Business North Carolina October 2021 by Business North Carolina

TRAILBLAZERS 2021: KEY PLAYERS IN SMALLER CITIES REAL-LIFE GUITAR HEROES • GOLF SWING FIXER • CHARTER SCHOOLS SURGE • SELLIING SELMA

Look back, look forward OCTOBER 2021 Price: $3.95 businessnc.com

D-Cover_and_inside_cover_October-2021.indd 1

As BNC reaches a landmark anniversary, some creative thinkers share wisdom about our evolving state.

9/21/21 12:11 PM

D-Cover_and_inside_cover_October-2021.indd 2

9/21/21 11:45 AM

D-Contents_Sept2021.indd 1

9/21/21 10:55 AM

D-Contents_Sept2021.indd 2

9/21/21 10:56 AM

+ DEPARTMENTS 4 UP FRONT 12 POINT TAKEN

An ambitious development plan along I-95 in rural Johnston County just might work.

OCTOBER 2021

16 NC TREND

Public charter schools show growth; golf’s revived popularity boosts SportTrak; Chatham’s new growth strategy; Bojangles cooks up a plan to pay athletes; how critters are controlled; High Point’s new landmark.

COVER STORY

CELEBRATING 40

94 TOWN SQUARE

Burnsville and Yancey County catch the eyes of tourists, industry and some broadband enthusiasts.

Leaders and writers describe their favorite products and people and share views of an evolving state. And some stories from BNC’s past. BY DAVID MILDENBERG

+ SPONSORED SECTIONS 42 WORKPLACE: DIVERSITY IN BUSINESS

More N.C. companies are initiating and backing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

44 NC PORTRAITS: FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESSES

The family ties of three thriving multigenerational busineses

PICTURE THIS

2021

Nick Plesz strings success at a bustling Charlotte guitar shop with a rockin’ reputation. BY JOHN GESSNER

81 LAW JOURNAL

CO V E R D E S I G N B Y R A L P H V O L T Z

Legal experts offer perspective on key issues involving transparency, covenants and closely held businesses.

88 COMMUNITY CLOSE UP: CUMBERLAND COUNTY The action behind the county’s recently unveiled brand.

October 2021, Vol. 41, No. 10 (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.

2021 TRAILBLAZERS 21 champions of smalller N.C. towns gain the spotlight.

BY ALYSSA PRESSLER EBONY L. MORMAN LAURA BRUMMETT JENNINGS COOL

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

D-Contents_Sept2021.indd 3

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 10:56 AM

UPFRONT

► David Kinney

MAKING IT TO Respecting readers has been a Business North Carolina hallmark.

his makes 300 or so Up Front columns I’ve written — and that doesn’t count all the times I cadged, cajoled or coerced staff members to fill in for me during my 28 years as this magazine’s top editor. Though I thought I had written my last when I retired six years ago, I guess it makes sense that I scrive this one for its 40th anniversary.

▲ David Kinney and former Publisher Frank Daniels III show some boogie moves back in the '80s.

Here’s what I had to say in the first, in the May 1987 issue: “For us to succeed, you have to enjoy us. If we do our jobs right, Business North Carolina’s arrival each month will be eagerly awaited, like a visit from an old friend, one who keeps you informed, amused and, most of all, interested. We might even make you mad at times, but, as a friend, we promise never to try to bore you.” I can’t claim we never bored anyone. But we certainly made some people mad. Executives, riled at what they’d read,

B U S I N E S S

Up Front_Oct2021.indd 4

N O R T H

sometimes pulled their company’s advertising; one governor, livid over a column, reportedly told his commerce secretary he wanted to see us shut down. But BNC survived, winning national awards and attracting top talent (who too often took a pay cut to write for, edit, design and produce the magazine — and that’s not to mention the sales staff, who not only suffered those advertisers’ wrath but the pain in their pockets from lost commissions). But there is one primary reason, in my opinion, that BNC still exists: The magazine has always respected its readers’ intelligence. It’s a hard row regional business publications hoe: You often report and write about the companies that pay your bills — your advertisers. And unlike newspapers, whose reporters almost always know more about their beats than the vast majority of their readers do, that’s a herculean task for a magazine targeted to C-level executives and business owners. These folks are smart, they’re busy; they don’t have to read a monthly magazine to do their jobs. You must catch and keep their attention, giving them something they want and — therefore need — to read. No pablum or puffery. They want to know things, and they know you learn as much from failure as success. Business has its heroes, but nobody, they know, is perfect. A point I made — and recycled in several of those 300 columns — is that this magazine can be provocative, but it must always be thorough, fair and accurate. Over its four decades, through all the changes threatening print and mass media, that has been a constant, not only during the three decades I worked there but before that and even now, in the capable hands of its current editor and its publisher. As I said in that first column: “We won’t attempt to play the part of ‘the voice of business’ in North Carolina. That’s not our role, and, besides, it’s wrong to think that something as big, vibrant and complex as business in this state speaks with one voice. Rather than speak for business, these pages will echo what is actually happening out there in the workaday world, from the executive suite to the factory floor.” David Kinney, the former owner, editor and publisher of Business North Carolina, splits his time among Charlotte, Edenton and southern Virginia.

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 11:02 AM

Up Front_Oct2021.indd 5

9/21/21 11:02 AM

Business North Carolina has created more than 500 covers including special publications. Each takes collective efforts of several staffers, often spurring feisty debate over how to mix words, photos and art to capture a story's theme. The 40th anniversary cover is a mosaic of covers designed over the four decades by many talented artists and journalists.

V O L U M E 4 1 , N O. 1 0 PUBLISHER

Ben Kinney

bkinney@businessnc.com EDITOR

David Mildenberg

dmildenberg@businessnc.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS

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

Dan Barkin, Laura Brummett, Jennings Cool, Connie Gentry, John Gessner, Brad King, Bryan Mims, Ebony L. Morman, Jim Pomeranz, Alyssa Pressler, Emory Rakestraw, Katherine Snow Smith CREATIVE MANAGER

Peggy Knaack

pknaack@businessnc.com ART DIRECTOR

Ralph Voltz

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

John Gessner

MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jennifer Ware

jware@businessnc.com AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST

Scott Leonard

sleonard@businessnc.com ADVERTISING SALES ACCOUNT MANAGERS

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

Melanie Weaver Lynch, eastern N.C. 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 PRESIDENT

David Woronoff

B U S I N E S S

Masthead_Oct2021.indd 6

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 12:12 PM

Masthead_Oct2021.indd 7

9/21/21 11:07 AM

REQUIRED READING KEVIN SCHIMELFENIG, MCGEEVER FAMILY OFFICE Barbarians at the Gate, John Helyar and Bryan Burrough

usiness North Carolina’s annual CEO Summit in September featured fellowship, Pinehurst golf, networking and fast-paced interviews with Capitol Broadcasting President Jimmy Goodmon, Novan CEO Paula Stafford, NC Chamber CEO Gary Salamido and other leaders. Top CEO honors were awarded to Joseph Budd of The Budd Group, Jeff Harris of Furnitureland South and Arthur Samet of Samet Corp. We asked attendees to share some of their most favorite recent books. Their suggestions span a wide variety of topics.

BILL SMITH, TRUST COMPANY OF THE SOUTH The Almanack of Naval Ravkant, Eric Jorgenson BOB NEWELL, FRANKLIN STREET PARTNERS The Little Book of Do, Kel Landis BOB RHATIGAN, MERZ The Once and Future King, T.H. White JASON DINGESS, QUIS The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien ROB EDWARDS. RIDGEMONT EQUITY PARTNERS The Last Ordinary Hour, Kathy Izard

KIM HENDERSON, NOVANT HEALTH Secret Lives of the First Ladies, Cormac O’Brien ANNA LYNCH, LYNCH MYKINS Untethered Soul, Michael Alan Singer BRUCE CLARK, CATAPULT How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates BEN KINNEY, BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA Grant, Ron Chernow NATHAN TAYLOE, TAYLOE & GRAY Shut Up and Listen; Hard Business Truths, Tilman Fertita JIM HANSEN, PNC The Founder’s Mentality, Chris Zook and James Allen BARRY BROWN, COOPER ELECTRICAL CONSTRUCTION The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath DAVID WORONOFF, OLD NORTH STATE MAGAZINES Defender of the Republic, David Roll KEVIN DRUM, DRUM MEDIA Traction: How Any Startup can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth JON GILBERT, EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY The Score Takes Care, Bill Walsh

B U S I N E S S

Digital-Comments_October 2021.indd 8

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:19 AM

O C T O B E R

Digital-Comments_October 2021.indd 9

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 2:58 PM

PRESERVING A FAMILY LEGACY

With a confluence of factors elevating succession planning as a key priority for family businesses, PNC Private Bank’s wealth and private business strategists are working alongside N.C. business owners and their families to plan for the future.

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

PNC Private BankSM senior wealth strategist and private business strategist Michael Moyer remembers a time when N.C. was not the vibrant destination for businesses that it is today. Decades ago, he saw how the dissolution and departure of the manufacturing industry’s presence in his grandparents’ rural county translated to significant job losses and a fractured community. The landscape has since changed for the better in many N.C. regions, including the county Moyer once associated with a depressed local economy, which today is seeing success in several sectors. Moyer attributes this shift – and the enterprising business environment for which N.C. is now known – in large part to the vision and hard work of family businesses. The success stories that have become synonymous with so many N.C. family businesses inspire Moyer as he helps clients navigate the business succession planning process. What motivates him, however, is the reality that much work remains to be done to help family businesses prepare for future generations. While Moyer is sympathetic to the reasons why business owners often delay conversations regarding succession with family members, he has seen firsthand just how crucial business succession planning is. With Baby Boomers retiring with increasing frequency, a major demographic shift is playing out, making business succession planning even more critical. What follows are four of the most consequential hurdles Moyer sees in business succession planning today – and how families can surmount these obstacles. HURDLE #1: THE NEXT GENERATION MAY NOT BE ABLE TO FUND A BUSINESS TRANSITION When transitioning a business within the family, business owners generally want to harvest enough value from the company to fund their retirement and achieve personal financial and philanthropic goals – but not at the expense of burdening the next generation with debilitating debt or substantial risk, says Moyer.

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

PNC_spread_Oct2021_ver2_withoutPwC.indd 10

C A R O L I N A

In instances when funding challenges present a barrier to the transition of a business, a variety of solutions exist. These can include such strategies as installment sales, intrafamily lending, self-cancelling installment notes, nonqualified deferred compensation, charitable and philanthropic planning, leveraged buyouts, and/or sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts. Family business stakeholders should discuss these and other options with their planning team to determine the most appropriate vehicle for effecting a business transition. HURDLE #2: FAMILY DYNAMICS MAY POSE A BARRIER TO A SMOOTH TRANSITION Just as complex as the operations of a family business are the dynamics of family relationships, so it should come as no surprise that family discord is among the primary contributing factors in failed transitions – and a reason why many family businesses delay planning in the first place. “It is important to acknowledge that members of the next generation may have different skill sets than the owner, which may necessitate a different approach to managing the business,” says Moyer. Depending on the nature of the business and the specific skill sets of the children, it may make sense to reorganize the business, with different children running separate operations and thereby acting as their own profit centers. Other unique challenges arise in scenarios where some children are involved in the business but others are not. While a parent may be inclined to provide equal ownership to each of their children, regardless of their roles in the business, the potential for conflict is substantial given differing values and priorities. “In our experience, it is generally better to avoid granting ownership interests to children who are not actively participating in the business,” says Moyer. “One best practice is to equalize the other children with other assets.” SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 12:16 PM

HURDLE #3: CONTINUED TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION – AND THE FUNDING THEREOF – IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE FUTURE OF THE BUSINESS The pace at which technology continues to accelerate is steep, and a business’ ability to adapt to new technologies will continue to be crucial to future success. Many businesses have experienced this reality during the pandemic, which dramatically changed the environment in which many businesses operate – and the technology that enabled process changes, says Moyer. Technology adoption is often dependent on inexpensive access to cash. Prior to transitioning a business to the next generation, it is crucial for a company to have a strong cash position – or strong financial ratios to allow for access to cash. For business owners who intend to transition their business to family members at the time of death, life insurance and buy-sell agreements can allow the business

to receive a timely inflow of cash when the transfer of ownership occurs. HURDLE #4: FEDERAL TAX LEGISLATION AND UNCERTAINTY LOOM Impending tax legislation will likely introduce changes to certain tax rates and exemptions, which could ultimately impact the manner in which business owners transition their family businesses to the next generation. However, Moyer stresses that the tax environment should never be the determining factor for the timing of an exit – and that flexibility in planning is key. “Just because a sale or transition may accomplish a tax objective doesn’t mean it is in the best interest of the business or the family,” he says. “Business owners should consult their trusted advisors to understand the nuances of any new legislation and determine the best path forward to preserve the legacy of a family business.”

For more information, please consult your PNC Private Bank advisor or contact Michael Moyer at michael.moyer@pnc.com.

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

These materials are furnished for the use of PNC and its clients and do not constitute the provision of investment, legal, or tax advice to any person. They are not prepared with respect to the specific investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs of any person. Use of these materials is dependent upon the judgment and analysis applied by duly authorized investment personnel who consider a client’s individual account circumstances. Persons reading these materials should consult with their PNC account representative regarding the appropriateness of investing in any securities or adopting any investment strategies discussed or recommended herein and should understand that statements regarding future prospects may not be realized. The information contained herein was obtained from sources deemed reliable. Such information is not guaranteed as to its accuracy, timeliness, or completeness by PNC. The information contained and the opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Neither the information presented nor any opinion expressed herein constitutes an offer to buy or sell, nor a recommendation to buy or sell, any security or financial instrument. Accounts managed by PNC and its affiliates may take positions from time to time in securities recommended and followed by PNC affiliates. Securities are not bank deposits, nor are they backed or guaranteed by PNC or any of its affiliates, and are not issued by, insured by, guaranteed by, or obligations of the FDIC or the Federal Reserve Board. Securities involve investment risks, including possible loss of principal. The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (“PNC”) uses the marketing names PNC Private BankSM and PNC Private Bank HawthornSM to provide investment consulting and wealth management, fiduciary services, FDIC-insured banking products and services, and lending of funds to individual clients through PNC Bank, National Association (“PNC Bank”), which is a Member FDIC, and to provide specific fiduciary and agency services through PNC Delaware Trust Company or PNC Ohio Trust Company. PNC does not provide legal, tax, or accounting advice unless, with respect to tax advice, PNC Bank has entered into a written tax services agreement. PNC Bank is not registered as a municipal advisor under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. “PNC Private Bank” and “PNC Private Bank Hawthorn” are service marks of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. Investments: Not FDIC Insured. No Bank Guarantee. May Lose Value. ©2021 The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. All rights reserved. O C T O B E R

PNC_spread_Oct2021_ver2_withoutPwC.indd 11

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 12:16 PM

P O I N T TA K E N

► Dan Barkin

SELLING SELMA An ambitious rural development plan along I-95 just might work.

How it started Dougherty came down from Pittsburgh to work in commercial real estate in Charlotte in the 1980s. That’s where he met his future wife, Hope Lane Toler of Johnston County, who was an English instructor at a community college. “To me, it’s a God thing,” says Dougherty. “There were so many possible choices, going left, going right. We have four kids today, you know. If we don’t meet ... Her going to Charlotte had its own path. She had to choose.” A bunch of other things had to fall into place first. After graduating in 1982 from John Carroll University, a Jesuit school outside Cleveland, he started his career with a commercial real-estate mortgage company in Pittsburgh: Carey, Kramer, Crouse & Associates. “If Bob Carey, John Kramer, [and] Dick Crouse had been in the shoe business, I’d be in the shoe business today,” says Dougherty. “They taught me the real-estate business and literally mentored me.” Mortgage banking is good experience for a future developer because no dirt moves without financing.

B U S I N E S S

d-Point Taken_Barkin_October 2021-1.indd 12

N O R T H

▲ Kevin Dougherty at groundbreaking ceremony.

In 1986, he took a retail development job at Charter Properties, the Charlotte-based real estate arm of the Close family’s textile empire. A couple of years passed. He and Hope met and got married. For several years, Dougherty and a college friend, Guy DeRienzo, had discussed starting their own company. In 1990, they launched Michael Joseph Development Corp., their middle names, which was based back in Pittsburgh. Their break came when they connected with Patsy Graziano, an old-school Pittsburgh construction magnate, and his son-in-law, Ralph Pampena. Graziano extended them a $250,000 credit line. Their first building was an 88,000-square-foot medical building. Their funders helped with cost estimates for the project. “I knew the finance side. Guy knew the leasing. Neither one of us were that strong on the building, contracting, development cost side. So having them there was a huge help.” Dougherty and his partner spent 14 years developing 2 million square feet of real estate. Starting in 2004, they sold their portfolio; Dougherty and his family were returning to North Carolina. “I promised my wife no more than 10 years in Pittsburgh,” which stretched to almost 15. Their oldest daughter was entering the eighth grade, “so it was like if we didn’t move, then we’re going to be [here] another 10 years.” They considered Wilmington, Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Raleigh. But Hope’s aunt asked if they would consider reassembling her great-grandfather’s farm in Johnston County, which has been split up. His wife was able to pull it off, Dougherty says, because all the relatives liked her. They had left Pittsburgh, but he had unfinished business there, it turned out. Shortly after they arrived in Johnston, 135 prime acres north of Pittsburgh became available. The land had been tied up in

PHOTO BY DAN BARKIN

here’s 475 acres beside Interstate 95 in Johnston County that developer Kevin Dougherty and his company, AdVenture Development, are trying to turn into a mixed-use project — with retail, homes, hotels, and industrial and office buildings. If everything is built in seven to 10 years, there may be 3 million square feet. This project has been in planning stages for years. Dougherty, 61, broke ground in August on a 135,000-square-foot industrial building. I was curious why a Pittsburgh developer landed in Selma, N.C., 17 years ago and has been trying for much of that time to develop this property. More on that in a moment. I went to the groundbreaking in part because I wanted to see who was there. Attendees included a county commissioner, the Selma mayor, Johnston County’s economic development director and a representative of the local chamber, Triangle East. After living in Johnston County for 25 years, when someone tells you they’re going to build 3 million square feet in Selma, you want to see who else thinks this might happen. There was a lot of earth-moving equipment drowning out the ceremony at times, which is what you want to hear. I’m not skeptical of Dougherty. I’m just cautious, because Johnston is two counties in one. The west side of the county, anchored by Clayton, has been a booming suburb of Raleigh, with a 63% population growth in the last decade. Commercial development does fine. The less prosperous eastern towns of Smithfield and Selma, former textile and tobacco hubs, haven’t experienced much growth — a few hundred residents each in the last decade. That is the reason Dougherty’s project, called Eastfield Crossing, is viewed as a big deal.

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 11:56 AM

lawsuits for years. Dougherty knew the property well. “I’d drive by it and say, ‘Dad, what are they going to do there? Someday, somebody’s going to do something,’” he recalls. “Then they called me in 2005 and said, hey, we settled our suit; are you still interested?” Today McCandless Crossing is 1.2 million square feet of retail, medical and residential development in the north suburbs of Pittsburgh. Tenants include Lowe’s, Panera Bread and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Still, Dougherty remained intrigued by land on the east side of Interstate 95 near his new home. Hundreds of acres of forest and farmland sat next to one of the busiest interstates in the country and another major road, U.S. 70. What really got his attention was the U.S. 70 bridge at the Interstate 95 interchange. “One day, I’m driving over this Highway 70, and I’m going, ‘Holy smokes. This has six lanes crossing 95. They were really thinking big.’” He initially acquired 10 acres for a small retail project. But he studied the demographics, learning that Johnston’s population doubled between 1990 and 2010. There was no sign of a slowdown. The site, halfway between Maine and Miami, also has 35,000 to 40,000 cars going by each day on I-95. Manufacturers would find it convenient to East Coast markets. And there was a regional market of folks who flocked to the nearby Carolina Premium Outlets in Smithfield. Dougherty had acquired more than 20 parcels and assembled 180 acres. When the property received an Opportunity Zone designation, he stepped up the plan to 475 acres. That program is intended to channel investment to low-income areas, which made

it more attractive to funders looking to shelter capital gains. The first industrial building is targeted for a March opening. Dougherty is now lining up seven retailers with an April 2023 opening. He expects to have a hotel open in 2023 as well. He is planning 1.5 million square feet of industrial and 200,000 square feet of medical space. There would be hundreds of senior living, single-family and multifamily homes. Around the corner, he is planning a food hall. Besides his track record, Dougherty assembled a team of 10 experienced real-estate folks at a renovated, 105-year-old building in downtown Selma. Several are Dougherty’s roommates from John Carroll who came down here to work with him. They wouldn’t be in Selma if they didn’t think this was real. Eastfield Crossing may wind up being nearly three times as large as McCandless Crossing in the Pittsburgh suburbs. It has the potential to bring thousands of jobs and investment to Selma, where 35% of the town’s residents live in poverty and the median household income is about half the state average. The property was voluntarily annexed into Selma, and Dougherty says “at full buildout, we’re going to be the largest taxpayer” in the town. He projects it could generate between 3,500 and 5,500 jobs. “That’s where I get excited,” says Dougherty, “when you help change an economy.” ■ Veteran journalist Dan Barkin moved to North Carolina in 1996. He can be reached at dbarkin53@gmail.com.

O C T O B E R

d-Point Taken_Barkin_October 2021-1.indd 13

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 11:56 AM

MANDATORY VACCINES: WHAT NORTH CAROLINA EMPLOYERS NEED TO KNOW By Will Oden and Hayley Wells On September 9, President Biden announced a new, six-pronged national strategy to combat COVID-19 while keeping businesses and schools open. A link to the Plan can be found at whitehouse.gov/covidplan. President Biden directed the United States Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA") to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard ("ETS") requiring that all employers with more than 100 employees either (1) ensure that their workers are vaccinated against COVID-19; or (2) test their unvaccinated employees at least weekly (with said test producing a negative test result before the unvaccinated employee is allowed to come to work).

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS Which companies will be impacted? For employers with multiple locations or related companies that individually employ 100 or less employees, but collectively employ 100+ employees, guidance has not been issued at the time of this article's submission regarding whether such locations and/or related companies are to be combined for purposes of the 100+ employee threshold. It is also yet to be determined whether employees who work exclusively from home will be subject to the requirements. What is clear, however, is that such a mandate will impact both public and private employers. Business North Carolina magazine published their list of the "Top 125 Private Companies" in the September magazine, and 120 of those 125 companies will likely have to comply with the President's Plan based on the reported number of employees. With North Carolina's large military and defense industry presence, it is relevant to note that the President also has signed an Executive Order requiring all employees of the executive branch of the federal government and contractors who do business with the federal government to now have a fully-vaccinated workforce.

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

Ward_and_Smith_Oden-Wells_spread_Oct2021_ver4.indd 14

C A R O L I N A

HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY EMPLOYERS The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") is taking action to require workers in most healthcare settings (those that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement) to be vaccinated (without the option of weekly testing). This requirement will apply to most hospital, dialysis facility, ambulatory surgical, and home health agency employers. The President's Plan explains that this "action builds on the vaccination requirement for nursing facilities recently announced by CMS, and will apply to nursing home staff as well as staff in hospitals and other CMS-regulated settings, including clinical staff, individuals providing services under arrangements, volunteers, and staff who are not involved in direct patient, resident, or client care." It is yet to be determined which health care employers are not subject to this forthcoming mandate. The Plan also directs the Department of Health and Human Services to undertake rulemaking mandating vaccinations for teachers and staff at Head Start and Early Head Start Programs, which will likely impact North Carolina's school districts.

