipment to estimate grades and identify barriers. A drone can survey 20 acres in 30 minutes. It’s a far cry from when Ed Weisiger Sr. ran the company. “We used to check sites for rocks,” he says. “We’d pound a hammer.” Carolina Tractor & Equipment was founded in 1926. In 1930, L.M. Weisiger, the Caterpillar distributor for Asheville, became the majority investor. During the Depression, when many businesses folded, CTE sold whatever it could to survive, including dairy processing materials and cleaning supplies. As World War II approached, increasing construction of roads and airstrips created demand for road building equipment. Later, in the 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower oversaw a surge in interstate highway construction. Ed Weisiger Jr. admires his grandfather L.M. as someone “able to make bets and willing to make pivots and leave comfortable places for uncomfortable places, when trends told him he should.” L.M. Weisiger earned a civil engineering degree from the University of South Carolina at 18 in about 1920. With the dawn of automobiles, he became a state highway engineer, building roads in western South Carolina. “Then he saw that he could leave the state [job] and become a contractor, and then he went from contractor to Caterpillar dealer,” says Ed

Weisiger Jr., whose hobbies include collecting antique maps and tracing the roads his grandfather built. Ed Weisiger Sr. was born in Salisbury in 1931. He worked for his dad as a mechanic, graduated from N.C. State University in 1954 and joined the Army, overseeing a heavy equipment maintenance unit in Germany. He returned to work in 1956 and was named CTE president in 1965. “My dad bought out Carolina Tractor, which gave him three quarters of the state” for Caterpillar, Ed Sr. says. “He was smart and very frugal and always made a profit [except for 1934]. I tried to follow that.” Once the headquarters was moved to Charlotte, Ed Sr. became active in the chamber of commerce, making lots of contacts and sharing in the region’s growth. “We were fortunate,” Ed Sr. says. “Dad took on the dealership in the 1930s. The government spent a lot of money on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Eisenhower started the interstate program, and Duke built new power plants in the 1950s and 1960s. It helped the area because there was cheap power and businesses came here.” Ed Sr. took key steps in securing the family’s control of the business, buying out four other dealership stockholders in the 1960s. “I felt the stockholders were not participating. They were hangers-on. One lady had about 30%. I had to give her a million dollars.” The company’s owners now are Ed Sr. and his wife, Agnes, and Ed Jr. and his three daughters. Today Ed Sr. lives in South Park and has a farm in Lancaster County, S.C., where he raises turkeys, deer, ducks and pine trees. Born in Charlotte, Ed Jr. attended Woodberry Forest School before earning an industrial engineering degree at N.C. State in 1982 and a Harvard MBA in 1985. He worked in commercial real estate before joining CTE in 1986. Diversifying away from construction equipment sales and service has been a key goal. An example is the partnership formed in 2012 with lift-truck maker Hyster-Yale. “It’s not that we don’t like Caterpillar, but we hadn’t been able to grow,” he says. “We’ve become less dependent over time.” Besides CTE, the family has two other businesses. Beacon Partners is a Charlotte-based real-estate investment firm founded in 1989 and is led by co-founder Pete Lash. Beacon oversees about 100 real-estate partnerships valued at more than $2 billion. While much of its focus is on industrial projects, Beacon was an early investor in office projects in Charlotte’s red-hot South End area. The Weisigers also have a private-equity business through

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▲ CTE employs about 1,100 people, includng 475 in Charlotte. It ranks among the state’s biggest privately held companies.

All in the family

a fund that manages $150 million in assets in about 60 companies. “We back searchers, young people in their early 30s, recent grads of top MBA schools, who are trying to do entrepreneurial things,” Weisiger says. “We make small and microcap purchases, we apply smart people, and we grow those businesses. Some are tech-enabled; some are more mundane. One in Washington state delivers garden plants to offices and refreshes them from time to time. Others take care of ponds: they catch stormwater and maintain retention ponds.”

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Working with family members on developing “good and competent governance” is a key role for Weisiger. Formal family meetings are held quarterly to discuss finances, challenges and obligations. “We discuss the business, we learn about each other. We’ve done some psychological profiling.” Family members are required to work successfully outside the business before joining CTE. “You learn a lot about yourself before you come back,” Weisiger says. The CEO’s middle daughter, Marshall, is a College of Charleston graduate who now works for Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. His youngest daughter, Grace, graduated from the University of Georgia and is attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Neither has decided whether to join CTE. Cornelson, the oldest daughter, worked in New York for a marketing agency after earning a bachelor’s degree at Vanderbilt in 2012. She returned to Charlotte to join two friends to start House Account, which helped small brick-and-mortar retailers build an online presence. In 2018, the company merged with Shoptiques, a competitor.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF CAROLINA TRACTOR & EQUIPMENT COMPANY

▲ Founder L.M. Weisiger, left, opened the company’s Graham Street office in north Charlotte in 1956 with his son Ed.

She then joined CTE, heading a team that dispatches maintenance workers when equipment needs service. Now she is a financial planning and analysis manager as part of a rotation through different roles in the dealership. Her husband, Shaw, works as a market manager for Raleigh-based Alfred Williams & Co., a commercial furniture dealership. Cornelson attended her first family business meeting in her mid-teens. “Dad kept us involved,” she says. “We review strategy, go through communication and trust exercises, discuss family giving and philanthropy, and go to dinner and concerts. There is no pressure to join the business. For me, having knowledge of what was going on took the pressure off.” Family members are subject to performance evaluations

▲ Cabel Cornelson, right, with his great-grandfather, Ed Weisiger Sr., and mom, Amanda.

just like other company employees. The family has a self-imposed obligation to donate $1 million to community causes each year. In 2020, with the pandemic raging, the amount was $1.7 million. Favorite charities include Novant Health, where the Edward I. and Agnes B. Weisiger (Ed’s parents) Cancer Center opened last fall, and N.C. State, which has a library endowment and athletic facility named after the family. Ed. Jr. is a N.C. State trustee. Adding tech capabilities is a mission for Cornelson. She also wants to hire more women, who make up 14% of the company’s payroll. “Every day I walk into a room full of guys,” she says. Nationally, women totaled 10% of workers in construction and heavy equipment repair in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “There are preconceived notions about the construction industry,” Cornelson says. “Women think they will be covered head to toe in mud, but there are also opportunities to work with technology and make sure we take care of customers.” More broadly, she says, “I’m going to steer the business, keep it healthy and growing, and keep what my predecessors have built while keeping in mind that the world is changing quickly. My main goal is to continue this for future generations. Ninety-five-year-old family businesses are hard to come by these days.” She returned to work on Sept. 7, when Cab was 11 weeks old. A week later, Cab made his first visit to the office. His looming responsibility made no impression on him, but his N.C. State bib atop a Wolfpack-themed bodysuit sent a message. His great-grandfather and grandfather, who are former and current N.C. state trustees, beamed at him. ■

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BY CAROLINE ZUENDEL AND DAVID MILDENBERG

andemic restrictions and work-from-home policies have limited traffic in North Carolina’s center cities, but construction of large buildings has continued at a crisp pace. That was particularly true for downtown Charlotte, where a half dozen office, condo and apartment towers have opened over the last 18 months. The eighth Building North Carolina awards highlight some of the state’s most impressive commercial real-estate projects completed between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, based on design, innovation and community impact.

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OVERALL DESIGN

BAILEY SOUTH WINSTON-SALEM

DEVELOPER: FRONT STREET CAPITAL, WINSTON-SALEM CONTRACTOR: LANDMARK BUILDERS, GREENSBORO ARCHITECT: STITCH DESIGN SHOP, WINSTON-SALEM COST: $23 MILLION SIZE: 75,000 SQUARE FEET

PHOTOS COURTESY OF STITCH DESIGN SHOP

ituated between two smokestacks that helped power Winston-Salem for nearly a century and in the center of Innovation Quarter, Bailey South aspires to bridge the gap between the city’s heritage and future ambitions. The familiar smokestacks built in 1926 and 1946 frame a new six-story brick-and-glass building that encapsulates remnants of the original power plant. The development was built on a former parking lot, power substation and credit union. It now includes a sixstory building that is 95% leased by tenants such as The Variable Marketing firm, Black Mountain Chocolate and three restaurants. Within the atrium of Bailey South, a hole was left open to one of the smokestacks and

lights placed within it for passers-by to peek inside. The surrounding Innovation Quarter district is home to about 170 companies and their 3,700 employees and 1,800 Wake Forest University students. The development has nearly 2 million square feet of office, laboratory and educational space. Bailey South developer Front Street Capital is a Winston-Salem-based company that has other real-estate investments in the Triad, Atlanta, Greenville, S.C., and Memphis. “Real estate continues to define what a community’s perception of itself is,” says Coleman Team, a Front Street Capital partner and the son of Managing Partner Robin Team, a veteran N.C. developer. “Bailey South is a dynamic and energy-

creating asset intended to bring the community into Innovation Quarter … [and] give a glimpse towards where WinstonSalem is going.” Variable President David Mullen says Bailey South can be a game-changer for downtown Winston-Salem and Innovation Quarter. “We wanted our fingerprints to be a part of it. It’s an incredibly special development from the overall building design to the design of our top two floors to the proximity of amazing outdoor spaces, restaurants and entertainment options,” he says. “It helps us attract incredibly talented people from across the country to join The Variable and fosters amazing collaboration and work-from-office options for our team.”

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PUBLIC PROJECT

FITTS-WOOLARD HALL N . C . S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y C E N T E N N I A L C A M P U S

DEVELOPER: STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA CONTRACTOR: SKANSKA USA, PARSIPPANY, N.J. ARCHITECT: CLARK NEXSEN, VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. COST: $103.3 MILLION

he completion of Fitts-Woolard Hall marked the final step in moving N.C. State University’s College of Engineering to the Centennial Campus. The building houses the departments of civil, construction and environmental engineering, as well as the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The campus is set up as a research park aimed at mixing teaching, research and commercialization efforts at one of the nation’s most highly rated engineering schools.

