Capital at Play April 2015 by Capital at Play Magazine

Vaughan’s Nursery

With a Little Bit of Bloomin’ Luck p.12

Adam Wilson

World View with a Radical Name p.66

The Free Spirit Of Enterprise

Block House Steeplechase THE

Tryon’s Equestrian Tradition

p.39

columns

Should Your Sommelier also be your Journalist? p. 24 Harnessing the Power of the Mind for Success p. 58 Need a Passport Just to Visit your Bank? p. 76 Volume V - Edition IV complimentary edition

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have occasionally found myself at lunch or dinner with individuals who insist on having the seat facing the door. Though a strange request, a better question might be why do I hear it at all (truly speaking, more times than I can count on one hand). Some people just have to have an exit strategy, I suppose. An exit can come in many shapes and the opportunity for a good one comes perhaps more often than we might realize.

For this edition we talk with folks who have exited and entered operations in many ways and various forms. One business, Vaughan’s Nursery in Newland, North Carolina, has changed hands in recent years to the benefit of that business, as well as to its previous and current owners (p.12). There are many others in our family business succession article who are faced with slightly more delicate circumstances. Occasionally, one where they hand an operation off to someone whose initial qualification is genetic, though it’s not often the primary one for long (p.30). We also talk with Andy Strauss, a venture capitalist turned estate attorney, who watches and even facilitates this process from time to time (p.50). One thing is clear: It isn’t always easy, or graceful, but it can be if you approach it calmly, in advance, with a little style and a touch of grace. Regardless of the where, when, and how, as a business owner or a team member, we all make exits repeatedly and finally. Though the only exit I desire at the moment is one that leads to the rapidly warming streets and mountains beyond my office. I suggest you do the same but only after you read this edition…

Sincerely,

Oby Morgan

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

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F E AT U R E S vol. v

VAUGHAN’S NURSERY WITH A LITTLE BIT OF BLOOMIN’ LUCK

ed. iv

ANDY STRAUSS HOW TO EXIT IN STYLE

ADAM WILSON WORLD VIEW WITH A RADICAL NAME

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

C ON T EN T S a p r i l 2 015

The Block House Races in Tryon, photo by Anthony Harden

Family business succession

The Block House Steeplechase

An Underground Society

lo c a l i n d u s t r y

Passing the torch begins with conversation

colu m ns

24 S hould Your Sommelier also be your Journalist? Written by John Kerr

58 H arnessing the Power

of the Mind for Success Written by Jackie Dobrinska

76 N eed a Passport Just to Visit your Bank? Written by Ryan Cofield 10

| April 2015

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this page : Various climbing plants facing page : A plug,

the beginning of the growing process

| April 2015

With a little bit of

BLOOMIN’ LUCK

Sixty-eight years in, Vaughan’s Nursery adapts, expands, and adapts some more… written by roger mccredie April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

| April 2015

top : Aloe lower lef t : Peace Lily

(Spathiphyllum, genus)

lower right : Staghorn Fern

Even without snow on the ground, there’s a bleak beauty to the North Carolina high country in winter. The landscape is the flat gray-brown of bare trees and fallen leaves, with the occasional dark green of conifers, all rendered duller this morning by a sky the color of cement.

And it’s cold. Not biting, wind-whipped, take-your-breathaway cold, but the still, heavy kind that seeps into everything. For a good few miles, heading northeast up beyond Burnsville, the landscape with its indifferent sky is all there is. And truth to tell, that’s almost all there used to be, between here and the college town of Boone, until about half a century ago when two things happened: (1) some ambitious developers decided Western North Carolina could compete with New England and the Rockies as a skiing destination; and (2) some equally ambitious arborists decided the topography, which wasn’t good for much else, could support plantations of Fraser firs and help furnish America with Christmas trees. The ski resort business, which was launched with the opening of Cataloochee and Wolf Laurel to the southwest, spread to the high country almost immediately. First there was Beech Mountain, then Sugar Mountain, then Sapphire Valley, and a April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

| April 2015

spate of others, some now defunct. As for the Christmas trees, Avery County— where we’re headed—is at the epicenter of that industry: North Carolina ranks second in the United States in terms of trees harvested and cash receipts, generated by some 400 growers statewide. W hich makes for an interesting economic narrative, but has only marginally to do with why we’re going to Avery County on this cold, gray January morning. We mentioned earlier that before the skis and the trees there was almost nothing going on, businesswise, in these parts. But we’re going to visit an establishment that’s been alive and well and quietly flourishing here for almost 70 years: Vaughan’s Blue Ridge Nursery, on the fringe of the hamlet of Pineola, which is really an unincorporated neighborhood centered on the intersection of U.S. 221 and state highway 181. In the early 1900s there was a large sawmill in Pineola, and at one time the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad—better known as “Tweetsie”—passed through, but it abandoned Pineola in 1939. Vaughan’s came along eight years later. “Mr. Vaughan had been in the hosiery business,” says Shuford Carpenter, who owns the place and runs it with a staff of about a dozen, depending on the season, along with family members. “He started the commercial nursery business and kept it going for a good while, but eventually it started going downhill.” We’re sitting in the makeshift office area behind the counter of the retail store section of the operation (more about that later), with Shuford looking at the ceiling and remembering.

facing page : Shuford Carpenter,

owner of Vaughan’s Nursery

this page (clockwise from top left): New Guinea Impatiens (Impatiens hawkeri), Centaurea, assortment of annuals, Coleus (Plectranthus, genus) April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

| April 2015

“See, I got out of high school in ’64 and I got a job working for AT&T. That paid the bills, but in the meantime I got bit by the Christmas tree bug—it was just starting to take hold—and I was looking for a way to get involved in it enough to break out on my own. In the meantime, in the 70s, AT&T laid off a bunch of folks. All of a sudden there wasn’t any work going on around here again except farming. That and the Christmas trees. “Vaughan’s was originally three plots of land in one—left, right, and center parcels. A bad ice and snow storm had ruined one side and there was a fire on the other side. There’d been about a

“Uh-uh. That’s a big no-no. See,” Shuford plucks a tag from a plug and indicates the writing on it, “these things are patented by the original grower. Every one of ’em. They’re coded. You can get fined for producing nontagged cuttings. It’s like moonshine.” hundred people working here—I think everybody in Avery County had worked for Vaughan’s at one time or another— and it had hit ‘em pretty hard. So the place, the middle part that was left, went up for auction. “Now I had no intention of gettin’ in the nursery business. The auction included all their equipment, so about $30,000 worth of equipment; that was all I was after for the Christmas tree operation; we didn’t even bid on the property, which had a patch of Christmas trees on it.

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“Well, the auction was on a Saturday, and they sold those two flank parcels—the ones that were damaged from the fire and the snowstorm—right off. Like I say, I didn’t think anything about it. I had my equipment; that was all I’d been interested in. The next Tuesday the phone rang, and it was my nephew. He just said, ‘Come up to Vaughan’s.’ Turned out they still had the middle parcel of land left; it hadn’t sold at auction. I got that phone call at 2:30. By 4:00 we were in the nursery business.” Fortunately, even in decline Vaughan’s had managed to retain a vestigial customer base. “We were so green we were actually dependent on our customers to tell us what we should be stocking and doing,” Shuford remembers. “They were a big help. We had to play catch-up right quick; we’d never been in the cut-flower raising business, but now here we were, getting ready to serve customers from as far away as Charlotte and Hickory, some from as far away as Ohio. “We started rebuilding all the infrastructure,” he says. “One thing we did that helped a lot was to put in natural gas. That gives us even, centralized heat all through the operation that we can adjust as needed. That’s important because being up here in the high hills our crops come in about a whole month later than, say, Charlotte. You know how tricky the weather can be up here in the spring.” Boy, howdy.

this page : A pot filling machine facing page (clockwise from top left): Robert Wise,

Shuford Carpenter, Christy Brown

“We do a lot of business with the local resorts, though,” Shuford says. “Them and local contractors. And since they’re close by, in Mitchell and Yancey counties besides here, they’re working with the same weather, the same growth season we are. So that helps even things out. Once we’re well into the season we’ll be sending a lot of stuff down to the Piedmont, to Charlotte and Hickory.” Shuford rises from the office couch and heads for the door, eagerly reaching for a cigarette he appears to have been looking forward to. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll show you the operation.” Back out in the cold, we’re looking at a row of enormous tent-like structures that resemble airplane hangars. Shuford opens a flap and motions us inside. The “tent,” it turns out, is actually made of a sturdy substance that’s opaque but allows the light in, so that the space is full of ambient daylight. It’s a greenhouse. (And we were expecting multitudinous panes of glass in metal frames.) The space is filled with long, long rows of April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

tables, each filled in turn with rows of shallow pots from which protrude what appear to be clusters of dead sticks. “These are cuttings in their rooting beds,” Shuford says. “They’re on a timed system. They’ll be sprinkled with water every fifteen minutes.” He points overhead and, sure enough, there are rows of horizontal metal sprinklers, spaced every few feet down the length of the greenhouse. “In all,” he says, “we’ve got eighteen of these cold frames and houses. Like I said, we’ve got gas furnaces in all of them. You can see we’ve got diffuse light and of course we’ve also got gro-lights that we can supplement that with. Everything is on a schedule—watering, feeding, light, according to what we’re raising in a given place. We can’t control the weather, but we can control what goes on in here pretty good. Come on; I’ll show

you something else.” He leads the way into a second greenhouse. This one is devoted to trays of tiny plantlings, the embryonic leaves no big ger than a housef ly, each sitting in a container smaller than a shot glass. All have coded tags stuck into their tiny pots. “These are what you call plugs,” Shuford says. “We buy them, mostly from South America, then we finish raising them ourselves. Plugs are probably our single biggest supply expense.” So why not buy just a few, raise them to adolescence, then take cuttings and raise those? Shuford grins as though the thought must have crossed his mind, maybe more than once, but he shakes his head ruefully. “Uh-uh. That’s a big no-no. See,” he plucks a tag from a plug and indicates the writing on it, “these things are patented by the

“I tell you, doin’ business with those big chains is like havin’ a tiger by the tail. Yeah, they buy big quantities, but because their own pricing is so low compared to independents, our profit margin with them is really slim.”

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original grower. Every one of ’em. They’re coded. You can get fined for producing non-tagged cuttings. It’s like moonshine. At four cents per untagged cutting that can add up to serious money.” Back outside, we pass a device like a miniature ferris wheel, where rows of pots ascend, are filled with dirt from a feeder shot, and descend to be taken away. “These pots are for new cuttings,” Shuford says. “This is our own potting soil, as you can see, “ he says, indicating the white pellets embedded in the black loam, “it’s already fertilized. Of course, it’s formulated according to what species is going into the pots. “In the spring these will be ready for us to take and sell. A lot of them will go to Charlotte or Hickory, some to South Carolina, and then a lot more to places like Home Depot in Atlanta.” He gives his head a shake. “I tell you, doin’ business with those big chains is like havin’ a tiger by the tail. Yeah, they buy big quantities, but because their own pricing is so low compared to independents, our profit margin with them is really slim. We’ll make some money back, though, doing contract landscape business with the resorts and the country clubs and development properties. In a few weeks we’ll have a full landscaping crew working full-time here and they’ll stay busy. Let’s go back inside.” Fine by us.

We re-enter through the front door of the retail business. “This is the retail florist operation,” Shuford says. “We got into that through the back door, too. We thought it would be a good idea if we had a retail side—something that brought in a cash stream all year round—so we bought up what used to be the old Newland Flower Shop—it had been in business since the ’60s—and turned it into our own retail florist and garden center.” He chuckles. “We closed the deal the week before Mother’s Day in 2008. Talk about another quick learning curve. Some of our customers had to teach us how to use the cash register.” Shuford waves an arm, encompassing the shop and everything outside. “This has all been one case after another of adapting to suit what was going on. I like to think we’ve covered the bases pretty well, up to now. We’re probably of the biggest operations of our kind in this part of the state, but to stay that way we’re going to have to be ready to adapt all the time.” He takes a grateful drag off his cigarette. “Adapt,” he says. “That’s it.”

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Should your Sommelier also be your Journalist (or Airline)?

HERE SHOULD YOU GO TO BU Y WINE? Wine is truly everywhere, and companies that you never imagined would try to sell you wine now demand your attention. You can’t walk down the aisle of a grocery store without someone offering you a taste of wine in a pill cup.

john kerr

is the co-owner of Metro Wines located on Charlotte Street in downtown Asheville.

But it doesn’t stop there. Gas stations, kitchen stores, and Amazon are now in the game. And yes, even your newspaper wants to ship you wine every month. So how did we get to this point? And are newspapers (and airlines) really the best source for wine and recommendations? It used to be that wine and wine recommendations were the domain of the local wine shop. And if you bought wine pretty much anywhere else, you were on your own. Walking down the wine aisle at the grocery store was often a lonely place, leaving you to choose a wine based on how much you liked its label. Since then, groceries have amped up their selections and many have a sommelier hovering about to help you. Several North Carolina groceries serve wine in their cafés. And some in other states have retooled the baby seats in grocery carts to hold a glass and bottle. Now you can sip away while perusing brands of laundry detergent. The explosion of wine is hardly restricted to groceries, and changes in laws have opened the doors for just about any company to offer wine. I’ll bet that you have at least three wine purveyors within one mile of your home, not counting bars and restaurants. But if a sea of wine within a short driving distance isn’t enough, there are many companies who are happy

| April 2015

to ship it to you. The fastest growing venue is the wine shipper. Is it price that drives this bus? Websites entice you with low prices. But in many cases the savings aren’t there once you add in the shipping charges. So is it selection? True, you can find many wines online that are not available in North Carolina. But it’s also true that North Carolina wine shops sell and ship many high quality wines that are a lower price or not offered by the big New Jersey shippers, particularly wines from Europe (we’ll cover this in a future article). Many of these remarkable wines come from wineries so small that the wines are unrated and under the radar. Any local wine purveyor worth its salt has already done the homework and can give you access to great wellpriced wines exclusive to your home state. The real growth in wine sales is coming from the wine clubs. Many are run by people who are actually in the wine business. The rest of this article is about people offering wine clubs whose main business is not wine. At this point, I remind you that I own a wine shop. But I think you’ll find my comments in line with those of many independent wine critics and commenters. With a bit of Googling and a careful read of their advertisements, I think you’ll find this discussion to be on the right track.