HELP FOR BUSINESS OWNERS The Plan also describes several enhancements being made to resources for business owners. The Small Business Administration ("SBA") is increasing the maximum amount that a small business can borrow under the COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan program from $500,000 to $2,000,000. These funds can be used to "hire and retain employees, purchase inventory and equipment, and pay off higher-interest debt." The SBA "will ensure that no small business has to start repaying these loans until two years after they receive the funding." To ensure that "Main Street businesses" have additional time to access these funds, the SBA is offering an exclusive, 30-day window for these businesses wishing to borrow $500,000 or less.

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 11:59 AM

Finally, a Community Navigator Program is being started to connect small businesses to the federal, state, and local resources that they need.

IS THE VACCINE MANDATE LEGAL?

Will Oden is a labor and employment attorney and mediator whose practice encompasses a broad range of employment and workplace-related

Lawsuits will most certainly be filed challenging the anticipated rules. A federal judge could issue an injunction prohibiting the implementation of OSHA's (forthcoming) rules.

counseling, the representation of clients

However, whether a ruling in any such lawsuit will be made before OSHA's (forthcoming) deadline goes into effect is unknown. In the interim, larger employers should prepare to comply with the vaccine mandate and frequently check for further guidance on unsettled issues such as:

appellate levels.

• • • •

whether the employee count will include part-time, full-time, and temporary workers who will bear the financial costs for weekly testing whether the vaccine mandate covers remote workers, and, whether time spent obtaining a test and awaiting results is compensable time.

before federal and state agencies, and civil litigation in both the federal and state courts at the trial and

Hayley Wells counsels and represents employers in litigation in a broad range of issues, including covenants not to compete, employment discrimination, discipline and termination, harassment, wrongful discharge, wage and hour matters, personnel policies and procedures, and preparation of employee handbooks and

Ward and Smith covers these and other labor and employment law issues regularly, and OSHA's ETS may even be issued prior to this article's publication. Sign up at bit.ly/WSAlertSignUp for our free Labor and Employment Alerts to receive information like this in your inbox.

employment agreements.

This article is not intended to give, and should not be relied upon for, legal advice in any particular circumstance or fact situation. No action should be taken in reliance upon the information contained in this article without obtaining the advice of an attorney. wardandsmith.com

CAN MY EMPLOYER ENFORCE A VACCINATION MANDATE? It's a prolific question that's been around since COVID-19 vaccines became widely available. Now, with the FDA's announcement of the first fully-approved COVID vaccine, and the President's Plan, more employers are implementing mandatory vaccination policies. Paired with concern over the more virulent delta variant, which is causing a resurgence of coronavirus cases, the mandate question has become more urgent for many people. Responding to the rise in demand, Ward and Smith has created a new service for individuals who want to understand their rights regarding mandatory workplace vaccines and any lawful options that exist for become exempted from their employer's mandatory policy. "A real concern, from the numerous calls we've fielded about this issue, are from individuals who are stressed over the possibility of losing their jobs and livelihoods should they choose not to get vaccinated," remarked Labor and Employment attorney Ken Gray. "That's why we developed this service. We regularly help employers craft workplace policies and help them understand their rights, as well as the rights of their workers.

With this service, individual employees can also understand their rights and move forward with correct information under the law here in North Carolina." Some employees may be exempted from vaccination requirements based on two potential concerns: disability or religious beliefs. But even those exemptions can have some limitations. "Not all employers are covered by the ADA or Title VII. Plus, the accommodation process is different for every workplace, depends on an employee's circumstances, or can change based on the needs of the business. For example, accommodations may be different if a company decides to have that employee work remotely." The bottom line is that many different factors can affect this outcome. This new service can help an individual understand his or her options, if any, related to mandatory vaccines. North Carolinians can speak to an attorney well-versed on the relevant mandatory vaccine issues via a phone call or an online virtual meeting for a one-time upfront flat fee of $300. Individuals may call Ward and Smith with mandatory vaccine questions at 252-672-5400. One of our team members will return the call within a business day, assuming there is no conflict of interest. O C T O B E R

Ward_and_Smith_Oden-Wells_spread_Oct2021_ver4.indd 15

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 11:59 AM

NC TREND

Education

■ TECHNOLOGY ■ DEVELOPMENT ■ COLLEGE ATHLETICS ■ ENTREPRENEURSHIP Page 18

Page 22

Page 24

Page 26

■ UNIVERSITIES Page 28

CHART TOPPERS ALLOWING ALTERNATIVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS CREATED A GROWTH INDUSTRY, ENCOURAGED NEW APPROACHES AND SPARKED DEBATE.

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

t's been 25 years since the N.C. General Assembly passed the Charter Schools Act of 1996, opening the doors for alternative schools. The goal was to spark some educational innovation at schools that don’t have to follow many traditional public school policies including curriculum, class size and teacher licensing. Eighteen of the 34 schools that opened in 1997 remain in operation today. In 2011, lawmakers removed the cap of 100 schools and now 206 operate across the state with enrollment of more than 126,000 students. A waiting list tops 75,000 students. Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of the N.C. Association for Public Charter Schools, discussed the schools’ status in this interview, which was edited for brevity and clarity. The Greensboro College graduate taught high school English for 18 years and co-founded a charter school in Asheboro in 2013. She has a master’s degree in education leadership from High Point University. ► Why did the number of charter schools double since the cap was lifted? One size doesn’t fit all. In the past, students were relegated to the schools that were in their ZIP codes. That meant that parents who didn’t have the means to pay for a private education were essentially just stuck with whatever schools their student was assigned to. Charter schools all have their own special and unique missions. We have a variety of different types of schools. We have classical academies, Socratic academies, schools that are project-based-learning focused, arts focused, too many to name. ► Which schools have a distinct focus that stand out in your mind? There’s an arts-based school in Raleigh called Long Leaf School of the Arts. That’s really a thriving school. An example of a project-based-learning school is Uwharrie Charter Academy, a school I co-founded in Randolph County. The premise is essentially it’s a STEM [science, technology, engineering, math]focused school. Instead of placing such an emphasis on testing, the students show what they have learned through projects.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Charter_October 2021.indd 16

N O R T H

▲ Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of the N.C. Association for Public Charter Schools.

► What are the criteria for charter school teachers? Charter schools are required to have at least 50% of their teachers licensed by the state. If they don’t have a license, they have to teach in an area in which they have a degree or expert knowledge. Some people look at that 50% as a problem with charter schools, but I don’t. As a lifelong educator, I can tell you a license doesn’t tell you a whole lot about the quality of a teacher. Basically, it tells you that that person passed a test. It doesn’t tell you if that person has any expertise in forming relationships with students or if that person might have exceptional skills in science or arts. I knew plenty of licensed teachers and they were great. There were others who were licensed, and they were horrible. ► How does state funding for charter schools compare with traditional ones? Our schools get about 70 cents on the dollar because we don’t get funding for capital expenditures. That means the schools have to fill that deficit in other ways, often by fundraising. The budgets of the charter schools are just cut to the bone as much as possible to be able to find a facility and make it work. ► How do schools made up largely of students from lower-income families handle fundraising? That’s where schools have to really rely on seeking outside funding from third parties like grants. ► Are all charter schools equal if some have greater access to fundraising? Nobody has ever asked me that. I guess that some are better off than others. I think that they would really have to rely on finding a good grant writer to help them seek those additional funds.

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:18 AM

► What are the keys for successful charter schools versus those that have closed? Sometimes people look at the fact that charter schools have been shut down as a concern. To me it’s not a concern at all. If a school is not meeting the needs of students, then it shouldn’t be open. In North Carolina (public) district schools can continually run for years and years, and nobody questions the fact that they might or might not be meeting the needs of students. Some of the charter schools that have been closed in the past have been closed for financial reasons. I would say the schools that are the most successful are the ones with the most transparency. ► What information has to be made public? Charter schools are required to undergo a financial audit every year. There’s also something called the performance framework, which is basically an accountability measure. ► How many N.C. charter schools are for-profit? That’s another myth related to charter schools in North Carolina. All N.C. charter schools are nonprofit and run by nonprofit boards of directors. Some are affiliated with [for-profit] management organizations that can provide a variety of services from back-office support in the form of accounts payable all the way up to providing facilities and curriculum support. A lot of people see that as a criticism of charter schools. My response to that is show me a school that doesn’t do business with a for-profit business. They don’t exist. ► What is an example of a charter school that has helped students who were struggling in their assigned public school? A shining star among North Carolina charter schools is Henderson Collegiate in Henderson. That community is economically disadvantaged and the students who attend that school, all of them go to college. Many of those students tell stories of coming from backgrounds where they might be the first person in their family to even graduate from high school. That school has done tremendous work in elevating the lives of students in that community. It’s about not allowing students to make excuses for their potential. They create a scaffolding where [students] are able to reach their potential. It’s the relationships they form with students and the support the school provides students. ■

O C T O B E R

Trend_Charter_October 2021_PGK.indd 17

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 12:00 PM

NC TREND

Technology

SWINGING SUCCESS GOLF’S RENEWED POPULARITY IS BOOSTING WINSTON-SALEMBASED SPORTTRAK’S GAME.

BY BRAD KING

f calling a global pandemic “a tipping point” for your business sounds a bit antithetical, well, sometimes you have to take breaks when you get them. Particularly after you’ve spent decades battling to carve out space in a niche market. For Winston-Salem-based SportTrak, that field is golf technology. Originally known as AccuSport International, the company spent more than 20 years producing the AccuShot Range System and later the Vector Launch Monitor line, which tracked the flight and distance of a golf ball hit from a tee. “I like to tell people AccuShot was Topgolf before there was Topgolf,” says SportTrak President Don Thorup, referring to the Dallas-based company that operates more than 50 sites featuring golf driving ranges, simulators and lots of partying. While AccuShot delivered in many ways, it was expensive. Only major golf products companies and top teaching professionals were shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for the custom product. In 2014, AccuSport shifted gears. Teaming up with golfing technology company SkyGolf and rebranding as SportTrak, its inaugural device, the SkyTrak Launch Monitor, was a less expensive option than its predecessors. The device sits on the floor and connects through wifi to phones and computers; golfers can work on their

▲ SportTrak's growth topped 30% in 2020.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_SportTrak_October 2021.indd 18

N O R T H

▲ SportTrak technology helps golfers analyze their swing.

swing in small spaces and get instant shot analysis and ball-flight data for about $2,000. The company began garnering industry recognition and enthusiastic user feedback, including a 2017 award from Golf Digest magazine. “We wanted a product that a consumer could afford but would stand up to professional use in terms of the data,” Thorup says. When the COVID-19 pandemic led to closures and quarantines, golf emerged as one of the few viable options for recreation and socializing. Desperate for activities to keep their families entertained, people discovered that setting up an in-home golf experience was not as complicated or as expensive as in the past. “I think (the pandemic) kind of crested the awareness factor,” Thorup says. “Whether it was the same kind of effect with Peloton or gardening or home improvement, people became more aware of what was possible. And one of those possibilities was to play real golf at home.” SportTrak benefited as retail sales of sports and fitness equipment increased by 23% in the first half of 2021, compared with the same prepandemic period in 2019, according to researcher NPD Group. A surreal time became golf’s “year of resurgence,” according to the National Golf Foundation, which reported 24.8 million golfers in the U.S. in 2020. That was a 2% increase from the previous year, the largest net gain in 17 years. SportTrak’s momentum dovetailed with golf’s surge in popularity. Thorup says SportTrak’s sales were up 35% to 40% in 2020 over 2019. “And we’re on pace to do that again,” he says. “2021 is running between 55% and 60% over 2020. What's interesting is even as things have opened up, our business just continues to grow.” SportTrak partnered with several trusted golf simulation companies.

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:21 AM

▲ Golf technology is advancing rapidly.

Luebchow and his staff incorporate SkyTrak to provide actionable data during lessons, as well as for club fitting and member entertainment. Dozens of clubs across North Carolina, includng the Country Club of Asheville and Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, offer the technology for members. The company is owned by an equal partnership between Ridgeland, Miss.-based SkyHawke Technologies and SportTrak. SkyHawke owns SkyGolf, which makes a

variety of products that help golfers determine distance and make better decisions. Thorup has been involved in the business since 2005 after previously working as a strategic planning consultant in Winston-Salem and in various finance jobs. He notes that SkyTrak has had positive cash flow since the company revised its prices to attract broader interest. Because of its recent success, he adds, the 40-employee enterprise is drawing interest from larger sports technology companies. ■

Customers can enjoy playing renowned golf courses such as Pebble Beach or Pinehurst from the comforts of their own home. “We have a very flexible footprint,” Thorup says. “If a player wants to install this in their garage and have a net and a mat and an iPad or their phone, that’s fine. … But if they want to dedicate space in their home to have an enclosure or projector, some other amenities, a putting green, they can dress it up as far as they want to go.” SportTrak recently asked customers to submit photos of their SkyTrak home setups. “A guy in New York City has a blanket over a door frame in his apartment,” says Andy Allen, SportTrak's managing director of golf. “Other guys were in Colorado, on their deck, with space heaters. And then there were these beautiful bonus rooms that are all decked out. As long as you have enough room to safely swing a golf club, you have enough room.” SkyTrak has also proven popular at country clubs and golf courses, along with high school and collegiate golf programs. International sales have also increased. Two years ago, Maple Chase Golf and Country Club in Winston-Salem added a simulator room equipped with SkyTrak technology. Longtime teaching professional Brad Luebchow says two of his top students — Mallory Fobes of UNC-Wilmington and state champion Macy Pate of Reagan High School in Winston-Salem — have benefited greatly from their work on SkyTrak. “When it’s snowing, or cold, or raining, we can go in there and work,” he says. “It’s always 72 (degrees) in that room. Macy (Pate) said the SkyTrak is the reason why her wedge play has been so sharp. Because she can trust the numbers.” O C T O B E R

Trend_SportTrak_October 2021.indd 19

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 10:21 AM

DEVELOPING STORY North Carolina’s Summit Design & Engineering seeks a developer to fine-tune a commercial opportunity in Virginia, where the stage is set for a mixed-use project. Beside U.S. 58/221 in Galax, Virginia, 10 minutes from the North Carolina line, a vacant factory complex sits on 5.2 acres. It was home to Vaughan Furniture Co., which was founded by brothers Taylor and Bunyan Vaughan in 1923. Taylor married into the Bassett family. Those ties led to Vaughan-Bassett Furniture, which remains based in Galax, then the former Webb Furniture Co. in 1925. The complex, which has buildings with wood-plank floors and a site that stops at the T. George Vaughan Jr. Road intersection then slopes toward Chestnut Creek, started with three-story buildings built with wood posts and beams and brick walls. By the 1960s, construction was done with concrete and steel, and there were 11 buildings in all. It has been idle since 2015. “It’s an industrial blank canvas,” says Craig Wilson, principal planner with Summit Design and Engineering Services. The property has been marketed for manufacturing for years without success. “Vaughan family members and city of Galax leadership turned a corner and realized that the buildings’ long-term re-use needed to be as something other than a factory,” Wilson says. “At 408,000 square feet, this historic factory building on the edge of downtown Galax, if redeveloped and adaptively re-used, could be a game changer for Galax and the region.” Summit Design composed a 136-page feasibility study on adaptively reusing the property. It envisions a mixed-use project — residential, retail, courtyard space, an upscale restaurant and hotel. But it also sees a $92 million price tag. “Even with that estimated construction cost, the finances work because of all the grants and credits and lending,” Wilson says. “The tricky part is, we don’t yet have a developer. Typically, projects of this size and scope only come forward via a developer taking an interest in it and either buying or optioning the building. It is a big project and complicated, both structurally and financially,

B U S I N E S S

Summit_spread_Oct 2021_ver4.indd 20

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

therefore only certain developer types will be capable of developing it.” Galax is an independent Blue Ridge Mountains city between Carroll and Grayson counties. It’s small — 8.3 square miles and about 6,500 residents — but a big stop on The Crooked Road, Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, which was blazed in the 1990s. The city moves to the beat of bluegrass music, whether jam sessions at cozy cafés, pickin’ on live radio or performances at the historic Rex Theater. Crowds have been gathering for its Old Fiddler’s Convention every August since 1935, and more recently Smoke on the Mountain, Virginia’s State Barbecue Championship. More than 130,000 people visit the World Capital of Old Time Mountain Music each year, making tourism a $110 million industry. “After tourists spend a day in Galax and take part in what they do, they say, ‘What’s next?’ Part of the [mixed-use] space can be the what’s next,” Wilson says. “We could have indoor activities like a climbing wall. The restaurant could look out over the creek. The city hasn’t taken advantage of the creek, but that’s part of the plan here. The [57.7 mile multiuse] New River Trail comes into Galax along Chestnut Creek. It’s a hidden gem, really.” Wilson finds inspiration in North Carolina live-work-play developments. Rocky Mount Mills, for example, was developed by Raleigh-based Capital Broadcasting, and Saxapahaw Rivermill was developed by real-estate veteran Mac Jordan. Each used historic tax credits to turn former mills into clusters of living, office, retail, food and beverage, and event space. Wilson’s focus is economic development, downtown restructuring and revitalization, and community branding. Work to move the Vaughan site to thriving innovative live-work-play status has already traveled a long road milemarked with sales, grants, committees and business deals.

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 12:40 PM

A $75,000 Opportunity Appalachia grant was used for the feasibility study. Vaughan family members formed a restoration group and bought the factory site from the furniture company. The city of Galax, its council and industrial development authority formalized a Galax Development Corp. with members of City Council, City IDA, and the Vaughan Restoration Group serving as board members. In early September, a request for developers was posted online. Wilson hopes to have a developer under contract by March, construction started in September and the site built out within four years. “The [request for qualifications] will be posted in North Carolina and Virginia and in an online article,” he said at the beginning of September. “Soon as we post the RFQ, we’ll call developers we know who could tackle this. People who know southwest Virginia, who know the Blue Ridge Parkway.” The 469-mile scenic drive, which winds through western North Carolina, passes through Carroll and Grayson counties, southeast of Galax. Wilson says the developer would be eligible for $1.6 million in grants with $30 million in Historic Tax Credits and low-cost lending through New Markets Tax Credit lending, Commonwealth of Virginia funding and Opportunity Zone program. “With Galax being much closer to North Carolina metro areas than Virginia’s, and only 8 miles from the state line, project leadership realized the potential developer may very well be from North Carolina,” he says. “I don’t think it will be somebody local. There are some in Richmond who have done tobacco warehouses, but it’s a five-hour drive to Richmond. I think it will be someone with the expertise, like the people who did Rocky Mount Mills. The developer is going to have to put about $17 million in cash up front, but a developer who does a good job is going to get the money from other folks. It’s in a zone where investors can put money into it from other areas.”

Galax is an hour and a quarter drive from Winston-Salem on U.S. 52, and it’s an hour and a half from Charlotte on Interstate 77. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey shows 4.1 million people living within a two-hour drive, and 10 million are within three hours. Wilson says Summit Design is one of the fastest-growing companies in North Carolina. Its corporate office is in Hillsborough. It has six more North Carolina locations, three in Virginia, and one in West Virginia, South Carolina, Florida and Denver, Colorado. But it slows down for the details, including those associated with the Galax project. “We’ve done our due diligence, and we’ve done the financial work,” he says. “To the developer who wants this project, we say, ‘Come on!’”

Visit opportunitygalax.com | Email info@opportunitygalax.com

O C T O B E R

Summit_spread_Oct 2021_ver4.indd 21

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 12:41 PM

NC TREND

Development

NEXT PUZZLE PIECE WITH BIG PROJECTS ELUSIVE, CHATHAM COUNTY TRIES OUT A NEW GROWTH STRATEGY.

BY CONNIE GENTRY

rom July 2019 to August 2021, 23 large corporate expansions were announced for Durham, Wake, Johnston, Orange and Lee counties. Neighboring Chatham County courted many of those companies, as well as others, but none materialized. Sanford and Lee County won a $200 million Abzena biotech plant in April, while Holly Springs and Wake County landed a $550 million Amgen project in August. It isn’t for a lack of trying. For years, Chatham has been the state’s only county with two industrial megasites: the Chatham Advanced Manufacturing site in the western part of the county and Triangle Innovation Point, a 2,150-acre project on the eastern side, near U.S. 1 between Raleigh and Sanford. Those two developments “put us in the middle of a lot of interesting conversations,” says Michael Smith, president of Chatham

County Economic Development Corp. “The CAM site was one of the final three sites for the Toyota/Mazda project, and Tesla looked at the [Triangle Innovation] site. The fact that those projects looked closely at Chatham County [suggests] exciting opportunities are coming for our community.” Toyota/Mazda chose Alabama for a big factory, while Tesla picked Austin, Texas. Now Chatham’s strategy has changed for the Triangle Innovation development, which was formerly known as the Moncure megasite. Denver-based Kaplan Brokerage Group owns the site, with real estate services company JLL handling marketing. Instead of trying for a single big manufacturer, they’re envisioning a multiuser campus with sites ranging from 10 acres to 1,000 acres, says Matt Winters, a JLL executive vice president in Raleigh. Life-sciences companies, manufacturers and distribution centers are showing interest. “We are in active negotiations with companies C HAT H A M' S CALLING needing 100,000 to 1 million square feet of finished building space, as well as with poORANGE COUNTY ALAMANCE COUNTY tential campus users in need of several hundred acres,” Durham 40 Winters says. DURHAM COUNTY The strategy shift creChapel Hill Chatham Advanced ates an advantage for the Manufacturing region, says Melissa Smith, 40 vice president of business re501 cruitment and development Farrington at the Economic Develop501 Cary Raleigh ment Partnership of North 64 Carolina. “Until it gets fur64 Pittsboro ther developed it can still be Siler City WAKE COUNTY marketed as a megasite, but CHATHAM COUNTY 1 opening it up to the potential 501 for development as a mega421 park makes a lot of sense,” Triangle Innovation Point she says. “[The site] is in play for a number of projects.” LEE COUNTY HARNETT COUNTY While commercial development lags, Chatham has

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Chatham-Megasite_October 2021.indd 22

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 12:44 PM

seen dramatic residential growth as the state’s third-fastest growing county over the last decade. It is home to more than 76,200 people, a 17% increase from 2010. New residents are flocking to areas such as the 1,800acre Briar Chapel neighborhood south of Chapel Hill, where 2,000 home sites have been under development since 2008. Then there’s the county’s signature community, the 7,068-acre Chatham Park, which broke ground in 2014 with 22,000 homes planned over the next 25 years. While Chatham has been figuring out its future, neighboring Lee County has attracted a series of large corporate expansions. “In Lee County, we’ve seen the success that comes with good partners, planning and figuring out what you want development to look like,” Melissa Smith says. That’s now happening at the various industrial parks in Chatham, which is “strategically positioned for success as the next puzzle piece for industrial development in the Triangle.” More than 20,000 Chatham residents commute to jobs outside the county, providing a key labor pool for Research Triangle Park, Raleigh-Durham International Airport and other major employment areas. The county is fortunate to have sites ready for businesses to develop. “Speed to market is very important with the companies looking for projects in North Carolina,” Winters says. Triangle Innovation has the zoning in place for heavy industrial projects and key infrastructure, enabling companies to build a plant fairly quickly. Some early interest in the project involves about 400 acres known as Tip West, where a former Performance Fibers plant closed in 2014 and was demolished. Infrastructure such as utilities and sewer remain, so Winters anticipates a speculative facility will be under construction by the end of the year and completed in late 2022. Tip West is a joint venture with Samet Corp., a general contracting firm based in Greensboro, and Lee-Moore Capital, a Sanford-based developer led by CEO Kirk Bradley. Having a building ready for occupancy will be an asset, particularly for international companies looking to launch their first U.S. operations, says Al Williams, a JLL vice president who is also working on the project. “We saw

a significant amount of interest in an existing building we had in Goldsboro from international companies that didn’t have an existing presence in the U.S.” Melissa Smith expects the Triangle Innovation project to follow the example of the Grounds of Concord in Cabarrus County. The former site of a giant Philip Morris cigarette plant and a failed battery manufacturer, it recently landed three big companies that plan more than $1 billion in investment

for beverage manufacturing and distribution plants totaling 3 million square feet by 2027. “We’ve seen what has happened there, and I think Chatham County is positioned well to be that next thing,” she says. “If manufacturers want suppliers close by — and that was the driver at Grounds of Concord — then a 2,100-acre opportunity like [Triangle Innovation] that can be carved out around a specific set of needs is ideal.” ■

source: Yahoo Finance

O C T O B E R

Trend_Chatham-Megasite_October 2021.indd 23

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 12:44 PM

NC TREND

College athletics

CLUCKIN’ CASH BOJANGLES COOKS UP A PLAN TO PAY COLLEGE ATHLETES TO PROMOTE A NEW PRODUCT.