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Fitts-Woolard Hall has more than 100 classrooms and laboratories, most of them visible to passersby as part of the college’s commitment to putting “engineering on display.” Throughout the building, structural and mechanical engineering components are incorporated into spaces such as steel-plated stairs that span the four stories. Edward Fitts and Edgar Woolard are N.C. State graduates and retired corporate CEOs who gave a combined $25 million in 2018, marking the largest campus-building naming in university history.

Morton Barlaz, head of the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at N.C. State, says the buidling provides modern labs and classrooms that are equipped for state-ofthe-art research and education. “Our faculty are working on some of the most challenging problems around civil infrastructure and protection from natural hazards including earthquakes and floods. The new building enables this research with space for a broad range of experimental work involving our students.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF N.C. STATE UNIVERSITY

SIZE: 225,000 SQUARE FEET

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COMMERCIAL PROJECT

THE SQUARE AT SOUTH END CHARLOTTE

DEVELOPER: BEACON PARTNERS, CHARLOTTE CONTRACTOR: EDIFICE GENERAL CONTRACTORS, CHARLOTTE ARCHITECTS: AXIOM ARCHITECTURE & LANDDESIGN, CHARLOTTE COST: N.A. SIZE: 158,500 SQUARE FEET

he Square at South End is a 10-story boutique office building at a prominent intersection in what used to be called the Wilmore neighborhood. USAA, a large San Antonio, Texasbased financial services company, is leasing six floors as it expands in Charlotte. Several floors will have outdoor decks, while the sleek geometric lines of exposed brick and steel beams frame glass windows that provide views of South End and Charlotte’s center city. A two-story fitness center, coffee bar and rooftop restaurant are among the building’s amenities. The development team worked with Mecklenburg County to create a 1.5-acre park as a plaza. Plans call for an adjacent five-story, 120-unit apartment complex.

A RT S & E N T E RTA I N M E N T

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDIFICE GENERAL CONTRACTORS, CLANCY & THEYS CONSTRUCTION

RIVERFRONT PARK WILMINGTON

DEVELOPER: CITY OF WILMINGTON CONTRACTOR: CLANCY & THEYS CONSTRUCTION, RALEIGH ARCHITECTS: HARGREAVES JONES – LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS, NEW YORK; SAGE AND COOMBE – PAVILION ARCHITECTS, NEW YORK COST: $34 MILLION SIZE: 6.6 ACRES

iverfront Park fulfills the Port City’s goal of providing a big open space for residents and visitors to enjoy along the Cape Fear River. The city bought the land in 2013 and is funding the park partly through a bond issue approved in 2016. The park features the area’s biggest concert venue, a 7,200-seat amphitheater sponsored by Live Oak Bank, a fast-growing Wilmington-based company. The park is among the first to earn Waterfront Edge Design Guideline certification, which involves ensuring protection of the natural shoreline through best practices by landowners and community members.

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R E N O VAT I O N

AMERICAN LEGION MEMORIAL STADIUM CHARLOTTE

DEVELOPER: MECKLENBURG COUNTY CONTRACTORS: EDIFICE GENERAL CONTRACTORS, CHARLOTTE; BARTON MALOW, SOUTHFIELD, MICH.; NJR CONSTRUCTION, CHARLOTTE COST: $40.5 MILLION SIZE: 9.8 ACRES, 9,500 SEATS

ranklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the stadium in 1936 as part of the Works Progress Administration and to honor World War I veterans. It served as Charlotte’s principal stadium for generations before suffering from age and neglect in recent decades. Now the venue adjacent to Central Piedmont Community College’s downtown campus has been modernized to

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allow for football, soccer, rugby and lacrosse along with concerts and band competitions. Replicating the original style and design enabled the stadium to retain its historic landmark designation. Improvements included modern lighting, underground stormwater management, improved broadcasting capabilities, space for food trucks and an expanded press box.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDIFICE GENERAL CONTRACTORS

ARCHITECT: JENKINS PEER ARCHITECTS, CHARLOTTE

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H O S P I TA L I T Y

GRAND BOHEMIAN CHARLOTTE

DEVELOPER: THE KESSLER COLLECTION, ORLANDO, FLA. CONTRACTOR: JE DUNN CONSTRUCTION, KANSAS CITY, MO. ARCHITECT: CHRISTIAN SOTTILE, SAVANNAH, GA. COST: $110 MILLION SIZE: 282,668 SQUARE FEET

he 254-room, 16-story downtown Charlotte hotel is among the boutique hotels operated by the Orlando, Fla.-based Kessler Collection, which is a founding member of Marriott’s Autograph Collection of hotels. Its features include a rooftop bar, spa, 16,000 square feet of meeting and event space, and an Argentinian-inspired restaurant. Kessler financed the luxury hotel with capital raised under a federal program in which foreign investors commit to create a specified number of U.S. jobs.

Kessler has Bohemian hotels in Asheville, Charleston, S.C., Mountain Brook, Ala., Orlando and Savannah, Ga. It earlier this year became the first major U.S. vacation-oriented hotel operator to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

RESIDENTIAL

THE EDGE CHARLOTTE

DEVELOPER: MARSH PROPERTIES, CHARLOTTE CONTRACTOR: SAMET CORP., GREENSBORO ARCHITECT: BB+M ARCHITECTURE, CHARLOTTE COST: N.A.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GRAND BOHEMIAN, BB+M ARCHITECTURE

SIZE: 263 UNITS

he Edge is an apartment complex in Charlotte’s Sedgefield neighborhood about 3 miles south of the center city. Developer Marsh Properties, which has about a dozen other south Charlotte apartment developments, has owned the land for decades. Its name reflects its central location, with the property within walking distance of Harris Teeter and Publix supermarkets, the South End area’s dining and entertainment venues, and a light-rail station. The Edge’s architecture is inspired by a midcentury modern design that differs from many other new multifamily projects and was aimed at blending into the adjacent neighborhood. Its amenities include a saltwater pool, demo kitchen and roof terrace. Tenants choose from 12 floor plans available for lease ranging in size from 616 square feet to 1,445 square feet.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS FOUNDATION SUPPLY CHARLOTTE

Architect: Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Charlotte

400 BELLEMEADE GREENSBORO

Cost: N.A. Size: 225,000 square feet

General contractor: Barringer Construction, Charlotte

ALLY CHARLOTTE CENTER CHARLOTTE

Developer: Front Street Capital, Winston-Salem Contractor: Landmark Builders, Winston-Salem

Architect: Redline Design Group, Charlotte

Architect: West & Stem Architects, Winston-Salem

Estimated cost: N.A.

Cost: $27.5 million

Size: 125,000 square feet

Size: 112,000 square feet

Texas developer Colin Brothers’ first Charlotte project involved rehabbing a century-old former factory in north Charlotte into a space for office, restaurants and co-working space. The building, which most recently had been used as a center for small businesses, was redesigned with tall windows allowing lots of natural light and larger office spaces. The building emphasizes its industrial roots with wood planking, steel barn doors and a concrete floor. Developer: Crescent Communities,

The nine-story downtown office building overlooks First National Bank Field, home of the Greensboro Grasshoppers minorleague baseball team. The building’s glass panes were tested to resist the impact of a baseball. The anchor tenant is Greensboro’s Tuggle Duggins law firm, which can entertain clients on viewing decks overlooking the field.

421 N. HARRINGTON RALEIGH

Charlotte

Contractor: Brasfield & Gorrie, Birmingham, Ala. Architect: Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Charlotte Cost: More than $100 million Size: 750,000 square feet

Developer: Kane Realty and Williams Realty & Building, Raleigh

Ally Financial anchors the 26-story skyscraper that is adjacent to a 22-story, 380-room JW Marriott hotel that opened in August. While Ally is based in Detroit, CEO Jeff Brown is based in Charlotte. An Ally affiliate bought the building from Crescent for $390 million in July.

Contractor: Clancy & Theys Construction, Raleigh

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VANTAGE SOUTH END CHARLOTTE Developer: Spectrum Cos., Charlotte, and Invesco, Atlanta Contractor: Rodgers Builders, Charlotte Architect: LS3P, Charleston, S.C. Cost: N.A. Size: 326,800 square feet

LendingTree is the anchor tenant of the 11-story building at the tip of the South End area, just across Interstate 277 from Charlotte’s center city. A second, 286,000-square-foot building is expected to open in May. The project includes a courtyard with space for 700 outdoor seats, and plans call for a hotel atop the site’s parking deck.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BARRINGER CONSTRUCTION, CLANCY & THEYS CONSTRUCTINO, , LITTLE DIVERSIFIED ARCHITECTURAL CONSULTING, , FRONT STREET CAPITAL

Developer: Artesia Real Estate Investments, Austin, Texas

The nine-story office building is part of the Smoky Hollow multiuse development off Capital Boulevard that already includes apartments and a Publix grocery store. The work-live-play center is sandwiched between the Glenwood South and Warehouse District neighborhoods.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS UNION COUNTY EVENTS CENTER MONROE

Contractor: MCT General Contractors, Monroe Architect: Ted Richard Brown, Charlotte

Cost: N.A.

MORRISVILLE

Size: 362,500 square feet

International accounting giant Deloitte is the anchor tenant of the 18-story building, which is the second tower on the 10.2acre Legacy Union campus. The adjacent Bank of America Tower opened in August 2019, while a third 23-story office building has opened as the headquarters for Honeywell International. The sleek glass look of Developer: CBRE, Dallas; and 650 South Tryon contrasts with the more Equator Capital Management, traditional 33-story BofA Tower. New York

CONGDON YARDS

Contractor: Choate Construction, Atlanta

HIGH POINT

Architect: Gensler, San Francisco Cost: $25 million

Cost: $3.31 million Size: 41,500 square feet

Size: 245,000 square feet

The special events center is a collaboration with N.C. State University, N.C. A&T State University and Union County Cooperative Extension. One goal is to promote the big agricultural economy of the south-central N.C. county and increase the farm-to-table supply chain. It’s next to the Union County Agricultural Center and includes a covered 24,000-square-foot arena.