J JEWELRY It’s rare to open a major newspaper or magazine without running into their half page offer to ship you wine. The ads say that “our mission” is to provide you wines selected by “our team” of seasoned wine professionals. Many people who’ve read these ads think that the publications’ wine journalists are the ones selecting their wines. But if you check the very small print, you’ll see that the publications usually contract with one of two companies, either Direct Wines or Global Wine Company. This means that the wine clubs from the different publications receive wines selected pretty much from one pool selected by a given wine company. So, what’s wrong with a couple of companies choosing the wines for us? Nothing really if you’re getting what’s advertised. Many clubs talk about being exclusive or offering boutique wines. But are they exclusive if they are being shipped to every member across the United States? Some of the wines are only available through their club. But as Lettie Teague, Wall Street Journal’s wine journalist, quipped after trying two lackluster club wines: “Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find (this wine) sold anywhere else?” Several of the wines I recognize in the club advertisements are good wines, but knowing the level of distribution, it would be hard for me to call these wines exclusive. If the value is there, it really shouldn’t matter where the wine comes from. But if you don’t know the winery and the club is the only source, how do you know you’re getting a good value? A couple of customers recently asked me to find them wines they bought through a club. Even with the information on the bottle, I could not locate the winery. My best guess is that some wineries don’t want you to know that it’s them and are bottling under another name. The unknown winery can go both ways for a consumer since it’s common knowledge in the industry that many high end wineries will keep supply down (and thus demand up) by selling their wine at a lower price under a different label. But since you can’t check a club-exclusive wine’s price with the competition, it’s hard to tell if you’re getting value. Several of the club wines I recognize from an established winery averaged about $2 higher than the price I’ve seen in North Carolina wine shops. And that’s before the shipping cost of about $19.99. So, is there an upside to the wine clubs? Decidedly yes. It’s fun not to know which wines will appear at your door step each month. And it’s a perfect opportunity to

IT ’S R ARE TO OPEN A MAJOR NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE WITHOUT RUNNING INTO THEIR HALF PAGE OFFER TO SHIP YOU WINE. THE ADS SAY THAT “OUR MISSION” IS TO PROVIDE YOU WINES SELECTED BY “OUR TEAM” OF SEASONED WINE PROFESSIONALS. try grapes or wines you may not have known about or thought to try. Pretty much all the clubs try to enhance the experience by including “free tasting notes,” and many include recipes that pair well with the wines. So a wine club probably works best if you’d like to explore the large variety of wines out there in the world or you happen to live far from a good source of wine. But many wine critics think club wines are more like a grocery store and not reliably good. My (perhaps biased) recommendation is to consider a local source. At least the owner will have to look you in the eye the next time you walk in.

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news briefs

“Save the Honeybee” with License Plates rutherfordton, nc

A group of NC State students wanted to set up a honeybee colony at Grandfather Mountain. Their stated objective was raising awareness about how insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides were imperiling honeybees, whose pollinating is like a lynchpin in Earth’s foodchain. The group, known as the Bee Aware Science Team, won a $25,000 competitive grant from the federally-funded Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation program. They procured enough funding to install hives, populate them with bees, plant chemical-free flowers, and put up electrical fencing to keep the bears out. They have taken their presentation to schools, garden clubs, libraries, and growers. They needed to hire a beekeeper,

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but their funding was cut short through general legislative action. To raise money the group is now marketing a special bee license plate. It has a picture of a bee and the phrase, “Save the Honeybee.” If the group can garner 500 commitments to buy the plate by April 1, the legislature will consider approving the design. Each plate purchased would raise $10 for the Division of Motor Vehicles and $5 for the beekeeper.

SkyFi Accepts the Last Mile Challenge jackson county, nc

Travis Lewis and Mark Zoran want to complete “the last mile.” The hip expression refers to getting Internet to Appalachian families too remote and

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dispersed to make fiber, cable, or DSL economically feasible. Large companies cannot recoup costs for service. Although the upfront costs of wireless are far less expensive, they’re steep enough to have dissuaded the last two entrepreneurs who attempted to take on the challenge. The system will require land leases, connecting to the grid with pertinent fees, tying in to the fiber network, buying bandwidth from a local provider, and procurement of government permits. Lewis plans to reduce costs by building his main tower on commercial land he owns. The two relay towers will be on land discounted by Jackson County. Lewis will pay $3 per person served by a tower. The county also waived the $4000 tower permit fee. Lewis has signed no customers to date; he is proceeding with $100,000 of his own money. His business, SkyFi, will enter a market with only a handful of competitors: Sky Tech, run by his cousin in Murphy; Sky Runner in Asheville; and 3DB that is in its infant stages in Haywood County. Lewis plans to expand pay-go with profits from the system. Lewis is an established businessman in Jackson County, managing the family’s Lewis Carpet store and running his own accounting services company. Zoran runs a security systems business, Imperial Security.

The Surf Could Always Be Up in Asheville asheville, nc

Local leaders in government and industry have been toying around with the idea of creating a whitewater park on the French Broad River in downtown Asheville for decades. The park would use a dam and a system of gates to generate synthetic surf waves for outdoor adventure enthusiasts. Plans inched forward when the Asheville Parks and Greenways Foundation, local businesses, and developer Harry Pilos footed the $13,000 bill for a feasibility study. It was conducted by Scott Shipley, who is a professional consultant and developer for whitewater parks. His business, S2O Design and Engineering, is based in Boulder, Colorado. The company has built whitewater parks in Colorado, Texas, and New Zealand, as well as the whitewater course for the London Olympics. It is also responsible for the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, but Shipley thinks the natural French Broad foundation would see Asheville outperforming that attraction handsdown. Shipley is himself an Olympic and World Cup kayaking champion, having

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trained on the Nantahala River. Perks that will appeal to local governments and activist groups include riverside mitigation and flood control with no harm to routes of migration for fish and other species. The study showed the natural course of the river is amenable, feasibly, to the civil engineering required, and that FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers are likely to permit it. All it needs now is about $1.78 million.

Project Granite Unmasked mills river, nc

Raumedic, a German manufacturer of plastic medical parts, selected a site in Mills River for its expansion to the United States. The decision was egged on by up to $500,000 offered from the state’s One NC Fund, up to $783,625.20 from Henderson County, $817,802 from the Town of Mills River, and other cash and/ or in-kind contributions from the North Carolina Department of Transportation, the North Carolina Community College System, Duke Energy, NCWorks, and the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development. Seeking

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approval before the public, the economic development incentives could only be known as “Project Granite.” Commerce secretary John Skvarta explained the company’s international success for over fifty years merited the inducements. In return, Raumedic is promising to build a $27.1 million, 60,000-square-foot plant and headquarters at Broadpointe Industrial Park in Mills River. Facilities would include a state-of-the-art clean room. Raumedic intends to hire 172 employees in the foreseeable future. They will be paid an average wage of over $55,000. This will add to Raumedic’s 583 employees and the REHAU group’s 18,000 employees worldwide. Local leaders anticipate Raumedic will catalyze additional development in the park.

RFP for 50 Megawatts of Solar Power western north carolina

Duke Energy has sent out a request for proposals (RFP) for projects that would generate up to 50 megawatts of solar power in North Carolina. Projects as small as two megawatts will be considered for tying into Duke’s Green

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Source Rider. That program allows large, nonresidential consumers to purchase renewable energy for new or expanded facilities. It is a means of “offsetting” increased power consumption in a way that does not compromise demand from other customers. After a year of consulting with businesses, Duke has decided in-state solar systems would be the most strategic form of offsets. Duke intends to work with interested consumers on project optimization. The developers of the solar facilities will enter into contracts to sell power to Duke for up to fifteen years or arrange for Duke to acquire the systems. The successful candidates will be judged on “pricing, customer preference, and other considerations.” Duke is pushing for projects to be up and running by the end of the year if possible, but it would not exclude projects deliverable in 2016. Duke currently owns or purchases almost 600 megawatts of solar capacity in the state. Late last year it received regulatory approval to spend $500 million on expanding its solar domain.

Students Operate Credit Union Branch hendersonville, nc

Mountain Credit Union, in partnership with Henderson County Public Schools, opened a student-run, in-school branch at West Henderson High. Student-run branches are common in Charlotte and Winston-Salem, but this will be the first in Western North Carolina. The concept is not uncommon around the country. Students and teachers will be able to open accounts for depositing and withdrawing cash. The branch will be run by vetted students trained and overseen by credit union personnel who will ensure accuracy and confidentiality. Located near the cafeteria, the credit union will be open three days a week during lunch. It will follow the students’ schedule, closing for holidays, snow days, and exam days. In addition to providing a venue for job skills training, the credit 28

| April 2015

union’s stated objectives include teaching youth and teachers money and credit score management and creating a new generation of savers.

CNC Lab Cuts Housing Costs asheville, nc

A 74-year-old semi-retiree is doing something to address Asheville’s housing shortage. A recent study commissioned by the City of Asheville reported that 67 percent of residents can afford housing priced no higher than $200,000, but only 27 percent of housing stock falls in that range. After moving to Asheville, Joe Kimmel partnered with Nicholas Godfrey in South Carolina to start building emergency shelters for victims of disaster. Godfrey owns a digital fabrication lab modeled after the one at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After some time in the business, the duo decided to focus on one disaster in particular: the housing market. Using modern upgrades of the concepts of CAD (computer aided design) and CNC (computer numerical control), the company essentially 3D-prints blueprints, albeit piece by piece. Time, labor, and money are saved as components go straight from the design screen to the computer for lowwaste, precision fabrication. The new company, K&G Fine and Small Homes, manufactures durable, environmentally-sensitive, 1,000-2,100-square-foot housing, starting at $86,000 plus land costs. Kimmel is also the founder of Kimmel & Associates, an Ashevillebased, specialized executive search firm.

Dynamite Coffee in The Fresh Market black mountain, nc

Dynamite Roasting Company, a small business in Black Mountain, will now have to invest in new equipment to

meet demand. The Fresh Market, an upscale grocery chain with 160 stores in 27 states, has decided to market Dynamite’s coffee beans. Co-owners Andy Gibbon and Josh Gibbs are confident they can scale up while preserving the quality of their products for the more than 150 restaurants, cafés, and groceries they already supply. Dynamite is an artisan coffee roaster that sells coffee by the cup or by the bag. It sells only certified-organic and fair-trade products. Gibbon and Gibbs are connoisseurs; they know the nuances and can identify distinctions among beans from Colombia, Brazil, and Peru. Like characters on a coffee commercial, the two travel the world in search of the perfect bean. They will soon make a third trip to Honduras and later return to Rwanda to talk to growers. The coffee brokers will then see to it that the green beans they select are hand-picked and loaded into burlap bags for shipping and storage. Packed that way, unlike popular commercial products, they will keep their flavor for as long as a year.

Pinball Museum Moving Down the Road asheville, nc

The Asheville Pinball Museum will be moving down the road. The new location will be able to hold 100 patrons, whereas the existing site, which will stay open to the very last minute, can only hold 45. Owner TC DiBella says it pained him to see kids crying because their parents didn’t want to wait in a two-hour-long line. To fill the space, DiBella is adding to his offerings. Currently, the museum houses thirty machines and six arcade games. Among other offerings will be a back room for fifteen classic video games. The museum offers hands-on educational experience for kids. It also takes parents back to a day when games of skill were more mechanical than digital. DiBella collects and sells machines at the museum as well. Admission is $10 for adults and $7 for children 12

and under, but DiBella thinks $12 for an all-day pass might be in the works. The new location is at 1 Battle Square, Suite 1A. DiBella is anxious about the change, but since he isn’t moving too far, he expects he will not lose customers. The new location could open on April 1st, but to avoid stigma, he is pushing for an April 2nd opening. DiBella runs the museum with help from his wife, Brandy, and technician John French.

Junior League launches Volunteer-A-Thon asheville, nc

The Junior League of Asheville held their inaugural Volunteer-A-Thon on March 21, 2015 and volunteered their time, talents, and energy at three different nonprofits in Asheville. The Volunteer-A-Thon brought active and sustaining Junior League of Asheville members, as well as other community volunteers, together through a day of service with Helpmate, Steadfast House, and Claxton Elementary, all while raising funds to sustain its long-standing mission of “promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving [the] community through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers.” “This event was a great opportunity to make an impact in three diverse areas of need in Buncombe County while raising valuable funds to sustain the League,” said Keri Wilson, president of the Junior League of Asheville. The volunteers’ work at Claxton Elementary and Helpmate included landscaping, painting, and a general cleanup of the grounds. At Steadfast House, members redecorated two of the “Mom” rooms by painting and organizing. Volunteers also made repairs to kitchens and bathrooms, along with pressure washing the outside of the house, collecting donations of household goods and furniture, and preparing dinner for residents.

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local industry

Passing the Torch: The Path to Family Business Succession Begins with a Conversation

written by emily ball ard photos by anthony harden

tarting a family business can be challenging; maintaining it can be even harder.

Think about the reasons behind starting a venture such as this. Most companies start with an idea or an “aha” moment. Wouldn’t it be great if we could work for ourselves? What if we could make money doing this? And once this conceptualization becomes a reality, business is booming, success and fulfillment attained, a legacy is born. When the time comes for the founders to pass their baby on to the next generation with dreams of keeping it in the family and maintaining their vision and hard earned enterprise, what if that next generation doesn’t want it? Or what if all the siblings want it? What if they want to change it or sell it? This is when many idyllic family run operations crumble, businesses fail, and legacies fade into the abyss of forgotten ideas and failed endeavors. Statistically speaking family business succession rates are low. Only about 30% of family businesses survive to the second generation, 30

| April 2015

clockwise from top left :

Jim Daniels of Daniels Graphics

Eva-Michelle Greene & Elliott Spicer, of Wick & Greene Jewelers

Kemper Brown Jr. of The Electronic Office Photo by Bill Fishburne Buzzy Cannady of MB Haynes Corporation

Oscar Wong of Highland Brewing Company

Bob Carr of Tops for Shoes

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

local industry

13% into the third generation, and only a mere 3% carry into the fourth generation or beyond, according to the Family Business Institute. But it’s not all doom and gloom. There are some real success stories both nationally and locally that defy these dire figures. And, despite an unstable economy there are many family businesses that are thriving and growing, and resources abound for aiding those families through the process of transitioning to the next generation. So don’t give up hope just yet. With the proper tools, the keys to the kingdom can easily be passed down to family members for years to come and generations to follow.

Banding Together

“We are seeing that family businesses are really the backbone of the economy; it’s not larger companies and corporations. Sure, they hire hundreds of people, but it’s these smaller companies all across America that are lasting and surviving,” says Cindy Clarke, executive director of UNC Asheville Family Business Forum. Cindy’s office sits at the end of a long hallway in a building on the UNC Asheville campus that the Family Business Forum shares with the Department of Advancement. Cindy is energetic and passionate about what she does. As she goes through her list of members, she speaks about each company as if they are her own family. She enthusiastically points to business names and gives detailed accounts of brothers and sisters that inherited the business after unexpected deaths, patriarchs with high expectations for their successors, and countless stories of successful business transitions. She is from Buncombe County and has been with the Family Business Forum for eight years and is a plethora of knowledge when it comes to companies in the community and their history. Cindy feels the forum fits nicely into UNC Asheville as an educational program. She says the object of joining is not to network, although this does frequently happen, but the primary reason to join is to learn. The Forum is a membership based organization, offering ten seminars a year on topics relevant to family businesses, such as panel discussions on effective succession planning, speakers on how to best work with your spouse, and a workshop fleshing out the realities of relationships in the family business. “Just because they are doing well doesn’t mean they can’t do better. They need to seek out resources. And ‘all you need is love,’” Cindy shakes her head. “There is a lot more needed

| April 2015

Leah Wong Ashburn & Oscar Wong of Highland Brewing, photo courtesy of Highland Brewing

than love and you have to plan it out. It really is in the humility of the current person in charge. It really comes down to that, particularly if the guy in charge now is the founder. That’s like the first love and their identity is wrapped up in that. And giving up the business is like giving up a bit of themselves. That is the number one problem with succession. Lack of a plan and Dad can’t get out of the way.” Working with family can be complicated, emotional, and just plain messy. Think about sitting around the dinner table or holiday get-togethers and all the opinions and strong personalities that encompass these events. Home relationships carry over into work relationships and this can be dangerous when money and business are involved.

Every business succession is different. For some families it is what Cindy calls an “unspoken rite of passage.” It is expected and assumed. For others it is an unexpected turn of events. There are elaborate succession plans and there are more naturally progressing plans, but it all starts in the discussion. “It really starts within the family. Are we ready to have the discussion? And it is hard to have that discussion. The Forum is a great way to start the conversation,” Cindy says. “Being part of an association is huge. There is definitely power through numbers and shared experiences. That’s really powerful.” A key to success is defining the roles within the company and within the family. This can be quite the challenge. Traditionally the son would inherit the business as the “person in charge”, but what has worked historically may not be appropriate for today’s company. More and more women are breaking the mold and taking the reins in leading the progression of the family business.