BY JIM POMERANZ

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Bojangles-Athletes_October 2021.indd 24

N O R T H

Bo time

Bojangles signed endorsement deals with 75 student-athletes, including some at these Carolinas campuses.

N U MB E R O F AT HL E T E S

month after the NCAA began allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, Bojangles introduced its Bo’s Chicken Sandwich, billed as a “Cluckin’ Good” entreé to compete with rivals' similar sandwiches. The Charlotte-headquartered fast-food chain was quick to enlist college student-athletes in its 14-state footprint to promote the sandwich. Bojangles is paying male and female athletes across a variety of sports to post a photo of themselves taking a bite of the sandwich, encouraging followers to high-tail it to Bo’s. “It took about five minutes to figure out this is something we need to deepen our relationship with (Bojangles) fans and with college sports fans,” says Jackie Woodward, chief brand and marketing officer. “It was really a no-brainer.” As of August, 75 student-athletes were on Bojangles' payroll, including 22 attending 13 North Carolina universities. UNC Chapel Hill quarterback Sam Howell, a Union County native who is considered a likely pro football star, is one of two Tar Heels promoting Bojangles. The other is Beau Corrales, a football wide receiver whose Twitter (5,600 followers) and Instagram (nearly 14,000 followers) handle is beau_jangles12. Howell has more than 20,000 Twitter followers and nearly 61,000 on Instagram. “With social media, something they are doing already, there’s a natural extension,” says Woodward. She would not reveal the financial arrangements with the athletes. Not that long ago, such deals put the athletes and colleges in probation jeopardy. But paying student-athletes for services became legal for NCAA athletes on July 1. The athletic group wasn’t happy about name, image and likeness (NIL) legislation in various states that superseded its bylaws, but it relented and agreed to rules that apply across each member institution. North Carolina hasn’t enacted NIL legislation. Governor Roy Cooper issued an executive order setting various guidelines, though that was not necessary for student-athletes to participate. The order says athletes can’t make NIL deals with companies that are “antithetical to the values of the institution.” In North Carolina and others without a state law governing NIL, no one including university officials knows how many student-athletes have signed with sponsors. “None of the [laws, executive orders or NCAA policies] mandate disclosure,” says Jenna McLaughlin, former chair of N.C. State University’s NIL Committee and ex-chief of staff to Athletics Director Boo Corrigan. (She left the university in September.) “We have had a handful of athletes disclose, but that is a fraction of the deals made by our student-athletes based on social media and word of mouth.”

Appalachian State, Elon, Johnson C. Smith, N.C. A&T State, UNC Wilmington, Wake Forest

Davidson, Duke, High Point, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro

N.C. State

Clemson

South Carolina Source: Bojangles

NIL deals began in earnest in July, but most universities addressed them months in advance by developing educational programs to teach student-athletes about the legal do’s and don’ts. At N.C. State, the six-week Alpha course includes entrepreneurship, marketing, legalities and financial planning. These sessions may be the athletes’ best resource for life after college. “Really, it’s a regulation that needed to be changed though a lot of student-athletes will go about their life as they always have,” McLaughlin says. “For some, name, image and likeness will not earn them more money than a normal part-time job.” The new NIL policies are prompting aggressive recruiting efforts outside North Carolina. Memphis attracted the No. 1-ranked men's basketball recruiting class partly because of NIL opportunities, according to the team's coach, Penny Hardaway. Brigham Young University's 85 scholarship football players can each earn $1,000 per semester to promote protein snack bars made by American Fork, Utah-based Built Brands. Another 38 walk-ons were eligible to receive tuition reimbursements. Though such arrangements are not part of the original idea of how to assist Wolfpack athletes with NIL agreements, McLaughlin says, “N.C. State is working towards taking the next steps to ensure we do everything we can to help our student-athletes feel prepared to benefit from this legislation.” ■

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 12:51 PM

O C T O B E R

Trend_Bojangles-Athletes_October 2021.indd 25

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 12:51 PM

NC TREND

Entrepreneurship

BAT MAN NORTH CAROLINA’S GROWTH FORCES WILDLIFE OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE, CREATING STEADY WORK FOR AN ALAMANCE COUNTY WILDLIFE REMOVAL EXPERT.

B Y E M O R Y R A K E S T R AW

s a critter control expert for two decades, Darrell Roberson has seen and wrangled it all. On one particular afternoon, he received an emergency call from a frantic older woman. A snake was in her kitchen; could Roberson help immediately? Although he was 36 miles away in Burlington, he dropped everything and headed to High Point. “When I arrived, she had already pulled out the drawer beneath the stove and witnessed the snake drop to the floor,” Roberson says. “Before I even stepped in the kitchen, I knew what it was. I pick it up, it’s not a snake. It’s a cable tie that held the stove together.” While Roberson, 50, deals with live animals more than cables, he notes a misdirected fear of bats, raccoons and snakes plays into people’s panic. As the sole proprietor and only employee of Burlington-based WildlifEviction, he never wants to benefit from or encourage that fear. An avid outdoorsman, he’s long understood the precarious nature of displaced wildlife. “I fish, I hunt. Anytime we had a family member or friend who had a problem with an animal, they’d call me,” he says. “I knew the animals and would get on their level. I know how homes and commercial buildings are put together. I could figure out access points. I did it for fun for many years, then started doing it professionally 20 years ago.” The business has gotten busier as new housing construction around the Triad means that animals on once-vacant land wind up indoors. “I do a lot of work in new-build development properties,” he said. “You’re looking at a farm that’s been around for generations, then in a year there’s 60 houses there. The animals are confused and don’t know what to do.” Lately there have even been sightings of a mountain lion along Greensboro’s busy Cone Boulevard. Roberson is setting up cameras in the area to confirm if it’s true. “They’re routinely spotted throughout Guilford,” he says. “I can’t trap those.” Roberson’s license through the N.C. Wildlife Resource Commission allows WildlifEviction to offer removal services for Forsyth, Guilford, Alamance and Rockingham counties. Each season brings new challenges. In the summer, it’s snakes. Come winter, it’s things that go bump in the night, mainly squirrels in the attic. Year-round, it’s groundhogs, skunks, raccoons, foxes and coyotes. Bat season starts in August following a summer period when regulations prevent them from being removed. “This is when the females have their pups. Although we can do the inspection and sell the job, we can’t remove the bats until August. With bats, you’re dealing with anywhere from one in a

B U S I N E S S

D-Trend_WildlifEviction_October 2021.indd 26

N O R T H

vent to 300 flying out of a house,” he says. “Bats can go in any hole. If it’s the size of a dime, a bat can use it. Bat guano is the real issue. I’ve taken out five con▲ A black rat snake meets its match tractor bags full of it. I’ve seen Sheetrock fall out from the weight of it.” Services such as sealing entryways ensure that wild roommates won’t return. While each situation is different, Roberson never hurts the animal. For a nonpoisonous snake, he simply picks it up and relocates it. For others, he utilizes various trapping methods, notably through excluders that allow the animal a one-way exit. “For a single raccoon, I must trap and seal the opening, but even for one raccoon, I’m making three or four trips to get the job done and checking the traps every 24 hours,” he says. “For lengthy jobs, like trapping a beaver, I’ve trapped for four weeks.” Even if Roberson removes the animal in one visit, he later returns to ensure no others have found their way in. He’s usually a one-man operation but will occasionally bring help when needed. In 2009, the show Billy the Exterminator debuted on A&E Network. Following its release, Roberson saw “everyone and their brother” purchasing a truck and a few ladders to enter the business. In less than a year, most had quit, largely because they didn't want to deal with bat-related issues. Roberson says the little creatures are very determined. Years of experience have helped him master the use of valves or netting to roust the bats. “It’s not easy to do if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m so accustomed to it, I know what the animals are going to do before they know.” Roberson’s most difficult pursuits involve fearful customers who need more coaxing than the critters at hand. Through education, he stresses that the animals are more scared than the screaming human encountering it. “There’s an old myth: if bats are flying around and one swoops down, they’ll get tangled in your hair. I’ve stood in a bedroom with a flying bat. It has no intention of landing on you,” he says. “My intention is to educate the customer and explain what is going on. I know the animals. They’re not out to hurt anyone.” ■

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 12:55 PM

O C T O B E R

D-Trend_WildlifEviction_October 2021.indd 27

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 12:55 PM

NC TREND

Universities

HIGH POINT’S NEW LANDMARK NIDO QUBEIN SAYS HIS COMBO ARENA, HOTEL AND EVENTS COMPLEX RAISES THE BAR.

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

$170 million structure housing a 4,500-seat arena, a conference center capable of hosting more than 2,500 and a 30-room boutique hotel sounds like a capstone project for a long-serving university president. But the Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena & Conference Center, which opened last month at High Point University, just continues a massive building spree launched shortly after Qubein became president in 2005. About $380 million of new projects are on the horizon at High Point, including prospective buildings for new dental and law schools and an $85 million library. Qubein, 73, agreed to a new 10-year employment contract in 2019. Even by High Point’s standards, however, the new center has an audacious scope that Qubein says is unlike anything in U.S. academia. He credits his background giving 7,500 motivational speeches since the mid-1970s, exposing him to many leading conference centers and meeting complexes. An emigrant from Lebanon who came to the U.S. at age 17 in 1966 with $50, Qubein earned a bachelor’s degree at HPU. By the late 1970s, he was addressing more than 200 business groups annually. Those experiences give him a unique perspective for designing public space, while he says is incorporated at the new building. Qubein wasn't thinking about arenas and hotels in 2005 when he became president of High Point, which was started in 1924 by the Methodist Church and city leaders. He was focused on repairing aging buildings and boosting revenue that totaled less than $60 million a year. Enrollment totaled about 1,450 students, with fewer than 100 in graduate programs. Now, the university has nearly 6,000 students and more than $1 billion in new buildings and takes in $350 million annually, including about half from tuition, he says. The balance comes from food, housing and other concessions and donations from a large pool of alumni, parents and friends. The new facility is opening debt-free after funding from hundreds of donors. The hotel is named after Ken and Jana Kahn, owners of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based LRP Media Group, an educational-media company.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_HighPoint_October 2021-1.indd 28

N O R T H

▲ The 4,500-seat arena has the state's second-largest indoor scoreboard behind PNC Arena in Raleigh, Qubein says. The complex includes a practice court, below.

Each hotel room is sponsored for four-year terms, including some parents who want priority status for staying on campus when visiting their children. A nightly fee is required in addition to the donation. While universities appreciate all gifts, Qubein notes that major growth hinges on big contributions. Since his arrival, High Point has received 17 gifts of more than $10 million, helping spur surges in enrollment, buildings and community impact.

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:17 AM

Nearly 2,000 people work at the 500-acre campus a mile north of downtown High Point.

He and his wife pledged $10 million for the new site. “You need a Rolodex of people who believe in your mission. It’s not just about giving money,” he says. High Point’s mission is to be the best “life skills” university, he says, helping students develop a range of tangible skills to navigate a fast-changing society. The arena-convention center complex furthers that goal

by providing real-life business experience for students involved in operating the site along with about 100 new employees. Qubein pledges it will be heavily used by students, their parents, faculty, staff and the High Point community. Boosting the potential for the school’s basketball team, which is coached by former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith, is a side benefit. The buildings’ general contractors are Michigan-based Christman Co., which specializes in arenas, and Greensborobased Samet Corp., which has built about 10 HPU structures. High Point's growth has impressed U.S. News & World Report, which has rated it as a No. 1 regional college for 10 years and most innovative for seven. The college has low-interest debt of less than $200 million, says Qubein, who has served as a director at Truist Financial and its predecessors for 30 years. Strong compensation programs and hefty investment in facilities and research opportunities have led to a devoted faculty and efficient operation, he says. It's common for HPU faculty to teach five days a week, he adds, contrasting that regimen with shorter schedules typical of many campuses. Meanwhile, an emphasis on traditional values is fueling growth because many parents of all faiths want their children to learn in an encouraging, safe environment, Qubein says. “We are a school that believes in America and the very values that built this nation in the first place. Don’t underestimate that.” ■

O C T O B E R

Trend_HighPoint_October 2021-1.indd 29

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 10:17 AM

NC TREND

Statewide

TAKING CREDIT

orth Carolina’s State Employees’ Credit Union chose an outside candidate to lead the secondlargest U.S. credit union as its new CEO because Jim Hayes has a solid track record and innovative style, board Chairman Bob Brinson says. Hayes took the top job at the $50 billion institution last month, succeeding Mike Lord, who had the post for the last five years. Jim Blaine led SECU from 1979 to 2016. The duo helped build a strong corporate culture that doesn’t require a major shakeup, Brinson says. Since 2012, Hayes has led Andrews Federal Credit Union, which is based near Washington, D.C., and has about 140,000 members and $2.2 billion in assets. The Andrews institution won top honors from the Army and Air Force recently for its programs to assist military members during the pandemic. Some candidates for the job “were clearly going to come with an

entourage of senior executives,” Brinson says. Hayes showed an appreciation for SECU’s track record. “He indicated he’d like to keep his hands off the wheel for a while.” Still, the board expects Hayes to bring new ideas. That includes a look at examining SECU’s strategy of offering the ▲Jim Hayes same loan terms to its members regardless of their financial status. The credit union charges the same interest rate to a member with a big net worth as someone who is living paycheck to paycheck. That strategy can make it difficult to offer competitive rates to more affluent members, who may borrow for homes and vehicles with rivals offering lower rates, Brinson says. SECU has more than 2.6 million members and 7,000 employees and remains profitable and well-capitalized, he adds. ■

orth Carolina has the fourth-largest military presence in the U.S. with 147,000 Department of Defense personnel and world-class research universities. But the state does not rank high in landing small business innovation grants and technology transfer programs involving the federal government. The North Carolina Board of Science, Technology & Innovation wants to change that, creating a task force that hopes to make recommendations on changes by the end of the year. The effort is led by the board’s chairman, Michael Cunningham, and its executive director, John Hardin. Cunningham is the former executive vice president and general counsel of Red Hat. He retired after Red Hat’s $34 billion acquisition by IBM two years ago.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 30

N O R T H

The DOD invests research money through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, aiming to create more science and technology jobs. The DOD budget for funding those programs in 2019 was about $1.8 billion. Since 1983, North Carolina’s share of SBIR/STTR funding has been about 1.1%, which ranks 20th nationally, according to Hardin. California (21.5%), Massachusetts (13%), and Virginia (8.5%) have gotten the most. Officials focused on the military hope to model North Carolina’s success in tapping federal research dollars to build a leading biotech sector. Some of the state’s 750 lifesciences companies are doing research supported by the federal programs. ■

PHOTO COURTESY OF SECU

DEFENSIVE POSITION

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:13 AM

CHARLOTTE

The second phase of Charlotte’s streetcar line has been completed. The original line opened in 2015 and ran from the Elizabeth to Uptown areas; the latest expansion adds 11 stops to the Lynx Gold Line. Future phases of expansion have not been funded yet, but the ultimate goal is to have a streetcar line that runs for 10 miles across the city from east to west.

MATTHEWS Harris Teeter will close its stores earlier because of labor shortages related to COVID-19, operating from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. The stores used to stay open until 10 or 11 p.m. in many areas, but the reduced hours will allow more employee time off and help in processing pickup orders. Since March last year, the Kroger subsidiary has offered a $2 temporary pay raise with bonuses and hired more than 5,000 employees.

years as chief executive of BB&T and nearly two years in the same role with Truist. King remains chairman of the board. Plans for the succession were part of the BB&TSunTrust merger, along with a headquarters in downtown Charlotte. Bank of America announced a big management shakeup that will lead to departures of two senior-level executives with

deep roots in Charlotte, where the bank is officially headquartered. Cathy Bessant moved to Europe to become vice chair of global strategy. She has been the chief technology and operations officer for 12 years. Andrea Smith is retiring after 34 years, most recently as chief administrative officer. Bessant and Smith have been key civic leaders in North Carolina for many years.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE8411251995, AUMNAMAHASHIVA, DUKE ENERGY

CHARLOTTE Private-equity company Falfurrias Capital Partners raised $850 million, two years after it raised a $500 million fund. The company was founded by former Bank of America executives Hugh McColl, Jr. and Marc Oken and Managing Partner Ed McMahan. Falfurrias has $1.9 billion under management, mainly in growth-oriented, lower middle-market businesses. It didn’t disclose investors in the latest round. Former SunTrust CEO Bill Rogers has taken the helm as the CEO of Truist Financial. Rogers, previously chief operating officer of the new bank, took over for Kelly King, who retired after nearly 13

Another major Charlotte employer is delaying plans to return employees to in-person work because of the Delta variant of COVID. Duke Energy originally planned to bring its employees back to the office in September but announced it would wait until October to begin the process. The delay affects about 6,000 employees in the area. The company will use the extra time to assess safety protocols.

O C T O B E R

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 31

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 10:13 AM

NC TREND

Statewide

Wild Earth, a vegan dog food company that moved its headquarters here from California, raised $23 million in its latest round of investments. Investors include Shark Tank star Mark Cuban. E-cigarette maker Juul Labs plans a research laboratory here that will employ about 35 people when it opens in April. The San Jose, Calif.-based company recently agreed to a $40 million settlement with the state of North Carolina tied to its marketing practices.

CONOVER Family-owned Everything Attachments, which makes farm implements and tractor attachments, will invest $20 million in its local manufacturing operations. The expansion includes the construction of a 105,000-squarefoot facility and the creation of 147 jobs.

Textiles startup Nufabrx was ranked as No. 50 on Inc. 5000’s list of the FastestGrowing Private Companies in America. Jordan Schindler founded the company in 2011 in Seattle and later moved to North Carolina to take space at the Manufacturing Solutions Center based here. The company has 35 employees and sells pain relief-infused ankle, knee and hand or wrist sleeves online and through Walmart, CVS and other major retailers.

TRIANGLE CARY As part of its lengthy legal battle with Apple, Epic Games paid the tech giant $6 million following a federal judge’s orders, CEO Tim Sweeney said. The court

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 32

N O R T H

ordered Apple to allow alternative payment systems in its App Store but did not declare the company to be a monopoly. Epic developed and implemented an alternative payment system as a protest against Apple’s 30% fee for in-app purchases. The company based here has filed a formal appeal of the decision.

N.C. State University was chosen by the National Science Foundation to be one of five national I-Corps Hubs in an attempt to prioritize commercialization of research. The university has been home to an I-Corps site since 2017, but the latest move will connect N.C. State to four other hubs across the U.S. for innovation and collaboration.

DURHAM AgBiome raised $116 million to expand its first commercial product, a natural pest control called Howler. Blue Horizon and Novalis LifeSciences are among the investors. The agtech company has raised $252.5 million since 2012. Humacyte’s NASDAQ debut resulted in a $25 million capital infusion from German health care giant Fresenius Medical Care AG. The fundraising followed its merger with special-purpose acquisition company Alpha Healthcare Acquisition.

Raleigh-based Utility Innovation Holdings, a startup headed by former PowerSecure CEO Sidney Hinton, raised $2 million in equity through an unidentified investor. Hinton declined to share the energy-storage solution business’ customer lineup, headcount or revenue. He started the company nine months ago after a long history in the energy industry.

LOWER PHOTO COURTESY OF N.C. STATE UNIVERSITY

CONOVER

RALEIGH

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:13 AM

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 33

9/21/21 1:24 PM

NC TREND

Statewide

SOUTHERN PINES One of architect Donald Ross’ first designs has reopened following an 18-month improvement project overseen by Kyle Franz, who is based here. Previously owned by the Elks Club, Southern Pines Golf Club was purchased last year by a group that owns nearby Pine Needles and Mid Pines. Those locations also feature Ross-designed courses renovated by Franz.

TRIAD

other companies in the Triad region have also announced increases to their minimum wage, including Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital and Cone Health.

GREENSBORO Cone Health has traded its former women’s hospital on Green Valley Road for properties valued at $15 million. The building is no longer needed as a COVID-19 hospital. In return for the trade with Deep River Partners, Cone Health received several other properties on Green Valley Road, where the health care network is planning future development.

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan said she will fight to retain the Atlantic Coast Conference headquarters after Commissioner Jim Phillips said the athletic group is considering moving to another city. A spokesman for Charlotte city government said the Queen City would love to attract the ACC offices if there is a decision to leave Greensboro.

WINSTON-

▲ Nancy Vaughan

BURLINGTON

UNC-Greensboro and N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University received a $25 million grant from the National Science Foundation to participate in a national study of phosphorus sustainability. The project will work to repair water sources that have been negatively impacted by phosphorus, which can affect drinking water and aquatic life. Appalachian State University and Research Triangle Institute are also involved with the study.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 34

N O R T H

Keds LLC is suing Hanesbrands in Winston-Salem for a breach of contract related to an ongoing dispute between the two companies over the Champion trademark. Keds owns the trademark for casual footware in some countries, and Hanesbrands began using the trademark in those areas where Keds does not have the exclusive rights. Both companies have filed lawsuits against each other over the past several years.

David Freedman, a prominent defense attorney in Winston-Salem, died from complications from COVID-19. Freedman, 64, had been hospitalized for about two weeks at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital. He had been vaccinated. For decades, he was involved in some of the state’s most high-profile cases.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CONE HEALTH, UNC GREENSBORO, GREENSBORO.COM, HANESBRANDS

Burlington’s Labcorp is increasing its minimum wage to $15 per hour for all nonunion employees in the U.S. The company has 70,000 employees worldwide serving clients in more than 100 countries. Several

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:13 AM

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 35

9/21/21 1:24 PM

NC TREND

Statewide

WEST ASHEVILLE

Average yearly hotel occupancy in Asheville and Buncombe County declined to less than 60% in the 2020-21 fiscal year compared with 83% in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Explore Asheville tourism marketing group said. But explosive growth in vacation rentals helped the area’s tourism development authority’s balance sheet remain in healthy shape. Vacation rentals made up 37% of occupancy tax revenue last year, doubling the level in 2017-18.

The former home of George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil, the grandson and an heir of Biltmore Estate’s founder, was sold for $9.5 million. It was the most expensive residential sale in Western North Carolina, according to Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, which handled the deal. Cecil, who headed the Biltmore Farms development company for decades, died in October 2020. The home is adjacent to Biltmore Estate. The Asheville City Council voted 4-3 to approve an expansion of the 150-unit Four Points Sheraton hotel at the northern edge of downtown. Developer Hulsing Enterprises of Asheville plans a total of 207 hotel rooms and 160 apartments or condos, depending on market conditions. The proposed 480,000-square-foot hotel will be the downtown area’s biggest building, some officials said.

The N.C. Department of Labor is investigating a flash fire at Evergreen Packaging on Aug. 18 in Canton. Two employees in the paper mill were injured and hospitalized as a result of the fire, which is likely why the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is studying the matter. The cause of the fire is still unknown. This follows a deadly fire at the mill in September 2020, when two workers were killed and contractors were fined.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 36

N O R T H

PHOTO COURTESY OF SHERATON

CANTON

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:14 AM

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 37

9/22/21 5:29 PM

NC TREND

Statewide

CULLOWHEE Western Carolina University opened the $110.5 million Apodaca Science Building, which was named after former state Sen. Tom Apodaca, a 1980 WCU alumnus. It’s the largest capital project in the state’s $2 billion Connect NC bond issue for infrastructure improvements. The fivestory building has about 183,000 square feet and a 150-seat lecture hall.