Formerly an outlet mall just off Interstate 40, The Stitch has become a hub for life sciences and innovation where San Francisco-based biotech firm Invitae will occupy office and laboratory space. The redesign includes new structural steel and roof life and “pays homage to the mall’s history while catering to current and future generations,” Gensler designers Brad Burns and Jessica Pearson noted

650 SOUTH TRYON AT LEGACY UNION PHOTOS COURTESY OF UNION COUNTY, LUQUIRE, J. MICHAEL WORTHINGTON, JR.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BARRINGER CONSTRUCTION, CLANCY & THEYS CONSTRUCTINO, , LITTLE DIVERSIFIED ARCHITECTURAL CONSULTING, , FRONT STREET CAPITAL

Developer: Union County

THE STITCH

Architect: LS3P, Charleston, S.C.

CHARLOTTE

Developer: Business High Point Chamber of Commerce Contractor: Landmark Builders, Winston-Salem Architect: Louis Cherry Architecture, Raleigh; Barbour Spangle Design, High Point Cost: N.A. Size: 225,000 square feet

More than $40 million from the Earl and Kathryn Congdon Family Foundation has helped turn the former Adams-Millis Hosiery mill in downtown High Point into a center for entrepreneurship. The project includes offices, an event center, and a coffee and sandwich bar. Developer: Lincoln Harris, Charlotte Contractor: Gilbane Building, Providence, R.I.; and Shelco, Charlotte

HARNETT COUNTY RESOURCE CENTER & LIBRARY LILLINGTON Developer: Balfour Beatty, Raleigh Contractor: Dewberry, Fairfax, Va. Architect: Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Charlotte Cost: $22.2 Million Size: 55,767 square feet

The completion of the project is a large milestone in the county’s decades-old plan to bring many services to the Government Complex campus in Lillington. The development will have access to the county library, Veterans Services, Memorial Park and many other county departments in the same building. The county courthouse and health and social services agencies are in adjacent buildings. N O V E M B E R

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TYRRELL’S TURNAROUND Losing a fourth of its population in a decade spurs North Carolina’s tiniest county to seek a rebirth.

By Colin Campbell

rive through the small town of Columbia on your way to the Outer Banks and the signs of a shrinking population are easy to spot. There’s a big “for sale” sign on the Columbia Crossing Restaurant & Good Times Tavern, which

served its last meal earlier this year after 12 years in business. Next door, a big red sign advertises a winery, but the tasting room that once served as a gathering place recently moved to Manteo. Already North Carolina’s least populous county, Tyrrell County’s economy suffered dual blows when the state shuttered its prison in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic strained the eateries and other businesses that rely on beach-bound traffic from U.S. 64. The latest U.S. Census numbers were sobering: Tyrrell (pronounced TERR-il, not Tie-RELL) went from 4,407 residents in 2010 to just 3,245 residents in 2020. That’s a 26% decrease, the largest decline of any N.C. county. Local leaders are skeptical about those numbers, pointing to a potential overcount in 2010 and the Census Bureau’s well-publicized 2020 pandemic challenges. There were fewer door-to-door census takers last year, and many in Tyrrell lack reliable internet to fill out the online surveys.

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The real story, locals contend, is that the remote county — located 150 miles east of Raleigh and 40 miles west of Nags Head — is poised for a turnaround. It’s growth that would seem incremental anywhere else but it’s a big deal for a place with a few thousand people spread across nearly 400 square miles. Near the shuttered restaurant, the new Waypoint Oyster Bar food truck has a busy lunch crowd, enjoying fried seafood at picnic tables set up in the parking lot of a carwash. The truck is run by Columbia-based Capt. Neill’s Seafood, a crabmeat processor. Best known for selling pimento cheese crab balls at the N.C. State Fair, they’re working to open a restaurant in Columbia’s historic downtown. The restaurant will be across from Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft, which is undergoing a $1.8 million renovation. The school has attracted artists and crafters to Tyrrell County for decades, while a series of popular Zoom workshops during the COVID-19 pandemic have raised its profile. Its leaders are hoping that success will translate to more in-person programs —and lots more visitors to the county—

▲ Waypoint Oyster Bar,, now serving from a food truck, plans to open a restaurant in downtown Columbia.

once the revamped facilities are complete. Meanwhile, new residential development could be coming to northern Tyrrell along the banks of Albemarle Sound. It’s one of the few places in the state where waterfront property is still used for farming. County leaders hope new utility service can change the calculus for coastal developers.

PHOTOS BY COLIN CAMPBELL

How they got here Tyrrell County’s population peaked in 1940 at 5,556 and has hovered around 4,000 for several decades. But fewer job opportunities in the rural community have forced some residents to move elsewhere or endure lengthy commutes, typically to tourism industry jobs in neighboring Dare County. The unemployment rate was 4.9% in August compared with the state’s 4.3% average. Agriculture remains a big industry for Tyrrell, with drained swamplands providing fertile soil for potatoes, soybeans and other crops. Advances in farm machinery mean that fewer workers are needed. Forestry industry giant Weyerhaeuser owns thousands of acres of timber. But the Seattle-based company no longer

▲ The Tyrrell County Courthouse, built in 1903, is one of many historic buildings in Columbia.

operates sawmills in the area. Aiming to create hundreds of jobs, the state opened the Tyrrell Prison Work Farm outside Columbia in 1998. As staffing shortages plagued the N.C. Department of Public Safety in 2019, it temporarily shut down the prison and shifted workers and inmates to facilities in nearby counties. Many of those workers moved too, rather than drive nearly an hour to their new workplaces. Columbia’s restaurants and shops suffered with fewer workers coming by on breaks. Now the prison is open again but housing about a quarter of its 640-inmate capacity. Seventy-nine people work there, according to a DPS spokesperson, down from more than 150 in years past. The state’s plan is to gradually add newly assigned offenders and a proportionate number of staffers with no specific deadline, spokesperson Brad Deen says.

On the rebound Getting the prison back to full staffing is just one piece of the economic puzzle for Tyrrell County. To reverse its population decline, it will need more people like Jordan Davis. Davis, 34, grew up in Tyrrell before attending UNC Wilmington. He initially took an insurance job in Carteret County after graduation but felt the pull of home and moved back to Tyrrell to help run the family farm. Now he oversees 2,500 acres of corn, soybeans and potatoes. The latter is Tyrrell’s biggest crop, with growers producing millions of pounds a year that wind up as chips from brands such as Utz and Lay’s. Tyrrell has “the most fertile soil in North Carolina” — nutrient-rich “blackland” soil that was a swamp before it was drained with a system of pumps and dikes decades ago, Davis says. That asset is also a limitation because federal environmental rules restrict expansion of Tyrrell’s farmland. The government owns more than half of the county, much of it comprising Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. With so much land that doesn’t generate property tax revenue, it’s hard to fund the infrastructure needed to help the

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county grow, says Davis, who is the county’s youngest elected county commissioner. Tyrrell has to rely on grants and other resources to expand water lines and add government services such as emergency management. Enter David Clegg, who’s served as county manager and county attorney since 2013. The bow-tied and bespectacled career government administrator led the N.C. Division of Employment Security under Gov. Bev Perdue and served as county manager in much larger Brunswick County. Working in Tyrrell is his retirement gig. He splits his time between Columbia and Raleigh, finding that his “highest and best use” for Tyrrell is advocating for its needs in the state capital. His lobbying has paid off in securing funding to extend water lines to isolated areas of the county, adding trash pick-up and partnering with neighboring counties on EMS and 911 services. Tyrrell shares those and other services, like a library system and social services, with rural neighbors like Hyde and Washington counties. But there’s no desire to fully merge because the counties are North Carolina’s original divisions. Tyrrell was established in 1729. Since Clegg arrived, the county has received $18.5 million in outside funding, with another $2.6 million on the way. Annual property taxes and other revenue totals about $7.5 million. “We’re filling in the canvas to allow for whatever that next chapter is, presenting a much better picture of Tyrrell County as a place to be,” Clegg said.

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The next step is addressing the county’s broadband infrastructure needs. During the pandemic, many of Tyrrell’s 525 public school students didn’t have reliable home internet, so the county sent school buses to distribute printed materials and return at the end of the day to pick up students’ completed assignments. Clegg doesn’t think Tyrrell will benefit from the legislature’s new broadband grant program, which partially subsidizes private internet providers to build new fiber lines. The county’s population is too spread out for private investments to pay off even with state support. Instead, he’s secured grant money to mount wireless internet technology on water towers, grain silos and other tall structures. State laws largely restrict local governments from offering internet service, but Clegg says he’s “willing to face the potential litigation.” Clegg’s other major goal is widening the final 27-mile stretch of U.S. 64 between Columbia and Manns Harbor. It’s the only section of the highway between Raleigh and the coast that isn’t four lanes. The project would create a faster connection for Tyrrell residents headed to Manteo and Nags Head and help prevent major traffic jams during a hurricane evacuation from the Outer Banks. The N.C. Department of Transportation lists the project as unfunded, which Clegg attributes to an overemphasis on traffic counts in the DOT’s prioritization system. The project carries a price tag of as much as $400 million, largely because it includes a replacement of the 2.8-mile Alligator River Bridge, which opened in 1962. “Give me 20 miles and a bridge, and we’re in business,” Clegg says.

Sound views The county has some of the most affordable waterfront property along North Carolina’s coast, but a lack of public utility service has made developers hesitant. With water lines extended to some soundfront communities in recent years,

PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISITNC.COM

▲ The Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes wildlife refuges are home to thousands of bears.