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A Succession Unfolding

Speaking of strong women in the workplace, enter Leah Wong Ashburn, vice president of Highland Brewing Company. Oh wait, correction, as of January 1st, Leah will be assuming the role of president of the company, a title held by her father, Oscar Wong, the founder and owner. When Oscar started the business it was more of a hobby. He had sold his engineering company and moved his family to Asheville due to his love of the mountains, fresh air, and the culture of the people here. Leah refers to this as “a failed retirement”. Having an on-the-go personality, in 1994 he and two brewers started what they thought would maybe be the neighborhood brewery. This failed retirement would soon become wildly successful. Keep in mind that at this time there wasn’t a craft brewery on every corner. This was more or le s s u ncha r tered territory, and the Wong family had no idea that they would be at the forefront of what would later become a booming industry in Western North Carolina. But tracing back to the beginning, we have an experimental new business and a 24-year-old Leah at a crossroads in her life, trying to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up. “When he started the brewery I was there drinking beer,

“It was so weird and so unplanned. Sometimes the less sexy the job, that’s where some real opportunities are,” says Leah Wong Ashburn.

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local industry

Alex Carr of Tops for Shoes

80%

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are family owned family businesses account for

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of the gdp (g r o s s d o m e s t i c p r o d u c t )

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expect the next CEO to be a woman, and over the past five years women owned family businesses have increased by 37%

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are unhappy with their succession plan or do not have one at all

62%

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Kemper and Kemper Brown Jr. of The Electronic Office 34

| April 2015

believe it unlikely that their business will remain in the family by the next generation (Statistics obtained from Family Business Alliance, Harvard Business Review, KSU Coles College of Business, and Gaebler Ventures)

not making money, and thought free beer would be great. So I asked him for a job, and he said no and kind of told me to find my own way,” Leah recalls. She says that he forced her to find her own path, and she found a way to use her journalism degree in a unique way, through an opportunity in the publishing and printing industry and combined it with education. She worked for a yearbook company and used her teaching skills, skills she didn’t know would interest her, in going to schools and teaching classes on the computer programming side of it. “It was so weird and so unplanned. Sometimes the less sexy the job, that’s where some real opportunities are.” Finding her niche market, she ran a successful one person business for 13 years, transforming a sales job into an educational job, and finding fulfillment and independence she didn’t even know she was looking for. Sometime midway through her career, her father came to her and said: “You have learned a lot and are doing well and you have great skills, what do you think about coming to the brewery?” Leah was a huge proponent of the beer and the company, but was enjoying her successes and felt it wasn’t the right time. It was her turn to say no to the prospect of working for the family business. The topic would come up many more times over the years, but Leah still wasn’t ready to take the plunge. Eventually the industry she was working in changed and evolved and her love for her job began to wane. She felt the urge to be part of something bigger and after meeting her husband, who enthusiastically encouraged the change, she was ready. She cites the importance of priority and timing as the key factors in her decision to make the move. But she didn’t fall into a nepotism role in the company from the beginning. In fact, she started out in a part-time sales position based in Charlotte. Two years ago she took on a marketing role here in Asheville and feels there was a perfect gradual transition to find the right fit for her place in the company. Leah says that as she steps into her father’s role she has made him promise her that the daily activities would not change and that he would still be there. He has no intention of going anywhere and will be acting vice president and board chair, still very much a part of the company he has grown to success. “He has so much fun he is not going anywhere. He can continue to do more of the stuff that he loves and less of the stuff that he doesn’t want to do, and he deserves that. I can’t fill his shoes; I have to fill different shoes and, with the team that we have built, I have all the confidence in the world that the company will be in great hands for the next 20 years.” As far as succession planning goes, Oscar really did his homework in talking to accountants, bankers, and lawyers to ensure that all their ducks were in a row for the transition. Leah joined the Family Business Forum to affirm that they were in fact proceeding in the right direction. She says the most important part has been open communication about the financials and the tough business decisions, eliminating any

Ellis Cannady of MB Haynes Corporation

Kemper Brown of The Electronic Office

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

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surprises, and remembering that you are not just dealing with an employee but also a family member, and that can be an emotional thing. “If you have the opportunity to, let folks find their own path and work outside the family company, and then let them come in when they are ready and when they want to. If that time has already passed and they come into the company in an almost automatic process, assess it really carefully because in the long run it may not do the family, which is the most important thing, a good service. It has been neat that I get to work with my Dad as a peer. I really appreciate that opportunity, and I think I appreciate it more because I worked in other places.” There aren’t that many second generation craft breweries in the country and there are even far fewer female run second generation, if any. “Just a wee bit different” is the company motto, and Leah and her family seem to be successfully adhering to this concept.

A Community of Family Businesses

There are plenty of national companies that are family run, think Ford Motor Company and Campbell Soup. Crane & Co., a national stationary business, is seventh-generational. Woolrich Company is currently led by the seventh and eighth-generation family members. But if you look closer to home you will find hundreds of family led companies that have been passed down from generation to generation right here in Western North Carolina. MB Haynes Corporation is a company that has changed hands from father to his two sons, and currently employs the third generation family members. N.E. Cannady III (Buzzy) and his brother Brett Cannady have followed a different path for the business and established an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). As the business grew to its almost 540 employees, the brothers felt they needed to create an opportunity in which the family members are still

involved, but also a means for the family to be able get out of the business when they want to without just trying to sell it. “My father invited us to work for the business from the ground up. I admire my Dad for letting us get involved and trusting us. The business has been big enough to keep two brothers and their families financially stable, and, as the company has grown and become more complicated, we feel the ESOP is the right decision for the long term plan of changing ownership,” says Buzzy, president and CEO. Wick & Greene Jewelers is another perfect example of a family business that has persisted and flourished over its almost 89 years of existence, a longevity as rare as the unique jewelry that they provide. Much like Leah’s experience with her father, fourth generation family member Eva-Michelle Greene was encouraged by her family to establish her own career before becoming a partner in the successful jewelry business. Eva-Michelle followed in her father’s footsteps, as well as her grandfather’s. Starting at an early age she showed interest in the business and followed her passions through education and experience, and then came full circle to bring that knowledge back to her home base and family birthright. “The fourth generation of anything, let alone a local business, is no longer commonplace. I am extremely grateful to the three generations that precede me,” said Eva-Michelle. A common factor that is essential when working with family and the evolution of the business is communication. Kemper Brown Jr. knows this first hand. He enjoys working with his father at The Electronic Office, a local company that provides network support and technology advice to businesses. Kemper’s father is still very much active as president of the company that he founded, but inevitably one day he will relinquish his position, hopefully into the hands of his namesake. “There isn’t one right way to approach succession, and just beginning the process of succession and succession planning can sometimes be the hardest part,” says Kemper Brown Jr. “The road to the next generation (my generation) will undoubtedly have challenges, but throughout the process, however that evolves, my hope is that the process allows our team to continue pushing the business forward.” The processes may vary, but the components that bind these families and businesses together are similar. A good foundation, open communication, and a passion for success is found across the board when taking a closer look at businesses like Daniels Graphics (2nd generation with daughter slated to one day take over), Brunk Auctions (father and son run), and Tops for Shoes (3rd generation), just a few local families enjoying the fruits of their labor from one generation to the next. Each company has a story, and surely each one has had its obstacles to overcome, but the topic of family business succession is not one to be taken lightly or overlooked. Taking over the family business may be natural to some and an excruciating process to others. Knowing that there are resources within the community can be essential, and seeing successful transitions and stories around you can be enlightening and inspiring in themselves.

“There isn’t one right way to approach succession, and just beginning the process of succession and succession planning can sometimes be the hardest part,” says Kemper Brown Jr.

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L leisure & libation

Block House Steeplechase THE

written by dasha morgan photos by anthony harden

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leisure & libation

It’s a beautiful spring day in Polk County

at the Block House Races. Cars are searching for their reserved spots on the hill, near the track, or even off-track. Is this row F or G? Visibly, some of the vehicles are packed with friends taking advantage of the one-entry-fee-per-vehicle tradition. Others are already unloading their picnics with a wide variety of potluck dishes, along with the folding chairs and card tables. The gates open at 10am, and everyone is getting ready to cheer the horses on when the first race begins at 2pm. Many are elegantly dressed, some of the ladies wearing flowing sundresses donned with creatively decorated hats. You may see an airy wide-brimmed bonnet or perhaps something more sporty with a small horse and rider atop. Picnics are being put out with silver candlesticks and flowers—hoping to win the tailgate contest; some choose a simpler fare and decide not to compete but just enjoy the sun, atmosphere, and camaraderie. Here in Tryon friends and family of all ages gather for the steeplechase and have been for what will be 69 years this May. Some are deeply involved in the horses and the races; others just enjoying themselves with friends and family on a beautiful spring day.

Tryon’s Equestrian Tradition The Block House is North Carolina’s longest running steeplechase and will celebrate its 69th running on May 2, 2015. It is the biggest annual event produced by the Tryon Riding and Hunt Club (TR&HC) and largest single day draw of visitors to the Polk County area, with crowds ranging from 12,000 to 20,000 each year. The equestrian roots of Tryon date back for almost a century. Many Northerners recognized that the climate in South 40

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Horse #2 (facing page): Chief Chicago owned by William G. Wofford, Trained by William G. Wofford, Ridden by Bernard Dalton. Horse #5 (in the lead): Ready to Zip owned by Frances Hill Myers, Trained by Lilith Boucher, Ridden by Danielle Hodsdon. Horse #3 (hidden): Blue Blade owned by John K. Griggs, Trained by Desmond Fogarty, Ridden by Harry Haynes.

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leisure & libation

Carolina favored equestrian events. When the freezing winters hit the Midwest and Northeast, they began to bring themselves and their horses to the South. Tryon is on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and as such is in what is known as a Thermal Belt. This unique climate normally has less frost or freezing temperatures and a longer growing season between killing frosts. There is little need for an indoor arena for three seasons of the year. In 1956 the US Equestrian Team prepared and trained for the 1956 Olympics in Tryon. The TR&HC was founded in 1925 by Carter P. Brown, who had moved to the area from Michigan, and The Club has run the Block House Steeplechase as an annual event since 1947. Brown began welcoming guests at the Pine Crest Inn in 1917, which is still considered a quiet, charming, and relaxing place to stay. When Brown became the director of the TR&HC, he began promoting riding and equestrian events and helped maint ain hundreds of miles of riding trails. The Club was incorporated in 1960 as a nonprofit organization, whose mission was to enhance the equestrian tradition of the Tryon area. Nancy Z. Wilson is the current president of the Club, which has approximately 285 members, comprised of business people and members of the general public, many of whom volunteer to organize and prepare for the Block House Steeplechase year after year. According to Gerald Pack, a noted Tryon horseman: “A lot of the people who are members are non-riders. However, they are great supporters in many ways.” As a member they receive advance selection for reserved parking spaces at the Block House Races, can find shade and refreshment in the Club tent on the day of the race, and can participate in many other activities held throughout the year. The executive director of TR&HC, Kathryn Cunningham, begins preparing for the next year’s race the day after the present year’s race is completed. Sponsors for each race must be obtained, next year’s volunteers need to be found, the program needs to be prepared, the commissioned artwork to commemorate the Block House event decided upon, all advertising decisions begun, and

Harmon Field was home to Tryon’s first Steeplechase, “The March Hare,” started by Carter Brown before World War II. It was run on an improvised course, with an old tin cup as its trophy.

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r ac i n g te r m s : Steeplechase: A race for Thoroughbred horses over fences. By all accounts it began in Ireland in the 18th century. This form of cross-country match racing—“my horse against yours”—soon spread to England and later found its way to the United States through the fox hunting field. It is also called a point-to-point.

(roughly 140 pounds compared to 110 pounds), though some well known jockeys, such as Jacinto Vasquez and Jean Cruguet, have ridden in both types of races.

Steeplechase Start: Steeplechase races don’t start from a gate. Instead, horses are lined up in post position order and start from a standstill or a walk.

Maiden: A horse that has never won a race. In steeplechasing, a horse that has won on the flat is still a steeplechase maiden, meaning even a champion on the flat would “start over” as a maiden in steeplechasing.

Steeplechase Jockey: Professional jockeys are traditionally adults of smaller physical dimensions—contrary to popular belief there are no height limits on jockeys, only weight limits. Weight limits for “jump” jockeys, as they’re known colloquially, are traditionally higher than for flat jockeys

Sound horse: A “sound horse” has no injuries with would interfere with his performance and/or health.

Thoroughbred: A breed descended from three Arabian stallions imported into England in the 17th and 18th centuries. They are bred mainly for racing, but excel in competitions that emphasize strength, stamina, and agility.

Hand: This measures how tall a horse is; one hand equals four inches. Farrier: This is the blacksmith who does horseshoeing. Fences: The obstacles used in most races are known as National Fences. They are portable obstacles that are used in steeplechase races up and down the East Coast, where most steeplechase races are held. The man-made fence consists of a steel frame stuffed with plastic “brush,” and it has a foam-rubber roll, covered with green canvas, on the takeoff side. Horses jump the fence in stride, much like human hurdlers in track and field events. Wings: The panels on either side of a steeplechase fence, which are designed to guide a horse to a fence. April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 43

leisure & libation

souvenirs (hats, tee-shirts) ordered. These are only a few of the tasks on hand. People come from all over for this race. Charles “Chuck” Lingerfelt III, former president of the Tryon Riding and Hunt Club for 12 years, said: “It is a labor of love. No doubt about it.” The Block House race is a fundraiser for the Club. In 1982 a college education scholarship for students from the area was started. It is administered by the Polk County Community Foundation. Since then other scholarships have been established. Over the last five years the Club has given approximately half a million dollars to the community. The Block House race is part of the National Steeplechase Association’s Race Meets. For years the race was held the last Saturday in April, but due to a conflict with the Atlanta race last year, officials moved the race date ahead a week to the first Saturday in May. Owners, trainers, and jockeys plan their spring and fall race schedule well ahead and follow the circuit up and down the East Coast, traveling with their horses from places like Aiken and Camden, South Carolina, Middleburg, Virginia, and Lexington, Kentucky, to Unionville, Pennsylvania, or Monkton, Maryland. The entourage usually arrives the day before the race to have a little time to find its racing legs. For the past 30 years, the Block House race has been held on the grounds of the Foothills Equestrian Nature Center (FENCE). The 8-furlong (just

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According to Gerald Pack: “The horses are really the competitors, not the jockeys. The jockeys only help pace and guide the horse around the track.” over a mile) grass course is relatively narrow in comparison to other tracks, such as the track in Aiken, but it has the advantage of rolling hills, which allow racing fans to have a wide sweeping view of the horses as they gallop over the fences. Race patrons can hopefully see the colors of the silk jacket and possibly the numbers worn by the jockeys to learn if “their horse” is winning. If not, from the observation tower, where the placing judges stand, the announcer will let them know. This spring race is nationally sanctioned by the National Steeplechase Association in Maryland. The prizes today for four races can exceed sixty-thousand dollars. Twenty-thousand dollars is given for the celebrated Block House race, which is for four year olds and upward, and horses who have never won twelve-thousand dollars. Harmon Field was home to Tryon’s first Steeplechase, “The March Hare,” started by Carter Brown before World War II. It was run on an improvised course, with an old tin cup as

its trophy. That race ran every year until the outbreak of the war, when the race was discontinued and the tin cup trophy retired. After the war ended Tryon’s steeplechase tradition was reinstated with the introduction of the Block House Steeplechase in 1947. It was run at the historic Block House property for 41 years, then moved in 1988 to the newly built Sandlin Track at FENCE. The center hosts a variety of horse show and community events, and connects to one of three dedicated equestrian trail systems that comprise hundreds of miles of riding trails through Polk County.