Despite the supply-chain issues and other problems caused by the pandemic, the Port of Wilmington reported an increase in several key indicators. Container volume increased 2% compared with the previous year, and the port set a record for total container volume handled in a single year. The ports of Wilmington and Morehead City handled 3.2 million tons of general cargo in the year that ended June 30.

EAST WILMINGTON With $409 million expected to be spent in the state this year and nearly $300 million already spent in the Wilmington area, this has been a record-setting year for the film industry. Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and other TV movies have played a prominent role in Wilmington’s film industry.

A new state law enables municipalities to create “social districts” in which bar patrons can consume beverages outdoors. That is prompting city officials to consider establishing such a zone on the Riverwalk in the downtown area.

Wells Fargo signed to use nCino’s technology to speed its digital transformation in commercial, corporate and investment banking. The company based here says its revenue increased 36% in the second quarter to $66.5 million. It named Josh Glover as president and chief revenue officer, reporting to CEO Pierre Naude.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 38

N O R T H

GREENVILLE Fall enrollment at East Carolina University dropped 2.8% over last year. The decline was spread across new freshmen, transfer students and individuals seeking advanced degrees. Trustee Tom Furr, a Durham businessman who received a bachelor’s degree in finance from ECU, said the university’s admissions process needs major changes.

East Carolina University alumnus Tom Arthur is donating $5 million to his alma mater’s business school, hoping to attract more graduate students. The Greenville native and military veteran helped grow Havatampa into the second-largest U.S. cigar manufacturer.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WESTERN CAROLINA UNIVERSITY, EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

EmergeOrtho, a large physician-owned orthopedic practice, named Allison Farmer as chief executive officer. Farmer was hired as chief financial officer of the practice, then known as OrthoWilmington, in 2013. It has more than 1,800 employees statewide.

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:14 AM

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 39

9/22/21 3:31 PM

NC TREND

Statewide

FAYETTEVILLE A $125,000 study shows Cumberland County residents want a new performing arts center, according to a consulting firm. Conventions, Sports and Leisure, which conducted the study, recommended Cumberland County build a $75 million, 89,000-square-foot multipurpose facility that could seat 2,075 people. The project has been under discussion for many years.

Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Waltham, Mass.-based life-sciences company that employs 1,500 people here, announced it’s adding 290 positions in a $154 million expansion. It follows a December announcement to add 500 employees in a new plant for its sterile drug product development.

Three East Carolina University researchers received a $3.8 million federal grant for a four-year effort to address emotional and behavioral problems in elementary schoolchildren. Associate professors of psychology Brandon Schultz, Christy Walcott and Alexander Schoemann received

the grant from the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

FAYETTEVILLE Private-equity real estate firm Trion Properties bought the Crescent Commons apartment complex here for $35 million. The seller was CMF Crescent Commons, which is part of Tampa, Fla.-based Carter Funds, a real estate investment firm. Trion says the city’s projected population growth spurred its interest in the area.

Texas-based Affinity Health healthcare company said it is acquiring 49-bed Martin General Hospital, a county-owned facility previously run by Quorum Health. Affinity operates Washington Regional Medical Center in Plymouth. Affinity said it is committed to retaining and adding employees, facility investment and service expansion.

B U S I N E S S

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 40

N O R T H

PHOTO COURTESY OF UDA, YIELD PRO

WILLIAMSTON

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 12:38 PM

O C T O B E R

Trend_Statewide_October 2021-2.indd 41

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 1:26 PM

WORKPLACE:

DIVERSITY IN BUSINESS

BEING BETTER North Carolina companies are implementing and supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. They benefit the businesses, their employees and the communities that they serve. North Carolina tech industry stalwart Cree recently changed its name to Wolfspeed, marking a new focus on developing and manufacturing semiconductors. But it has long nurtured a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion. In September 2020, the Durham-based company cemented that commitment with a $4 million scholarship fund, which will pay the first-year tuition, room and board for as many as 10 minority students per year at North Carolina A&T State University. Supporting diversity, equity and inclusion — DEI — is a company-wide effort at Wolfspeed, which employs about 5,000 people worldwide. Some of that is done through internal organizations, such as the Women’s Initiative Group, which advocated for accommodations for breast-feeding mothers, and Pride Employee Resource Group, which pushed for more gender-neutral bathrooms to serve transgender employees. “We tell the story of our diversity, equity

B U S I N E S S

Workplace_Diversity_Oct2021.indd 42

N O R T H

and inclusion efforts by words and actions,” says Tamara Pearce, the company’s DEI director. Pearce says Wolfspeed also teams with external organizations when hiring and mentoring employees. “Because we are really an engineering company, we focus on diverse engineering organizations,” she says. National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Society of Women Engineers are some of them. DEI shapes workplaces so all employees feel that they belong, says Donald Thompson, board of directors chairman at marketing agency Walk West and CEO and certified diversity executive of The Diversity Movement, both in Raleigh. “In an organization where everyone believes their voices are heard and they receive the same opportunities for advancement, this fosters a powerful work environment,” he says. “Not only is it the right thing to do, it also makes your business and

C A R O L I N A

your brand stronger.” DEI is woven into the fabric of Charlotte law firm Moore & Van Allen. It involved staff members, partners, associates, counsel and equity partners when developing a wideranging diversity strategic plan a few years ago. “We wanted to build out short-term and long-term policies and strategies to move us forward and had a high level of employee engagement,” says Valecia McDowell, co-head of the firm’s white collar, regulatory defense and investigations practice, a member of its Management Committee and co-chair of its Diversity Committee. It eventually was folded into the firm’s overall strategic plan, impacting hiring, professional development and outside interactions. “We get many voices into this process through employee surveys, one-on-one interviews and focus groups,” she says. Raleigh-based Coastal Federal Credit Union is a bastion for DEI by its very nature, says Joe Mecca, its

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 1:38 PM

vice president for communication. “Cooperative credit unions like Coastal historically have shared a common set of operating principles that foster diversity, equity and inclusion,” he says. “We make this a part of our values, and everybody who walks in the door, whether to work or do business here feels like they belong.” Coastal added Creighton Blackwell to its management team in August 2020. He’s chief culture and impact officer, a senior management position devoted to building community relationships and overseeing government relations. He also leads its recently formed Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee. Its 15 members keep DEI top of mind in everything that Coastal undertakes. “The committee represents employees at all levels of our organization, and they are charged with DEI programming, training and finding ways to make everyone feel included,” Mecca says. Thompson says creating an organic

process designed by employees leads to DEI success. “People with different perspectives, different backgrounds and different life experiences can help organizations win the future, because they bring strong, diverse thoughts and innovation to the workplace,” he says. “It’s something that’s built into the way the company operates.” DEI efforts are important in the bigger picture, too. “In terms of overall business development and economic development, think about some of the reasons we are seeing big wins in North Carolina,” Thompson says, listing recent relocation announcements by Google, Apple, Bandwidth and others. “These companies have a DEI mandate to operate in an environment where their employees’ partners, spouses and families are welcome in their communities,” he says. “Our ability to have equitable economic development in North Carolina gives us a significant competitive advantage to continue to recruit and retain some of the best and

brightest companies in the world.” DEI is part of Moore and Van Allen’s day-to-day practice, but it remains a work in progress. “As long as I have been practicing law, I have been working on this issue,” McDowell says. “We have made great strides as a law firm, as a profession and as a community and are now doing much better than we were when I entered the professional world. It is a challenge, but it’s one we are leaning into.” Thompson agrees that every DEI advancement is a step in the right direction. But many steps remain. “DEI will always be a fact of life in this country, because we have such a long way to go,” he says. “Over time, we’ll see more and more companies that build it into the fabric of leadership development, recruitment, mentorship and how we grow the next generation of leaders.” — Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.

O C T O B E R

Workplace_Diversity_Oct2021.indd 43

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 1:38 PM

N.C. PORTRAITS

FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESSES

FAMILY TIES by Alyssa Pressler Working with your family can be difficult, but every person we spoke to for our family-owned business series truly seems to love it. They talk about the fun they have, the laughs they share and, though they admit it is not always easy, they all say it’s worth it. Family-owned businesses across the state are doing exciting things and finding ways to thrive in the face of everyday business struggles and a global pandemic.

B U S I N E S S

Family-owned-businesses_Oct2021.indd 44

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 1:46 PM

Ron Capel, Cameron Capel and Richard Capel

INTERTWINED GENERATIONS It’s no easy feat to keep a small, family-owned business going for four generations, but Capel Rugs is well on its way. Currently run by three cousins of the Capel family, the rug business got its start in 1917 when it was founded by A. Leon Capel Sr., who started the business after taking some scraps from his father’s cotton yarn spinning mill and braiding together reins for horse and mule-drawn plows. The business was lucrative for a number of years because it was a cheaper option from traditional leather reins. However, the invention of the mechanical mule made the need for reins less significant. At that point, A. Leon Capel Sr. pivoted to the rug-braiding business that is still going today. The business is now run by Cameron Capel, president of sales, marketing and the import division; Ron Capel, president of finance and retail; and Richard Capel, president of manufacturing. The three cousins inherited it from their fathers and uncles, who worked with and took over from their father, A. Leon Capel Sr. Capel Incorporated 831 North Main Street Troy, NC 27371 800-334-3711 capelrugs.com

The trio have helped grow the business to a nationwide name. You can find Capel Rugs not only in their company-owned stores, but also in well-known retailers such as Pottery Barn, LL Bean, major retailers, and furniture stores across the United States, and even on TV — check out the Netflix hit show “Grace and Frankie” for proof. Though the last year has been tumultuous for many businesses, Capel Rugs saw business increase as many used the time they spent at home during 2020’s stay at home order in North Carolina redecorating their homes. At times, Cameron Capel says the lead times reached 8-10 weeks. “We have been trying to hire mainly in our manufacturing plant because business has been so good,” she says. “We’re needing to hire people to keep up with the demand.” Based in Troy, the business is looking to continue adding products made in the U.S. to its offerings, including more value-priced braided rugs, one of their most popular items. The braided rugs are made right in North Carolina, and the new options will be more price conscious. The three Capel cousins are the third generation to run the business, but Cameron Capel is hopeful their children will take over in the future. That’s, “TBD,” she says with a laugh. O C T O B E R

Family-owned-businesses_Oct2021.indd 45

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 1:46 PM

Dr. Thomas E. Jr.’s portrait hangs on the wall behind Dr. Thomas E. Powell III

N.C. PORTRAITS

FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESSES

MIXING FAMILY AND SCIENCE At Carolina Biological Supply Company, family and a family-like culture are part of the science educational material company’s DNA. Since its unpretentious start in 1927—when Dr. Thomas E. Powell Jr., a young geology and biology professor, began collecting specimens in the field and selling the surplus to his colleagues— Carolina has grown into a thriving 400-plus staff member operation with sales around the world. It remains a family business, espousing values that from the beginning have been key to its success.

Carolina Biological Supply Company

Six family members serve on Carolina’s Board of Directors, with Dr. Thomas E. Powell III as chairman. In their leadership roles, the family embraces Powell Jr.’s philosophy of innovation, quality and service. Innovations in kit design and manufacturing, curriculum development and distance learning propelled Carolina to the top tier of educational suppliers for elementary schools through universities. Designing and manufacturing science kits are among Carolina’s core functions. These kits are essential to teaching science at every level. Carolina also develops hands-on curricula independently and in partnership, supporting educators in the newest standards for hands-on science learning. Since computers are ubiquitous in today’s classrooms, Carolina delivers digital resources—videos, teacher’s manuals and interactive lessons—through its unique platform at carolinascienceonline.com.

2700 York Road Burlington, NC 27215 800-334-5551 carolina.com

In 2016, Carolina Distance Learning was created to provide campus-quality laboratory science to students in their homes. Today, these kits benefit remote students at hundreds of colleges and universities, proving to be a vital service during the pandemic. Carolina has long been known for developing lessons using living and preserved materials for a deeper understanding of biological concepts. Now, the company is among the first to bring affordable biotechnology concepts to high school and college students. As an added service, it provides a wealth of free information on organism care, laboratory techniques, lessons and activities.

B U S I N E S S

Family-owned-businesses_Oct2021.indd 46

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 1:46 PM

Ernie Creech

FLYING HIGH Conder Flag Co. began in 1941 as Conder’s Soda Shop on West Trade Street in Charlotte. Founder Carson Conder started selling flags during World War II to support neighborhood troops in service, drawing families who wanted to buy American-made flags for their homes. In the 1960s, the small business’s flag sales grew when Alaska and Hawaii joined the United States. During the 1970s, sparked by the resurgence in flag sales for the U.S. bicentennial, Conder started selling flags exclusively and the name Conder Flag Company took root. In 1982, Conder’s son-in-law, Ernie Creech, purchased the family business. Today, Creech operates Conder Flag Company with Barry Austin, Conder’s grandson and the company’s manager for 30 years. Under their leadership, Conder’s has steadily grown to become a leader for American and custom-made flags and banners. Conder 4705 Dwight Evans Road Charlotte, NC 28217 704-529-1976 conderflags.com

As a major manufacturer and distributor of flags and a company in the top 10 in flagpole sales in the U.S., Conder’s stocks all sizes of U.S., state and international flags as well as historical and specialty flags. Custom feather flags, customer logo and corp flags are printed daily. With a number of graphic machines, Conder’s ability to print on decals, vinyl, mesh and other quality material are endless, giving them widespread appeal. But Creech says what really sets Conder’s apart is their commitment to the highest quality products, customer service and long-term relationships with customers. Consistently, Conder’s provides the best quality products in a timely manner. Their goal is to create products that are affordable, but well made so they last for years. Since the business started, Conder Flag has come full circle, from manufacturing to selling to installing flags and flagpoles. They’re involved in every part of the process, and find joy in doing it together with family. O C T O B E R

Family-owned-businesses_Oct2021.indd 47

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 12:44 PM

COMING SPRING 2022

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 48

9/21/21 1:52 PM

By David Mildenberg

riting in depth business stories for a monthly publication was a novel concept when then-Dow Jones President Ray Shaw and his sons Kirk and Whitney started this magazine in 1981. Newspaper business sections were notoriously dull. Inflation and unemployment were both running near 10%, making the startup’s timing questionable. But media leaders, advertisers and readers were waking up to the mounting influence of corporations and entrepreneurs, ushering in a Golden Age of business journalism. Newspapers built large staffs to cover business. Local and regional publications sprang up to cover previously unheralded movers and shakers who often wielded more clout than government and political leaders. Business North Carolina is privileged to have filled a niche for covering the most interesting people and topics in the Tar Heel State for four decades, earning a reputation for some fearless journalism delivered by talented, fair-minded journalists. A traditional approach to business coverage under the Shaw family’s leadership transitioned into a more eclectic, aggressive style during the nearly three decades that David Kinney led the magazine, both as an employee of former owner News & Observer Publishing and as a majority owner. Since 2015 the magazine has been part of Old North State Magazines, whose owners have deep N.C. roots. They possess a genuine respect for the readers, advertisers and employees who have combined to make the publication successful in a challenging media world. The following section celebrates a proud magazine history and, more importantly, a love for the state in which Business North Carolina has thrived.

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 49

9/21/21 1:53 PM

Tar Heel treasures To mark Business North Carolina’s 40th year, we asked an array of leaders and writers to describe a product, person, business or cause that had a big impact on them.

Krispy Kreme Donuts

LED bulb Chuck Swoboda

he blue LED developed by Cree in Durham has had a memorable impact on my life and an even greater impact on the world. I saw an early prototype of the blue LED for the first time in 1991, which convinced me I should quit my Silicon Valley job and move to North Carolina. At that time, Cree was a very early-stage technology company with big plans but no products. Cree’s blue LED enabled the development of LED lighting, which changed the way people use light. LEDs have become the de facto standard for lighting globally and one of the most important energy-saving technologies in the last 40 years. The blue LED enabled Cree to build a company that created thousands of jobs in North Carolina and even more around the world. The blue LED has deep North Carolina roots as the underlying materials technology was originally discovered in the labs at N.C. State

The national economy was struggling in late 1981, when Business North Carolina launched.

University. In 1987, the Cree founders spun out of the university and spent the next 30 years developing products ranging from silicon carbide wafers to power and RF semiconductor devices to the blue LED, which eventually led to the development of the Cree LED light bulb. When Cree started the LED Lighting Revolution, nobody believed it was possible. Today, who would even consider buying an old-fashioned light bulb? Swoboda was CEO of Cree from 2001-17.

bout 20 years ago, on one of my first trips abroad, I was strolling with a friend through the world-renowned Harrod’s department store in London when I spied a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop. After determining that it wasn’t a mirage — mirages don’t smell like that — I stopped to buy one or five. My friend, a sophisticated world traveler, sighed in exasperation and asked why I would come all the way to London to buy a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. You could buy those anywhere, she sniffed. “I do,” I said and proceeded to buy a couple more. That was the only “I do” she ever heard from me. She, bless

1981

2021

U.S. unemployment rate (July 2021). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.8% (Dec. 1981). . . . . . . . 5.2% U.S. textile unemployment rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1%. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N/A U.S. furniture unemployment rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2%. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N/A Average duration of unemployment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 weeks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 weeks Average annual salary, white-collar workers. . . . . . . . $53,123. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $81,744 Average annual salary, blue-collar workers. . . . . . . . . $30,660. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $51,168 Number of textile/apparel workers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 million . . . . . . . . . . . . . N/A Number of furniture workers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472,000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N/A Men 20 or older in the labor force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69.8%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 50

Women 20 or older in the labor force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57.4%

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHUCKSWOBODA.COM

Tough environment

Barry Saunders

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 4:52 PM

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHEERWINE, RED OAK BREWERY

her heart, had been eager to introduce my country self to London’s international haute cuisine but concluded, accurately, that my taste was too low-brow for hers. I don’t think our friendship ever recovered from that incident. Friends come and go, but my love affair with Krispy Kreme, North Carolina’s greatest export, continues uninterrupted. Even during the great low-carb craze, which nutritionists and Wall Street predicted would knock a hole in the doughnut industry, my love remained as strong as Krispy Kreme’s coffee. Two implausible rumors hit Rockingham in the early 1970s. One was that a new company, Clark Equipment, was paying $5 an hour. (The minimum wage at the time was $2.) The other was that the Krispy Kreme in Charlotte stayed open 24 hours in a row. Both rumors proved to be true. Whenever my teenage buddies and I could commandeer a car on weekends and come up with enough money, we would make the 120-mile round-trip drive to the Krispy Kreme on Independence Boulevard in Charlotte. The doughnuts never made it back; the memories have never left. I’ve set my watch to Big Ben, visited Buckingham Palace, even seen up close the lights of the Awful (not Eiffel) Tower — a manmade heap of what some called junk that stood for years on the side of U.S. 1 in Rockingham just before you got to the Little Philadelphia community. No sight, though, has had as lasting an impact on me as pulling up after midnight for the first time, seeing the bright, fluorescent light bouncing off the gleaming tile of that Krispy Kreme and realizing that it was still open. Hot Now, indeed. Saunders pis a veteran N.C. writer who publishes The Saunders Report.

Cheerwine Maria Johnson

hen I was a kid in Kentucky, we visited my grandparents in Spencer in Rowan County every summer, and they gave us Cheerwine made in nearby Salisbury. OMG. What a delicacy! It was unlike anything I’d ever had. It shamed fountain colas made icky with cherry syrup. Also, drinking it made me feel mature because, you know, CheerWINE. Eating floats made with Cheerwine and vanilla ice cream — and tasting how the ice cream got icier while bobbing around in the soda — was probably

UNC Health A. Dale Jenkins

orth Carolina is blessed with many great home-grown companies and organizations that have impacted me and my family. Choosing one is difficult. But UNC Health is vital to thousands of North Carolinians each day. I joined the UNC Rex board in 2005 and later the UNC Health board, a tenure spanning about 15 years. Great companies and organizations do the right thing for the people they serve. At UNC Health, I met genuine people who had a deep passion for caring for our sickest and finding cures for our most challenging illnesses. I saw intelligent people who chose careers in public health over more lucrative opportunities to be part of a vibrant, innovative organization whose mission is to help all. I witnessed the organization’s impact with rural hospitals that likely would not have survived without a UNC Health partnership. I observed a talented management team who __+ontinually looked for ways the organization could improve every day to have an even more meaningful impact.

the sensual pinnacle of my childhood. Also, I crazy-loved my grandparents, and I associated Cheerwine with them. I haven’t had a Cheerwine in ages. I don’t care much for sodas any more, but I smile every time someone mentions Cheerwine. Johnson is a Greensboro writer.

I saw servant leadership every day. The opportunities I had with UNC Health impacted my sense of purpose, the way I lead my company, and my responsibility for the well-being of all people. Jenkins is a Shelby native who is the former CEO of Raleigh-based Curi, which was established as Medical Mutual Insurance Co. in 1975.

Red Oak beer Phil Mintz

ot long after I first started as a field manufacturing extension agent with N.C. State University, I visited Spring Garden Brewing in Greensboro after the owner responded to one of my early mailers about our work. I was amazed to see an elaborate “micro” beer-making process in the basement of a restaurant. It turns O C T O B E R

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 51

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 4:52 PM

out that I was speaking to the great Bill Sherrill, the owner of what has become Red Oak Brewery. Red Oak is a tasty local beer of choice for many across the state and is now brewed in a highly visible facility along Interstate 40/85 in Whitsett. I always look for it in restaurants both in our state and others during my travels. It’s fun to ask the servers if they have Red Oak draft and tell them that they should get it because so many people like it.

Paragon

Walt Crayton Jr.

Billie Redmond

aragon Bank was founded in May 1999 in Raleigh to serve as a private business-to-business bank. Bob Hatley and a small group of seasoned bankers understood the need for a bank to help businesses and their owners grow and thrive. I served on the board for 17 years and learned so much about many industries. Working through the Great Recession to the Great Recovery was an amazing opportunity to have a voice in policy and compliance, community engagement and investment, and to experience a unique culture. It shaped my ideas about service. In January 2018, Paragon merged with TowneBank, headquartered in Suffolk, Va. Its vision, culture and core values are very aligned with Paragon’s. Redmond is the founder of Trademark Properties in Raleigh and a former chair of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 52

Shoe Show A

somewhat under-the-radar North Carolina-based business is Concord-based Shoe Show. Robert B. Tucker started the company in 1960 in Cabarrus County. It is now the country’s largest independent footwear retailer, with more than $1 billion in annual sales and more than 1,100 stores nationally under the banners Shoe Show, Shoe Dept., and Burlington Shoes. In late 2007 when I

Crayton owns New Bern-based Crayton Commercial Shopping Centers.

Transportation North Carolina has nearly doubled its interstate miles and four-lane highways since 1981.

1981

2021

State-maintained roads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76,134 miles. . . . . . . . . . . . . 80,159 Interstate highways. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 768 miles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,349 Four-lane highways. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,755 miles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,114 State highway budget. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $502 million . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3.56 billion

Source: N.C. Department of Transportation; miles as of 2019

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SHOE SHOW, BILLIE REDMOND

Mintz is executive director of N.C. State University’s Industry Expansion Solutions

told Mr. Tucker I wanted to leave and start my own development company, he wasn’t mad. Instead, he said he would be my biggest cheerleader, championing and encouraging my new endeavor. I would not be in business were it not for Shoe Show and Mr. Tucker. I am forever indebted to Shoe Show, Mr. Tucker, and all of my colleagues and mentors. Their hands have touched every project I have undertaken and developed since starting Crayton Commercial in 2008. Each major decision I have made in this business was not attempted without his consultation and guidance. Here’s to Concord-based Shoe Show, still going strong today after 60-plus years in business.

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 4:52 PM

A brilliant mentor

Golf World

Jim Dodson

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WALTER MAGAZINE, JIM MORIARTY

t may not seem terribly original, but the North Carolinian who shaped my life, work and worldview in uncounted ways was my late and incredibly original old man, Brax Dodson. He was a gifted man who helped produced the state’s first major travel advertising campaign in the late 1960s — titled “Variety Vacationland,” complete with rah-rah theme song you simply cannot get out of your head. He also founded the Piedmont Advertising Club, which brought a lot of fresh young talent into the business world.