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NC’s sharpest county population decreases between 2010 and 2020 1. Tyrrell 2. Hyde 3. Northampton 4. Anson 5. Washington

▼ 26% to 3,245 ▼ 21% to 4,589 ▼ 21% to 17,471 ▼ 18% to 22,055 ▼ 17% to 11,003 Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Clegg sees potential along the shores of Albemarle Sound and the Scuppernong River. It’s the windier side of the sound, so he thinks a golf course could appeal to players who enjoy competing against challenging weather conditions. Raleigh real-estate investor Scott McLaughlin grew up spending summers on his grandparents’ farm in Tyrrell and has a second home there on the waterfront. He also owns hundreds of acres of undeveloped land and is mulling a project. “It’s kind of a slice of heaven,” he says. “Those that know it and love it kind of enjoy it not being so crowded. It is ripe for development.” A waterfront lot that sells for about $150,000 in Tyrrell

would cost $600,000 in other counties, McLaughlin says. He is noticing increased interest, particularly from people who can work remotely, with some properties selling for above asking price. Real estate prices in Tyrrell are a far cry from the state’s hot urban markets. Recent listings include a four-bedroom house on the riverfront in Columbia for $210,000. McLaughlin says he’s working on plans for some of his land in Tyrrell but it’s too early to announce specifics. “I wouldn’t be putting my money where I didn’t think there was a future.” Tyrrell officials hope to grow tourism inland from its waterfront. Hunting, fishing and birdwatching are already popular, but with few lodging options in the county, most ecotourism visitors don’t spend the night. It’s a place where bears outnumber people — Davis says he once saw 18 furry beasts gathered in one of his fields. It’s home to the carnivorous pitcher plant and the endangered red wolves. A limited marketing budget also holds back Tyrrell. While drivers on U.S. 64 see billboards promoting Tarboro and Martin County, they have to stop at the small visitors center in Columbia to learn what’s on offer there. “Someone with a vision can do a lot right here,” Davis says. When you’ve got only 3,200 residents, a little growth can make a big difference. ■

ARTS EPICENTER

To prepare for more visitors, Pocosin Arts is renovating its original building to add a woodworking studio to its metalsmithing and ceramic offerings. It’s upgrading a waterfront building on the Scuppernong River to host more events. County Manager David Clegg sees Pocosin Arts as the “epicenter of the rebirth” of Tyrrell. The hope is that some of those artists will ultimately relocate to the area. It’s a reason local leaders are optimistic that the next census will show some population growth instead of shrinkage. ■

INTERIOR PHOTOS COURTESY OF POCOSIN ARTS SCHOOL OF FINE CRAFT

yrrell County’s 27-year-old arts center hopes its pandemic pivot can help raise the county’s profile and draw more visitors. For decades, Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft has hosted workshops, classes and artist residencies from a historic storefront in downtown Columbia. Like most in-person activities, the programs were canceled when COVID-19 hit.

But Pocosin Arts was among the first arts organizations to arrange virtual workshops with some of the world’s top artists and craftspeople. The nonprofit has hosted 300 workshops with 5,000 students, bringing in $500,000 in revenue. Students include people who typically frequent better-known schools such as Penland School of Craft in Mitchell County in western North Carolina. Once in-person workshops resume, “they’re going to come here now,” says Executive Director Marlene True.

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RAPID RESPONDERS

By Colin Campbell Photos by John Gessner

he Mid-Market Fast 40 celebrates the state’s fastest-growing middle-market businesses based on strong gains in revenue and workforce over three consecutive years. Cherry Bekaert LLP analyzes the applications and develops the annual list of companies with annual revenue from $10 million to $500 million. Business North Carolina gathered four leaders at top-performing Fast 40 companies for a roundtable discussion focusing on the impact of the pandemic and labor relations. ■ Paul Evans is CEO of Durham-based Velocity Clinical Research, which topped the list. ■ Trent Beekman is CEO of ettain group, a Charlotte-based staffing company that was acquired by Milwaukee-based Manpower for $925 million in August. ■ David Woodworth is chief financial officer at Raleigh-based insightsoftware, which received a $1 billion investment from British privateequity group Hg in July ■ Suzanne Turner is vice president of marketing and client services for Samet Corp., a fast-growing Greensboro-based construction firm. Other panelists included Lee Hodge, a partner at Ward & Smith in New Bern; Thad Walton, N.C. commercial banking leader at Regions Bank in Charlotte; and John Gonella III, Cherry Bekaert’s Carolinas regional market leader in Raleigh. Comments were edited for brevity and clarity.

► How did the pandemic affect your business? Paul Evans: I’ve never seen a business go that flat, that quickly before. And then within six months, with the COVID vaccines that needed to be developed, suddenly the company was booming. I’d never gone so quickly from a company in decline like everybody else, to a company that was having to grow faster than I’ve ever grown a company in my life. Hence the whiplash. We doubled our workforce, which wasn’t easy in health care. And we added about one Manhattan block of extra space across the whole country. Everything moved super quickly. We also did five deals, acquired five companies, and we got sold ourselves. David Woodworth: Because we provide software to companies to help them make financial decisions, it was a good year for us in terms of what we can do. For us, it was how do you quickly adapt

to the remote space culture. Not that this is an acquisition competition, but we made eight acquisitions since COVID. And the integration trend is just so interesting: How do you get to know the key workforce members, how do you bring them into your mantra, your culture, your rhythm?

▲ David Woodworth, left, of insightsoftware and Suzanne Turner of Samet Corp.

Suzanne Turner: Safety is something that in the construction industry is always top of mind. So on our job sites, it was pretty easy to add the essentials needed for practicing a safe COVID environment. So quite honestly, we really didn’t miss a beat. We have most of our accounting team still working remote, and the reason they are is because we’ve grown so much over the last 12 months. We don’t have anywhere to put them. And so we’re now in a position of looking to expand our facilities in the Triad. Trent Beekman: We kind of eliminated the phrase “this is how we’ve always done it.” We didn’t outwardly say you can’t use that phrase in the company anymore. But we don’t mention it, we don’t talk about it. History is obviously a good indicator, but that’s also how companies die, right? John Gonella: We were fortunate to talk to companies that have been very successful. It was really interesting to be able to look at and hear how people have addressed and overcome a number of challenges, including resources and how some companies are less constrained by geographic employment and can recruit N O V E M B E R

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and find talent on more of a national or global stage. That has been really interesting to witness. [Companies are] having to change processes on having [staff] get the training they need to get up to speed for interns and new hires. Those types of things have been challenges that we’ve heard kind of across the board for instilling that corporate culture — in some cases, completely remotely.

Turner: There’s so much work out there, and it is fierce competition. There are construction companies offering $20,000 signing bonuses just to get people in the door. We put in referral programs for current employees, so we pay a $5,000 bonus. About 45% of our hires are referral-based.

► How do you make acquisitions in a difficult economic environment? Beekman: The liquidity markets opened up almost immediately. Once they realized you can actually run a business during COVID and pay your interest payment, it’s amazing what they will lend you. So that opened up the ability to go out and talk to people. [Companies owned by individuals] were concerned about what the new administration might do for capital gains tax. So that probably opened up at least two of the deals that we probably wouldn’t have talked to that early or moved that quickly.

▲ John Gonella, second from left, of Cherry Bekaert and Lee Hodge of Ward & Smith, third from left.

Beekman: We see people who have been highly engaged, longterm Ettain employees leave, so then you have to start to really internalize, is it us or is it the market? And the answer is it’s both. How do you create an environment to get people to want to come back? We did an Olympics, and the final event was they got dressed in blow-up dinosaur [costumes]. Thad Walton: You might have the best culture in the world, but if employees don’t see it and feel it on a regular basis, they’re just going to be just disengaged. It’s easy and they’re more marketable than ever sitting in their homes. ▲ Paul Evans, right, is CEO of Velocity Clinical Research, the No. 1 company on the Fast 40 list.

Evans: The driver was that there’s a wall of money out there in the private equity world that’s got to be deployed. By the time we got into the end of 2020, in the beginning of 2021, it was perfectly clear that the business had gotten through the COVID hit. The weaklings had probably fallen by the wayside, so what you were left with, by definition, were strong companies with strong management. Woodworth: It’s really a continuation of our product strategy and expansion. We have an internal team that just drives deals, drives integrations. It wasn’t unique for us to be opportunistic with our buying. It was a continuation, just a different approach.

Turner: Our marketing and recruiting efforts have had to change. Just posting an old stodgy job description without a lot of color and excitement to it is not doing it anymore.

► What are the state’s economic prospects? Beekman: It’s already one of the hottest job markets in the country. I would be shocked if it isn’t in the top one or two, very quickly in the next two years.

► What other challenges keep you up at night?

Woodworth: Gov. Cooper’s team has got a tremendous challenge. Your cost of living, what’s going to happen? Your cost of employees, what’s going to happen? How do you keep the infrastructure up? Mass transportation has been a big gap for this state for a long time. I think there’s a challenge to keep the state ahead so that we don’t become another Silicon Valley.

Woodworth: For us, people are probably the number one issue: How do you keep them engaged? How do you keep them moving forward? How do you keep them feeling like they’re part of the mission, when who we are is growing so fast? There’s undoubtedly a lot of employees that are looking at other options, so how do you differentiate yourselves as a company?

Evans: I think right now we’re in great shape. It’s how do we stay there that’s going to be really important, because everybody else wants to eat our lunch. There’s a lot more to be done to keep the state moving forward. We’re going to have to attract more talent to the state, we’re going to have to make sure the infrastructure is

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attractive. There’s a lot of investment that still needs to go into the [Raleigh-Durham] airport, for example.

really push them to come in at the same time? We’re going to have to foster a lot of that collaboration at the office and create events.

Lee Hodge: I spend about half my week in New Bern, which is pretty rural, eastern North Carolina, and half my week in Raleigh. They both have very different challenges. Kinston and Goldsboro are not thriving nearly as well as Wilmington, Fayetteville and Greenville. After this Census, 22% of the members of the General Assembly will be from Wake County and Mecklenburg County. It shows the major influx of people into the metropolitan areas.

Beekman: I think hybrid is probably what makes the most sense. I think some jobs you just don’t need to be in the office. But I think sales environments, leadership – you need to be around your folks. But it doesn’t have to be 40 or 50 hours.