Readying for the Races The National Steeplechase Association (NSA) trucks the fences to the track in advance of the race. They require that April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 45

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all jumps be uniform and standard. These are man-made fences with a steel frame stuffed with artificial brush. They have a foam rubber roll, covered with green canvas on the takeoff side. Safety of the horse and rider is always first in the order of things planned for race meets. The horses are checked by veterinarians before each race to be sure they are fit and sound enough to race. As accidents can, and do, happen, emergency personnel and equipment are present for both horses and riders. A judge is at each jump to watch for any possible race violations, which might be a cause for disqualification. According to Gerald Pack: “The horses are really the competitors, not the jockeys. The jockeys only help pace and guide the horse around the track.” The steeplechase jockeys are mostly professionals, but there are a few amateurs too. Many of the leading jockeys (perhaps 70%) are from Ireland, and there are some well known women jockeys, such as Danielle Hodsdon, who rode last year at the Block House. She is one of only two women to have won the NSA’s season-long Champion Steeplechase Jockey title. According to Gerald Pack: “There is no steeplechase training in Tryon, horses, jockeys, and riders come from out of town to ride in the race.” However, many well known trainers do come to Tryon for this steeplechase, such as Hall of Fame thoroughbred horse race trainers Jonathan Sheppard and Mike Berryman. In 2010, 2012, and 2013 the Block House winner was William L.

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Pope’s horse, Divine Fortune, which was trained by Sheppard. It is said that Sheppard could have been a successful trainer and rider anywhere in the world, except his native England. His father, Don Sheppard, was the senior handicapper for The Jockey Club, and as a result his family could not participate in racing as a profession. Thus Jonathan came to the United States where he has made his mark here as an outstanding trainer. On September 25, 2010, he achieved the milestone of getting his 1,000th steeplechase victory as a trainer—quite an accomplishment.

A Weekend of Entertainment The festivities for the weekend of the Block House races are many. Friday, the night before the race, a spirited Calcutta is held from five to seven, with an open bar and refreshments. Sponsors and participants in the race are invited, as they anticipate the big day to follow. The appealing theme for the evening is Denim and Diamonds. Years ago a black tie event with dinner was the usual fare. The next day, on Saturday prior to the two o’clock opening race, there are festive activities around the track. Tents and booths are scattered within the course perimeter, many offering refreshment to their friends or customers. Starting at noon is a parade of the Tryon Hounds, a handsome noisy pack of tri-color American foxhounds from old Virginia bloodlines. Last year the Green Creek Miniature Horses paraded, which was followed by the full-maned Hulinndalur Icelandic horses. Beautifully attired gentry sometime drive a stylish carriage around the course—possibly members of the Carolina Carriage Club. Paso Fino horses have shown their impressive gait to those watching. Sometimes before the races, there have been smaller dogs, perhaps a terrier breed, running in an enclosed area, with obstacles like bales of hay for them to jump or run quickly around. Last year, following The Blessing of the Day, there was a release of 68 white doves in honor of the 68th year of the races, which fluttered and then soared off into the sky. The Polk County Veterans Honor Guard then came forward, and the National Anthem was sung by Emily Kocher.

Fox Hunting in the Area There are two hunts in the area: The Tryon Hounds and the Green Creek Hounds. The Tryon Hounds is one of the oldest hunt organizations on the East coast, dating back almost 100 years. Louise Hughston and Bonnie Lingerfelt (who was in fact last year’s co-chairman of the Block House steeplechase with her husband Chuck) are together joint masters of the Tryon Hounds and have been active for many years in fox hunting (Louise, for close to 40 years). The Tryon Hounds kennel looks 48

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National Steeplechase Association 2015 Schedule Aiken Spring March 21 Aiken, SC

Block House May 2 Tryon, NC

Genesee Valley October 10 Geneseo, NY

Carolina Cup March 28 Camden, SC

Virginia Gold Cup May 2 The Plains, VA

Virginia Fall October 10 Middleburg, VA

Stoneybrook April 4 Raeford, NC

Winterthur May 3 Winterthur, DE

My Lady’s Manor April 11 Monkton, MD

Iroquois May 9 Nashville, TN

Atlanta April 18 Kingston, GA

Willowdale May 10 Kennett Square, PA

Grand National April 18 Butler, MD Middleburg Spring April 18 Middleburg, VA Foxfield Spring April 25 Charlottesville, VA Maryland Hunt Cup April 25 Glyndon, MD Queen’s Cup April 25 Mineral Springs, NC

Radnor Hunt Races May 16 Malvern, PA High Hope May 17 Lexington, KY

Far Hills October 17 Far Hills, NJ International Gold Cup October 24 The Plains, VA Aiken Fall October 31 Aiken, SC Pennsylvania Hunt Cup November 1 Unionville, PA Callaway November 7 Pine Mountain, GA

Fair Hill May 23 Fair Hill, MD

Montpelier November 7 Montpelier Station, VA

Shawan Downs September 26 Hunt Valley, MD

Charleston Cup November 15 Charleston, SC

Foxfield Fall September 27 Charlottesville, VA

Colonial Cup November 21 Camden, SC

For more information and dates, visit nationalsteeplechase.com

after and takes care of between 70 and 90 hounds, taking out approximately 25 to 40 hounds on a hunt. These foxhounds are well known for superb noses and musical voices. Both organizations fox hunt regularly during the season, depending on the weather of course. The actual sport of foxhunting depends on the skill and training of the hounds and the ability of the huntsman to work with them. It is also dependent on the field of riders not to interfere with the fox, the hounds, or the staff. The Master of the Hounds must ensure that all this is done correctly. Many social activities surround a hunt, such as the hunt breakfast and hunt balls. All of this requires considerable organization by many responsible individuals. In addition, fox hunting across field and hillside requires that farmers and land owners allow the horses and hounds to cross their property in pursuit of the fox. This was more readily available in the early 20th century, when large tracts of land in both North and South Carolina were owned by just a few individuals who opened their property to the hunt. However, Gerald Pack and his wife, Betsy, of Stoney Knoll Farms, have seen many things happen in the Polk and Rutherford counties over the years, which limit an equestrian’s ability to ride cross country. He commented that too many riders today just go around a ring and never experience the beauty and enjoyment of a cross country ride. Dirt roads have been paved; farmers began putting up more fencing and not allowing galloping horse and hounds to ride across their property. In addition, more houses were built, which took away from open hunting land. People bought a home because they love the equestrian activities, but then wouldn’t allow the horses, riders, and hounds to cross their property!

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A New Chapter Beginning However, another chapter is beginning in the Polk and Rutherford county area. Those who built the equestrian facilities in Wellington, Florida, have decided to invest in Tryon. A Tryon International Equestrian Center will be bringing horse shows, jumping events, dressage, and other equestrian activities to the area. The facility was officially dedicated on Sunday, October 5, 2014. The long-established equestrian community and the newcomers to the area will find new life brought to the town and surrounding counties, all centered around world class equestrian activities. Investors have found a home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge and are building a world class resort and equestrian facility of 1,400 acres. Plans include a hotel, restaurant, RV park, cabins, golf course, resort, and spa. It is estimated that will create an additional 600 jobs. The equestrian facility so far has five riding arenas and 500 permanent stalls. Once completed, it will have double that amount and will employ up to 300 people. Sheila C. Johnson’s Salamander Hotels & Resorts is developing and managing the hospitality and golf operations. “Very few times in your life you get an opportunity to have such a great impact on a community, and we are seeing it every day as people are coming up to us and thanking us,” said Mark Bellissimo, managing partner of the investment group behind the high-end facility. “People are going to come here from all around the world, and everybody will know the name of Tryon,” says rider Lisa Sprigg from Campobello. The entire property is expected to be fully operational within three years. The impact on South and North Carolina will be enormous. By attracting so many equestrians, The Block House Steeplechase has brought an even greater “win” to the residents of the area. They have laid the foundation for a bright future and a new era.

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Andy Strauss

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HOW TO EXIT IN STYLE What does a venture capitalist

know about estate planning?

[ Andy Strauss ]

written by marie bartlett

man was told by his doctor that the end was near so he rushes to his estate attorney to finalize a will. A short time later, he leaves in a huff. “What’s wrong?” the secretary asks as he hurries past. “That lawyer in there,” he says. “He told me he had a few questions and then he had the nerve to say, ‘Don’t worry. Just leave it all to me.’” Living wills, estate planning, and asset management are not joking matters, but there is something to be said for laughing at your own profession, and yourself. At least that’s what Andrew Alexander Strauss, better known as “Andy,” projects once you get to know him. Though highly touted within his profession, this award-winning, five-times “Super Lawyer” and member of Who’s Who in American Law, is down-to-earth and, according to Holly, his wife of nearly twenty years, “one of the most humble people you will ever meet.” Even his office, at 77 Central Avenue in downtown Asheville, has a casual elegance about it; comfortable sofas and chairs

photos by bugs utsey

throughout; soft pastel paintings created by a talented artist who happens to be his mother-in-law; and a simple black and white photo of Holly in her wedding dress front and center on his desk. But it’s pretty clear after a short time in his presence that Andy is not your typical, hard-charging attorney. For one thing, he smiles a lot, and when he leans forward to ask a question, he is totally engaged. The man loves people; loves their stories; their range of life experience; what it is that makes up “the fabric of their lives,” as he says. His clients are real people to him, and his interest in their welfare is genuine. Yet he can be focused, determined, and competitive too. It annoys him when mistakes are made on the job. He’s an attorney in high demand, say his employees, and there’s a reason his firm is so successful. He likes things done well and done right. Bonnie Archer, Andy’s administrative assistant, has worked with him for fifteen years and probably knows him better than anyone in the office. “He’s a generous man and a joy to work with,” she says. “He’s also an excellent teacher to his clients and support staff.” Strauss & Associates, P.A. with an Asheville and a Hendersonville office, opened for business in 1994. With April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

a total of six attorneys in the Asheville and Hendersonville-based practice, the Strauss firm offers a menu of services, including estate planning, tax planning, asset protection, wills and trusts, business succession planning, and related litigation. Andy calls it a “boutique planning firm,” covering everything from prenuptials to Medicaid and Elder Law. The company’s tag line on its website is that it takes a “team-oriented, holistic approach to creation of an effective estate and business succession plan.” Fancy words, says Andy, that simply mean he and his associates do their utmost to ensure that anyone, not just the well-off, have their goals and needs understood and met when they walk out of his office. “While the major misconception is that estate planning and asset protection are only for wealthy clients,” says Andy, “everyone, despite their income level, has assets and needs that are constantly changing.” Andy’s path to estate planning began traditionally enough: attending law school, working for a federal judge in Washington, D.C. and then transitioning to a large law firm in Jacksonville, Florida. The early years, however, weren’t quite so smooth. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an only child, Andy says his parents divorced when he was six. His mom, a single mother, worked in a ski resort, where she was eventually promoted to buyer. Still, there was little money and the lifestyle was relatively simple—a working mom and a kid who had to figure out how to help make ends meet. “I had to be independent and self-motivated and always had confidence in myself,” he says. Delivering newspapers on his bike as a youngster, he was soon showing signs of becoming an entrepreneur. “By the time I was eight or nine, I had started my own local newspaper, running off copies on an old mimeograph machine so I could sell editions. It was hard to find stories, so I lifted news from the daily papers. But for some reason, no one was buying it.” Following a short, unsuccessful run, the venture died a merciful death. He also purchased stocks with whatever money he earned and learned to follow the Wall Street Journal by the age of twelve. (His uncle was a stockbroker). He credits his mother and his stepfather with his drive and ambition to succeed. Competitive swimming in high school came to an end when he developed a hernia. He turned to academics. “I had always liked business and 52

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wanted to go to Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, so I did well in school, joining a fraternity and becoming pledge chairman.” At Wharton, he earned both a bachelors and masters degree in economics before heading to Georgetown for his law degree. “But I was about to get married to my first wife, and my stepfather, John McKean, who was old school, told me that once you’re married, you should earn as much as you can to support your family. He said, ‘why don’t you come to Pittsburgh and let me train you in my business?’ The business, LMV Leasing, was corporate fleets, leasing vehicles to corporations. “So,” Andy recalls, “I take my new bride to Pittsburgh from Jacksonville, and she hates it. She’s a Southerner through and through. About six months in, several suitors wanted to buy the company, primarily corporations looking to expand into financial services. That was the “wave” in the late 1980s—big manufacturing companies with strong balance sheets wanting to borrow money cheap and then get into financial services.” His stepfather held back, saying if he ever sold, it should be a strategic move, preferably to someone not already in the

business, which could increase the selling price. Eventually, the company sold to Xerox. Andy had now been in Pittsburgh for eight months, and he was still itching to leave, to pack his bags and return to the law practice in Jacksonville. “Then Bill Montgomery, the guy that ran the Xerox leasing operation, approached me with a deal. He said I could return to practicing law, but if I stayed only six more months, he’d sweeten the deal. I’d also have time to see if I liked them and they liked me.” Unable to refuse, Andy agreed to stay for six months, which eventually turned into ten years. Though a far cry from his background in corporate securities law, it was prime training ground for Andy that would enable him to step outside his comfort zone again in the future. He ended up running the company as senior corporate officer once his stepfather retired, managing the nationwide sales team, handling the finances for an entire Xerox fleet, and presiding over board presentations. He would have stayed longer, he says, had Xerox not sold to GE, a major player then in the corporate fleet business. GE had bought a company based in Minneapolis, and Andy says his new wife, Meri Gaye, or M.G., “was not about to move there after Pittsburgh.” Yet, as Alexander Graham Bell once said, when one door April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

closes another one opens. “A friend from college contacted me and said there’s this company down in Asheville, North Carolina, that produces sterilization products. The parent company, textile producer Work Wear, is in bankruptcy and the subsidiary is for sale. It’s a gem in the making, and we should put a group together and see if we can buy it.” The company, with its customer service arm located in West Asheville, was White Knight. It took over a year to get the deal