He was, at heart, a brilliant mentor, an upbeat adman with a poet’s sensibilities whose love of this state — and the people and businesses in it — saw no limit. Perhaps this is because we hail from Carolina farming stock that dates back to Colonial times. My old man was the first in his family to attend college. His first job was selling advertising space for the Greensboro Daily News and the Durham Herald before moving on to The Washington Post and The Dallas Morning News. He later owned a newspaper in Mississippi, but always intended to finish his career where it began. As an executive at Bennett Advertising

Jim Moriarty

ob Harlow is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. You can look it up. He started as a newspaper guy but took the cure, eventually becoming Walter Hagen’s agent, a job that mostly involved trying to keep The Haig from spending no more than twice what he took in. Using Hagen as bait, Harlow cobbled together what would one day become the PGA Tour. In 1947, Harlow started a weekly news magazine in Pinehurst called Golf World. If you added up every nickel and farthing it ever made, the magazine would be a break-even proposition, assuming you cooked the books just right. If golf is a niche sport, Golf World was niche squared. The late, great curmudgeon Frank Hannigan described it as “the place you go to find out what your friends shot in Kuala Lumpur.” While the name still exists, the magazine does not. The last man on the cover of the print publication was Rory McIlroy, who had just won the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in 2014. I wrote the story. The only person who ever made any folding money at Golf World was a guy who didn’t know the difference between a golf ball and a volleyball. He bought it in the late ’70s for the cost of a lottery ticket, rode the ’80s golf boom and sold it to The New York Times, where it lived until the boom went bust. It went up for sale again. I did two tours at Golf World, the first in the early ’80s when it was emerg-

based in High Point, my father gave some of the state’s finest artists their commercial start. Bob Timberlake is one of them. My dad went on to represent the world’s largest industrial equipment publication

ing from being dead broke and the second in this century when it was owned by Condé Nast and hellbent for life support and extinction. During my time at the magazine, I traveled on assignment — writing, taking photographs, or both — to Canada, Spain, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Grand Cayman, Prague, Fiji, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Nevis, St. Kitts, Budapest, all the Hawaiian islands save Molokai, Chile, New Zealand, American Samoa, Iceland, France, Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, Easter Island, Bolivia, Mexico, the Virgin Islands and 48 states. I saw Tom Watson chip in at Pebble Beach in ’82 and Jack Nicklaus win the Masters in ’86. I shook Ben Hogan’s hand and cracked wise with Phil Mickelson. I survived nearly the entirety of the Tiger Woods era and came out of it with better moving parts than he did. All because of a quintessential, frequently broken, small business, Golf World. Moriarty is editor of PineStraw, a reliably profitable sister publication of Business North Carolina. He lives in Moore County. for three decades. As a teenager, not entirely kindly, I bestowed the nickname “Opti the Mystic” upon him due to his embarrassing habit of quoting long-dead sages or

O C T O B E R

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 53

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 4:52 PM

wise statesmen when you least expected it, especially to my impressionable teenage dates. Of course, they fell in love with the man. Almost everyone did. Gratitude and optimism were in his bloodstream. It took growing up and having children of my own for me to fully grasp what an incredible gift it was to have a father like him. That powerful awakening occurred when Opti agreed to make a trip with me to England and Scotland in 1995 to enjoy the golf courses where he learned to play the game as an 8th Army Air Corps officer shortly before D-Day. Though I didn’t know it at the time, he was dying of cancer. He felt this final trip might be good for us both. What I learned and we shared on this journey about lifeaffirming values that came out of such moments found its way into a bestselling 1997 memoir called Final Rounds. This little

book has gone on to sell more than half a million copies and is still in print, inspiring thousands of letters over the years from a vast array of readers, including CEOs and middle-aged fathers and mothers. The book changed my life, too. After reading it, Arnold Palmer invited me to collaborate with him on his memoirs. That led to the authorized biography of Ben Hogan that brought me home to North Carolina for good in 2005. At least four attempts have been made to bring Final Rounds to the big screen. If a film version ever gets made, as I believe it will, North Carolina will be where it finally happens. Opti the Mystic, I believe, would insist on that. Dodson is the longtime editor of PineStraw and O.Henry magazines, and author of 15 books. He lives in Greensboro.

Solar energy 2021 Residential installations. . . . . . . . . . . . . 17,730 Commercial installations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,143 Utility-scale solar farms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666 Source: N.C. Sustainable Energy Association

Justice for all Ken Otterbourg

e like to think of our criminaljustice system as one of checks and balances, designed to ensure that the innocent go free and only the guilty are punished. But that’s simply not the case. Men and women are routinely convicted of crimes they did not commit. The appellate courts, with their emphasis on legal error and technicalities, are often ill-suited to hear claims of actual innocence. I am proud that we have the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission. It’s the nation’s first state agency dedicated to investigating claims of innocence. Since its creation in 2007, the commission’s work has led to 15 exonerations. This isn’t a free pass. Most cases never make it to the three-judge panel that makes rulings based on the commission’s recommendations. The commission makes me proud,

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 54

and I am proud of the role that the Winston-Salem Journal, where I once worked, played in the commission’s creation. Our investigation into the wrongful conviction of Darryl Hunt showed how the system can become too invested in a lie to acknowledge the truth. When it comes right down to it, the criminal justice system is just a bunch of people organized to do various jobs — police, prosecutors, forensic analysts, defense attorneys, witnesses, judges and jurors. We’re humans. We make mistakes. We have biases. We take shortcuts. We tell small lies. We tell big ones. We worry about elections and what our friends and colleagues might think, rather than what is right. We know this behavior. It’s as old as the Bible, and it’s not going away anytime soon. That’s why our state’s

Innocence Inquiry Commission is a remarkable achievement. It reminds us of the frailty and fallibility in the world around us. Otterbourg, a former managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, is a researcher for the National Registry of Exonerations. He lives in Winston-Salem.

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 4:52 PM

Whitewater center Vanessa Infanzon

n days when I need to get away from the pressures of work or family, I head to the U.S. National Whitewater Center. I gain perspective on a paddleboard in the middle of the Catawba River. I watch for a great blue heron to catch a fish, a slithering snake to cross the creek or a dole of turtles sunning themselves on a nearby floating branch. When I first learned to paddleboard there, I was too excited to relax: How can I be minutes from uptown Charlotte and be in a river enjoying nature? I’ve finished two of the longest zip lines and traversed several cable bridges on the Figure 8. When I think “I can’t,” I remember back to when I conquered my fears high up in the trees.

We’ve been bringing our kids to the Whitewater Center for more than 10 years. I attribute some of their confidence to climbing the rock walls, zip lining through forests and rafting on courses with Class 3 and 4 rapids. Our son with disabilities enjoys watching people and dogs while we walk the loop around the channels. Our 16-year-old son works in guest services. He’s learning how to communicate with customers, run point of sale and stock shelves. Although I see more people from different backgrounds participating at the center, more access for children who may face roadblocks such as finances and transportation is needed. The opportunity to be challenged at such a young age builds character and self-esteem. Activities need to be available through scholarship-based memberships and summer camps. Most kids would thrive on more interaction with nature, pushing their minds and bodies and then using those skills to succeed in school and beyond. Infanzon is a Charlotte writer who writes frequently for Business North Carolina and other publications.

Business Climate Site Selection magazine has ranked North Carolina tops in its annual rankings of best states for business for 17 of the last 26 years. North Carolina and Georgia tied in the 2020 survey, based on recruiters’ perceptions and various tax and business metrics.

Year Ranking Second 1995. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Ohio 1996. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Ohio 1997 . . . . . . . 1. . . . . . . Ohio 1998. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Ohio 1998. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Ohio 1999. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Texas 2000. . . . . . . .7. . . . . . . (No. 1, Ohio) 2001. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . California 2002. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Michigan 2003. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Michigan 2004. . . . . . . .5. . . . . . . (No. 1, Texas) 2005. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Texas 2006. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Texas 2007. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Georgia 2008. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Tennessee 2009. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Texas 2010. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Texas

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NATIONAL WHITEWATER CENTER

2011. . . . . . . .3. . . . . . . (No. 1, Texas) 2012. . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . Ohio

A giver Patti Gillenwater

n 2012, Chuck ReCorr, a local philanthropist, included me in the group of nonprofit board leaders that he sponsored for a Harvard training program. ReCorr is a longtime wealth manager in Raleigh who has backed similar experiences at Harvard for more than 100

2013. . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . (No. 1, Georgia)

nonprofit leaders in the Triangle. That experience led me to change the focus of my search firm to serve the nonprofit community. I could not be happier with that change in direction and the change in direction that is satisfying every day. Gillenwater is president and CEO of Elinvar, a leadership and executive search consulting company in Raleigh.

2014. . . . . . . .3. . . . . . . (No. 1, Georgia) 2015. . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . (No. 1, Georgia) 2016. . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . (No. 1, Georgia) 2017. . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . (No. 1, Georgia) 2018. . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . (No. 1, Georgia) 2019. . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . (No. 1, Georgia) 2020. . . . . .1 (tie). . . . . (No. 1, tie, Georgia)

O C T O B E R

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 55

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 4:53 PM

Good to great We asked several North Carolinians to share thoughts about how the state has changed and suggestions for improvement.

Economic miracle Tom Ross

grew up in Greensboro when the city was dominated by the textile and tobacco industries. My father and my brothers worked much of their careers in textiles. As a young lawyer, I remember the fears about the “dying” textile and furniture businesses, the likely loss of jobs and worries about North Carolina’s future. As an adult, I have proudly watched North Carolina transition from a textile, tobacco, furniture, and agricultural economy to a state of thriving businesses in a variety of sectors. There are thriving financial, biotech, information technology, data analytics, aerospace and defense, pharmaceuticals, high-tech manufacturing, food processing and energy businesses, along with modernized textile and furniture industries. Watching our state embrace a variety of new kinds of businesses has been fascinating, inspiring and exciting.

The remarkable transition of North Carolina’s economy, which some have called a miracle, has made it a thriving and wonderful place to live. Because of our changing economic base, our state has seen population and economic growth, continued innovation and an improved quality of life over the past decades. This “miracle” would not have been possible without the institutions of higher education located throughout the state. This higher education infrastructure is essential to attract and create new business and enable existing business to grow. For many years, North Carolina’s universities have been the research and innovation drivers in the development of new products, technologies and processes. As a lifelong North Carolina resident and product of its educational institutions, I believe the quality of higher education in North Carolina

has given us an edge over most other states. We must always remember the important role of higher education in sustaining and growing our economy and improving our quality of life. Ross is a former president of the UNC System and Davidson College. He also was an N.C. Superior Court judge. He is now president of The Volcker Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit that aims to empower public-sector workers to improve government.

Ching, ching

Price changes

How average prices have changed for some essential products over the last 40 years.

New car (national average). . . . $5,743. . . . . . . . . $42,736

1981

September 2021

Gasoline (per gallon). . . . . . . . . . $1.19. . . . . . . . . . $2.95

Postage stamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 cents. . . . . . . 55 cents New home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $68,900. . . . . . . . $248,000 Sources: U.S. Census, N.C. Auto Dealers Association, Kelly Blue Book

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 56

PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM ROSS

Eggs, dozen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 cents. . . . . . . $1.64

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 4:53 PM

Women rise Ann Benjamin Zuraw

hen I graduated from UNCChapel Hill, there were few career opportunities for women in business and particularly entrepreneurs in North Carolina. I lived in New York City and San Francisco and moved back to Greensboro in 2000. It makes me proud to be part of a community supporting the growth of women in business. There are numerous options in Greensboro, including the Women’s Resource Center, Junior League and the United Way, that encourage women entrepreneurs to connect through social media and networking. In addition, the management and operational education offered via nonprofit organizations and conferences are amazing. It has been rewarding to watch these women entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Zuraw is president of Zuraw Financial Advisors in Greensboro.

Agriculture North Carolina has fewer but larger farms. Pork, sweet potatoes, cotton and soybeans are thriving as tobacco declines.

Hunger for excellence Jim Hansen

hen the first issue of Business North Carolina was published 40 years ago, my reading material primarily consisted of picture books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In my defense, I was 3 years old. Even at that young age, however, I could appreciate the innovation that fueled business in my hometown of WinstonSalem — the neon red Hot Now light at the local Krispy Kreme being my favorite example. In my lifetime, the population of North Carolina has grown by nearly 5 million. The state has attracted businesses of global reach, and it has fostered the growth of countless startups and economic development initiatives. Much like the subject of the children’s book, N.C. leaders in industry, government and academia have been driven by hunger — a hunger for excellence

that has resulted in the state becoming a destination for key sectors such as life sciences, manufacturing and finance. Yet for all the growth and advances we reflect upon and celebrate today, there remains much room for improvement in how we collectively support the future workforce and sustain the state’s robust business landscape. Central to this is education at all levels, beginning with pre-K. Access to education is key for economic prosperity and upward mobility for all. Hansen is regional president in Raleigh for PNC Financial Services Group.

1981 2021

Agricultural revenue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $41 billion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $106 billion Number of farms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72,792. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46,000 Acres farmed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 million . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 million Average farm, acres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Hogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 million. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 million Tobacco, acres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353,000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102,000 Tobacco, sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $16 billion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $361 million Cotton, sales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $26 million. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $171 million Sweet potatoes, sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $65 million. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $375 million Soybeans (acres). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 million. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 million Soybeans, sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $283 million. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $673 million Broilers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 million. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 916 million Turkeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 million . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 million Source: N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services; some data is for 2020

O C T O B E R

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 57

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 4:53 PM

Social mobility Frank Gilliam Jr. e are seeing tremendous economic growth in North Carolina, with more companies from a variety of industries establishing operations here. These investments are a testament to the welcoming environment of our state and to our skilled workforce. UNC Greensboro has been building academic programs and creating educational infrastructure to advance our robust economy and provide opportunities to our students for a better life. I am proud that during my six years as chancellor of UNC Greensboro, we have graduated more than 26,000 students to fuel the pipeline of well-trained graduates in high-demand industries including nursing, information technology, business administra

tion, education and allied health. We are getting these students into the workforce faster with new degrees, including the state’s first and only accredited online Ph.D. in business administration and a new online registered nurse (RN) to bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program. Both can be completed in one year, enabling students to quickly apply what they have learned in our communities. I’m proud that UNCG is ranked No. 1 for social mobility in North Carolina by U.S. News & World Report, meaning we take more students further. We are committed to the state and local economy with a $1 billion dollar economic impact in the Piedmont Triad alone. We see unlimited opportunities

Population

1981 2021

Population. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.88 (million) . . . . . . . . . . . 10.49 Age, under 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7% Age, 85 and over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.8% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8% Median age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29.6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39.1 Men, median age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37.6 Women, median age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.5 White. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75.8% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60% Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.4% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20% Other, including American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, multiracial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19% Less than high school (over age 25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.6% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.4% High school graduate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.8% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48.4% Four or more years of college . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.7%

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 58

for future businesses and collaboration in North Carolina for all Spartans. The future looks bright. Gilliam became chancellor at UNC Greensboro in 2015. He previously served as a dean at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Absolute power Harry Smith

orth Carolina is a special place. That’s easy to see given the growth in population and the success the state is seeing in recruiting worldclass organizations. The success is a culmination of several factors including some natural ones: North Carolina has a great climate and is blessed with incredible mountains and great beaches, giving residents a lot of opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors. North Carolina is also very strong fiscally, which makes me incredibly proud. There is absolutely no question that the policies and direction charted by the Republican-led legislature have created a strong fiscal position for North Carolina. They deserve the credit; facts are

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNC GREENSBORO

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 4:55 PM

facts. Numbers don’t lie and neither do trend lines. They are either good, flat or bad. Fiscally, the trend lines for North Carolina are incredibly strong, which positions us well for the future. Unfortunately, I’ve also watched partisan politics create a disappointing divide that is hindering North Carolina. It is creating a decay that offsets the strong fiscal policies that have positioned the state so well and limits North Carolina from reaching its true potential. Absolute power is not a good thing, which I have witnessed first-hand. Differing views and opinions create thought and reflection in governing bodies. An example was the legislature’s decision to take away the governor’s ability to appoint members to some state governing boards. That was a gross overreach and in my strong opinion has created boards that lack the diversity in thought, opinion and skills to position some of the state’s most important assets for success.

Air traffic soars

Charlotte Douglas International

1981 . . . . . . . . .

3.95 million passengers

2019 . . . . . . . . .

50.2 mllion

PHOTO COURTESY OF WARREN LEMAY

Raleigh-Durham International

1981 . . . . . . . . .

2.77 million

2019 . . . . . . . . .

14.9 million

Source: airports. (Traffic for 2020-21 declined because of the pandemic.)

Leaders in today’s fast-paced world have to know when the time has come to pass the torch. Most business leaders believe that the optimal time for CEOs in the private sector to exit in a healthy way is after four to six years. The focus should be on the health of the organization and bringing in new vision and energy, while ensuring that the organization is directionally sound. Staying too long creates jaded approaches to governance and unhealthy divides that create a decay, often offsetting great

things that have been accomplished. It’s my hope that political leadership in our great state can recognize the need for fresh leadership that promotes the best interests of our state and does not carry baggage from years of political battles. Smith is CEO of Pamlico Air, a Washington, N.C.-based air filter company with more than 1,000 employees. He is a former chair of the UNC Board of Governors.He lives in Greenville.

Bull City Michael MacMillan

’m one of those who left. In 1980, I moved to New York City from Durham and stayed there for 38 years. Durham is dramatically different than what I’d known as a child. Growing up, it was never less than an interesting place, a gritty industrial city with a white-shoe university improbably appended on the outskirts. But then the mills moved away, the tobacco industry (where my father worked) was shuttered or relocated, and Durham was hollowed out. The center city became a wasteland, and not a metaphorical one. But then something happened. Duke placed a major office downtown and elected to lease the building rather than buy it, keeping the property on the tax rolls. Raleigh-based advertising firm McKinney relocated its main office to the redeveloped American Tobacco campus in the shadow of the Lucky Strike water tower. Others followed and the rush was on. In 2016 , The Economist published a story on the revival of midsized U.S. cities, and Durham was the poster child. In response, I wrote a blog post referencing an article on the gentrification of New York’s famously anarchic East Village, where I then lived. It started out as follows: “There used to be two reasons to go to the East Village:

To rob somebody, or to get robbed. Not anymore.” Could the same now be said about downtown Durham? Not long after that, my wife and I were back visiting when some old friends offered to take us out to dinner along West Main. We went. We survived. I was stunned. There were restaurants everywhere. People were walking on the streets. There were apartments in the old tobacco warehouses, a great train station and the new ballpark. Life. As it turned out, The Economist knew my hometown better than I did. In my absence, the city had been reinvented. This was no longer the place I grew up in, or the landscape that had been plowed under by urban renewal in the 1970s. This was something different, something better. Durham was suddenly, improbably cool. MacMillan, a freelance writer, and his wife, Nora Holley, an interior designer, returned to North Carolina in 2018. They enjoy living in Chapel Hill but visit Durham frequently.

O C T O B E R

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 59

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 4:55 PM

Tales of BNC’s journey Six Business North Carolina veterans share some memories from their days in the trenches at the magazine.

Marty Donsky

hen we did a lengthy story in 1989 on Hugh McColl Jr., we concluded it was critical to learn what made him tick. I headed to his South Carolina hometown and interviewed his father. The elder McColl gave me an earful about how Hugh’s grandmother influenced his life. That enabled me to ask McColl about his background. He told me, “I came home one day after school and she said, `How did you do, son,’ and I said, `Great, I finished second.’” McColl then confided, “She leaned over and patted me on the head and said, `You’ll do better the next time.’ I always said that’s the story of my life; you’ll do better next time. I really believe that. We were expected to finish first, to be in charge.” I keep the article about McColl on my desk and read it every so often. Donsky is a director with the PwC accounting and consulting firm. He lives near Washington, D.C.

Edward Martin

hile reporting for BNC, I almost killed a congressman. In the spring of 2001, Charles Taylor was one of Congress’ richest members, with an estimated worth of $55 million from banking and farming — back when $55 million was worth something. I interviewed him at his Brevard home and suddenly, he recalled that he had to make a civic-club speech. We rushed out the door — and then he ran back in to cut off the bathroom light, which is how the rich get rich. We leaped in my pickup truck. In Asheville, I was slowing down but still doing probably 30 mph when he suddenly decided to review his speech. But it was in his briefcase that he’d tossed in the bed of my pickup. I glanced over and realized he had the door open and one foot out, ready to step out of the vehicle. I slammed the brakes and yanked him back in as cars behind us honked and swerved. He was unruffled. He gave a right good speech. I was the one who was shaking.

y first story for BNC was after I began freelancing in 1992. Then-Managing Editor David Mildenberg assigned me to investigate the shark fishing industry, particularly finning, the slaughter of sharks just for their fins. I wrote the story on a little Corona portable typewriter with sticky

keys — yes, a typewriter — in my bedroom. Mildenberg liked it but bellyached because he had to enter it key by key in the BNC computer system. That prompted me to get my first computer,

1981 2021

Cell towers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,360 Cell sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34,600 Coin-operated telephones. . . . . . . . . . . 21,896 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,180 Source: N.C. Utilities Commission, estimates from S&P Global Market Intelligence, Vertical Consultants

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 60

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDWARD MARTIN

Telecommunications

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 4:55 PM

back when computer shops “built” computers. Mine had an Intel 386DX processor and was about the size of a washing machine, but with less computing power. I forget which side you wound it up from. Martin is a BNC senior contributing editor. He has won a record number of awards from the Association of American Business Publications.

Sam Rogers

egional business brokerage firms fueled the advertising growth of Business North Carolina in the early to mid-80’s. The magazine quickly captured large ad schedules from both national, regional and even local brokers trying to establish a presence in North Carolina. Inside the early issues of BNC, readers found ads from Interstate Securities based in Charlotte, Carolina Securities in Raleigh, Richmond, Va.- based Wheat First Securities and Independence Securities in Greensboro. Other brokerage business would come from Nashville-based JC Bradford and Johnson Lane Securities of Atlanta. This business did not come easily at the beginning simply because BNC was just another magazine startup. Advertisers wanted to see where this magazine was going and whether it could sustain

Major league sports franchises 1981

Arthur Murray

learned so much about REAL writing, reporting, and editing from David Kinney during my nine years at BNC. And even before I got there officially, I learned how to enjoy sushi. During my job interview, DK asked me if I wanted to go get lunch, and I said yes. He asked me if I liked sushi. This was years ago for this country boy and I’d never tried it before. Yes of course, I told him. So we went and I mimicked his order — except for the Japanese beer, which was a staple of his lunches. I found out I liked sushi. A lot. And I found out that you have to dilute wasabi with soy sauce — DK didn’t notice my tears, though, and a job offer was forthcoming. One thing that’s always set BNC apart is attention to detail and

itself for at least a year or two. We were lucky there was little or no competition from the beginning, and business-tobusiness advertisers were searching for a sound editorial and advertising product. Investment bankers also saw Business North Carolina as an important marketing vehicle for their deals and public offerings from clients. Many early issues of BNC would include “tombstone ads” from Bowles, Hollowell and Connor, NCNB Investment Banking and First Union Bank’s Capital Markets Group. Each issue carried more and more tombstone pages. Durham native Rogers joined BNC in January 1982. He worked as sales director for six and a half years. He later joined Shaw Publishing, then started his own magazine publishing company.