► What’s the future of remote work? Walton: Is it going to be five days a week 9 to 5? Probably not, I think you might see that three to four days. The big thing is are they going to be in at the same time? What is the company doing to

Rank Company / headquarters

Evans: There are still dinosaurs — I’m one of them — that want to go into the office, you have to be able to accommodate that, rather than say we’re all doing away with offices. You have to be able to have the flexibility for the people that want to work remotely, and those that want to come in or do both. And people are going to flip back, we’re a social animal. ■

Top executive

Industry

Velocity Clinical Research Durham

Paul Evans CEO

Pharmaceutical

ettain group Charlotte

Trent Beekman CEO

Staffing

insightsoftware Raleigh

Jim Triandiflou CEO

Information technology and services

BioDelivery Sciences International Raleigh

Jeffrey Bailey CEO

Pharma/biotech

Fourth Elm Construction Kernersville

John Martin Partner

Commercial construction

Samet Corporation Greensboro

Arthur Samet Chairman/CEO

Commercial construction General contractor

JSmith Civil Goldsboro

Jeremy Smith President/CEO

Construction

McFarland Construction Charlotte

Tino McFarland President/CEO

Construction

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Wheelhouse Contract Packaging Partners Winston-Salem

Julian Bossong CEO

Contract packaging

Muter Construction Zebulon

Beth Muter CPA/CEO

Construction

First Carolina Bank Rocky Mount

Ron Day CEO

Banking

Allen Industries Greensboro

Tom Allen President

Outdoor electrical sign Manufacturing and installation

Omega Construction Winston-Salem

J. Barry Hennings President/CEO

Construction

ProVantage Corporate Solutions Raleigh

Chandler Rose CEO

Retail Service

Spatco Energy Solutions Charlotte

John Force President/CEO

Petroleum equipment distribution

MegaCorp Logistics Wilmington

Ryan Legg CEO

Logistics

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BUILT ON INNOVATION & PASSION MA Sales has been named to BNC’s Top 40 fastest-growing mid-market companies for the 4th consecutive year. With continued forward sales growth expectations to soon approach over $170 million and no signs of slowing down any time soon, DMA is strongly poised for continued success.

Founded in 2008 by President and CEO, John Treece, and company CFO, Steve Bertling, DMA Sales has quickly grown to become a trusted supplier to the automotive, heavy-duty, industrial parts industry. Serving OEM, OES, big box retail, wholesale, and e-tail sales channels, DMA is a leading product development, engineering, and diversified manufacturer whose portfolio of product brands have become some of the most recognized and

respected in their industry. In addition, DMA is a leading private label manufacturer with over 70% of its global revenues coming from products produced by them but under the customer’s brand. “We are honored to once again be recognized as part of this outstanding group of companies. DMA has a dynamic, performance-driven culture that embodies the entrepreneurial spirit from which we were founded. Given the ongoing challenges of the pandemic and global supply chain, our ability to continue to grow and expand is a testament to the dedication of our associates at DMA. That’s why we say, we are a company that is built on passion,” said John Treece. DMA Sales stays true to its core values of unquestionable integrity, commitment to

serving its customers with excellence, and passionate employees empowered to succeed. Headquartered in Tabor City, NC, with over a 1,000,000 square feet of distribution space across its four facilities in North and South Carolina, DMA continues to deliver on its mission to provide innovation and value for its Customers. The company has won numerous national awards for its engineering innovations and brand marketing strategies. DMA is also a strong contributor to the local community through civic and charitable contributions, as well as public service. Since its inception, the company has given back more than $5 million through various community support projects and charitable fund-raising efforts.

233 N US HIGHWAY 701 BYPASS, TABOR CITY, NC 28463 | 910-653-7101 | DMA-SALES.COM S P O N S O R E D

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Essentia Charlotte

Lindon Hayes CEO

Telecommunications

Commercial Credit Charlotte

Dan McDonough CEO

Equipment and accounts receivable finance

Passport Charlotte

David Evans President/CEO

Transportation software and payments

PresPro Homes Concord

John Sears CEO

Construction

McKim & Creed Raleigh

John Lucey Jr. CEO

Engineering and surveying

Sift Media Durham

Jud Bowman Founder & CEO

Media and advertising

RestorePro Reconstruction Durham

Ryan Jackson President

Restoration

Withers Ravenel Cary

Jim Canfield President/CEO

Engineering and consulting

Majestic Kitchen and Bath Creations Youngsville

Scott Byers President/CEO

Countertops, Glass, A/P

Blythe Development Charlotte

L. Jack Blythe Owner/Co-founder

Construction

Aymira Charlotte

Dennis Lally CEO

Behavioral health and behavioral health technologies

DMA Sales Tabor City

John Treece CEO

Automotive

Remi Holdings Charlotte

Brent Howison CEO

Insurance

Issuer Direct Raleigh

Brian Balbirnie CEO

Technology/information services

ImagineSoftware Charlotte

Lance Smith CEO

Healthcare technology

Atlantic Forklift Services Charlotte

Keith Driscoll President

Industrial equipment sales and services

Dude Solutions Cary

Dan Graham CEO & executive chairman

Software/tech

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Duncan-Parnell Charlotte

Mark Duncan President

Distribution/color graphics

Jim Allen Group Coldwell Banker HPW Raleigh

Jim Allen CEO

Real Estate

Jackrabbit Technologies Huntersville

Mark Mahoney Co-founder/CEO

Software

Smith Turf & Irrigation Charlotte

Steve Smith Chairman/CEO

Distribution

Tencarva Machinery Greensboro

Ed Pearce CEO

Industrial products distribution

ROVE Charlotte

David A. Brown CEO

Information technology

Alliance of Professionals & Consultants (APC) Raleigh

Troy Roberts CEO

Staffing and business services

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outh Atlantic Contract Packaging is honored to be named one of North Carolina’s fastest-growing middle-market companies. We owe that distinction to continuing and new customers who rely upon us, partners who support us, and team members who consistently deliver on quality.

“Agility, flexibility, and resiliency have been the hallmarks of our business from the very first day.”

- Julian Bossong, CEO

“We learned how important we were as an essential business to customers providing vital consumer, food and beverage, and household products.”

- Pat Grantham, CSO

Agility, flexibility, and resiliency have been the hallmarks of our business from the very first day. But if the pandemic taught us anything, it was the critical importance of those qualities. Earlier this year, we learned just how important these can be: A new customer in the building products industry called on us to address a severe, pandemicdriven disruption in their supply chain leading to short shipments and missing sales. The project required close collaboration among our teams in North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania to seamlessly deliver the necessary resources while maintaining the individual attention that each of us strives to give every customer. We were tested and confirmed the need for resiliency as an essential business providing vital consumer products – and have rededicated ourselves to:

Have a laser focus on customer objectives. Deeply understand the importance of each project and embrace meeting the customer’s unique goals as the #1 priority. Extend quality. Quality is effectively everyone’s job in the organization, not just the official quality team. Having everyone anticipate, mitigate and inspect for quality issues all along the way helps ensure timely and cost-effective completion of the project. Experience matters. Have a strong net of managers, specialists and coordinators’ support across the organization, allowing you to pivot production to meet tight deadlines. Pictured left to right: Pat Grantham, chief sales officer, and Julian Bossong, chief executive officer. South Atlantic is one of NC’s fastest-growing mid-market companies, thanks to team members who are dedicated to customers’ success.

Be proactive, flexible and agile. Be ready to go at a moment’s notice, especially when customers have emergency situations, as most customers do, now. Collaborate. Proactively connecting dots internally and with your many customer contacts and vendors allows you to eliminate kinks and “move mountains” more quickly. Continue to sharpen the saws. Invest in getting better and focus on continuous improvement: What can be done differently that leads to better outcomes in the future? Have fun. Enjoy the challenge and take satisfaction in meeting it. In the last year alone, we have made significant investments in new equipment, facility capacity, equipment redundancy and contract packing expertise. But we are not resting on our laurels, as we know we must earn the trust of customers, partners and most important – team members – every single day.

3928 WESTPOINT BOULEVARD, WINSTON-SALEM, NC 27103 | 336-774-3122 | SOUTHATLANTICPACKAGING.COM S P O N S O R E D

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SUCCESS THROUGH SERVICE

tlantic Forklift Services, LLC has found success in a crowded material handling market by providing ‘noticeably best’ customer service.

With over 30 years of experience leading a top industrial equipment dealership, Founder and President, Keith Driscoll, saw an increasing need for more options and improved service in the material handling industry. So when Buford, GA based Doosan Industrial Vehicle America Corporation (DIVAC) reached out to Driscoll to form a ‘true partnership’ as a material handling dealer covering North and South Carolina, he knew it was a great opportunity to start a dealership. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC with branches in Greenville and Columbia, South Carolina, Atlantic Forklift Services has positioned itself as an industry leader that has seen double digit revenue and profitability growth since opening in 2013. Atlantic Forklift Services has grown its equipment, service, parts and rental business by branding itself as a ‘full warehouse solution partner’. Their experienced sales and service teams work together to diagnose, repair and maintain forklifts, scissor lifts, conveyors, sweepers, scrubbers, dock doors, racking and mezzanines, and other warehouse items used by customers. The goal is to increase efficiency and productivity to maximize uptime for customers, thus deepening the partnership in a market that has many other well-known service and equipment providers. Despite the challenges of a global pandemic in 2020, Atlantic Forklift Services not only kept its doors open, but experienced 30% growth over 2019. They have continued to hire additional sales and service team members, while also adding full-time administrative resources to support the growing dealership. Atlantic Forklift Services has been recognized as one of Doosan’s top dealers in equipment sales, service and parts for the last 5 years.

5509 DAVID COX ROAD, CHARLOTTE, NC 28269 | 704-816-8960 | ATLANTICFORKLIFTSERVICES.COM S P O N S O R E D

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WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

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IMPROVING SUPPLY North Carolina’s community colleges have a strong tradition of providing the skilled workers that businesses and industries demand. New opportunities and offerings are helping them do that better.

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relocating to North Carolina, which continued despite disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. Both groups demand qualified workers. The N.C. Community College System has and will continue to supply them. Its president, Thomas Stith, says customized training is a staple at each of its 58 campuses. “It is second to none in the country,” he says. “We are key partners with business and industry to provide specific training modules to serve existing industries and those that we’re attracting to North Carolina. It provides us with a competitive advantage as we compete for business expansion and location.” Building on its strong track record, the community-college system is improving its workforce-training efforts by adding opportunities, forging partnerships, fine-tuning instruction and expanding its reach. “We are getting C A R O L I N A

a strong response from business and industry that are in significant need of the type of education and training we provide,” Stith says. “That’s why we are focused now, as a system, to expand our traditional role as a key component of economic recovery and growth by providing the workforce that is in great demand.”