Investors use their own money for payouts, but Andy says Cornerstone has seen regular growth with the fund group now at $400-$600 million in value. together, agree on a price, and arrange the financing. Andy had to slap on his business hat for his introduction to venture capitalism. It was also his introduction to Asheville. “I had never heard of Asheville,” he says. “I didn’t even know where it was. In fact, when I got on the plane in Pittsburgh, we landed in Nashville, Tennessee, and I’m like ‘did I get on the wrong plane?’ I thought I was supposed to be in a place called Asheville.” Assured the next leg of the journey would get him to the Blue Ridge Mountains, he relaxed. Andy describes White Knight as a far cry from any business he had ever tackled. “In financial services, we ‘manufactured’ money that was produced by the government. White Knight required a different set of skills. It produced a potpourri of products, from disposable hospital surgical gowns to airline head covers made in New Jersey. It was about a $55 million revenue company with more than five hundred employees at its different manufacturing plants. “This was during the AIDS awareness era, so I thought the company had a good story as well. You want a good story when you are buying a company and need to pitch to a bank for a loan.” The story, however, wasn’t quite convincing enough for the local banks in Asheville. They all turned him down. A large bank, First Chicago in Illinois, ended up loaning them the funds, a total of $16 million. But the drama wasn’t over. “When we bought White Knight, we were bidding against a company that was already in the business of making sterile products and the owner of that company thought he had the inside track. By contrast, we were just young guys who likely couldn’t raise the funds. We suspected—and learned later it was true—that an inside deal was struck with White Knight’s interim president. The other bidder had said to him, ‘Keep the business going. Then when we know these other guys can’t buy it, we’ll steal the company and you can come and work for me.’” 54

| April 2015

Convinced until the last minute that Andy and his partner would fold, it was sheer delight, says Andy, to see the expression on their faces when the wire funds came through. “The money was put into an account; the interim president resigned on the spot and walked out the door when he realized his sweet deal was gone. That was good because we thought we were going to have to pay him a severance. Then we went out for a celebratory dinner.” In the meantime, Andy’s personal life had taken a tragic turn. His wife, Meri Gaye, was involved in a fatal car accident. The couple had a four-year-old daughter, Courtney. “Neither Courtney nor I were with her at the time,” Andy says. “She had taken a course in precision or fast driving, and I think she decided to put it to the test. She was the type of person who had a taste for that kind of thing.” Suddenly a single parent, Andy recalls he wouldn’t wish those next few months on anyone. “It was tough raising a child alone. But you have to rally to the occasion.” Settled in Asheville by 1991, Andy spent the next two years rebooting White Knight with its tight office spaces located in a less than ideal part of town. The goal was to design and produce their own disposable masks, but they were up against major competitors like Kimberly Clark. Day-to-day, he says, he was “drinking from a fire hose.” “We had labor unions, international sales, domestic sales, manufacturing issues. In one of our plants we had production problems and the FDA came to examine our sterilization process. We couldn’t ship products until it was cleared up. I was dealing with personnel issues, sales, finances, purchasing, logistics, deliveries, and customer service. It was not an easy task.” On the flip side, the AIDS scare had changed the dynamics of the business and everyone was guarding up and getting into products that looked like you were going into space. The company, which eventually grossed more than $50 million, had a good sales rep in Italy for drapes and gowns. But Andy was ready for a new challenge. In 1993 he sold his business share to his partners. His next venture was a long-term care insurance agency, a concept that was becoming popular by the mid-1990s. His partner told him he could attract more people to buy long-term care insurance if he would give talks on estate planning. “I told him I didn’t know anything about estate planning,” he says. “I’m a venture capitalist, and I do corporate securities work.” He agreed, however, to give a talk on the new paradigm in estate planning, which was setting up trusts as opposed to simply writing a will. The subject fascinated him, and he was soon giving talks, one at the Opportunity House in Hendersonville, that drew more than a hundred people. Many came to him afterwards and asked if he would help them with estate planning. Another door had just opened. But both his professional and personal life was still in flux. He was teaching business law part-time at UNC Asheville and taking on estate planning clients from an office in his home, a house in Biltmore Forest that he gutted and renovated, moving in with his four-year-old daughter to be near her school.

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Across the street lived a family with a grown daughter who was working at Emory University in Atlanta. The father was a doctor, William B. Fowler, the mother, Jane Fowler, a talented painter. Jane, who had taken a shine to little Courtney, often invited her over to bake cookies. Along with Andy’s mother, the two older women played matchmakers. Holly, never married, thought he was attractive. “But I was twenty-nine years old. There was a decade age difference between us (he was older) and he had a child. So it was pretty daunting at first. Was I too young for him? Was he too old? I had to really think about it.” “Holly and I courted on the golf course,” Andy recalls. “You can learn a lot about a person by playing golf with them. I found out that she was tolerant and fair, and she didn’t cheat.” They married in June, 1996, have another daughter, Spencer, and live in the same house renovated by Andy. Away from the job, among the things he enjoys most is relaxing with Milly, the family’s golden retriever. It was Holly who prevailed upon Andy to begin building his

estate planning business by establishing Strauss & Associates, P.A.—his first solo business venture. It was a measured risk that allowed Andy to hone his long list of skills and bring them all full circle. “I guess I didn’t know what I didn’t know when I set out to

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see opportunities I might have missed, but I feel very blessed that I’ve been able to live and work here, and do what I’ve done.” Today, he is a board-certified specialist in estate planning and probate law and managing shareholder of the firm and a member of three state bars: North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania. He also serves on the board of several New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) mutual funds, including the publicly traded closed end funds from Cornerstone Advisors, which have been called “fountains of yield,” for payouts that are among the highest in the nation (22 percent of net asset value). Investors use their own money for payouts, but Andy says Cornerstone has seen regular growth with the fund group now at $400-$600 million in value. Clients like the nontraditional approach, he adds, especially retirees, since transactions don’t involve selling shares and paying fees. Now in his early sixties, Andy has grown fond of following the road less traveled because, as he explains, “there are fewer surprises as you get older, but I have a better understanding of the challenges many people face. With business owners, I talk the same language. I understand their objectives and the importance of setting up a business succession. I think I have something unique to bring to all of my estate planning clients.” He’s at a stage in his life when giving back is just as important as moving forward. Besides donating to different charities, he

has served on several boards, including the Mission Foundation, the Council on Aging, and the Asheville Symphony. He spent fifteen years on the Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Board, receiving an award for board leadership. His firm also does pro bono work for Pisgah Legal Services. With a daughter nearing college, retirement is not yet in the works, but he is looking ahead to how and when to pass the baton. “Though I haven’t yet polished up and put a nice ribbon around my secession plan for the law firm, I tell my clients all the time that they can build and build, but there comes a time when they have to start planning their exit. I need to follow my own advice. Exiting in style is my ultimate goal.” “But like most lawyers,” he says, laughing, “I’ll probably just fade away.” So change is once again afoot. But for Andy, some things will always remain the same. Like corny lawyer jokes. Ask his favorite, and you’ll get this one: A rabbi, a doctor, and a lawyer are on a liferaft in shark-infested waters. As they near the shore, the rabbi offers to dive in, but is then eaten by the shark. The doctor agrees to follow the Hippocratic Oath and dives in behind him. He, too, is eaten by the shark. But the lawyer swims safely to shore. When asked why he didn’t eat the attorney, the shark has only two words: “professional courtesy.”

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Harnessing

the Power of the Mind for Success

jackie dobrinsk a

is the owner of Life Balance Designs— providing work-life balance tools for professional & personal success.

UC C E S S I N BUSI N E S S R E QU I R E S AC T ION. The multi-tasking of phone calls, emails, meetings, spreadsheets, contracts, and social media are regular samplings of day-to-day operations. Yet, every leader knows that greatness takes focus, consistency, dedication, and tremendous doing.

So, imagine the surprise, when a business professional walks into his office, closes the door, turns off the phone, and for 20 minutes, does absolutely nothing. What he, and a growing number of leaders are discovering, is that the simple practice of meditation has an extraordinary power to drive success. “Meditating every day,” says Dave Bluth, owner of Investec Realty located in downtown Asheville, “allows me the space to ground, center, and get completely still. From that place, I can clearly manifest the business results that I desire.” While meditation may look like nothing from the outside, on the inside it is an entirely different matter. It is a powerful practice that trains the mind to come to a single point of attention, again and again, until it can be held effortlessly. This takes discipline, focus and consistency, as well as gentleness and ease. The result is a clear, calm, and tranquil mind—positive virtues for any leader in the business world today. For most beginning meditators, this tranquility of meditation seems utterly unattainable. Sitting down the first few times allows a novice to see how truly frenetic the mind can be. It jumps from one thought

| April 2015

to another like a drunken monkey. Occasionally it sits still, but instead of clear and bright, it feels sluggish and dull, more like a water buffalo. Frustrated with the experience, many give up in the first few days, or seconds. Yet, patience is key. Like building any muscle or learning any new skill, it takes repetition. Yo-Yo Ma didn’t pick up the cello for the first time and play Bach Suite No.1; Tiger Woods didn’t pick up a club and hit under par; and Tom Brady didn’t throw his first pass in the NFL. They all started at the beginning. Meditation is the same. We start with a distracted, doubtful, and often anxious mind, and refine it until it becomes focused, clear, and full of insight—a sharp tool for business, life, and success. Meditation has given leaders such an advantage, that businesses around the country are investing in programs for employees to develop their skill. Top tier companies like General Mills, Deutsche Bank, Yahoo, and Apple host meditation programs on-site. Merrill Lynch includes meditation programs in corporate meetings, and small business owners

weave it into employee board meetings and incentive programs. Meditation is not just good for an employee’s state of mind and productivity; it is also good for business. Today’s market requires businesses to get creative with their benefit packages to enhance employee retention. Young, eco-friendly, health-conscious, app-enhanced employees want more than just health insurance, job training, and pretax benefits. They want quality of life benefits. One local builder who learned to meditate relates that 10-15 minutes

MEDITATION IS THE SAME. WE START WITH A DISTR ACTED, DOUBTFUL, AND OF TEN ANXIOUS MIND, AND REFINE IT UNTIL IT BECOMES FOCUSED, CLEAR AND FULL OF INSIGHT—A SHARP TOOL FOR BUSINESS, LIFE, AND SUCCESS.

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each day simply smooths out the rough edges. It brings more ease to the challenges and frenetic pace of his workday. Wellness programs help address this need. Yet while ROIs show benefits, some critics, like Al Lewis, co-author of Surviving Workplace Wellness with Your Dignity, Finances, and Major Organs Intact, see some wellness programs designed to simply allow employers to “pry, poke, prod, and punish” high risk employees, i.e. those who smoke, have high blood pressure, or are considered overweight. Instead, leading- edge programs

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incorporate tools like meditation because it enhances worklife integration and optimal well-being, which links directly to quality of life. Progressive leaders want to learn to meditate because of the promised benefits. Learning to meditate is simple. Yet, to effectively and efficiently address the drunken monkey or water buffalo mind, guidance is helpful. Some turn to guided recordings utilizing visualization. One simple technique, which can be employed almost anywhere, is:

— Relax. Systematically relax the body, from head and shoulders to ankles and feet, letting go of tension. Then relax the mind by letting go of other times and places, and resting in the subtle sounds and sensations around you.

— Find a quite space. This could be an office, conference room, or even a bathroom or closet. Close the eyes.

— Practice. Continue for three to five minutes. Use a soft alarm so you know when you are finished.

— Sit comfortably. Use a chair or cushion on the floor. Make sure your spine is straight, and your hips, knees, head, and neck are all comfortably supported.

The practice can take less time that it takes to brew or stand in line for a cup of coffee, and it can be done anywhere there is a quiet space. This technique, though simple in theory is not always in practice. It takes patience, will, determination, and also gentleness. Jack Kornefield, an American author and teacher of Vipassana meditation, states in his book, A Path with Heart, that learning to meditate is like training a puppy to sit. We tell it to sit. And it runs away. We chase after it, return it to the same spot, and tell

— Breath deeply. Take four or five deep breaths, allowing the inhale and exhale to be equal in length. Notice how it feels in the body. This also has the added benefit of initiating the parasympathetic nervous system—that part responsible for relaxation.

— Focus. Gently take your attention and rest it on the natural rise and fall of the breath. Every time the mind wanders to anything else, simply notice and gently guide it back to the breath.

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accessible. An easy way to get started is to utilize a recorded it to sit again. We might have to repeat this process a thousand guided meditation. Another, is to employ a teacher, just as times each second, but if we are consistent and kind, eventually YoYo Ma, Tiger Woods, and Tom Brady did to improve their the puppy learns to sit. techniques. An experienced guide can help avoid those initial Sandy Anderson, faculty of the Himalayan Institute of Yoga bad habits while refining Sciences, uses another analskills more quickly. ogy. She equates learning to This mindfulness trainmeditate to driving a large LEARNING TO MEDITATE IS ing filters into professional team of horses. Each horse and personal life. We has tremendous power SIMPLE. YET, TO EFFECTIVELY take the full power of our to run in any direction it AND EFFICIENTLY ADDRESS attention and apply it to desires. A skillful driver THE DRUNKEN MONKEY setting goals, finishing knows how to harmonize OR WATER BUFFALO MIND, projects, writing reports, them so they will all to engaging in sports, or go in the same direction, GUIDANCE IS HELPFUL. SOME simply listening to our pulling more than they ever TURN TO GUIDED RECORDINGS colleagues or loved ones. could alone. Similarly, the UTILIZING VISUALIZATION. The emails, phone calls, senses and the mind have meetings, spreadsheets, an extraordinary ability to contracts, and constant go almost anywhere. With doing of day-to-day operations start to have more ease and focus we can harness their power to achieve greatness. spaciousness. It becomes effortless effort, and this is part of By gaining insights to the nature of practice and engaging simple techniques, meditation becomes more approachable and how greatness is made.

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• Homelegance • Fairfield Chair • Flexsteel • Lea • Legacy Classics • Robin Bruce • April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 61

THE OLD

NORTH

STATE [

news briefs

KWIPPED Mitigates Rental Hassles wilmington, nc

KWIPPED has launched a website to facilitate business-to-business rentals of specialized equipment. Among services offered are equipment sourcing, contract management, and delivery coordination. KWIPPED hooks up aggregated demand for over 500 categories of equipment with a system of vetted global suppliers. Founder and CEO Robert Preville intends to spare project roadblocks that can domino turnaround times and hurt profits. KWIPPED will not only expedite the location of hard-to-find machinery, it will also educate contractors about machinery they may not have considered. Suppliers will be benefitted by having a platform for showcasing equipment and taking bids on high-demand items.

]

Unlike normal ecommerce transactions, equipment rentals require insurance, security deposits, accessories, return shipping, replacement costs, and trust. KWIPPED’s logistical streamlining can take a load off all those headaches.

Valeant Purchases Salix raleigh, nc

Salix will be merged into Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Valeant will purchase all the Raleigh firm’s outstanding stock for $158 per share in cash, or a total of $14.5 billion. Salix specializes in pharmaceutical products and medical devices for the treatment and prevention of gastrointestinal diseases. The deal will further diversify Valeant’s portfolio of specialty pharmaceuticals,

which include dermatology, neurology, and eye care treatments. The deal will enable Salix’ expertise and attention to quality to access Valeant’s corporate infrastructure to reach more consumers. Merging the companies is expected to save $500 million through elimination of duplication. Executive positions will be cut, but, as with Valeant’s merger with Bausch & Lomb, no reductions are anticipated in the Salix sales forces.

7-Eleven Waives Franchise Fees charlotte, nc

7-Eleven, Inc., announced its intentions to waive the franchise fee on select stores across the country. Thirteen of the over 200 stores that qualify for what amounts to savings approaching $80,000 are in the Charlotte area. In the last four years, 7-Eleven has added more than 1,300 stores to its operations. Those offered as franchises are described as having grown strong enough to be kicked out of the nest. Zero Franchise Fee stores are low-performing and need more work developing their customer bases. The stores, however, are not free. Prospective franchisees must have an excellent credit

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rating, with at least $50,000 in liquid assets. They will also have to procure their own licensing and permits and make a down payment on inventory of about $30,000.

Solar Companies Seizing Residential Market before Credits Expire charlotte, nc

North Carolina’s solar power market, ranked fourth in the nation, continues to experience strong growth. NRG Home Solar (NRG) has announced plans to open an office in Charlotte and expand to Raleigh later in the year. NRG is attempting to capitalize on the niche of small-scale, single-family residential solar projects. One challenge that has prevented other companies from pursuing that opportunity is state law preventing third-party sale of electricity, which translates to a ban on leases for solar systems. To work around this, NRG will offer customers zero-down loans for their fixtures, with an option to purchase. Elsewhere, leases are the most popular form of financing solar

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collectors, because the installer navigates the paperwork required by the financial institutions and government incentive programs. Another downside is loans typically require more upfront funding. Also seizing the loan angle for residential solar in North Carolina is Sungevity. The national solar company has created a 20 year loan product for North Carolinians that takes advantage of the state’s 35 percent income tax credit and the federal government’s 30 percent renewable energy tax credit. Solar companies are working hard to boost sales before the state credit expires at the end of the year and the federal credit follows suit in 2016.