Zero

2021 Charlotte Hornets (1985) Carolina Panthers (1993) Carolina Hurricanes (1997)

Luann Nelson

wanted to share the story of thenManaging Editor David Kinney spending a whole day shut in his office on North Tryon Street with a sheet of graph paper, designing a doghouse. But another memory elbowed it aside.

accuracy. Even to the extreme. A staffer turned in an article with a classic BNC setup: “Afternoon sun was causing shadows on certain Charlotte streets” or something like that. It was a great entry. But one of our editors parsed that lede and decided there was no way the shadows could stretch in that direction at that time of day. We changed the setup. Murray eats sushi and writes from his home in Indian Trail. In March 1987, I noticed a couple of weeds near my front door, pulled them up, and went on my way. The next morning I woke up with a terrible case of poison ivy. I had an interview that week with a very important person at NCNB. I bought a long dress to hide my ankles, bandaged my wrists, slathered on Benadryl and makeup, and headed downtown to see this gentleman, who answered my questions, then asked how I liked Charlotte. “Very much,” I replied, “except for the poison ivy.” He commiserated and asked what part of town I was living in. “Near the Fresh Market, off Selwyn,” I said, referring to our Myers Park neighborhood home. He cocked his head and asked, “What street?” I thought that’s weird, but told him. He asked, “What number?” I was taken aback but replied “2845.” Then he asked, “Does Jim Wilburn still live next door?” Turns out we bought the same house where he lived in the late `60s. It was also where he had gotten such a bad case of poison ivy that he ended up hospitalized on a steroid drip. His name was Dennis Rash, who O C T O B E R

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 61

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 4:56 PM

played a key role in carrying out Hugh McColl Jr.’s plans for Charlotte’s Fourth Ward neighborhood, along with many other projects. Also, David Kinney built a very fine doghouse, but it lacked air conditioning. Nelson and her husband live in Asheville and own hotels. She stays busy as a volunteer and researching history for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Moira Johnson

Mac attack

started working at the magazine in the summer of 1987, about six months after the News & Observer Publishing Co. purchased the business from the Shaw family. Print production was then done with galleys of text that were waxed on the back side and pasted to boards, which were sent to the printer.

Political party

affiliations

1981 2021

Total registered . . . . . . . . . 2.48 million . . . . . . . . . 7.13 million. . . . . . . 188% increase Democrats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.77 million . . . . . . . . . 2.49 million. . . . . . . 41% Republicans . . . . . . . . . . . . 606,981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.17 million. . . . . . . 258% Unaffiliated. . . . . . . . . . . . . 103,289 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.42 million. . . . . . . 2,350%

How North Carolina voted in presidential elections 1900-2020

They would make negatives with a camera and send us back copies that were called “blue lines” because of the blue type on a pale blue background. Editors would mark corrections, which would be hand cut and incorporated back into the pasted boards. These would be sent back to the printer to make plates for the press and printing process. Two months after I joined, Publisher Frank Daniels III said we were shifting production to use Apple’s Macintosh computers, a cutting-edge technology. He contracted with Don Wright, a New York-based designer, to redesign the magazine and to make the move to a digital platform using the then-popular Pagemaker page layout program. Art Director Kim Walker and I had a couple of weeks to learn Pagemaker and how to navigate the computer system. We each took a manual home each night, studied a chapter or two and then returned to work the next morning and taught each other. We created templates for the sections and pages in the magazine, taking measurements from a printed manual and converting those measurements into a digital page. It was a harrowing, sleepless couple of weeks for both of us.

Democratic candidate: 18 victories Republican candidate: 13 victories

How North Carolina voted in presidential elections 1980-2020 Democratic candidate: 1 victory Republican candidate: 11 victories

N.C. House of Representatives

1981

2021

Democrats: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Republicans:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

N.C. Senate

1981

2021

Democrats: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Republicans:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 62

Many typefaces had not been created digitally yet. Palatino was the body copy face for the magazine and was available as a digital format, but Futura was the headline face and had not been designed digitally. So we were forced into a hybrid production style. The body copy was laid out as pages and printed that

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 4:56 PM

Changing workplaces

1981 2021

Manufacturing. . . . . . 32.8% . . . . . 11.8% Retail trade. . . . . . . . . 14.3% . . . . . 11.1% Education, health services. . . . . . 8.5% . . . . . 22.8% Agriculture. . . . . . . . . . 3.6% . . . . . . 1.1% Finance, insurance, real estate. . . . . . . . . . . 4.2% . . . . . . 6.4%

way, but the headlines and graphics had to be pasted onto the boards by hand. We eventually went to an all-digital platform for everything, including graphs and charts, but that process happened over the course of several years.

Tragedy strikes

he saddest day in BNC history was Dec. 9, 2001, when our business manager, Laura Gosser, and her husband, Ray, were involved in a plane crash in Arkansas as they were returning to Charlotte from a family funeral in Texas. Ray was a pilot, and the flight was delayed several days due to weather conditions. Finally, they started the flight back, hopefully to return in time to make our company Christmas party that evening. But they didn’t show up. Later that night, after the party was over, one of our sales reps heard a radio report that Ray and Laura had been in a plane crash. It was later determined that the single-engine plane that Ray had leased for the trip had a breakdown, prompting him to make an emergency

The CEO visit

ne of the most memorable days at BNC was the visit by Ed Crutchfield, then the CEO of First Union Bank. Writer Marty Donsky had done a story in 1990 on First Union, which was then vying with NCNB to become a major U.S. bank. One bank would build the tallest skyscraper in Charlotte, then the other would build a taller one. Marty’s story suggested that First Union might be growing too fast. A day after the magazine hit the stands, First Union’s PR team asked for a meeting with the BNC team and Crutchfield. A few days later, he and a couple of PR colleagues came to the office to meet with our leadership. The art department was at the back office, but we heard loud voices and shouting from the front conference room. We all stopped working and wondered how this was going to end. Crutchfield said that he had taken part in a photo shoot in “good faith” and was upset by the story. He wanted retractions on several counts, but BNC stood its ground at the cost of losing some potential advertising over the next few years.

landing on a road near Monticello, Ark. A wing caught some paving equipment on the side of the road, causing the plane to flip and burst into flames. Laura was killed instantly. Ray crawled free, then tried to save his wife. He suffered severe burns and died several days later. Laura had taken care of our financial and office management functions and was a beloved friend and colleague. It was a truly catastrophic loss. Ironically, about three months earlier, Ray and Laura had been visiting New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, and had considered having breakfast at the

That was my first lesson on the importance and cost of independent investigative journalism. It was eyeopening to realize the time, dedication, and grit it took to spend months to produce a story, constantly verifying facts and checking for errors. It also showed the potential cost of being sued if something was inaccurate or the loss of revenue even if the story was truthful. This was a calling for those who believe in journalism. Good or bad, truth was paramount.

famous restaurant at the top of World Trade Center that morning before changing their plans. They had flown to New York on Ray’s own plane, which was grounded for a lengthy period because of the 9/11 attack. Johnson was BNC’s longest-tenured employee, working more than 30 years as production manager. She retired in 2020.

O C T O B E R

D2-BNC-40_Anniversary_October 2021-3-3.indd 63

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 4:56 PM

PICTURE THIS

B U S I N E S S

NC-GuitarWorks_October 2021.indd 64

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:30 AM

Story and photos by John Gessner Nick Plesz, center, strings success at a guitar repair shop with a rockin’ reputation.

here are an estimated 16 million guitar players in the U.S., and as with many passions, you can’t just have one. Eventually, those guitars need repairs and servicing, creating an opportunity for Nick Plesz, owner of N.C. Guitar Works in north Charlotte. He is just as passionate about repairing guitars as his national customer base is about playing them. “[We] literally have over 200 guitars in our shop constantly for repairs. I don’t think anybody has that much work across the nation.” Plesz, 47, moved from Pittsburgh to Charlotte in 1998 to start a homebuilding company with his brother Chris, who had come to North Carolina three years earlier. In 2004, the business was hired to construct a guitar repair shop in a

warehouse. Plesz took on the project and asked for his payment to be instructions on how to build a guitar. Before his own instrument was completed, Plesz was offered a job by the client, Landau Guitar of Harrisburg in Cabarrus County. He spent the next several years learning the business and in May of 2012, he bought the company and renamed it N.C. Guitar Works. Like many enterprises that focus on home-based activities, Plesz’s company has thrived during the pandemic, with business doubling over the last 18 months. Nick and his two guitar technicians, Stacey Leazer and Austin Hughes, are “rockin’ around the clock” to keep up with increasing demand for repairs, he says. “We used to be busy with 80 to 100 instruments in the O C T O B E R

NC-GuitarWorks_October 2021.indd 65

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 10:30 AM

“A guitar is something you can hold and love and it’s never going to bug you. But here’s the secret about the guitar — it’s defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know.” – Les Paul.

shop. We have been hitting over 200 constantly and it’s actually kind of out of control. Our turnaround times are long and the phone rings off the hook. I had to stop taking in work for a few weeks, but it was still coming in. It’s hard to tell people ‘no.’” Some customers have driven as many as five hours to the shop without calling ahead, he says. He credits the company’s popularity to a steady stream of positive Google, Yelp and Facebook reviews. N.C. Guitar Works also gets many instruments sent from the Carolinas stores owned by Westlake Village, Calif.-based Guitar Center, which has nearly 300 locations nationally.

B U S I N E S S

NC-GuitarWorks_October 2021.indd 66

N O R T H

▲ Stacey Leazer, left, and Austin Hughes assist owner Nick Plesz.

“A lot of people are picking up their instruments that haven’t touched them in years. It happened when people started working from home,” Plesz says. He also gives big credit to his colleagues for the business’ growth. Leazer is a talented bass player who has performed nationally. “He’s kind of a gearhead and has a lot of knowledge on bass guitars and base electronics. That’s probably my least favorite thing to do and he has stepped up and does a great job.” Hughes, who is a big fan of Pantera guitarist Dime Bag Darrell, walked in the shop one day while one of the Texas heavy-metal band’s songs was playing in the background. “He must have thought he walked into heaven when he came into the shop where he now works with Pantera playing on the radio,” Plesz says. “I hope he decides to take over the shop when I decide to retire.” ■

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:30 AM

▲ Steve Rubin and grandson Matthew Goldstein rely on Plesz’s work. Right, Plesz built a copy of a Gibson Les Paul as his first guitar.

O C T O B E R

NC-GuitarWorks_October 2021.indd 67

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 10:31 AM

By Alyssa Pressler ■ Ebony L. Morman ■ Laura Brummett ■ Jennings Cool

even years ago, veteran Raleigh political adviser Gary Pearce told our magazine that he’d “been watching plans to improve the prospects of North Carolina rural areas for 40 years and not a damned one of them has worked.” That hasn’t stopped state and local officials from making diligent efforts to improve the fortunes of rural areas. Still, the 2020 Census showed 51 N.C. counties lost population over the last decade even as the state had a net gain of about 900,000 residents, up 9.5%. Those 51 counties lost a combined 147,000 people, with about a third of the decline occurring in five eastern N.C. counties: Robeson, Duplin, Edgecombe, Columbus and Halifax. Fortunately, there are many people making herculean

efforts to support their communities, which is why Business North Carolina annually publishes our Trailblazers feature to highlight business owners and professionals who work in N.C. towns that have fewer than 100,000 residents. We focus on people who are under the age of 40 because of their commitment to smaller communities when they could pursue excellent opportunities in the bigger cities. This year’s roster reflects a variety of occupations including a farmer, banker, police officer and a couple operating an ice cream shop. Several economic-development officials are also profiled. Their efforts breathe life into communities in great need of promoters and champions. Thank you for the participation of the Trailblazers and those who nominated them. Tyler Brewer

Richard Campbell

HENDERSON

BOONE

Caroline Poteat

Jasmine Simpson

BOONE

Sarah Edwards

BROWNS SUMMIT

SMITHFIELD

Michelle Pace Davis

Thomas Salley WILKESBORO

ARCHER LODGE

Sam Rauf

Greg and Ashley Garrison

Taylor Walden

GREENVILLE Gray Workman Williams GREENVILLE

PITTSBORO

Stephen Penn

ASHEVILLE

WINTERVILLE

Brittany Bettini Georganna Seamon

ETOWAH

Kristen Winchester MONROE

SYLVA

Eric Washington FAYETTEVILLE Monique Holt MONROE

CALYPSO

Erin Joseph BENSON

Jackson Hargett

MONROE

James Wolfe

MaryJo Chavis PEMBROKE

B U S I N E S S

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 68

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 2:45 PM

Brittany BETTINI Bettini Financial Solutions, Etowah

he Asheville native started a credit repair and financial literacy company after learning from firsthand experience. Bettini, 31, is a survivor of domestic violence, and she’s now helping others rebuild their financial lives after navigating difficult situations. She also teaches free financial literacy classes to students and is lobbying local and state leaders to have financial literacy taught as a high school graduation requirement. Her business was awarded the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce’s Rising Star Award, and Bettini has now been nominated for the chamber’s Athena Award, which honors individuals who strive toward personal and professional achievements. Separately, Bettini has led her family’s janitorial company, Clean Streak, for the last four years. During the pandemic, the business offered schools and churches free or discounted disinfection services. She is a 2012 graduate of UNC Charlotte with a bachelor’s degree in digital media and graphic design.

Richard CAMPBELL Boone Rent-All & Parties Too, Boone

s operations manager and director of marketing, Campbell, 32, plays a pivotal role in the success of the nearly 50-year-old company, which rents equipment to contractors and individuals for construction projects in addition to serving weddings and many other events. Since joining the company in 2014, Campbell has helped improve procedures and changed the inventory to meet evolving customer needs. While fewer events during the pandemic dented the rental industry, Campbell’s efforts helped the business stabilize its sales and expand in new areas, says David Jackson, CEO of the Boone Chamber of Commerce. Campbell has a bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State University and an MBA from East Tennessee State University.

MaryJo CHAVIS First Bank, Pembroke

havis, 33, leads the branch of the state’s largest community banking company in her hometown of Pembroke, where she works to create and nurture community relationships. Chavis, a graduate of UNC Pembroke, has worked for Southern Pines-based First Bank since 2008. Starting as a teller, she is now a branch manager and vice president. One focus of her work is building relationships with university students, faculty and staff. “MaryJo goes above and beyond the duty for the entire community,” says Lauren Simmons, a history teacher at Robeson County’s Fairmont High School. “She often volunteers in the schools and gives our students tips on basic life skills.” Chavis and her husband, Jared, have three children. She also is an active volunteer at Burnt Swamp Baptist Church in Lumberton.

O C T O B E R

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 69

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 2:46 PM

Tyler BREWER Brewer Cycles, Henderson

There’s a family aspect to our business. We’re making people happy.

B U S I N E S S

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 70

N O R T H

hen Brewer, 33, graduated from East Carolina University in 2011 with a degree in communications, he didn’t want to work for his father’s business. He had goals to move to New York City and work for a large company. But ultimately, he made the decision to join the Henderson-based powersports business as a sales associate after years of doing odd jobs there during his school breaks. “I was pretty much born into the business,” Brewer jokes. “When I was 8 years old, I was outside picking up cigarette butts and pulling weeds.” He’s now vice president for the business his father Chris, started in 1981, with the goal of taking charge once his father decides to retire. Started with one brand and one employee in 1981, Brewer Cycles now carries numerous brands and has 36 full-time employees. The inventory ranges from motorcycles to boats to ATVs. Over the years, Brewer noticed customers needed insurance help, and he became a Progressive Insurance agent. As one of the largest dealerships in the area, this allows the business to better serve its customers. He’s hoping to hire a store manager and eventually open a second location. While he didn’t always think he’d be taking over the family business, now he can’t picture it any other way. “What makes me passionate is dealing with all age groups, from kids 2 years old to grandma and grandpa coming in at 80,” Brewer says. “There’s a family aspect to our business. We’re making people happy.” In addition to work, Brewer is heavily involved in the HendersonVance County Chamber of Commerce. He became board chairman three years ago. The new role came just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic, which Brewer had to weather in both work and chamber roles. Fortunately, Brewer Cycles saw an increase in business amid the crisis, as more families looked for socially distant ways to spend time together and get outside. Brewer is particularly proud of Brewer Cycles’ support of Duke Children’s Hospital. The business has raised more than $120,000 for the hospital through an annual charity ride that began in 1997, the year Brewer was diagnosed with cancer. He’s been cancer-free since 1999. As expected, Brewer finds riding the many “toys” he and his father sell at Brewer Cycles as joyful as his customers do. “My products aren’t something you have to have. It’s a luxury item, but it’s great to see families going out and having fun together and spending time together,” he says.

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 2:52 PM

Sarah EDWARDS Downtown Smithfield Development Corp., Smithfield

dwards was working as a university housing staffer before she unexpectedly found herself back in Smithfield, her hometown. Seeing an opportunity to make a difference in the community, she joined the town’s downtown booster group in 2009 and four years later became the executive director and administrator of the Main Street program. Wearing many hats, Edwards works to recruit and retain businesses, improve the downtown’s vibrancy and pedestrian-friendliness, plan events and promotions, and build broad-based support for the organization. In the last two years, Edwards has taken advantage of development opportunities to benefit downtown Smithfield and its businesses, most of which included providing assistance during the pandemic. She also implemented the #SmithfieldStrong campaign, which resulted in thousands of dollars in revenue for downtown businesses, and developed programs that led to $28,500 in grants to help stabilize local companies during the pandemic.

Jackson HARGETT Hargett Electric, Monroe

argett, 28, has worked full time for his family’s business, Hargett Electric, for six years, but he started well before that, working part time during school breaks. The Appalachian State University graduate worked on job sites and served as an estimator and is now a project manager. He’s the fifth generation of Hargetts to work at the business, which dates to the early 1940s and is led by his father, Jack. Hargett has given back to the community as a board member of the Community Shelter of Union County for about four years and serves as vice chairman. Under his direction, Hargett Electric provided the electrical work and installed the playground at the shelter’s new $6 million facility. He is a member of the Union County Young Professionals program and an alumni of the chamber’s Leadership Union Program. He and his wife, Nikki, are expecting their first child in October.

Erin JOSEPH Town of Benson

riginally from Richmond, Va., Joseph is the planning director for the Johnston County town. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Norfolk State University and a master’s in city/urban, community and regional planning from Virginia Commonwealth University. The two-person planning department for the town of Benson has handled a 32% increase in building permits over the last two years. Joseph also works with a diverse group of community leaders, updating the town’s development ordinance. Her job entails leading Benson’s planning board meetings and serving on the town’s safety committee. Joseph, 37, volunteers at the Benson Center for Active Aging and Benson Library. She’s also a founding member of Ladies of Excellence, a monthly gathering of women focused on self-improvement in areas of finance, self-care, life goals and time management.

O C T O B E R

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 71

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 2:52 PM

Michelle PACE DAVIS Pace Family Farms, Archer Lodge

When our customers come by, we know their name, We know their family.

B U S I N E S S

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 72

N O R T H

avis grew up on her family’s tobacco farm in northern Johnston County, where her ancestors have been farming since 1906. However, the town’s close proximity to the rapidly evolving Raleigh metro area meant changes had to be made at Pace Family Farms. Davis, 29, graduated from N.C. State University in 2014 with a degree in agriculture education and a minor in business, then taught agriculture at Corinth Holders High School in Wendell. After three years of teaching, she returned to the family farm armed with new ideas. The game plan was to figure out a way to grow crops on less land and make the same amount of money with lower labor cost. This led her to steer away from tobacco and plant strawberries starting in 2016. The next spring, the farm opened to customers who wanted to pick their own berries. It’s been a major success, prompting the Pace family to add new crops. The farm now includes about 20 acres for produce and sells broccoli, cabbage, squash, cucumbers, watermelon, corn and other vegetables. Davis also started hosting family-friendly events at the farm, such as Friday movie nights. One of the most important parts of the business is the relationship the farm has built with the community, she says. “When our customers come by, we know their name. We know their family,” Davis says. “That’s really special, that connection we have with our community members. Davis’ parents also work at the farm full time, while her husband, brother and sister-in-law have part-time roles. She also runs the farm’s social media accounts, posting photos and notes on activities including upcoming events. Her goal is to help followers get a better sense of the work involved in running the farm, which also involves raising cattle and hogs and growing corn and soybeans. She says she wants to “let people see the good, the bad and the ugly of farming and what it takes to produce the food.” The Farm Credit Associations of North Carolina named Davis the state’s Innovative Young Farmer of the Year for 2020. She has also helped the farm receive the Clayton Chamber of Commerce’s Business of the Month award. Davis wants to keep innovating and may add fresh-cut herbs to the product mix.

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 2:53 PM

Stephen PENN City of Winterville

enn, 33, has a passion for the Greenville suburb’s success that is evident in his work since 2014 to promote business growth and draw more attention to the city. As economic development planner, he wrote a proposal to maximize the remaining green space downtown and implement farmers and craft markets to create a sense of community pride and support local growers and businesses. He also took charge of a plan to allow breweries and restaurants, such as Nauti Dog Brewing and Railroad Cigar Lounge, into the downtown area. Benefiting from growth at his alma mater, East Carolina University, and other Greenville institutions, Winterville’s population doubled over the last 20 years and now tops 10,000, according to census data. Penn has a bachelor’s degree from ECU and a master’s in urban and regional planning from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Caroline POTEAT Blue Ridge Conservancy, Boone

oteat left her hometown of Drexel in Burke County after high school to earn a bachelor’s degree in political science from American University in Washington, D.C. — but she didn’t stay away for long. Poteat, 38, returned to North Carolina in 2006 for master’s degrees in Appalachian studies and geography from Appalachian State University. She now serves as director of development for Blue Ridge Conservancy, which partners with landowners and government agencies to protect natural resources. She leads fundraising efforts and has found new ways to engage supporters through the COVID-19 pandemic, exceeding the nonprofit’s revenue goals. She also has worked to implement the conservancy’s first legacy giving program. Poteat is passionate about issues related to women and the environment. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and fishing. Poteat is also active in The Squatch Guard, which supports Appalachian Football Club, a soccer organization.

Sam RAUF Chatham County Economic Development Corp., Pittsboro

auf is project manager for Chatham County Economic Development Corp., where he leads business retention and expansion efforts. Since joining the group in 2018, he’s recruited 3D systems manufacturer PolarOnyx to Chatham County’s last vacant industrial building, supported an ongoing effort to establish a public-private shell building program, and kicked off a private fundraising campaign for the organization. Rauf, 25, continues to build strong relationships with existing businesses and “is well-liked and admired throughout Chatham County,” notes Alyssa Byrd, a Raleigh marketing executive who is former president of the development group. Rauf earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Virginia’s Roanoke College, where he played soccer. “Economic development is also a team sport where, thankfully, I can lean on my experiences playing sports,” he says. “Any success our organization has had is also a direct result from the work of our state, workforce, utilities, real estate and private partners.”

O C T O B E R

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 73

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 2:53 PM

Greg and Ashley GARRISON The Hop, Asheville

People are happy when they come in and happy when they leave, so it was easy for us to stick around.

B U S I N E S S

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 74

N O R T H

reg and Ashley Garrison have brought rapid growth to an Asheville ice cream institution where they started as part-timers. The Hop was founded in 1978 by a couple who fell in love with the Asheville area. “The Hop gathered around the community, and the community gathered around The Hop pretty early on,” Greg says. Greg and Ashley first stepped into the ice cream store when they were students at UNC Asheville. In August 2003, Ashley started working for the store’s fourth owner to earn extra cash between classes. Greg joined her in the fall after his college soccer season ended. “There were multiple owners of the business, but The Hop has maintained the same integrity selling homemade ice cream,” Greg says. After graduating in 2005, Ashley, now 38, became The Hop’s manager. Greg, 39, continued working part time while also serving full time as a UNC Asheville soccer coach. “I would help out occasionally whenever they needed me,” he says. In 2007, The Hop moved down Merrimon Avenue a block from the original location after the old gas station building that housed it fell apart. Soon after, the previous owners put the business on the market, prompting the Garrisons to become the fifth owners. “Ice cream is just a pleasant industry,” Greg says. “People are happy when they come in and happy when they leave, so it was easy for us to stick around.” With the economy slowing in 2008, the Garrisons knew they needed to make some changes. “We wanted to continue what we experienced at the old location and re-solidify The Hop back into the community,” Greg says. They made some changes, including using better-quality ingredients, promoting birthday parties and other gatherings, and using social media to market new flavors and events. The economic rebound continued with Asheville thriving as a tourist destination through the pandemic, bolstering the Garrisons’ business. In addition to two existing Asheville sites, they have opened two shops during the last two years, one in downtown Asheville’s S&W Market and another in nearby Black Mountain. They produce ice cream and fulfill online orders at another location, The Creamery. The couple fund an annual Hop Scholarship for academic merit for a rising senior at UNC Asheville. Additionally, the business has donated more than $100,000 to causes that they value. They also established a relief fund for their employees throughout the pandemic, which allowed them to financially cover time off for testing or caring for family members. “We were woefully unprepared for the shutdown,” Greg says. “We are grateful we have something in place for our staff.”