ADDING OPPORTUNITIES Last December was a bitter month in Lee County. Auto-parts manufacturer Marelli announced it would shutter its Sanford factory, moving production and more than 300 jobs to Saltillo, Mexico, an effort to improve its market position, late this year. But local officials saw a sweet opportunity. Lee County purchased Marelli’s 21.4-acre site in late June and turned it over to Central Carolina Community College, whose campus sits adjacent.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY A-B TECH COMMUNITY COLLEGE

N.C. Department of Commerce recently predicted that the state will add about 300,000 jobs by 2028. The professional, scientific and technical services sector will see the fastest job growth — 15.8%. And the health care and social assistance sector will add the most jobs — 81,000. Existing businesses will create some of those jobs through expansion. Corning, for example, is investing $150 million and creating 200 jobs in Hickory, where it will manufacture more fiber optic cable to meet growing demand from the telecommunications industry. And Thermo Fisher Scientific is investing $154 million and creating 290 jobs in Greenville, expanding sterile manufacturing of liquid fillings, prefilled syringes, oral solid doses and lyophilized products, which are easier to store and ship. The balance will come from businesses

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PHOTO PROVIDED BY GUILFORD TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

It’ll be used to develop and expand workforce-development offerings that will attract businesses to the county’s growing life-sciences sector. Abzena Holdings, for example, announced in April that it’s investing $213 million in a biopharmaceutical factory that will bring 325 jobs to Lee County. Margaret Roberton, Central Carolina’s vice president of workforce development, says the new training center underscores the college’s role in building and retaining a relevant workforce. It opens the door to educational programming that complements the college’s 12-week BioWork certificate and bioprocessing technology degree programs. It will include a business incubator, too. “For someone who wants to get into biomanufacturing and needs some space to take their idea to implementation, support from an incubator could help them grow and become another business in our community,” she says. It also can serve as temporary headquarters for incoming companies while they wait for theirs to be completed, she says. Lee County has positioned itself as a prime location for biomanufacturing. The world’s largest biopharmaceutical company — Pfizer — for example, announced a $500 million investment to expand its Sanford campus and create 300 jobs in 2019. The move, which enhances its work in gene therapy, was only two years after it announced the campus’s creation, a $100 million investment that created 40 jobs. “Looking across our region and thinking about the huge growth in biomanufacturing, we are asking how we can respond to companies like this and serve their needs,” Roberton says. One way is offering a place where companies can offer training on the latest equipment. “The possibilities that come with having this [workforce-training center] are tremendous,” she says. Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College’s new $10 million training center will prepare workers for advanced-manufacturing jobs, including

the 800 building jet engine airfoils at Pratt & Whitney’s $650 million factory in Asheville starting next year. It’ll be home to a state-of-the-art machine shop, mechatronics lab, welding lab and classroom space. While the training center is in response to the Pratt & Whitney factory, other local companies, such as GE Aviation, BorgWarner and Eaton Corp., will benefit from its customized training offerings and open-enrollment programs in advanced manufacturing, Kevin Kimrey, director of economic and workforce development at A-B Tech, says. “Because this center will eventually become a satellite A-B Tech

campus, and because we already train industry people and folks in open enrollment programs, we expect to train thousands of people every year,” he says. A-B Tech has invested in other workforce-development programs. It recently renovated its Advanced Manufacturing Center, which houses nearly $3 million worth of equipment. The college also hosts the Composites Training Center of Excellence, which trains GE Aviation employees. And its Workforce Readiness Resource Lab helps people find jobs, connect to industries, and learn resume writing and best interview practices. “It means

Students and instructors gaining hands-on experience in the machining, aviation manufacturing and fire academy programs at Guilford Technical Community College. N O V E M B E R

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Cybersecurity trsining at Fayetteville Technical Community College.

a lot of opportunities for Buncombe County residents and others all over western North Carolina that were not there before,” Kimrey says. “Our programs will bring many favorable economic prospects for generations to come.”

FORGING PARTNERSHIPS Rowan-Cabarrus Community College recently announced two training

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partnerships. The first is with Okuma America, a computer numeric controls and machining technology developer whose U.S. headquarters is in Charlotte. Craig Lamb, the college’s vice president of corporate and continuing education, says it will serve that company’s customers. The other is with RJG, a leader in injection molding training, consulting and technology. He says it helps plastics manufacturers

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upgrade their employees’ skills. Rowan-Cabarrus opened its 55,000-square-foot Advanced Technology Center in 2019. Its state-of-the-art labs and classrooms are adaptable, designed to keep step with technology for the next 50 years. Industry partners collaborate and innovate in a large lab on its ground floor. “One of the things we wanted to do when we opened our [ATC] was to have a national footprint and to offer programs that would benefit people across industries and benefit our local community, too,” Lamb says. Lamb and his Rowan-Cabarrus colleagues talk with economic developers, too. “We have pretty much concluded that the availability and quality of our workforce is their No. 1 site selection criteria,” he says. “The partnerships we have created are important to us, and the relationships we are building are making differences in our successes.” Carolina Central created its Manufacturing Institute about a year ago. Robertson says it brings together manufacturers, who identify their industry’s challenges and develop solutions. Those meetings help the college identify skills that need to be introduced into the local workforce. “The opportunities coming from those discussions are exciting and are a great way to give back to our manufacturers as we learn what we as a community college need to do to help address those pain points,” she says. From trucking to aviation, transportation is at the forefront of Guilford Technical Community College’s workforce-development efforts. Its truck driver training curriculum, for example, helps businesses overcome the national driver shortage, says Manuel Dudley, the college’s vice president of workforce and continuing education. The program’s first group of students began last year, and 96 have graduated so far. GTCC’s driver training started with donations from Bank of America and Sky Aviation Holdings. “The Bank of America $10,000 donation will help

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bring community attention to the GTCC truck driver training program by recruiting students to the program and providing opportunities for unemployed and underemployed individuals to gain a vital skill,” Dudley says. Students spend about 20% of the 320-hour course in the classroom. The rest of the time is behind the wheel at the driving range or on the road. And whether they choose the part-time or full-time study option, graduates earn a certificate and Class A Commercial Driver’s License. Fayetteville Technical Community College’s state-of-the-art Regional Fire and Rescue Training Center is the first of its kind in eastern North Carolina. It’s a partnership between the college and Cumberland County. Cumberland County Fire Chief’s Association, local volunteer fire departments and the local legislative delegation are assisting. “We take pride in being able to work in partnership with our public officials and first responders,” says college President Larry Keen. The training center sits on 30 acres in Cumberland County Industrial Park. A $10 million appropriation from Cumberland County and $8 million from the Connect NC Bond, which was passed in 2016 and funds improvements to education, agriculture, parks, safety, and water and sewer infrastructure, helped pay for it. The county donated the land.

FINE-TUNING INSTRUCTION Lenior Community College offers customized training, short-term workforce continuing education and associate degree programs. They create the skilled workforce needed by industry, says Matthew Berg, an instructor and director of the college’s Aerospace and Advanced Manufacturing Center. “We want to help folks who want a good job,” he says. “They can come in and get some short-term experience to become a machine operator or go work on the floor of a company like Spirit AeroSystems [which builds jet parts for Airbus at nearby Global TransPark].”

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Career counseling and advanced manufacturing at A-B Tech Community College.

They can go further, too. Matriculated students, for example, can earn an associate degree in mechanical engineering then go to work or East Carolina University to complete a fouryear degree through a collaborative program. Lenoir Community College also offers certificate programs, as do the state’s other community colleges. These can establish that a student is prepared for entry-level employment or help them move up the employment ladder. They also contribute to nonprofit myFutureNC’s goal of 2 million North Carolinians age 25 to 44 with a high-quality credential or degree by 2030. Its goal is to ensure the state’s workforce has the skills today that jobs will demand tomorrow. According to myFuture NC’s 2021 North Carolina Educational Attainment report, which was released in September, more work is needed to meet the goal. North Carolina had an estimated 1.5 million residents with a high-quality degree or credential within that age group in 2019. That’s 44,000 fewer than what was needed at that point to meet the goal. The report faulted the COVID-19 pandemic for disrupting progress.

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Workforce training runs the gamut. Financial services provider Fidelity is planning its third North Carolina expansion this year, adding about 1,500 technology and customer service jobs at its Research Triangle Park location. This will bring Fidelity’s total job growth in 2021 to more than 2,500 jobs. The RTP positions don’t require a four-year degree, but North Carolina Central University, Durham Technical Community College and Wake Technical Community College are providing financial literacy training to hires.

EXPANDING REACH Central Carolina leaders are eyeing a regional approach to workforce development. “When we talk to employers and industries, they tell us they wonder about the size of our footprint,” says Roberton, who is a former N.C. Community College System associate vice president of workforce continuing education. “We are exploring how we can address the need for a bigger footprint and to be able to leverage our resources in the best way possible.” Roberton says regional workforce development is needed. “It’s something that we’re trying to push, and

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we have a current, regional response that we’re building for the long term, looking at transportation, distribution and logistics,” she says. Central Carolina has campuses in Lee, Chatham and Johnston counties. “We’re having conversations with Durham Tech and our county chambers to examine what it might look like to invest resources as a group and think as a group about how we can partner to do programs, figure out apprenticeships, talk to employers and support students in their efforts to access the training they need for the jobs that are there,” Roberton says. Roberton says engaging with employers, learning which credentials that their workers need, helps workforce boards, community colleges and K-12 school systems work more effectively. They can create and provide the opportunities that students need to earn those credentials. “The other piece of it is creating pathways, so people can come in at different times in their careers and lives and get to the next place they want to be,” she says. “Maybe their career path will lead them back to us and into short-term training for another skillset. And getting those pieces to fall into place is part of the exciting big picture of workforce development.” Berg says Lenoir Community College embraces a regional approach to workforce development. “The Global TransPark is growing here in eastern North Carolina and with it has come the creation of the Global TransPark Economic Development Region, taking it beyond the local county and looking at creating jobs regionally,” he says. “That’s going to work very well for us to be able to both train locally and work with other colleges to create customized training for industries in our area.” ■ — Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY A-B TECH COMMUNITY COLLEGE

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South Piedmont Community College’s new Main Building on the Old Charlotte Highway campus in Monroe. A ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by the Union County Chamber of Commerce took place in August.