Upscale Vendor of the Homegrown winston-salem, nc

Lowes Food Stores will give its supermarkets a remake/remodel. The re-branding follows successful pilot projects in Clemmons and WinstonSalem. The facelift will affect all stores and should be completed in four years. The chain’s president, Tim Lowe, says shopping should be fun for the whole family and not a chore. Attractions to be featured in the stores include a grill

the old north state

known as the Chicken Kitchen, Pick & Prep stations, where trained employees slice and dice fruit and vegetables to customer specifications while they shop, and a craft Beer Den. Lowe’s is headquartered in Winston-Salem with stores in the Carolinas and Virginia. Trailing established grocers in market share, with word of lateral entry by Kroger and Publix, the company decided last year to close low-performing stores and rebrand the remaining ones as upscale vendors of the homegrown. Last year Lowe’s opened three new stores, and it has plans to open more in new markets this year.

Defense Mechanism for Vulnerable Populations research triangle park, nc

The new Tiger Eye Security Sensor (TESS) was unveiled during a Research Triangle TechBreakfast in February. Developed by Clayton-based Tiger Eye Sensor, Incorporated, the device is more than a bodycam and intended for civilian use. The hands-free device weighs only 11 grams and is only one inch in diameter. It is described as a wearable security system capable of holding its charge all day. When the wearer feels imperiled

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enough to scream, proprietary voice recognition software, working with Bluetooth technology, is automatically triggered to call a security provider. The security outfit instantly knows the victim’s GPS location, and has realtime access to audio and flash photography of the scene, perhaps even the image of the perpetrator. It is hoped the device will deter attacks; that failing, it will provide strong evidence for prosecution. Founder CJ Scarlet is a survivor of assault who has led a life of commitment to helping vulnerable populations.

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FokusLabs has invented a wristband, dubbed the RE-vibe, to help ADD children stay on-task. The device acts like a parent or guardian to give the child a gentle, pre-programmed “tap on the shoulder.” Marketers suggest the device will help daydreamers with their self-esteem by making them less dependent on others. For Rich Brancaccio, a school psychologist specializing in treating students with autism and ADHD, necessity was the mother of invention. That meant he had to learn about electronics and build a prototype on his own time. Through earning grants, he started a business and brought some engineers onboard. Following a year of product development, the RE-vibe is now production-grade. Its software is designed to be as one-touch as possible for users. The design is fashionable, robust, and distraction-free. FokusLabs is now running the Kickstarter campaign to finance production molds. Presales with early delivery are being offered to donors.

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Tobacco giant Reynolds American is also in the business of getting people 64

| April 2015

to stop buying its products. Reynolds’ subsidiaries Niconovum USA, Inc., and RJ Reynolds Vapor Company have teamed with pharmaceutical development company PinneyAssociates and its affiliate JSR, LLC to develop products and pursue policies for reducing harms from traditional tobacco use. Niconovum is developing chewing gum that uses nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) patented by JSR. Zonnic is a NRT product from Niconovum already on the market. It is the first FDA-approved smoking cessation aid manufactured and sold by a tobacco company. It comes in three flavors and two potencies, and it can be purchased like cigarettes at convenience stores. The ironic partnership was announced while legislators and regulators are sorting out an unknown cocktail of restrictions to be imposed on smokeless nicotine products. PinneyAssociates specializes in lobbying for regulatory approval and social acceptance of new products.

Jeanswear Innovator Gets Technical greensboro, nc

V F Cor poration announced its intentions to open a global jeanswear innovation center at Gateway University Research Park. Apparel retailer VF describes itself as having a passion for the art and science of apparel. As an example of what the company does, one of its brands, Wrangler, recently invited fans to create a video illustrating their ideas for new and improved jeans. Customers were then encouraged to view the videos online and vote for their favorites. The top five vote-getters won a trip to Wrangler’s headquarters, while the grand prize winner would see their idea produced, marketed, and sold. Brands besides Wrangler up for innovation include Lee, Nautica, Vans, and 7 For All Mankind. VF intends to employ thirty scientists, engineers, and designers at their new

digs. Locating at Gateway will allow VF to take advantage of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, which has facilities and staff to assist with product development, materials testing, and analytics. Gateway is run collaboratively by NC A&T State University and UNC Greensboro.

Glaxo and Novartis Do Some Rearranging research triangle park, nc

GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis have closed on a not-so-straightforward deal. After almost a year, the two large pharmaceutical companies have exchanged about $21 billion in assets and formed a joint venture. GSK acquired Novartis’ vaccine operations for $5.25 billion, making it the world’s largest supplier. The Holly Springs manufacturing plant was not part of the deal, as it had been sold for $275 million in October to CSL, an Australian firm. In turn, Novartis is acquiring GSK’s oncology functions for about $16 billion. Together, the companies will enter into a healthcare venture, of which GSK will be 63.5 percent owner. The deal is among other major changes initiated by CEO Andrew Witty in response to financial woes. Sales have been dropping, particularly in the United States, and the company is still smarting from $450 million in fines from a bribery scandal in China last year. Nine-hundred GSK employees currently working in the Triangle will be laid off, and Witty has had his own pay cut for two consecutive years.

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five spice seared ahi tuna with a salad of wok fried kale, crispy potato sticks, cilantro, tomatoes, and creamy coconut rice

| April 2015

Adam Wilson has a world view with a radical name

written by marie bartlett photos by sadr ah schadel & anthony harden

Chef and restaurant owner Adam Wilson is a lucky man.

He’s lucky not only because he has a beautiful wife and two adorable young boys (which he does), but also because he is one of the fortunate few who have known exactly what they wanted to do from an early age. It was all about food; cooking it, eating it, experimenting with it, and then savoring every morsel. He loves food so much that he eats and sleeps it—literally. “I keep a pad on my nightstand in case I have an idea during the night about how to prepare a new dish or modify an old one,” he says. “Or I’ll be sitting at April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 67

adam wilson

working in The Square Root kitchen

| April 2015

home having dinner and something comes to mind. So I’ll write it down. I’ve always had a passion for food.” And that passion shows. Walk into either one of Adam’s The Square Root restaurants—one in Brevard and the other in Hendersonville—and watch as loyal patrons enter, order, and gleefully greet the beautifully presented food when it arrives—a large platter of Braised Pork Shank soaked in a rich bell pepper sauce; the Five-Spice Seared Tuna served with wok-fried kale and creamy coconut rice; pan-seared sea scallops (Bacon Gastro Scallops as listed on the menu) served with a sweet corn succotash that melts in the mouth and topped with powered bacon, no less. When the dessert menu is presented, it’s almost agonizing: Will it be the waist-expanding Chocolate Tower Cake, the smooth-as-silk Key Lime Pie, or the Salted Caramel Cheesecake? But it almost doesn’t matter what you choose from The Square Root’s American, Mediterranean, Italian, or Indian-style fare, for as one customer was heard to say: “You can throw a dart at anything on the menu and whatever you hit, it’s going to look and taste great.” In one regional publication, The Square Root was voted first place among restaurants in Brevard from 2010–2014. A l l of which makes Adam Wilson break into a satisfied grin. His passion, like many great loves, began early and strong; a zest for food and cooking that sprouted and grew as he worked alongside his mother in her kitchen. Born in Portland, Maine, Adam moved with his family to Atlanta when he was still a youth, where he watched his mother experiment with food colors, textures, tastes, and seasonings. “She enjoyed playing with different foods and flavors, so I learned a lot from her. She’s a great cook.” What sealed the deal for Adam was getting a positive reaction from those on the receiving end whenever his culinary feats came to fruition. “That’s really where my passion comes from,” he says. “When someone tries your dish and you watch them smile, it makes the effort worthwhile. That satisfaction continues to drive me today.” Even the restaurant’s name is food-based. “It pertains to root vegetables, not math as some think. Our tag line, ‘Relaxed American Cuisine with a World View,’” says Adam,

“One highprofile family had a large yacht and did a lot of entertaining at all hours of the night,” Adam says. “So when most people were asleep, I was up at 3am cooking.”

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 69

pork shank

served with a rich bell pepper au poivre sauce with rosemary garlic mashed potatoes and rustic braised vegetables

“just means I’ve had a lot of experience in different places and like to play with a lot of different fusions.” Indeed he does. Among the more exotic foods on The Square Root menu: Roasted Bone Marrow, a beef dish seasoned with lemon, thyme, a red onion marmalade, and a black and red Hawaiian sea salt; a Tuna Lollipop Trio; Jalapeno Smoked Salmon Dip; and an authentic South Indian curry served with chicken. (Curry, he adds, is a direct result of his wife’s ethnic influence.) He uses edible flowers for garnish—colorful pansies dipped in powdered sugar “for a hint of sweetness,” pink carnations, nasturtiums, Blue Stars, and marigolds. His more traditional foods also bear his unique stamp. Working in Atlanta, he acquired an appreciation for Southern cooking. “I love Southern foods and learned how to take some of the homier dishes and turn them into upscale favorites. Shrimp and grits, for example, is one of our signature appetizers. We do it a little different though, using a smoked chorizo sausage topped with Cajun sauce.” In a nod to his adopted South, he offers Fried Green Tomatoes drizzled in a creamy Dijon sauce, a Sweet Tea Brined Half Chicken, and a Hickory Molasses Pork Rib eye served with Pretzel Breaded Fried Mac and Cheese. His bacon-wrapped meatloaf is a popular special on the weekly menu, for as Adam points out, “who doesn’t love bacon?” “I appreciate all the different parts of an animal,” he says, 70

| April 2015

“and have worked with quite a few unique foods, from sea urchins to braised lamb cheeks. Here in the United States, people are accustomed to only the prime cuts they see in the grocery store. I like to experiment with a little of everything.” That includes seafood, once hard to get in the mountains. “Today, you can order good seafood overnight from just about anywhere in the world, so fresh seafood is no longer strictly a coastal commodity.” Adam doesn’t come from a family of chefs, but he does come from a family that taught him the value and importance of hard labor. Once the family had relocated to Georgia, where Adam’s father worked as an air traffic controller at the busy Atlanta airport, Adam knew it was time to step up his game. “Dad instilled a strong work ethic in me and told me that since I loved cooking so much, I should go out and pursue it.” So he took as many culinary classes in high school as he could, worked part-time in a number of Atlanta restaurants, and then entered The Art Institute of Atlanta, graduating in 1999 as a certified culinarian. That led to jobs up and down the East coast in an effort to gain as much experience as he could from the best and brightest chefs. He quickly worked his way up the hierarchy. (There are more than a dozen positions in the kitchen, including pantry chef, roast chef, grill chef, sauté chef, and sous chef—second in line before one becomes an executive or head chef).

cl ams , mussels , and shrimp tossed

in a spinach fettuccini with a garlic crostini and shaved parmesan

“You don’t just ‘become’ a head chef,” explains Adam. “You must work your way to the position.” In 1999 he joined the kitchen staff at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Atlanta and two years later was transferred to the Ritz in Palm Beach as a chef. At times, he had Secret Service in the kitchen, well-known sports figures, musicians, and celebrities. It was exciting at first; however, before long he learned they were “people like everyone else,” but with more money and off-the-wall requests than the average person. He met his wife, Cindy, at a country club event in South Florida where she, too, was working in the kitchen, preparing cold foods. She had come to the States on a culinary work program from the coastal town of Durban, South Africa. The attraction was instantaneous. “He tried to date my best friend first,” Cindy recalls, “but I knew it was his way of getting closer to me. I liked his personality and the shared passion we both had for food. He had good family values—his family meant the world to him—and good dreams.” Adam popped the question at Disney World following the nightly fireworks display, a surprise proposal that still delights Cindy in the retelling of their courtship. They’ve been married twelve years and have two sons, Devan, three-and-a-half, and Gavin, seventeen months. Cindy is now a stay-at-home mom, but continues to pitch in at The Square Root restaurants, baking her killer three-layer coconut cake, and handling the flower arrangements and décor for holidays. During their dual careers at country clubs and hotels, Cindy and Adam worked for two well-known billionaire families; Adam was their private chef (and no, he won’t divulge names). All he will say is that the work was “intense and demanding,” with an implication that so were the clients. Guests often brought their personal body guards, and Adam would find himself preparing meals for them as well.

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“One high-profile family had a large yacht and did a lot of entertaining at all hours of the night,” he says. “So when most people were asleep, I was up at 3am cooking.” On a get-away visit to North Carolina in 2009, Adam and Cindy, childless at the time, discovered a place both they fell in love with—a little mountain town called Brevard. “It was such a friendly place,” Adam says. Within weeks, Adam knew this was where he wanted to be and what he wanted to do. Cindy is more effusive. “It was the perfect place to showcase our talents and the perfect environment in which to raise kids. We both wanted to work and to live here.” They found a building tucked away on a small side street less than two blocks from the Transylvania County courthouse that reminded them of “Little Italy,” and opened The Square Root in May, 2010. Almost immediately, it took off, in conjunction

| April 2015

with the White Squirrel Festival on Memorial Day weekend. Adam’s father, Rick Wilson, was retired but came to help Adam get the business up and running. His mom contributed by growing flowers used in the restaurant’s décor and as edible garnishments. (Adam’s parents now live in Brevard, as do Adam and Cindy.) In the summertime live music fills the alleyway and, inside The Square Root, the casual décor offers a cool, quiet get-away. Once home to the town’s local newspaper, the Transylvania Times, the renovated building features a floor of yellow pine and a bar top made from a milled slab of Ambrosia maple. Antique panel doors salvaged from a house on Main Street and door knobs that serve as hooks add a rustic look to the restaurant’s cozy interior. “It’s a lot of work to run a restaurant,” Adam says in retrospect.