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 2:56 PM

Thomas SALLEY Wilkesboro Tourism Development Authority, Wilkesboro

fter earning a bachelor’s degree in public relations at the University of South Carolina, Salley headed to the Old North State to pursue a career in the nascent wine industry. He started his career at Raffaldini Vineyards near Ronda, where he led marketing and sales efforts for 12 years. During his tenure, Raffaldini was named one of the Top 10 Hot Small Brands in North America. In 2019, Salley, 36, became director of the Wilkesboro Tourism Development Authority. His goal is to expand awareness of Wilkesboro and Wilkes County as a retreat and destination for outdoor sports. His work has helped spark stories on Wilkesboro and area attractions in Buzzfeed, The Times UK, USA Today, The New York Times and more. He’s the marketing chair of the N.C. Wine and Grape Council. Salley, who is married and has two daughters, is active in the community as a volunteer for the Wilkes Healthy Action Team, First Baptist Church Elkin and other groups.

Georganna SEAMON Black Balsam Outdoors, Sylva

eamon saw a need for an outdoor retail business in Sylva, a Jackson County town 45 miles west of Asheville. The Appalachian State University graduate created Black Balsam Outdoors in 2018 to share her love of hiking and the outdoors with residents, as well as those passing through on the nearby Appalachian Trail. The store specializes in gear for backpacking, camping, hiking, trail running and other outdoor activities but also carries locally made jewelry and apparel. In addition to her small business, Seamon, 37, is involved with the Main Street Sylva Association’s Design and Art Committee, which sponsored a sandwich-making competition to raise money for a downtown mural. She and her husband, Logan, also operate Mountain Crossing, a hiking equipment store in Blairsville, Ga.

Jasmine SIMPSON Good Steward Financial Co., Browns Summit

impson, 32, started her business in 2018 as a one-woman operation providing bookkeeping to nonprofit clients in North Carolina. Since then, she’s grown the company to include four full-time employees and now serves groups in different states. In addition to the work with her company, she’s also involved with several nonprofits. She’s the treasurer and financial chair of Family Abuse Services Alamance County, she serves on the finance committee of Health Alamance in Burlington, and she’s director of fundraising for A Moment of Magic Foundation based in New York City. In June, she founded her own nonprofit, Good Stewards of Empowerment, which helps nonviolent offenders reintegrate into society.

O C T O B E R

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 75

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 2:57 PM

Monique HOLT Monroe Police Department, Monroe

I can help the world and help people in the world. That’s how I got started.

B U S I N E S S

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 76

N O R T H

he Norwood native’s road to a career with the Monroe Police Department started when she was in sixth grade. Her teacher asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and, unlike some middle schoolers, Holt, 39, had a definitive answer: She wanted to be a police officer, and she wanted to save the world. “Little did I know, I can’t save the world,” she says. “I can help the world and help people in the world. That’s how I got started.” Her devotion to helping people comes from her passion for community. She believes the reason she is on this earth is to make a difference. Since starting with the Monroe department in 2003, she’s held various roles that enabled her to have a significant impact. She was a school resource officer, working inside a school to build relationships with youth and educate and mentor them. Now, those same skills apply to her work in the community raising awareness about how police officers work alongside other local leaders. Some of the programs she’s led include Cops & Popsicles, Ball with a Cop, and Police Advocating for Student Success. Holt’s dedication led to a recent promotion to lieutenant. As part of her new role, she supervises community services, the community intervention team and animal control. She’s a member of the Union County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council Board and the safety committee for Union County Public Schools. A graduate of Pfeiffer University with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, she teaches at South Piedmont Community College and the N.C. Justice Academy. She also volunteers with a variety of nonprofits, including the Union County Chamber. Union County Weekly recently named Holt one of Union County’s Top 100 Important Women. She says she was shocked to receive the honor. “It was excellent, and it makes me strive harder,” she says. One of Holt’s recent focuses is leading a number of organizations in a coalition to combat violence in Monroe, where violent crime increased by 11% in 2020. She says it’s critical to build and maintain trust so local residents are comfortable calling the police and coalition when issues arise. Like many other towns, Monroe is also experiencing a police staffing shortage because of an increased number of retirements. Serving communities that are in need, the coalition hopes to improve community relations and encourage others to work with local police to create change. “I think the work we are doing in the community is helping to build that relationship between law enforcement and the community.”

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 2:59 PM

Taylor WALDEN Simple & Sentimental, Greenville

rom her freshman college dorm room at East Carolina University, Walden started selling vinyl decals to friends and family. That ultimately led to a bigger space and the start of Simple & Sentimental, which specializes in personalized gift boxes, tumblers, apparel and holiday ornaments. Over the years, Simple & Sentimental has expanded its products and services, with the latest being in-house UV printing and screen printing. Walden, 23, hired her first full-time employee in 2019 along with part-time support, and she now has a staff of 13, including herself. When COVID-19 hit, Simple & Sentimental pivoted to selling special quarantine gift boxes. Walden’s team of five at the time could not stay on top of orders, so Simple & Sentimental created 25 temporary jobs for furloughed workers and others in need. Walden and her team also discovered that their laser engraver used to make cake toppers and ornaments could also make face shields. So during the early months of the pandemic, Walden and her team made and donated COVID-19 protective shields to several hospitals, including Vidant Health in Greenville.

Eric WASHINGTON The Washington Apparel Co., Fayetteville

ashington, 38, is an active-duty soldier with the rank of sergeant first class, but he’s also the founder and CEO of a bespoke business and formal wear store in downtown Fayetteville. Originally from Fort Worth, Texas, he’s spent 18 years in the Army and serves as the equal opportunity adviser for the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division. He started the business as an online venture in 2015 when he met some tailors while serving overseas in Korea. Washington is classically trained by Lee Marsh, a master tailor from London’s Savile Row. He’s also a member of the Fayetteville Human Relations Commission, which addresses discrimination concerns and encourages fair treatment among all racial, ethnic, gender and age groups.

Gray WORKMAN

WILLIAMS

Greenville-Pitt County Sports Commission, Greenville

orkman Williams helped found the sports commission in 2019 after working for Visit Greenville for four years. She’s led efforts sparking $32 million in economic impact in Pitt County through sports tourism, including helping the city become the new long-term host of the Little League International World Series Softball Tournament. It will bring in 12 teams, including eight from outside the U.S. Workman Willams, 33, was selected to sit on the national board of directors of the Sports Events and Tourism Association in the United States. She’s also the incoming chair for the East Carolina University Women’s Roundtable, which provides scholarships to female students and mentorships for student leaders. Workman Williams wears many hats, but she says being a mother of two is her most important job.

O C T O B E R

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 77

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 3:00 PM

Kristen WINCHESTER Charlotte Pipe & Foundry, Monroe

s the assistant human resources manager at Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, Winchester has found a way to merge her passions for working with people and giving back, particularly in her hometown of Monroe. She’s led the company’s annual Choice Campaign since 2019. It enables the company’s employees and vendors to support nine local agencies in the Carolinas, as well as other local nonprofits near the company’s offices throughout the U.S. Winchester, 33, also leads local educational engagement by organizing tours, speaking engagements and job fairs as the coordinator since 2017 of Make It in Union County, a chamber of commerce program that spotlights manufacturing. Additionally, she works with local middle and high schools as the educational outreach coordinator for her company, educating students and staff on the career paths available through Charlotte Pipe. She’s an advisory board member of Atrium Health’s Union County hospice program.

James WOLFE

Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, Calypso

ince beginning his role with the public-private partnership in 2019, Wolfe, 39, has helped more than 150 businesses annually in 12 counties in southeastern North Carolina. As a regional manager of existing-industry expansion, he assists companies with grant and loan opportunities, process improvements and workforce recruitment. Wolfe has aided 18 businesses in their expansion plans, with commitments totaling nearly 850 new jobs and $137 million in investments in cities including Kinston, Snow Hill and New Bern. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Wolfe became a liaison between state and federal agencies and the local community. He ensured that business owners and local leaders knew about resources that were available to assist with recovery. Wolfe resides in his Duplin County hometown of Calypso with his wife, Kim, and their two children, JT and Katherine.

B U S I N E S S

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 78

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

9/21/21 3:00 PM

D-Trailblazers_October 2021.indd 79

9/21/21 3:00 PM

Law Journal_October2021.indd 80

9/21/21 3:04 PM

2021 LAW JOURNAL

2021 LAW JOURNAL Business North Carolina has asked legal experts to weigh in on insights into the world of business. The scope of business law can be overwhelming to many. Topics such as the new federal law on corporate transparency, restrictive covenants, and the rights and duties of shareholders are imperative for most business owners in the state, but laws are confusing and require deep knowledge. These issues are explored in the following pages by some of the state’s top lawyers.

THE NEW FEDERAL LAW ON CORPORATE TRANSPARENCY – WHAT BUSINESS OWNERS AND THEIR ADVISORS NEED TO KNOW NOW

BY MARK DAVIDSON AND MELISSA BAILEY

Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, LLP

RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS – PROTECTING YOUR INVESTMENT

BY BENTON TOUPS, Cranfill Sumner LLP

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF SHAREHOLDERS IN A CLOSELY HELD BUSINESS IN NORTH CAROLINA

SPONSORED SECTION

Law Journal_October2021.indd 81

BY FRED B. MONROE, James, McElroy & Diehl, P.A.

O C T O B E R

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 3:06 PM

2021 LAW JOURNAL

THE NEW FEDERAL LAW ON CORPORATE TRANSPARENCY – WHAT BUSINESS OWNERS AND THEIR ADVISORS NEED TO KNOW NOW.

BY MARK DAVIDSON AND MELISSA BAILEY Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, LLP

n attempt by the federal government to better identify business entities used for money laundering and other criminal activity could mean more paperwork for many businesses in North Carolina. Approved by Congress in January 2021, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is a new federal law requiring many business entities to identify to the Treasury Department the individuals who own a 25 percent or greater interest in the entity or who otherwise exercise substantial control over the entity.

The CTA seeks to identify entities used for money laundering and other criminal activities by requiring entities to disclose their ownership and control. The legislation cites the use of business entities by “malign actors” to conceal their

B U S I N E S S

Law Journal_October2021.indd 82

N O R T H

involvement in “illicit activity, including money laundering, the financing of terrorism, proliferation financing, serious tax fraud, human and drug trafficking, counterfeiting, piracy, securities fraud, financial fraud and acts of foreign corruption.” While they are expected before the end of the year, the specific regulations outlining how the CTA will be implemented have yet to be issued, leaving many questions about what the actual process will look like still unanswered. Here is what we do know: • NO PUBLIC DISCLOSURE The information reported to Treasury will not be made publicly available but will be used on a confidential basis for law enforcement and national security purposes. So, for business entities formed in North Carolina, Delaware and many other states, information about

C A R O L I N A

the entity owners will continue to not be available to the public. Like many other states, North Carolina requires business entities to publicly disclose the names of the persons who manage the entity but not the names of the owners. • INDIVIDUALS TO BE IDENTIFIED While the CTA refers to individuals who own a 25 percent or greater interest or who exercise “substantial control” over an entity as “beneficial owners,” this is not limited to individuals who actually own interests in the entity. The CTA refers to “directly or indirectly, through any contract, arrangement, understanding, relationship, or otherwise.” For example, this will include an individual owning an interest in another entity that owns an interest in the reporting entity. More than one individual may own a 25 percent or greater SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 3:07 PM

interest in an entity but, based on one of the questions posed by Treasury in a public notice asking for comment, it is not yet clear whether more than individual may exercise “substantial control” over an entity. • ENTITIES DO THE REPORTING Subject to the exemptions noted below, corporations, limited liability companies, and other types of entities that are created by a filing with a state or that are created under foreign law and doing business in the United States are “reporting companies” required to report the information. • INFORMATION REQUIRED An entity is required to identify individuals by full legal name, street address, date of birth and the number on an individual’s passport, driver’s license or other government issued ID. Based on one of the questions posed by Treasury in the public notice asking for comment, the regulations may require the reporting company to file a copy of the document assigning the number. • IDENTIFYING NUMBER ALTERNATIVE An individual may obtain from Treasury an identifying number for use in lieu of the personal information outlined above. Similarly, a business entity that has provided Treasury with the required information regarding its ownership may also obtain an identifying number. An entity may provide its identifying number to a reporting company in lieu of providing information about the entity’s ownership to the reporting company. The reporting company then provides Treasury the number of the entity instead of identifying the individuals who own interests in the entity. This will allow an entity to avoid disclosing information about its ownership to another reporting company. • REPORTING UPDATES The CTA requires a reporting of any change in the information reported, such as a change in an individual’s street address. While the implementing

regulations may require earlier reporting, the CTA requires the updating to occur no later than one year after the change occurs. This will require a reporting company to update its owner information at least annually. Based on one of the questions posed by Treasury in the public notice asking for comment, the regulations may require periodic reports to Treasury confirming the continued accuracy of information earlier reported even if no change in the information has occurred. • OBTAINING THE INFORMATION TO BE REPORTED The CTA itself does not impose on a reporting company’s owners an obligation to provide the information required for the reporting company’s compliance with the CTA. Unless this obligation is addressed in the regulations, a reporting company should consider imposing this obligation in its organizational agreements. • BOTH NEW AND EXISTING ENTITIES Entities formed after the regulations’ effective date will be required to file their first report at the time of formation. Entities that are formed before the regulations take effect will be required to file their first report with the Treasury at the time provided in the new regulations, which the CTA requires to be not later than two years after the regulations’ effective date. • IDENTIFICATION OF PERSONS FORMING ENTITIES In addition to identifying individuals who are “beneficial owners,” a reporting company will be required to identify an individual who “files” the document to create the entity. Based on a question posed by Treasury in the public notice asking for comment, the forthcoming regulations may clarify who is required to be identified. • EXEMPTIONS Many types of business entities are exempt from the CTA, including public companies, various types of entities

for which there is already substantial regulatory reporting, certain tax-exempt entities and certain dormant entities. Of broadest potential impact is an exemption for an entity that has at least 20 full-time employees, more than $5 million in annual revenues and an office in the U.S. Based on questions posed by Treasury in the public notice asking for comment, the forthcoming regulations may require that actions be taken to claim an exemption, including potentially making periodic filings with the Treasury. • PENALTIES The CTA imposes substantial criminal and civil penalties for “willfully” failing to report information or providing false information. Businesses subject to the CTA will face significant new reporting and related record-keeping obligations. However, it is important to note that the CTA requires reporting information that in most cases is already being provided the Treasury through federal income tax returns. And, like income tax return information, the information reported will not be publicly available. ■

MARK DAVIDSON AND MELISSA BAILEY

Mark Davidson and Melissa Bailey are attorneys with Brooks Pierce. Mark focuses his practice on business law and taxation, including entity formation, mergers and acquisitions and private equity. Melissa is a corporate transactional lawyer, representing clients in general business and transactional matters, entity formation, securities and mergers and acquisitions.

O C T O B E R

Law Journal_October2021.indd 83

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 3:07 PM

2021 LAW JOURNAL

RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS – PROTECTING YOUR INVESTMENT

BY BENTON TOUPS Cranfill Sumner LLP or most businesses, their biggest investment isn’t equipment, or software, or vehicles, or even real estate. It’s people. Most businesses invest a huge amount of resources into their workforce. That investment comes in many forms, some of which are easily identifiable line-items, like recruitment costs, training costs, moving expenses, and salary. Other forms of investment are perhaps less quantifiable but certainly no less valuable. Employers entrust employees with sensitive, confidential information. They provide employees with the know-how to succeed in the industry. They encourage employees to form relationships with coworkers, vendors, suppliers and customers.

All of these investments benefit the business as long as the employee remains employed there, but the risk is that an employee takes all that training, know-how, information, and all of those valuable relationships, and jumps ship to work for a competitor. This article will discuss perhaps the most useful tool in mitigating that risk – restrictive covenants.

B U S I N E S S

Law Journal_October2021.indd 84

N O R T H

Simply put, restrictive covenants are contracts that place limits on what former employees can say or do. Restrictive covenants take many forms. Below is a discussion of the most common.

• In writing; • Made part of the employment contract; • Supported by valid consideration; • Reasonable as to time and territory; and • Designed to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests.

Supported by valid consideration. Consideration is a concept that applies to all contracts, not just covenants not to compete. In order for a contract to be enforceable, each contracting party must receive some consideration for entering into the contract, which means that the contract must bestow on each contracting party some benefit to which that party would not be entitled if not for entry into the contract. In the context of covenants not to compete, the affected employee might receive a new job, a promotion, a raise or a bonus for his or her agreement to enter into a non-compete. All of these are permissible forms of consideration. It is critical to note, however, that continued employment, standing alone, is not sufficient consideration. To sum it up, for an employee to be bound by a covenant not to compete, that employee must receive some new benefit in exchange for entering into the agreement.

The first two criteria are fairly selfexplanatory. The last three, however, require a bit of interpretation.

Reasonable as to time and territory. Covenants not to compete cannot be unlimited when it comes to time and

COVENANTS NOT TO COMPETE Covenants not to compete are probably the most often-used restrictive covenants. Such contracts seek to prevent employees from leaving and working for, or becoming, a competitor. Each state has its own set of rules when it comes to covenants not to compete. In California, for example, they aren’t valid – period. North Carolina courts, on the other hand, will enforce covenants not to compete if they meet the following criteria:

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 3:07 PM

territory. In other words, a business cannot subject a former employee to a covenant that would restrict him or her from competing everywhere, forever. Our courts consider five years to be the outside permissible time limit, only enforcing such restrictions in very limited circumstances. The shorter the time period, the more likely a court will find it acceptable. The same goes for territorial restrictions. Courts will also look at time and territorial restrictions together, meaning that the smaller the territorial restriction, the more lenient a court will be on the time restriction, and vice versa. Designed to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests. Courts will only enforce restrictions on an individual’s right to work when the employer can show that those restrictions protect its legitimate business interests. In crafting covenants not to compete, employers must resist the urge to restrict the employee to any degree greater than that which is necessary to protect legitimate interests. For example, does an employer have a legitimate business interest in preventing an employee from going to work for a competitor “in any capacity?” I often see covenants drafted this way. Taken literally, such a covenant would prohibit a sales manager from leaving his job and going to work for a competing business as a custodian. Courts will typically not enforce such a restriction.

COST SHARING AGREEMENTS Cost sharing agreements are akin to covenants not to compete, but with a nuance. Cost sharing agreements do not technically prevent an employee from going to work for a competitor. They allow competition, but at a price. Cost sharing agreements provide that if an employee leaves and goes to work for a competitor, the departing employee owes the employer $XXX. In other words, it’s a pay-to-play contract. Typically, the price tag correlates to some computation of the actual damages the employer expects to suffer because of the employee’s departure. Cost sharing agreements are most often

used in the context of medical providers. Courts are very reluctant to enforce non-competition agreements that deprive patients of their ability to treat with their provider of choice. Courts are also reluctant to enforce agreements that might deprive a community of a much-needed service. For instance, a covenant not to compete might restrict a departing cardiologist from competing against a certain practice in a certain town. Such an agreement has the practical effect of depriving a town of a cardiologist, thus diminishing the quality of health care available to the town’s citizens. Cost sharing agreements avoid this consequence. With a cost sharing agreement, the cardiologist can stay in town – for a price.

NON-SOLICITATION OF CUSTOMERS Customer non-solicitation agreements seek to prevent an employee from leaving and attempting to woo clients or customers to a competitor. Such agreements are typically a bit easier to enforce than covenants not to compete because they do not prevent the former employee from working in his/her chosen field. The employee is only prohibited from chasing certain customers for a period of time.

covenant should include a provision prohibiting the disclosure or unauthorized use of confidential information. Unlike the types of restrictive covenants discussed above, non-disclosure provisions typically do not need to be limited in time. In other words, businesses can contractually prevent the disclosure of their confidential information forever.

CONCLUSION Restrictive covenants are important tools for businesses. Especially for employees in management and sales positions, such agreements provide at least some assurance that the investment businesses make in their key employees will not simply inure to the benefit of a competitor down the road. Effective covenants will include some version of one, more, or all of the types of provisions discussed above, and each document must be drafted in light of the particular circumstances at hand. There is no “one-sizefits-all” formula for crafting restrictive covenants. ■

NON-SOLICITATION OF EMPLOYEES It’s bad enough when an employee leaves, but it’s much worse when a departing employee takes his/her entire team. Employee non-solicitation agreements seek to prevent this. They prohibit departing employees from seeking to convince existing employees to leave and go with them. Like customer non-solicitation agreements, employee non-solicitation agreements are typically easier to enforce and subject to less judicial scrutiny than covenants not to compete.

BENTON TOUPS Benton Toups is a seasoned attorney whose practice focuses on Employment Law, Business Litigation and ERISA Litigation with Cranfill Sumner LLP. Benton represents clients in all aspects of employment law as well as business disputes, including those involving

NON-DISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

breach of contract, breach of fiduciary

Employees, especially those in management, become privy to certain information that, if disclosed outside the organization, could be damaging to the organization and/or useful to its competitors. Such information includes things like customer lists, customer contact information, pricing schemes, financial data and marketing strategies. Just about any restrictive

priation of trade secrets and other

duty, money owed, and misapprointellectual property. Benton has been recognized as one of Business NC’s Legal Elite in the fields of Litigation Law and Employment Law, in addition to being selected for inclusion by NC Super Lawyers in the field of Employment and Labor Law. O C T O B E R

Law Journal_October2021.indd 85

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 3:07 PM

2021 LAW JOURNAL

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF SHAREHOLDERS IN A CLOSELY HELD BUSINESS IN NORTH CAROLINA

BY FRED B. MONROE James, McElroy & Diehl, P.A.

t the outset of many business ventures, the plan is definite. Many times, closely-held corporations are formed with a clear vision of how to split the pie, but no real consideration of what to do if either the business, or the owners’ relationships, turn sour. Unlike an investment in publicly traded companies, the minority investor in a closely held corporation cannot readily liquidate his investment and simply call it quits. For this reason, and others, the law recognizes certain rights to limit the abuse of a minority owner by those in control. In my experience, increases in disputes among closely-held business owners are often correlated to changes in the economy and the performance of the company. Festering issues between owners tend to come to light during such times. This article shares my abbreviated understanding of several of the rights of, and duties owed to, minority shareholders under the North Carolina Business Corporation Act (the “Act”).1

WHAT IS A “MINORITY” SHAREHOLDER? A “minority shareholder” is a person owning less than 50% of the stock in the corporation.

WHAT RIGHTS DO MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS HAVE? Minority shareholders in a corporation have the following rights: THE RIGHT TO VOTE While the ownership of shares in the corporation does not vest the shareholder with the right to participate in the operation or management of the business, it does vest the shareholder with the right to vote. This right is limited. The shareholders elect the directors of the corporation and can vote on certain material changes in the corporation such as the sale of all of the corporation’s assets other than in the ordinary course of business, voluntary dissolutions, and certain amendments to governing documents.