UNION COUNTY

MOVING FORWARD The numbers don’t lie: Agriculture is important to Union County. The 2017 Census of Agriculture — the most recent offered by U.S. Department of Agriculture — listed 957 farms, cultivating about 46.2% of its 631.5 square miles. They produce almost $482 million in goods, including the secondmost grain crops and third-most poultry and eggs in the state. Some Union County companies, including Marshville’s Edwards Wood Products and Carolina Wood Products, work in its “timber basket,” producing pallets, furniture-grade hardwoods and other items. “Diversity is the key to any business sector’s success,” Monroe-Union County Economic Development Executive Director Chris Platé says. “Union County’s agribusiness segment is extremely varied and robust. [It] is a leading producer of row crops, livestock, equine, food processing and

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timber in the state. Crops and the poultry industry accounted for $411 million in economic activity in 2019. With Tyson Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride as the county’s largest agriculture employers [with 2,500 workers combined], 50 million chickens were processed in Union County and put out to market the same year.” It has been a good year for Union County, which has landed six projects that brought $151 million in capital investment and created 410 jobs as of late September. “Precision manufacturing and agribusiness are where the real competitive advantages lie in Union County,” Platé says. “Within the precision manufacturing area, aerospace is the largest and most significant cluster. Monroe-Union County Economic Development is working hard, trying to see if they can duplicate the success of the aerospace initiative with its agribusiness initiative. It’s a C A R O L I N A

complete community effort to seek and develop an agribusiness value chain that would incorporate producers, processing facilities, markets, restaurants and to consumers.” But more is growing in Union County. Platé says logistics and commercial development play important economic roles, too. So does precision manufacturing, especially in the aerospace industry, whose local investments have exceeded $1 billion since 2002, he says. A big driver of Union’s economic diversification is transportation. And it’s bringing academic opportunities and people with it.

IMPROVING TRAVEL

The $731 million Monroe Expressway opened in 2018 after more than 20 years of planning and development, thanks in part to financial roadblocks. But it has been impacting Union County’s economy ever since. Its 18

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SOUTH PIEDMONT COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Transportation improvements, including the Monroe Expressway, are changing agrarian Union County. They’re making business easier, spurring academic opportunities and creating an inviting quality of life.

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miles bisects the county, from Stallings in the west to Marshville in the east, and allows drivers to bypass 27 stopand-go intersections on the parallel stretch of U.S. 74. Drivers, who enter or exit at eight points and have their distances electronically recorded, pay to travel the expressway. Use a Quick Pass transponder and two-axle vehicle, and a one-exit trip can cost as little as 27 cents. The entire stretch is $2.66; without one, the registered car owner is billed $4.10 by mail. Rates are higher for vehicles with more axles. Plenty of drivers have been happy to pay for the expressway’s convenience. The county estimated some interchanges handled 20,000 vehicles — mostly commercial trucks and commuters — every weekday in 2020. Usage gets a bump in summer when vacationers head to the coast. But the expressway offers more than a time savings. “Abundant farmland, a skilled workforce and a rapidly improving road system for distribution means food processed from Union County farms can reach their customers quickly,” Platé says. It’s helping bring people, too. Union County’s population was more than 239,000 in 2020, up from about 202,000 a decade earlier, according to the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management. “The residential segment is booming,” says Ron Mahle, Monroe-Union County Economic Development’s assistant director for economic development and existing industry. “We’ve had at least 3,000 new housing units, and these are mainly people employed in many of the industrial centers in the county. There are young couples and young families buying these homes, and they’re in the market range of the type of high-quality jobs that we’re bringing and expanding here in Union County. Union County is really attractive to folks in all life phases. It’s a great place to raise a child. And we have over 185 manufacturing companies employing about 15,000 people at a very competitive wage rate. We’ve added about 3,000 people to the civilian labor force in the last 12 months.”

DEVELOPING WORKFORCE

Wingate University, a private institution founded in 1896, has about 3,600 students, 35 undergraduate majors, 38 minors and 10 preprofessional programs. It recently purchased 100 acres near the expressway, where it will develop Town and Gown in partnership with the town of Wingate and other investors. “What energizes me about the town of Wingate development project is the transformative impact it will have on the town’s retail, commercial and entertainment environment, therefore complementing our efforts to advance a thriving university,” university president Rhett Brown says. Platé says Town and Gown will create a distinct impression: “A linear park is part of a multimodal corridor that connects the Main Street Village — a retail component of the plan with approximately 225,000 square feet of restaurants, brew pubs and specialty shops — to the university, downtown Wingate and the corporate areas.” It’ll end at The Knoll, a community gathering spot where a historic oak tree grows. The park will connect the development to a future office and research park, “hopefully taking advantage of the close proximity of a university, the available workforce and other resources nearby that would provide a competitive advantage for the recruitment of these firms,” Platé says. The

plan could bring 500,000 square feet of corporate office and research space and at least one hotel, he says. Platé says Town and Gown is one of the most exciting projects that his office has been involved in during his 23-year tenure. “It is a truly transformational endeavor for eastern Union County, adding the potential for nearly $225 million of economic development investment and the creation of over

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UNION COUNTY customized training. They use employerinspired hands-on studies to train workers, meeting staffing needs during tight labor markets. “We see SPCC as the main talent supply channel for our businesses,” says Karla Shields, who joined SPCC as its associate vice president of economic and workforce development and dean of its School of Applied Science and Technology in August.

MAKING SPACE or post-secondary degrees by 2030, but only 49% of workers age 25 to 49 have completed such education. SPCC graduates work at more than 300 companies, including ones in aerospace, advanced manufacturing and heavy equipment. “Central to our mission is workforce development,” SPCC President Maria Pharr says. “We pride ourselves on creating education and training programs with our business and industry partners that meet their specific workforce needs.” Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Greiner Bio-One, Iron Peddlers and Instrument Transformer Equipment are some of the local companies that have partnered with SPCC to create apprenticeships or

1,000 new career opportunities for the Wingate area,” he says. South Piedmont Community College has campuses in Anson and Union counties and more than 6,000 students in career-focused programs. Its Tyson Family Center for Technology, for example, offers courses in machining, welding and mechanical engineering. Graduates work for a variety of companies, including plastic packaging manufacturer Berry Global, which has a factory in Monroe. The Center’s enrollment has increased 96% during the past five years. The college also partners with health care providers such as Novant and Atrium. SPCC says 67% of jobs will require high-quality credentials

Monroe Corporate Center was its namesake city’s first industrial park. Only about 100 acres remain of the 500 it started with more than 25 years ago. Its second park, 80-acre AeroPointe Industrial Centre, was created for its aerospace cluster. ATI, a worldleader in super-alloy development and production, took it all. “Since the city began developing its own industrial parks, it has attracted $850 million in investment from companies that have created over 2,500 jobs,” Platé says. “[They] develop products to serve a wide variety of business sectors, including aerospace, medical device, pharmaceutical, life safety, commercial automotive and construction materials.” Monroe purchased 155 acres, creating Expressway Commerce Park at Monroe in 2018. It sold 82 acres to

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SPCC’s new Tyson Family Center for Technology, completed in 2020, with hands-on classrooms for learning machining and HVAC technical skills.

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Charlotte-Monroe Executive Airport

Windsor Windows & Doors in September. It plans to build a 570,000-squarefoot factory, a more than $80 million capital investment. Union County recently purchased 330 acres for its first industrial park, Piedmont Innovation Park. Platé says it already has landed a $140 million aerospace investment from ATI. He says the county is exploring a park to support local agribusinesses. He says the county has 10 agribusiness projects, whose investments total about $65 million.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY CHARLOTTE-MONROE EXECUTIVE AIRPORT

TAKING FLIGHT

A vital link in North Carolina’s 72-airport system, Charlotte-Monroe Executive Airport welcomes a variety of aircraft, from puddle-jumpers to a $10 million corporate jet. Its hangar space is in demand from an increasing number of private-plane owners, many residing in Weddington, Waxhaw and Marvin. “People consider moving to that area, and they come to me and say, ‘Hey, I have a plane, and I’d love to base it here,’” airport Manager Peter Cevallos says. “A lot of business executives live in that area and know we’re 10 minutes from their house. It’s accessible and convenient. The way it has evolved is Charlotte is growing to the south and to the east. People are moving out that way, and they have the money to travel and own airplanes.” Cevallos says his airport’s runways aren’t built for commercial airlines’ 100,000-pound planes. “We’re a noncommercial airport,” he says. “That means airlines like Delta can’t land here. That’s what makes us different from [Charlotte Douglas International Airport]. That does not take away from us. We just don’t have commercial service.” The future of air commuting could be as easy as hailing a rideshare. “Yes, we’re a corporate airport, but people

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are talking about creating an Uber for air travel,” Cevallos says. “You can hire someone to fly you anywhere. You can call and say, ‘Hey, we need a ride to Amelia Island [in Florida] for our vacation,’ and there will be two or three companies who offer you a price. Or we have business travelers who want to go to a small city and be back the same day.” The airport updates its forwardlooking plan with Monroe and the Federal Aviation Administration every 20 years. Its Master Plan Draft Map for 2022-2042 outlines intentions in fiveyear increments. Additional hangars are a top priority. “The plan does not address the public areas, the road system for the airport, the runway or taxi way,” Cevallos says. “There are plans for that, but they aren’t as impactful as the hangars.” Cevallos compares his hangar plan to a neighborhood. “The top left [of the map] is the big hangars, like your million-dollar homes,” he says. “On the other side are the smaller squares, with smaller hangars. There also are storage facilities, like the ones you see around town. We also have outdoor slips, like a ramp with tie-down spaces, the equivalent of docking your boat. We also have box hangars, the equivalent of dry dock. I have 110 in there. Our staff goes in and pulls the airplane out.” The Master Plan includes a wishlist for amenities outside the airport’s boundaries. “The overall balanced objective on that map is more than 120 hangar structures and a half-million square feet of hangar space in the next 20 years,” Cevallos says. “Business has been good for us. We’re still growing. We’re on an upward trajectory.” ■ — Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