“You’re spending up to sixteen hours a day in the kitchen. It’s tough to even get around to the paperwork and bookkeeping. My father gave me two years of his hard labor to help me get the business off the ground.” Though Adam and Cindy are now the sole owners, they still consider it a family venture. The Square Root in Brevard was so successful that in 2012 Adam and his then co-owner dad decided to open a second location, this one at 111 South Main Street in Hendersonville, just down the block from the old Henderson County courthouse. They had a Hendersonville-based following, so why not provide a more convenient place to go? The space was larger, seating nearly 140 guests, about twice the size of the Brevard restaurant. Menus are the same as both locations, but Hendersonville has a different vibe, says general manager Kylie Williams. For one thing, it’s a little less rustic than Brevard’s restaurant, a

little more geared to a diverse population. For another, there’s a Chef’s Table in Hendersonville, available by reservation only. It allows guests to be seated in the kitchen and watch the food preparation up close and personal. It’s nothing new in larger cities, says Adam, but in a small town, it’s a unique, special, behind-the-scenes experience. Kylie, who has been with Adam for eighteen months (she was at a Brevard country club prior), says working with Chef Wilson has been “a real learning experience. He’s a perfectionist who’s very motivated, and it shows in his food. I still can’t wrap my head around how much food our two restaurants put out each year—the sheer volume of it. But I think that speaks to the quality and diversity of what we offer.” Community outreach is an important part of the business. Artwork from local painters has a place of honor in both

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 73

restaurants; fresh local produce is used, along with locally grown herbs from Lila’s Garden in Hendersonville. Roasted coffee comes from right across the street in Brevard, and local breweries provide some of the most popular beers from the bar. In addition, there’s a Giveback Thursday, a Facebook Friday, and a Media Saturday, all designed to strengthen local relationships. “We try to do as much as we can to support the community,” says Adam, who also volunteers with the Western North Carolina Down Syndrome Alliance and participates in its annual Buddy Walk to help raise awareness. (His youngest son, Gavin, is a Down Syndrome child.) Total staff between the two restaurants averages around eighty in the busy summer and the fall, including part-time and full-time employees. Getting away from food is—as any foodie knows—next to impossible. For a change of pace, Adam enjoys scuba diving,

and, a year or so ago, jumped out of an airplane to satisfy the thrill-seeker simmering inside him. He cooks a little at home, though Cindy says he’s more of a “salsa and beer guy” when he’s not at the restaurant, and the family does go out to eat. He’s not hard to please when it comes to dining out. “When we go out to eat,” he says, “we do it for fun, not to critique or c ompa re. There are many really good restaurants in the area and lots of talented people here. I’ve found that the quality of foods is amazing in this region. When I look at a menu, I look for something I’ve never had because we try to do the same thing at The Square Root—keep something on the menu that is off the beaten path.” He prefers savory over sweet, and his guilty pleasure is cheese and a duck liver that is rich, fatty, and full of flavor. About the only food he dislikes is an exotic Southeast Asian fruit called a durian. Its thick, spiky hard crust conceals a

“It’s hard work. There are easier jobs out there. We’re in a tight environment that involves long hours. But we have fun with each other too. You have to be able to enjoy each other’s company in the kitchen or you won’t last long.”

| April 2015

with each other too. You have to be able to enjoy each other’s company in the kitchen or you won’t last long.” He credits much of his current success to those same people who work alongside him every day. “We spent a lot of years building to get to where we are now. It took hard work and dedication. But I think we made it because I surrounded myself with people of a similar mindset. We all want to meet the needs of our patrons and give diners an experience they might not normally get in a small town.” Providing unique, high-quality food, attention to detail, a fine eye for colors, flavors, presentation, and, of course, cleanliness, are all part of what makes a great chef, says Adam, plus a lifelong willingness to learn. “I’ve been doing this for twenty years and I’m still trying to discover and perfect new things. I have thought about expanding again, but you can’t jump ahead too quickly in this business. My future goals are to keep plugging away and make the two restaurants we have the best they can be, spend time nurturing the relationships we have, and be someone who cares about the community and its people. If I leave a legacy at all, I hope that I’m remembered as a kind, caring person. In fact, we’re all good people here, who just happen to really love food.”

fleshy interior that smells so bad Adam says it has been banned on public transportation in some parts of the world. “Think stinking rotten garbage,” he says. Fearlessly creative, Adam is a chef one would think has endured his share of kitchen disasters. But other than the nightmare of running out of critical supplies on a Friday night—a big no-no, he says—he maintains that he and his staff try to stay ahead of food failures. “We’re constantly cooking new things in the kitchen at each of our locations, and while some new dishes don’t make it to the drawing board, we find out what works and what doesn’t, so we can modify as we go along.” He’s known as focused and driven in the kitchen by his staff. Cindy calls him “a tough boss with a heart of gold. He likes coaching people to encourage them to reach a higher level, to reach their goals.” As for the stereotypical image of the screaming head chef throwing pots and pans at his over-worked minions in the kitchen, Adam counters, “pure theatre.” That’s also why he seldom watches TV food shows other than those which can actually teach him something. About the only time he does get angry on the job is when someone is not doing their best. “That doesn’t happen often,” he says, “but sure, it gets intense sometimes. It’s hard work. There are easier jobs out there. We’re in a tight environment that involves long hours. But we have fun

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Need a Passport Just to Visit your Bank?

ITH REM ARK ABLE CONSISTENCY, the stor y I hear from clients starts something like this: “Just the other day, my husband and I were at this event, and I heard something that made me wonder if I should be concerned.”

ryan cofield is

is a member of The Van Winkle Law Firm’s Business and Tax Groups, working primarily out of their Asheville office.

What follows next is usually a description of bank accounts, real estate, or stocks held in another country, and a question: “Is there some special filing I should have been making with the IRS about these things?” As is often the case with tax attorneys, my answer is: “It depends.” While the requirement for US taxpayers to make certain disclosures of their foreign assets is nothing new (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Department of the Treasury first delegated its enforcement authority for the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or “FBAR”, to the Internal Revenue Service in 2003) many individuals are still unaware of their responsibilities and, as a result, have fallen behind. Although an individual’s particular foreign assets may necessitate other filings, such as the Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets (Form 8983) required under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the FBAR is by far the most widely needed and commonly missed. With certain exceptions and limitations, US taxpayers are required to electronically file an FBAR form (now identified as a FinCEN 114) by June 30th of each year to disclose their interest in, or signature power over, any financial accounts, including bank, securities, or other types of financial accounts in a

| April 2015

foreign country which, in the aggregate, exceeded $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. The scope of the FBAR disclosure goes so far as to include accounts held at foreign branches of US banks, indirect interests in foreign financial assets held through an entity (if more than 50%-owned), foreign grantor trusts, and foreign-issued life insurance or annuity contracts with cash value. Many clients, upon hearing this information, ask about that parcel of land they own in another country. Notably, the FBAR requirement does not include direct interests in foreign real estate. The typical FBAR case involves something like the Spanish bank account from the year they worked in Madrid or the German securities account they inherited from their grandfather several years back. The relatively low aggregate threshold to the reporting requirement means that the FBAR does not just apply to the wealthy—it can encompass a wide swath of US taxpayers because of its cumulative nature. The most alarming parts of the FBAR filing requirement are the civil and criminal penalties available to the IRS in enforcing it. Willfully failing to file the FinCEN 114 carries with it the potential for significant jail time criminal penalties of up to $500,000. On the civil side, penalties for willfully failing to file are calculated to be the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the

R total balance of the foreign account per violation. One important thing to keep in mind about these potential fines and penalties is that they are applied per violation, with each missed FinCEN 114 amounting to a new violation. Calculated in this manner, the penalties and potential fines can add up quickly. Clients are expectedly upset at the prospect of being tagged with such significant penalties, especially if they had been reporting any income associated with their foreign assets on their annual returns and paying any taxes due on time. The lurking penalties cause clients to then ask the most important question: “Now that I know I should have been filing FinCEN 114s for the past few years, what can I do to minimize my risk?” In a study conducted between 2006 and 2008, the IRS determined that many thousands of US taxpayers had fallen behind in making FBAR filings. The IRS correctly determined from this study that many taxpayers were not remedying their noncompliance for fear of subjecting themselves to the substantial civil penalties that were clearly designed to punish fraudulent and bad faith actors, not regular taxpayers failing to file from simple lack of awareness. As a result, in 2009 and again in 2011 and 2012, the IRS made the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) available to certain taxpayers in order to encourage them to come into compliance. The continuing success of the OVDP has led the IRS to continue the 2012 program indefinitely. Upon application and acceptance into the OVDP, a taxpayer’s civil penalty liability is reduced. Instead of calculating the penalty as the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the highest aggregate foreign account balance per year, the OVDP penalty is calculated at 27.5% of the highest year’s aggregate value during the disclosure period (up to six years), so long as the taxpayer submits his or her request to be accepted into the OVDP prior to the IRS discovering their noncompliance through other avenues (such as through the FATCA disclosure requirements placed on foreign financial institutions). In June of last year the IRS took another significant step toward encouraging additional voluntary disclosures by expanding the scope of their Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures. Previously, the streamlined disclosure option had only been

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PENALTIES FOR WILLFULLY FAILING TO FILE ARE CALCULATED TO BE THE GREATER OF $100,000 OR 50% OF THE TOTAL BALANCE OF THE FOREIGN ACCOUNT PER VIOLATION.

available to certain US taxpayers residing outside the US. With its recent expansion, taxpayers residing within the US can now qualify for streamlined disclosure, which carries with it the benefit of even further reduced civil penalties. The key qualification for the streamlined procedure is the taxpayer’s written certification to the IRS that previous failures to comply were unintentional. Under it, taxpayers residing outside of the US may have all penalties waived, while those residing inside the US can reduce their penalty exposure from 50% down to 5% of the foreign financial assets that gave rise to the compliance issue. With the risk of sizable potential liability from noncompliance and the constantly changing landscape of voluntary disclosure options, a client’s initial questions about FBAR filing requirements is usually just the beginning of a much larger conversation about minimizing their exposure to penalties. However, with careful consideration and planning, the path to compliance can be completed without undue hardship.

Dr. Christopher Rebol DDS, PA, A fellow of the International College of Dentistry Located in the heart of Asheville, 69 McDowell Street 828-253-5878 rebolfamilydentistry.com April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 77

UPDATES FOR

NATIONAL WORLD [

news briefs

German Company Also Interested in Self-Driving Cars brussels , belgium

ZF Friedrichshafen is expected to clear European Union antitrust screening for a proposed $13.5 billion purchase of TRW Automotive Holdings Corporation. If successful, the move would help ZF compete with Google and others in developing a self-driving car. The German manufacturer of auto parts has been negotiating with European regulators, and it now has conditional, phase-one approval. Although the latest concessions have not been disclosed, ZF sold its steering systems division to Robert Bosch last September to mollify earlier antitrust concerns. ZF continues to manufacture

]

chassis components and hybrid drivetrains for German automakers. TRW specializes in automobile safety products like brakes and airbags, listing Ford, GM, and Volkswagen as major clients.

Sophisticated Hacker Gang Still At-Large

$1 billion from 100 banks in thirty countries. The dirty deeds are wrought by sending bank employees phishing emails that drop spyware on computers to enable remote access, administrative tools, and data acquisition. In addition to keylogging, the group is even known to strobe screenshots to generate videos of how to complete certain transactions. In a typical hit, the infiltrators will stay a few months, infecting perhaps 100 computers and taking up to $10 million. The hackers electronically transfer money, with laundering, to their accounts, cooking the books to hide their tracks. They also cash out by remotely programming ATM’s to dispense money at a time specified for a rendezvous with a mule.

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A hot topic at the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit was the Carbanak cybercrime gang. Kaspersky Lab, an international software security firm with operations in 200 countries, has been investigating the break-ins with the Dutch National Police and Interpol. Based in Eastern Europe, the gang has in two years managed to steal around

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General Mills purchased Annie’s, Kellogg purchased Kashi, but Campbell is no stranger to the organic bandwagon. In February, following slumping sales, the company introduced a line of six natural soups, five of which are gluten-free. But before that, the soup giant had purchased

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juicer Bolthouse Farms for $1.55 billion, baby food manufacturer Plum Organics for $93 million, and Wolfgang Puck for an undisclosed amount. These three brands continue to market under their own names. Campbell is responding to market research that found 53 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 are actively seeking organic food products. As a general rule, sales of canned and boxed items are sagging as wellness experts warn against processed food full of salt, sugar, and other preservatives. Also attempting to attract millennials, the company has added ethnic, spicy flavors, such as Thai Tomato Coconut Bisque, to its mainline.

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Holdings, which was created during the financial crisis to quarantine assets Citigroup wanted to separate from its general portfolio. Whereas Citi Holdings once comprised 30 percent of Citigroup’s assets, the company had managed to wind that share down to five percent last year. Recovering from a $2 billion loss in 2010, OneMain has since been profitable. Springleaf, which focuses on the growing subprime market, will now hold $15 billion in assets, increasing its number of branches from 849 to 1,989. CEO Jay Levine said he expects his company, with the acquisition, to be earning $800-$900 million in a couple of years. Citi will use a portion of the proceeds from the sale to retire debt.

Lockheed Follows the Money

evansville, indiana

Springleaf Holdings, Inc., announced it would acquire Citigroup, Inc.’s, OneMain Financial Holdings for $4.25 billion in cash. The purchase will make Springleaf the largest subprime lender in the United States. Seeking to upgrade its customer base, Citigroup has been trying to unload OneMain’s toxic assets since 2011. OneMain was part of Citi

energy projects. The know-how Lockheed has acquired through the years building warships, fighter jets, and satellites is now being offered to industries and public utilities to help streamline power consumption and protect against cyber hackers. Lockheed now has management contracts with eight of the ten largest utilities in the United States. Its corporate executives claim their systems for optimizing the complex integration of wind and solar power with decreasing demand for traditional fuels saving enough fuel to power 100,000 homes. Adding to the portfolio last year, Lockheed Martin acquired Sun Catalytix in order to develop round-theclock, industrial-scale batteries for storing solar and wind power. Longer term plans include the company building a fusion reactor and an ocean thermal project.

Exxon Borrows $8B

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Lockheed Martin is leading the pack of defense contractors diversifying into the energy business. Along with Boeing and others, the corporation best known for aviation engineering is following the money as defense funding thins and more federal dollars are poured into alternative

: Fletcher Town Hall

irving, texas

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil company, issued $8 billion in bonds. This is the most ever borrowed by the company, which has AAA bond ratings from both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. Exxon is one of three corporations,

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The Town Manager of Fletcher, NC requested a bid to sign the front of the new town hall and install way-ﬁnding signs to direct visitors. Their budget was conservative and they wanted a classic look to complement the new architecture. Best of all, we completed the project 2 days before opening ceremonies.

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COPYRIGHT: THIS DESIGN IS THE PROPERTY OF FASTSIGNS ® OR PURCHASER. ORIGINAL DESIGNS REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF FASTSIGNS ® UNLESS SPECIFICALLY STATED IN YOUR CONTRACT THAT YOU HAVE PURCHASED THEM. NON-CREATIVE WORKS PRODUCED UNDER CONTRACT ARE THE PROPERTY OF PURCHASER.

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April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 79

national & world news

Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft being the other two, with a triple-A bond rating. That designation is typically reserved for government bodies. A Moody’s report issued at the time deemed Exxon in a better position to weather the drop in crude prices than most oil companies. Industry analysts expect the move was made in part to take advantage of interest rates before they go up. Proceeds from the sale may be used for acquisitions, capital investments, or refinancing. A portion of the debt will surely hedge against industry volatility, but word has it a BP acquisition may be in the works. BP shares fell 17.5 percent last year, with billions of dollars of fines hanging over its head from the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. Exxon’s bonds are expected to sell like hotcakes, as the company, like competitor Chevron, is deemed “high-value” by traders. Exxon’s issue is also expected to offer higher yields than government bonds.

IBM Acquisition to Build a More Perfect Watson seattle, washington

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IBM has acquired AlchemyAPI. The fast-growing startup collects and analyzes seemingly random data from anything from emails to social media posts to online photos to technical reports. So much information is processed so quickly that the computers can find subtle patterns in macroscopic chaos. The technology is used to build apps to help businesses fine-tune their targeted marketing. IBM wishes to integrate the technology into its Watson computing systems to make them more human-like. Watson combines natural language processing, hypothesis generation and evaluation, and dynamic learning with more conventional computer programming. It replaces keyboards with a more natural, conversational human interface. Watson became famous when it defeated two champions on the television quiz show Jeopardy. The acquisition follows that of Cognea, the creator of virtual assistant apps. Cognea know-how also went into building a better Watson. At the time of the purchase, AlchemyAPI had a staff of 40,000 tech-savvy developers. Big-name customers include Hearst Corporation and Shutterstock.