DISSENTER’S RIGHTS On rare occasions, the shareholder has the right to “dissent” from certain actions of the corporation. Actions allowing for a right to dissent include the consummation of a plan of merger, share exchange, conversion, a sale or exchange of all of the assets of the corporation that is outside the ordinary course of the corporation’s business, and an amendment to the articles of incorporation that materially affects the dissenter’s shares. If a shareholder dissents from such an action, and follows the procedure in the Act, he can demand the corporation purchase his shares at their “fair value.” Although this is a benefit to a shareholder unhappy with the corporate action, it also tempers the shareholder’s rights somewhat, in that the right to require redemption is provided in lieu of the right to challenge the corporate action itself, unless it is unlawful or fraudulent. Certain proposed transactions by the majority, such as a squeeze-out merger, also afford the majority shareholders with a potentially lawful means to get rid of an

1 The particular application of the law in this area depends upon the specific circumstances of the dispute. Therefore, the contents of this article should not be relied upon for legal advice. This article may contain opinions and views that are not shared by either the law firm of James, McElroy & Diehl, P.A. or its employees.

B U S I N E S S

Law Journal_October2021.indd 86

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 3:08 PM

unwanted minority shareholder. Absent “unlawful or fraudulent conduct,” the payment of the “fair value” in exchange for the shares of stock owned by the minority can potentially extinguish all of the rights of the minority owner. DIVIDENDS In a corporation with less than 25 shareholders, shareholders who own 20% or more of the shares may demand that one-third of the net profits be paid as a dividend if certain conditions are met. This dividend demand right is balanced by the corporation’s right, in response, to redeem the shareholder’s shares at their fair value. RIGHTS TO MAINTAIN RELATIVE PERCENTAGE OF OWNERSHIP The shareholder’s ownership percentage of the corporation directly affects his right to vote, to obtain records, to demand dividends, and to protect the value of his investment. Under certain circumstances, the shareholder has rights to keep his percentage ownership interest the same. These are called preemptive rights. DERIVATIVE ACTIONS Under certain circumstances, the shareholders can sue on behalf of the corporation (known as a “derivative action”), after providing the requisite statutory notice, demanding that the officers and directors take appropriate action. ACCESS TO BOOKS AND RECORDS Qualified shareholders, meaning shareholders whose ownership interest is greater than 5%, have the right to inspect the financial records of the corporation on five days written notice. The demanding shareholder must state a proper purpose, and make his demand in good faith. Even if the criteria for a “qualified shareholder” are not present, there are certain documents that a shareholder can inspect – such as the corporation’s list of shareholders. COMPELLING DISSOLUTION A shareholder can sue to dissolve the corporation under certain circumstances. The grounds listed in the Act include a

deadlock in management or voting control, a showing that dissolution is necessary to protect the rights or interests of the shareholders, a showing that the assets of the corporation are being misapplied or wasted, or the governing shareholder’s agreement allows for dissolution. In addition, our courts may allow dissolution where the minority shareholder’s “reasonable expectations” are being frustrated. Such “reasonable expectations” may include the shareholder’s expectation of participating in management, or having ongoing employment. There is a catch twenty-two for a minority shareholder who brings a dissolution action. In the event the shareholder brings the dissolution action in order to protect his, or her rights, the corporation can prevent dissolution by electing to buy out the minority shareholder’s interest at “fair value.” Similarly, this presents a dilemma for the corporation as well because “fair value” may not necessarily include the typical discounts in value for lack of marketability and lack of control that one would see in a valuation of stock for “fair market value.” RIGHTS DURING THE WINDING UP OF THE BUSINESS After dissolution and during winding up of the corporation, a shareholder has the right to be distributed what is left after paying creditors and satisfying other obligations. Each shareholder participates pro rata based upon their ownership interest.

HOW ARE THE RIGHTS OF MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS PROTECTED? Minority shareholders’ rights are protected by the following: THE DUTIES OF THE CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDERS Our courts recognize that shareholders who are in control of the corporation have a direct fiduciary duty to the minority shareholders. This fiduciary duty is in addition to those duties of officers and directors. In general, the controlling shareholders cannot take actions that

are not in good faith and that personally benefit themselves to the detriment of the minority. THE DUTIES OF OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS Officers and directors owe the corporation the duty to act in good faith, and to exercise due care and loyalty. Generally, they cannot usurp corporate opportunities or participate in transactions where they would otherwise have a conflict of interest. While shareholders can assert derivative claims based upon the officers and directors’ breach of these duties, directors and officers who have simply made errors in business judgment are afforded some protections by the business judgment rule. This rule allows the manager to take legitimate business risks and be immune from individual liability.

CONCLUSION North Carolina law tempers the power of the controlling owners of the corporation in order to protect a minority owner from unscrupulous behavior. All shareholders, officers, and directors should realize that these checks and balances can potentially be invoked in a court of law. ■

FRED B. MONROE Fred B. Monroe, J.D., M.B.A. (Finance) is a civil trial lawyer and a partner with James, McElroy & Diehl, P.A. in Charlotte, North Carolina. For over twenty-five years he has counseled clients involved in complex business disputes. Fred has received recognition by Best Lawyers of America© in the civil litigation practice area and has a Martindale-Hubbell, AV® Preeminent peer review rating. Fred graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with his undergraduate degree as well as his M.B.A. (Finance). Fred received his J.D. degree from Mercer University. O C T O B E R

Law Journal_October2021.indd 87

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 3:08 PM

COMMUNITY CLOSE-UP

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

GETTING IT DONE Fayetteville and Cumberland County’s recently unveiled brand — Can Do Carolina — is more than words. It’s action, thanks to modest living costs, amenities, educational institutions and economic opportunity.

On a steamy August evening, Larry Keen threw the first pitch at a Fayetteville Woodpeckers minor-league baseball game. “The ball went over the plate,” he says. “I didn’t get a strike, but it was close.” Keen is Fayetteville Technical Community College’s president. His trip to the pitcher’s mount kicked off Fayetteville Tech night at Segra Stadium, when the college’s choir sang the national anthem, and the stands were filled with Fort Bragg soldiers and their families, college colleagues and students, and community members. “It reminded me of why I love Fayetteville so much,” he says. “We were all there to enjoy the day together, and that’s the beauty of

B U S I N E S S

Cumberland_County_Oct2021.indd 88

N O R T H

what we have here in this city and Cumberland County at large.” The evening was evidence of how family friendly Fayetteville has become since the 1970s, when seedy bars and adult entertainment venues populated the center city, which is steeped in history. It’s named for Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat, military officer and leader of colonial troops during the American Revolution. Local history recalls it’s the only namesake city that he visited. It’s where the N.C. Constitutional Convention ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1789, the UNC System was chartered and Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run. Fayetteville’s 2019 population was almost 209,000, according to

C A R O L I N A

N.C. Office of State Budget and Management. That made it North Carolina’s sixth-largest city. And it’s only getting bigger, thanks to an affordable cost of living, quality of life amenities, educational institutions, and expanding job and economic opportunities, many linked to Fort Bragg. It’s the largest U.S. military post by population and one of six military instillations in North Carolina. It’s a similar situation in surrounding Cumberland County. “We are a 350,000-person county with business and industry, history, arts and culture,” says Robert Van Geons, president and CEO of Fayetteville Cumberland County Economic Development Corp. Van Geons points to Cumberland

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 3:09 PM

County’s strength as a standalone community, which would prosper without Fort Bragg woven into its fabric. “But would we be anywhere near as dynamic, unique and diverse without Fort Bragg?” he asks. “Absolutely not. We go hand-in-hand and together contribute to our quality of life here.” Last year, Fayetteville Cumberland Collaborative Branding Committee — comprised of Cumberland County, city of Fayetteville and representatives of community organizations — unveiled a regional promotion campaign. Can Do Carolina was designed to increase awareness and attract prospective residents and businesses. It highlights Fayetteville and Cumberland County’s diversity along with its assets, low cost of living, central location along Interstate 95 — halfway between New York City and Miami — patriotism and proximity to Fort Bragg. Can Do Carolina’s strategy is underpinned by four community pillars: find a way, care for one another, protect the world and always go further. Its logo is North Carolina’s silhouette with a star over Cumberland County. Van Geons says the star, designed to appear as if its radiating beams of light, represents a vibrant community with plenty of possibility. “The visual aspect of the brand serves as an anchor point,” he says. “The messaging and four pillars capture who we are and tells our community’s unique and authentic story.”

year is shaping up to be better. “As of August, we have already had more projects come here than we did in all of [2020],” he says. Online retailer Amazon, for example, announced in May that it’s building a delivery center in Fayetteville. It’s expected to create about 200 jobs and open early next year. And the U.S.Postal Service leased a 178,200-square-foot spec building at Liberty Point, an industrial park in Hope Mills, in August. It’s expected to open a distribution center there this month. Cumberland County has more

demand than supply: Building vacancy is at an all-time low, Van Geons says. But some relief is on the way. SkyREM recently purchased more than 500 acres of county-owned industrial property in Cumberland Industrial Center and the Cedar Creek Industrial Park, where Campbell Soup recently opened a 700,000-squarefoot distribution center. SkyREM will develop the property within three years, adding about 1.6 million square feet of industrial space. The realestate investor purchased more than 1 million square feet of space in the county earlier this year.

BETTER BUSINESS Economic development and small business growth have fueled a renaissance in Cumberland County and Fayetteville over the past 20 years. Despite the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Van Geons says 2020 was the county’s best year for economic development. And this

Pictured from top: Segra Stadium, home of the Woodpeckers; Can Do Carolina’s logo and a graphic of their four community pillars.

O C T O B E R

Cumberland_County_Oct2021.indd 89

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 3:09 PM

COMMUNITY CLOSE-UP

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

MILITARY MIGHT

U.S. Army Airborne & Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville.

B U S I N E S S

Cumberland_County_Oct2021.indd 90

N O R T H

C A R O L I N A

More than 55,000 military members are stationed at Fort Bragg, which employs about 12,000 civilians. It’s home to the 82nd Airborne Division and Army Special Operations Command. And it’s a big reason that 850 military contractors work in Cumberland County, Van Geons says. “There is a large amount of opportunity to leverage this talent and develop relationships around the world,” he says. “We have a number of companies with an international presence.” Fayetteville is home to North Carolina Military Business Center. A component of the N.C. Community College System, it leverages the six military bases in the state to help North Carolina businesses grow their revenue. It has helped them land more than 4,000 federal contracts, from supplying parts to building housing, worth more than $15 billion. Van Geons says some of the most trained and skilled soldiers in the world serve at Fort Bragg, and many settle in surrounding communities after transitioning out of the military. Local companies seek them out as hires because of the technical and soft skills that they developed while serving their country. Fayetteville Tech and Fort Bragg share a close relationship. “We are absolutely committed to the soldiers,” Keen says. The college recently allocated space in its automotive services annex for the BMW Military Service Technician Education Program. A partnership between BMW of North America and Universal Technical Institute, it offers service members the opportunity to train for a new career before they transition into civilian life.

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 3:10 PM

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES Fayetteville State’s Broadwell College of Business and Economics stands ready. “Our Veterans Business Outreach Center, Small Business Technology Development Center and Center for Economic Development provide business and entrepreneurial support for the military and public at large,” says Interim Dean Ulysses Taylor. Broadwell College offers small business support and a traditional MBA program that has a health care administration specialty. Taylor says it also has the UNC System’s only completely online accounting program, which has seen dramatic growth. He says enrollment has jumped to 300 from 60 over the past

three years. In fact, Broadwell College is in the midst of a growth spurt. “We’ve doubled in size over the last seven years,” he says. “Back in 2015, we had around 750 students enrolled in our college, and now we’re close to 1,700. So, we are truly a growth area for the university.” Broadwell’s faculty and staff raised $25,000 to create a scholarship endowment. “We have a wonderful staff and faculty,” Taylor says. “They love what they do, and they wanted to be able to give back.” The interim dean loves the university, too. “I’m a graduate of Fayetteville State, and I’ve been working here now for almost 30 years,” he says. “I love this place, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had in my life.” Working with economic development partners, Fayetteville

State established the EDA University Center with a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The Center provides program support for entrepreneurial and small business growth, with specific focus on traditionally marginalized populations within the six-county region that surrounds the university.

TOURISM ATTRACTIONS Cumberland County and Fayetteville aren’t all work. Visitors find many new adventures and experiences. They spent more than $601 million doing that in 2019, according to the most recent data from VisitNC, the Economic Development Partnership of North

O C T O B E R

Cumberland_County_Oct2021.indd 91

2 0 2 1

9/21/21 3:10 PM

COMMUNITY CLOSE-UP

CUMBERLAND COUNTY Carolina’s tourism promotion arm. That put it 10th most of the state’s 100 counties. Fayetteville Cumberland County EDC Marketing Director Natalie LaVallee moved to Fayetteville when her husband was stationed at Fort Bragg. “We love the location,” she says. “The diversity is astounding, and that’s something I really look for in a city, because I love learning about different cultures.” Cumberland County Schools, for example, count 85 native languages among its nearly 51,000 students. But Van Geons says nothing illustrates diversity like Fayetteville’s food scene. A food lover can enjoy a culinary journey around the world simply by visiting its myriad international restaurants. From Vietnamese pho to Salvadorian pupusas, it is a foodie paradise. “Whether it’s Afghan food, Indian cuisine or authentic Thai that is so real and so spicy that even a fire guy like me can’t handle it, I love it all,” he says. Melody Foote is Fayetteville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau’s director of communications. She points to Dirtbag Ales Brewery & Taproom, a large craft brewer and event venue in Hope Mills. “The Dirtbag is a great place to visit anytime, but it is at its best on Sunday mornings, when it features its delicious brunch and farmer’s market,” she says. The brewery added whiskey and cocktails made with locally sourced ingredients this year. Foote’s list of must-do activities includes Cape Fear Botanical Garden, 80 acres of luscious greenery, ecosystems and year-round activities. Nestled between the Cape Fear River and Cross Creek, it is only about 2 miles from downtown Fayetteville. And if you want more outdoor adventures, she suggests visiting Zipquest Water-

B U S I N E S S

Cumberland_County_Oct2021.indd 92

N O R T H

fall and Treetop Adventure and Carvers Creek State Park. You don’t have to be a history buff to appreciate U.S. Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum, a monument to U.S. military heroes and a Fayetteville crown jewel. It preserves and presents more than 80 years of U.S. Army Airborne and Special Forces heritage. The 59,000-square-foot museum is selfguided. Plan on three hours to see and interact with all that it offers. The museum has a large exhibit gallery and theater. It’s hosting a field of honor, where hundreds of U.S. flags will fly through the end

of November. “History is all around you in the museum and it is very inspiring,” says Jim Bartlinski, the museum’s director. “And you never know who you might meet there. It could be a recent war hero or a veteran of World War II. You may turn and find someone who made history standing right beside you.” — Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.

The treetop adventure course crosses over Carver’s Falls.

C A R O L I N A

SPONSORED SECTION

9/21/21 3:10 PM

Cumberland_County_Oct2021.indd 93

9/21/21 3:11 PM

TOWNSQUARE

Burnsville

HIGH TIMES

+ TALKING POINTS

Mountainous Burnsville and Yancey County catch the eyes of tourists, industry and broadband enthusiasts.

B U R NSVI L L E

1,614 POPULATION

35 miles

DISTANCE TO ASHEVILLE

43 miles

DISTANCE TO JOHNSON CITY, TENN.

6,684 feet

▲Downtown Burnsville

ELEVATION OF MOUNT MITCHELL:

BY BRYAN MIMS

POPULATION OF YANCEY COUNTY IN 2020 CENSUS

652

NET GAIN IN COUNTY’S POPULATION FROM 2010, A 3.7% INCREASE.

Old Timey Days ANNUAL FALL FESTIVAL

$37,476

MEDIAN SALARY IN 2020

bout 400 miles away from where his bones rest inside a marble vault beneath live oaks, the daring sea captain fixes his flinty gaze toward the sunset. His back is turned toward the distant sea that enriched him and the coastal constituency that rebuffed him. Otway Burns, with streaks of green running down his copper legs, holds a bugle in his left hand and a sword in his right. “Sailor-soldier-statesman,” reads the plaque on his granite perch. “He guarded well the seas, let our mountains honor him.” Burns was a naval hero in the War of 1812 when he commanded a clipper called the Snap Dragon. As a privateer, he captained three cruises and seized more than 40 British boats from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas, raiding them of booty worth millions of dollars. Years after the war, Burns served in the North Carolina legislature, representing Carteret County along the coast. But voters kicked him out of office when he supported efforts to give western North Carolina more influence in the General Assembly. In 1833, he made the tie-breaking vote to allow for the formation of new counties in the mountains, including Yancey. A year later, local landowner John Bailey donated 100 acres for the county seat, insisting that it bear the name Burnsville in his honor. The statue of the seafarer is the centerpiece of the Burnsville town square, a village green with brick walkways, benches and stately trees. Across the street is the Garden Deli, its veranda veiled in shrubs, flowers and vines. At the Snap Dragon bar, an offshoot of the deli, guests can nurse a Capt. Burns Bloody Mary while drinking in the decor of fishing nets and a ship’s wheel — unlikely maritime furnishings for a bar deep in the Carolina mountains.

No longer dry Burnsville, with a population of fewer than 2,000, had been a dry town until 2010, when the citizens voted to allow alcohol sales. Yancey County, outside town limits, remains dry. The Garden

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

2-Townsquare_Burnsville_October 2021-2.indd 94

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAM DEAN

18,470

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:31 AM

▲ John Silver started Homeplace Beer in 2017.

Deli’s owner, Greg Yuziuk, now had an opportunity to complement the deli with a bar, and the town’s namesake inspired him to build it with a nautical theme. He opened Snap Dragon in 2015. “I wanted a nice place like you would see in an airport and isn’t a honky tonk and has fine food.” A couple of years later, Burnsville native John Silver slaked his own thirst for beer in this once-dry town. He honed his craft at breweries in the Asheville area before returning to Burnsville to launch Homeplace Beer Co. in 2017. The place outgrew its original home, and in February 2020 Silver opened a brewery and taphouse in a three-story brick building on West Main Street. His farm-to-pint beers use ingredients produced in Yancey County. The Brown Mule English Brown Ale, for example, is brewed with honey from local beekeepers. On a sprawling lawn outside the brewery, people sit and sip at picnic tables shaded by red umbrellas; rocking and Adirondack chairs cluster around a fire pit. “If Burnsville was gonna have a brewery, it would be a lot easier to succeed if it was opened by someone who was a native,” says Silver, 41. “We’re just that kind of town. We got a lot of good, local support early on from the people I knew and grew up with.”

our marketing.” Burnsville delivers on rustic accommodations. Overlooking the town square, Nu Wray Inn beckons with its long line of rocking chairs on the front porch, its creaky wooden floors topped with oval, braided rugs, and its communal parlors with antique furniture. The Nu Wray dates back to 1833, making it older than the town itself. The inn expanded over the years to become a three-story, clapboard Colonial with 26 guest rooms, though only 14 are available for rent. In 2014, two couples bought the Nu Wray: Joey and

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SAM DEAN

Mountain getaway Come October, Silver’s hometown is aflame in color. The Black Mountains, looming like ramparts to the south, erupt into crimson and lemon and orange, seducing carloads of leaf lookers. Mount Mitchell, thrusting 6,684 feet — the highest mountain in eastern America — scrapes the sky a few miles from the town square. Located about 35 miles northeast of Asheville, Burnsville is an antidote to the eclectic city’s crowds and energy, an easy-to-reach refuge since U.S. 19E was widened in recent years to four lanes through Yancey County. Now Burnsville is linked to Interstate 26 and Asheville with a multilane highway. In the past year and a half, tourist spending has nearly tripled in the county, according to Christy Jones, executive director of the Burnsville-Yancey Chamber of Commerce. She says the pandemic likely played a role. “People are looking for a place to get away from a lot of other people,” she says. “They’re looking to get outside of the cities and find a place where they can safely have a vacation. And we used all that excess funding that we got to drive

▲ The eastern United States’ highest peak is near the Blue Ridge Parkway and about 35 miles from Burnsville.

Jill Farmer, along with Joey’s cousin, Eric Wilson, and his wife, Christy. The couples had experience in the hospitality business, owning the Cabins at Asheville in Candler. When they learned this historic inn was on the market, they saw a place perfect for weddings and special events. “We just fell in love with the town and the people,” Jill says. “Every year — and we’ve had it for seven years — it seems to get a little busier.”

O C T O B E R

2-Townsquare_Burnsville_October 2021-2.indd 95

2 0 2 1

9/22/21 10:32 AM

TOWNSQUARE

Burnsville

▲ Artists Nathan Favors and Kristen Page of Page Pottery.

Trucks and textiles

Beyond the shops downtown, Burnsville has some heavy industry. Yancey County’s largest manufacturer is Birmingham, Ala.-based Altec, which employs 850 who make aerial lifts, truckmounted cranes and midsized utility trucks, according to Jamie

B U S I N E S S

N O R T H

2-Townsquare_Burnsville_October 2021-2.indd 96

McMahan, the county planning and economic director. Glen Raven Custom Fabrics, a textile manufacturer headquartered near Burlington, employs about 250 at its Burnsville plant, which makes the Sunbrella fabric for awnings and upholstery. A recent addition is a high-tech greenhouse for growing lettuce hydroponically. Devens, Mass.-based Little Leaf Farms plans a $91 million investment and 100 jobs, with construction expected to start by next spring. More industry and people are sure to come, because a picturesque town has a powerful pull. Look at that town square: “So incredible, it’s just really special,” says Caroline Musselwhite, who’s whiling away an afternoon knitting outside YummiYarns. And those mountains: “Look around,” she continues. “You drive two

▲ Pig and Grits may be the state’s highest-altitude barbecue restaurant.

minutes and you have a view.” The daring captain has his eyes forever fixed on those mountains. He was a flatlander, a man of the sea who never set foot in the town that bears his name — yet this town never turned its back on him. Burnsville is like that: Honoring its foundation, welcoming outsiders, and enjoying the view. ■ Bryan Mims is a writer and reporter at WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SAM DEAN, BURNSVILLE YANCEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Curtain call

An overnight stay in Burnsville might include taking in a play at the Parkway Playhouse, the oldest continually operating summer theater in North Carolina. Founded in 1947 by a drama professor, the independent theater company hosts musicals, comedies and plays from May through October. The pandemic halted performances last year, and 90% of revenue disappeared. But the shows are back, albeit with limited capacity and mask mandates. For October, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” takes the mainstage. This Saturday afternoon, the big red building is locked and no shows are scheduled. Amid a sudden thunderstorm, theater volunteer Jerry d’Aquin, 77, gets drenched while clearing weeds and scrap wood on the building’s perimeter. “We decided that we should give the old place a haircut and spiff it up and do all the things that haven’t been done for a year,” he says. “It’s great to be back.” D’Aquin moved to Burnsville five years ago after living in Montana for 25 years. As a work-from-home consultant for the sulphur industry, he needed better internet connections than Big Sky Country could offer, so he cast a wide net and found reliably speedy service in Burnsville. Those high speeds came courtesy of the 2009 federal stimulus bill that funded a $25 million project to run fiber-optic broadband to all homes and businesses in Yancey County. With robust internet and splendid mountain horizons, d’Aquin loves his new home. “Here we’ve got different but very intriguing mountains,” he says. “We’ve got a plethora of art and crafts generated by the local population. The food is great; the music is fabulous.” When the weather is good, Main Street teems on weekends with people drifting in and out of shops. They sit at sidewalk tables savoring lattes and reubens from Appalachian Java. They clutch waffle cones from Cool Catz Candy and Cream. There’s a delightful little bookstore called the Book Cellar. A barbecue restaurant is labeled Pig and Grits.

C A R O L I N A

9/22/21 10:32 AM

Back_Covers_3-4_Oct2021.indd 1

9/21/21 3:15 PM

Back_Covers_3-4_Oct2021.indd 2

9/21/21 3:15 PM

Business North Carolina October 2021

Articles inside

MAKING IT TO 40