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2021 EVENTS

Best Employers Awards Dinner

SCENESETTERS

September 9, 2021 This year’s Best Employers Awards Dinner was held at Grandover Resort. The opening reception was followed by an awards dinner honoring each company and announcement of the top three company rankings from two different categories. Photos by John Gessner

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Mid-Market Fast 40 September 27, 2021 The companies that were ranked among the fastest growing mid-market companies in N.C. enjoyed a golf/spa outing and awards reception at Pinehurst Resort. Photos by Tim Sayer

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2021 EVENTS

N.C. CEO Summit

SCENESETTERS

September 13-14, 2021 The N.C. CEO Summit brought together some of the best and brightest decision makers in the state for the first time in two years. The two-day summit, held at Pinehurst Resort, featured golf along with networking, panel discussions and guest speakers who shared tips on leadership and company engagement. Photos by John Gessner

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2021 EVENTS

SCENESETTERS

INTEGRITY, EXPERIENCE & QUALITY For over 25 years National Coatings has provided its customers with professional painting, sandblasting, and industrial coating services. These services also include applying various coatings such as Zolatone, Polymix, Duroplex, and Acrylitex. We also provide wall covering installation from standard vinyl products to wall fabrics and wood veneers. We take pride in our ability to handle challenging projects like wastewater treatment facilities, power plants, and petroleum facilities, where a quick turnaround time is critical and necessary.

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TOWNSQUARE

Conover

MAKER’S MARK

+ TALKING POINTS

Conover carves a distinctive niche as an innovator for manufacturing.

CO NOVE R

8,421 POPULATION

1877

YEAR OF INCORPORATION

43 miles

DISTANCE TO DOWNTOWN CHARLOTTE ▲ Straddling Interstate 40, Conover gets down to business with continued strength in furniture and textiles.

$52,237

BY BRYAN MIMS

$27,042

PER CAPITA INCOME

Rock Barn Country Club HOST OF PGA TOUR EVENTS

Jarrett

LOCAL FAMILY OF NASCAR DRIVERS INCLUDING NED, DALE, GLENN, JASON

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here’s a new mayor in this Piedmont town with a long history of people making a long list of things. The presumptive new mayor is 53 years old, has a desk job, has only the slightest trace of a Southern accent and has a birthplace listed as Fort Myers, Florida. But ask Kyle Hayman, a longtime city council member and mayor pro tem, about his connection to Conover, and he speaks with the rootedness of a native son. “We’re an area where people create things,” he says from his office as district claims manager for North Carolina Farm Bureau Insurance. He ran unopposed in the Nov. 2 mayoral race to succeed Lee Moritz, who decided not to run after 12 years as mayor. “We’re makers,” Hayman continues. “And people here for generations were accustomed to making furniture, and to making things in general.” In this city of about 8,600 people, straddling Interstate 40, the makers have made cabinets, doors, dining room tables, ottomans, window sashes, gloves, axe handles, pantyhose and socks. Even as furniture making has rearranged itself and largely gone overseas, Conover is still home to a downtown furniture factory. Lee Industries, with four plants in North Carolina employing about 700 people, is headquartered here in Conover. Plant employees make everything from sofas and loveseats to desks and tables. Broyhill Furniture, one of the city’s big-name employers starting in 1941, boarded up in 2005 and laid off a dwindling staff of about 100. The city of Conover bought the 26-acre site and, with help from $6.8 million in grant money, developed Conover Station. It houses a library and the Community Room, which is used for civic events and is rented out for private parties. Directly west of Conover is Hickory, a name synonymous with furniture manufacturing. It has a population nearly five times larger. The surrounding county, Catawba, includes ample oak-and-hickory woodlands that supplied the raw material for making furniture, and its

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF CITY OF CONOVER

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME

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▲ Conover Station has a library and event center filling a former 400-employee Broyhill Furniture plant bought by the city in 2005.

swift creeks and rivers have powered textile mills. But textiles, like furniture, have also faded from this landscape, with plants hollowing out and companies chasing cheaper labor abroad.

COOL STUFF Hosiery mills, makers of pantyhose and socks, have long put people to work in the area, leading to the creation of the Hosiery Technology Center in the 1990s. The textile industry had approached Catawba Valley Community College about providing modernized training for the hosiery workforce, weaning workers off manual machines and teaching them to operate electronics. As the area’s economy grew more diverse, and the textile industry more innovative, the center cast a wider net, appealing to a variety of ventures. In 2009, it changed its name to the Manufacturing Solutions Center. “We had grown as a testing lab for other things and realized it was really hard to go into the non-hosiery, non-textile sector and have anything to offer them,” says Jodi Geis, the center’s director. “We realized we needed to kind of rebrand.” With money from the city, community college and N.C. Economic Development Association, the center moved into a new building in Conover Station in 2012. The center serves as a place for inventors and entrepreneurs to seek expertise, do research, try new things and, of course, make new things. One of the start-ups is Nufabrx, which in August was ranked No. 50 on Inc. 5000’s list of the fastest-growing U.S. private companies. It was first in the Charlotte region. Jordan Schindler founded the company in 2011 after noticing that his pillowcase was contributing to his acne. He partnered with MIT scientists to put medical ingredients into the yarn of clothing and other fabrics. “It’s the idea that instead of having to take a pill or use a cream or patch, what if you just get dressed in the morning,” says Schindler, 30. A native of Tucson, Arizona, he most recently lived in Seattle but moved to North Carolina when he discovered the manufacturing center. “Within 10 minutes

of visiting that facility, we knew exactly where we had to be,” he says. “I mean, it’s $50 million worth of textile testing, knitting, hosiery – all the things you don’t think about when you buy a garment.” Walmart now carries the company’s medication-infused sleeves to relieve knee, hand and wrist pain. It has 35 employees, a manufacturing site in Asheboro and raised $10 million in October to expand more rapidly. During the COVID pandemic, the company and other start-ups at the center shifted to making personal protective equipment. Along with Nufabrx, the four other start-up clients at the center are Evolved By Nature, InnovaKnits, Knit Engine and YU Apparel Corporation. “It’s cool stuff,” says Tony Whitener, the center’s special projects director. “In some cases, these start-ups are divisions of mature companies that have started textile divisions and they recognize they need to be where the expertise is.” Geis adds that “It’s not your grandfather’s textiles. These are highly educated, unique start-ups. The things they’re doing there are for military applications, medical applications, all across the board.” The incubator has spurred enough growth that it needs more space. In May, the city and the college broke ground on a 30,000-square-foot addition to the center, which will include labs for creating new fabrics and personal-protection equipment. A $9 million appropriation from the N.C. General Assembly is paying for the expansion. “That’s where we hope to move some of our incubators as we grow their businesses,” Geis says. “These small start-ups are thriving.”

A FORK IN THE RAILROAD Like countless towns and cities across North Carolina, Conover traces its origins back to the railroad. The community emerged here in 1871 at a “Y” intersection of the Southern Railway and became known as Wye Town. Before long, some locals named it Canova, supposedly for a famous Italian N O V E M B E R

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Conover

▲ A city-run ampitheater hosts special events. It is named after the late Norman Coley, a former president of upholstery manufacturer Lee Industries.

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and a half-mile asphalt walking trail. An easy stroll to the north is downtown, which underwent a makeover in the past five years. The city put in medians with decorative shrubs down the center of First Avenue South, designated a bike route along the street and spiffed up building facades.

MANUFACTURING LEGACY Conover and its neighbors Hickory, Newton and Maiden are bustling with industry. The Economic Development Commission of Catawba County says the county has more than 425 manufacturers, employing nearly a third of the county’s workforce. HSM Solutions, headquartered in Hickory, makes seating components for the furniture and transportation industries, employing about 1,200 people locally. Hanes Industries, specializing in woven and nonwoven textiles, has a 250-employee plant in Conover. Other companies with operations in Conover include 3M, which makes adhesive materials for automobiles; GKN Sinter Metals, maker of automotive transmission components; and CoPak Solutions, which churns out tortilla chips. “For a city our size, I’d say we’re one of the most progressive cities probably in North Carolina,” says Hayman, the incoming mayor. In the past three decades, but especially after the Great Recession of 2008-09, the city had to reach beyond the old standbys. “We started to move away from traditional manufacturing and really diversify it into all kinds of manufacturing.” The people of Conover are still making history with a long list of things to make, from medicated clothes to tortilla chips. Conover, many would say, has it made. ■

Bryan Mims is a writer and reporter at WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CITY OF CONOVER

sculptor. Given the local dialect, the name morphed into Conover. The town was incorporated in 1877, inspiring the name of a popular hangout downtown: 1877 Pub and Grub. On most any weeknight, and certainly weekends, the place is enlivened with regulars sitting at the bar or around tables. The glow of TVs and the stacked drink glasses glowing in purple LED lights give a modern touch to this century-old building with its rustic brick walls and framed old photos. Sliding up to the bar, and recommending the Steak Bomb sandwich, is the owner, Clint Davis, 44. “I told the city I wanted to put a landmark here, something that will stay because it’s been so many things,” the Conover native says. “It was built by some of the founders of Conover and was a general ▲A 1.6-mile greenway is part of the Carolina store at first.” Its variThread Trail stretching across the Piedmont. ous iterations have included a laundromat and a restaurant named Cecil’s, serving “the best chicken wings you could possibly imagine.” This community tavern stands along First Avenue South, which is a main street corridor lined with an old-style drug store, boutiques, a gourmet grocery store, an antique store and hair salons. At Hip Hip HooWray, a paint studio and popular venue for parties, a half-dozen clients sit down for an evening painting class. “We get a lot of people from out of town, and they’re always impressed with our downtown,” says city council member Joie Fulbright, 72, who owns Conover Auto Sales. His car lot sits on First Avenue South, with a good view of Lee Industries, the manufacturing center and Conover City Park, six acres of green space with a splash pad, amphitheater

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