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Farfetch raised $86 million from DST Global and two investors that were already onboard, Conde Nast International and Vitruvian Partners, bringing its total funding to date to $195 million. Farfetch is now valued at $1 billion; it is not turning a profit; and founder Jose Neves is not concerned. Farfetch.com 80

| April 2015

gives an online presence to 300 of the world’s highest fashion, independent designer boutiques, with physical presences in places like New York, Paris, Bucharest, Mumbai, and Riyadh. The company provides services like photographing clothing for the site, handling payments, and negotiating shipping rates. It has low overhead, no warehousing costs, and can take advantage of economies of scale. Items are retailed at store prices, and Farfetch gets a cut from sellers. Neves expects competition from Amazon to be as likely as getting Walmart to sell the same dresses he does. Last year Farfetch facilitated $300 million in sales from 450,000 customers in 180 countries. Neves said sales have doubled each year. The company will use the new funding to launch websites in other languages, including German, Korean, and Spanish. DST is run by Yuri Milner, whose other investments include Twitter, Facebook, Alibaba, and Airbnb.

At Least Ten Now Involved in Precious Metals Price Fixing Probe washington, dc

The US Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are investigating at least ten international banks for alleged manipulation of the precious metals market. Named as part of the probe are Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC, Barclays, Bank of Nova Scotia, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Societe Generale, Standard Bank, and UBS. Back in November, four leaders in the financial and metallurgy sectors were sued for having manipulated platinum and palladium prices since 2007. The banks were accused of using insider information about pending purchases to shape commodities pricing. While German and American investigating authorities found no evidence of tampering with the gold market, the Swiss

regulator FINMA claimed to find clear indications of benchmark manipulation at USB. Following a rash of lawsuits in the United States, the banks that used to administer benchmarks for precious metals have exited the business. CME Group and Thomson Reuters now administer the silver benchmark, the London Metal Exchange handles platinum and silver, and the Intercontinental Exchange sets the new gold benchmark.

Target Keeping up with Millennials minneapolis , minnesota

Target, the second largest discount retailer in the United States, has announced plans to cut several thousand jobs in the next two years. Cuts are part of a major restructuring that will replace humans with technology. Other changes include reducing the number of product lines offered, marketing to millennials and Hispanics, and remaking the big-box image with small-footprint stores for urban markets. In January the retailer announced its intentions to close its Canadian stores, following a $5.4 billion loss. Most downsizing will occur at corporate headquarters in Minneapolis and in India. Target employs 10,000 in downtown Minneapolis, with about 3,000 more professionals split between offices in St. Louis Park and Brooklyn Park. It is the state’s fourth largest employer, next to the Mayo Clinic and state and federal governments. CEO Brian Cornell says the upheaval in the corporate culture will bring the company more in-line with consumer expectations. Unlike Walmart, Target has yet to announce wage increases.

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April 2015 | capitalatplay.com

capital adventurist

Underground SOCIETY

written by toni sherwood

photos by scott mccre a

“I’ve heard caves are the last unexplored surface of the earth,” long-time caver Scott McCrea says. “We’re going where most people would never go.” Caving offers a level of raw exploration that few sports can match, with miles of underground labyrinths yet to be discovered. “The mystery is exciting,” McCrea says. “We’ve mapped the bottom of the ocean. We’ve mapped the moon. But some say we’ve only mapped ten percent of the caves on earth.” “It was this gorgeous new environment,” Lori Wilkins says, recalling her first caving experience a decade ago. “I was hooked from the moment I saw the entrance.” Since then, Wilkins has literally and figuratively submerged herself in caving. She is the current chair of Flittermouse Grotto (a ‘grotto’ refers to a caving organization) and has been for the past two years. “I love exploring and seeing new, beautiful parts of this spectacular world we live in,” Wilkins says, “and caves are like no other place on earth.” Caving is simply the exploration of caves, but to do it safely requires a good deal of knowledge, equipment, and some training. “Caving is a team sport,” Wilkins says. Experienced pros like Wilkins, who is a wilderness first responder, and McCrea, who is in an instructor for the National Cave Rescue Commission, would be great teammates to have. 82

| April 2015

top : Erica Sughrue caving with a Swaygo Sink Pack in Tennessee, Photo by Bob Biddix lower right : Linville Caverns in McDowell County, Photo by Anthony Harden lower lef t : A cave formation

called “popcorn.”

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 83

capital adventurist

Wes Combs with crayfish

Cave formation called “drapery” or “cave bacon”

“The friendship and bond with the cavers you’re with is important,” McCrea says. “When you’re that far into a cave, there’s nobody who can come and rescue you. If you’re hurt, you’ve got to rely on the people you’re with to get you out.” “I enjoy the camaraderie of fellow spelunkers, no one else but cavers understand the passion we have for such strange environments,” Wilkins says.

descent As a caver descends below the ground, darkness engulfs them and the temperature changes. The temperature inside a cave remains steady year-round at the average air temperature for the region. In Western North Carolina that’s approximately 52-55 degrees. So, in the winter it is warmer inside a cave and in the summer it’s cooler. Cavers will tell you that caves have a very distinct musty smell. Caves do have airflow, but they can be extremely humid in the Western North Carolina area. “One hundred percent humidity in some of them,” Wilkins says. A decade of caving seems to have sharpened Wilkins’ senses. Inside a dark cave, she knows where the entrance is even when it’s completely dark outside. “I’ve noticed near the entrance of a cave I’m breathing a little more clearly,” Wilkins says. “There’s a sense that the humidity decreases even when it’s very humid outside the cave.” Which begs to mention that caving can be done at any time of day or night. Cavers wear headlamps to free up their hands so they can maneuver their bodies through the varying surfaces and openings that make up a cave system. Horizontal caving involves walking, crawling, climbing, scooting, 84

| April 2015

Peter “Mudpuppy” Michaud looking at high-water marks

Underground waterfall in Gilley Cave, Virginia

spelunking versus c av i n g Wilkins: “Spelunking is an international term. Speleology is the study of caves, so spelunking is used everywhere, but in this country spelunkers are considered to be novices without the equipment. But it’s a great word, I’m a linguist, so I do call myself a spelunker.” McCrea: “Nowadays the term tends to designate someone who is not trained and doesn’t use appropriate gear, an amateur. There’s a bumper sticker that says: ‘Cavers rescue spelunkers.’” proficiency above ground first. It also requires more endurance and time commitment once underground. A good spot for vertical caving is Ellison’s Cave, the 12th deepest in the United States, located in Northeast Georgia. “At Ellison’s cave you’re going to drop almost 600 feet on a rope, repel down, go caving, and then climb back out,” Wilkins says.“It’s going to take a while to get down and it takes endurance. It’s a whole w i t h s o m a n y b r a n c h e s o f c av i n g f r o m c av e different world when you’re going in the deep ph otog r a ph y to m a p pi ng to scu b a d i v i ng i n like that.” Ellison’s Cave is recommended only u n d e r wat e r c av e s i t s a c h a l l e n g e t o f i n d for the most experienced and advanced cavers. o n e c o m m o n t r a i t t h at d e f i n e s c av e r s But for some cavers, part of the fun is discovering new caves. “Ridge walking is when cavers go out in the woods and walk around until we find a new hole in the ground,” McCrea explains. “Sometimes is the ‘chicken loop,’ which is a multi-purpose little belt that it’s not even a hole, but there are geological signs that a cave you wear around your ankle. Chicken loops can be used to is there.” Winter can be a good time to spot a hidden entrance, attach your pack to your ankle if you’re crawling through a because typically the entrance will not have snow around it passageway on your belly. due to the higher temperature inside the cave. McCrea opened Vertical caving involves specialized equipment because cavers up a cave in West Virginia that he has mapped for seven miles ascend and descend via rope. They may use ropes to enter, so far, one of the most extensive caves he has yet discovered. exit, or travel through a cave. It requires extra training and

and sliding, and can include the use of hand lines and ladders. “Sometimes the passages are so small you can’t keep your pack on your back so you drag it along behind you,” McCrea explains. McCrea started his company Swaygo Gear in 2001, which manufactures and sells caving equipment. One popular item

’

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 85

capital adventurist

A large chert hoop in Gilley Cave, Virginia

l at e s t n e w s In February 2015 cavers surveyed an additional 6557.65 feet in Jewel Cave, located in South Dakota, expanding the known length to 175.13 miles long, with plenty of unexplored leads waiting to be surveyed. This makes Jewel Cave the third longest known cave in the world. But located nearby, Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave system is the longest known cave at 400 miles.

w h at l i e s b e n e at h Caves can be home to insects, fish, salamanders, and crickets, but most species are washed into the cave by a stream or rain, or live near the entrance. There are species that live their entire life cycle in the dark parts of caves; scientists refer to them as troglobites. They tend to be distinguished by not having eyes and appearing white or translucent in color. The only cave-dwelling mammal is the bat, but they are not troglobites because they do not live exclusively inside caves; they hibernate and sleep in caves, leaving to hunt at night. The sport of caving has changed drastically since 2007 when ‘white-nose syndrome’ was first discovered to be affecting bat populations in New York. White-nose syndrome is caused by a fungus called Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which affects bats during hibernation. Distinctive white patches can be observed on the muzzle, wings, and ears of affected animals. Although this disease has no known affects on humans, it has been associated with the deaths of more than 5.5 million bats since it was first identified, and the environmental impacts remain to be seen. When white-nose syndrome was first discovered, scientists were not sure how the fungus was being transferred. Human beings were among the possible transfer agents, perhaps via shoes, clothing, or equipment. As a precaution, public caves closed, hoping to rule out human transfer of the spores. “We stopped caving around here in 2009,” McCrea recalls, “we pretty much just quit. It was the only safe thing to do.” 86

| April 2015

Taking a compass reading

Scott McCrea sketching a map of an unexplored cave

Regardless of these precautions, affected bats were noticed in Western North Carolina by 2011. Local public caves such as those in the Bat Cave Preserve (property of The Nature Conservancy), and those in Chimney Rock State Park, remain closed to this day. “I know people who quit caving for years,” Wilkins says. But now that white-nose syndrome has spread throughout 25 states in the United States and five Canadian provinces, cavers have ventured back, but with new protocols. “Now we use new gear for each cave, or clean the gear after each cave to avoid contamination,” McCrea says. “Most cavers go through that now after every trip to be sure we’re not transferring spores.” At Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, public tours do not enter areas that bats use for hibernation. But since bats do occasionally fly through toured sections of the cave, visitors must walk across a bio-security mat to remove spores and dirt when exiting the cave. There are also guidelines for cleaning shoes prior to entry and not bringing equipment or clothing from one cave to another without being cleaned. The goal is to contain the disease and prevent healthy bats from contracting it. “Bats are a major part of the ecosystem,” Wilkins says. “It’s important to take care of them.” What began as a sport for McCrea blossomed into a business and has now become a cause. In February 2015 McCrea guided the North Carolina Wildlife Commission through caves in the Nantahala Gorge area, where historically there has been a large bat population in the winter. Every other year scientists enter the closed caves to count the bat population. McCrea helps them locate the bats and navigate the cave safely. With white-nose syndrome literally underground, cavers are in a unique position to shed light on a subject many have not yet heard about, and they see the effects first hand. The February count at Nantahala says it all. “There were 1,200 bats in this cave in 2013,” McCrea says, “and last week there were 56.”

th e in crowd With some public caves remaining closed indefinitely, you might think caving is on the way out. But there are caves open for exploration—that is, if you know the right people. In Western North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, many caves are on private property. “Most of the time it’s farmland or forest land that has been in families for generations,” McCrea says. “Cavers work for a long time to build relationships with landowners.” Some of these relationships have been established over 40 or 50 years and several generations. Each landowner may have different requirements. Some charge for parking, some require waivers, and for others it’s out of sight out of mind. That’s where a grotto is invaluable; they know the locations, the owners, and the arrangements. “The landowner sees a car they don’t recognize, or catches a stranger walking to or from the cave, and shots have been fired,” McCrea warns. “Somebody trespassing on a farmer’s

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land in East Tennessee is liable to get shot.” Cavers’ secrecy surrounding the location of caves arose from a desire to protect access to them, since even one unwanted visitor could change an owner’s mind. “It’s a bummer when somebody goes in there who’s not associated with the caving group and ruins things for everybody else,” McCrea adds. A grotto can help you know where to go, as well as when to go. “You definitely don’t want to go in some caves on a rainy day because you can get flooded in,” Wilkins warns.

deep thinkers With so many branches of caving, from cave photography to mapping to scuba diving in underwater caves, it’s a challenge to find one common trait that defines cavers. “When you’re looking for caves and find a hole in the ground, some people will say ‘what’s in there?’ And they just go right in,” Wilkins says. “It does take a certain kind of gusto.” Wilkins has guided beginners inside caves for years. She has seen people afraid to go in, but once they do they love it. Others are excited to give it a try, but once underground it becomes a psychological challenge for them. “You never really know until you get into that space,” Wilkins says. “That’s true with a lot of things in life.” McCrea says cavers can span the spectrum, from PhDs to moms. Wilkins has observed that problem-solvers tend to be attracted to the sport. “I know a lot of cavers who are very intelligent,” Wilkins says. “Engineers, or people working with computers, the types that use their minds a lot.” Perhaps for some, the only way to truly unplug from the modern world is to descend beneath the surface of the earth.

a c av e r s c o m m u n i t y Grottos are organized under the National Speleological Society and are a great way to locate fellow cavers and find out about upcoming trips. Caving with a group of four is an ideal number, according to both Wilkins and McCrea. “If someone gets hurt, two can go get help while one stays with the injured person,” Wilkins explains. Flittermouse Grotto has many members trained in basic cave rescue and encourages all new members to take a class. But they don’t take any chances. “When we go caving, we always let someone (the ‘call-out’) know where we are going and when we plan to be back,” Wilkins explains. “If the call-out doesn’t hear from the caving party by the expected time, a rescue effort ensues.” But if all this talk of rescue makes caving sound risky, it’s good to remember the precautions are intended to diminish those risks, not a red flag of impending doom. “I’ve never been injured in a cave,” McCrea says. Flittermouse Grotto typically leads one beginner horizontal caving trip per month and a few vertical practice sessions each year. As cavers advance in their skills, they are encouraged to join one of several trips in the region that happen each month. Wilkins’ passion for caving is contagious, and she hopes to entice new explorers to join their underground society. “I appreciate taking people underground that have never seen the likes of such gorgeous stonework, forming new rock right in front of their eyes,” Wilkins says. “I encourage everyone to try it,” McCrea says. “There’s always the option to turn around and go back.”

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loc a l g rot tos:

> Flittermouse Grotto

Asheville, NC caves.org/grotto/flittermouse/index.php

> Bryson City Grotto PO Box 791, Bryson City, NC beneudy@yahoo.com > South Carolina Interstate Grotto PO Box 1171, Greer, SC skibumroy5@charter.net > Triangle Troglodytes Raleigh, NC tritrogs.org

For more information about caving, including where to find a grotto near you, visit The National Speleological Society at caves.org

Stephanie Petri climbing out of the Waterslide passage

To find out more about white-nose syndrome visit whitenosesyndrome.org

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59 college street, asheville • 828.250.0500 April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 89

april

EVENTS april 1- 30

Biltmore Blooms 9am-dusk The Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC Frederick Law Olmsted’s final project, George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Gardens, offers views of nature’s parade of flowers intensified. First come the daffodils, jonquils, and forsythia. Tulips follow. Then, there will be an array of pastel tree blooms and ground cover. High spring is marked by rhododendrons and azaleas, which pass the baton to the vivid colors of summer roses. Indoors, a parallel display will unfold with lavish tropical plants.

> Admission: Adult $49,

Youth (10-16) $24.50 (includes access to the Biltmore House and all public areas) > 800-411-3812 or biltmore.com

Trout Derby 7am–4:30pm American Legion, Blowing Rock, NC It’s the first day of trout season, so the Derby kicks it off with a family-friendly competition event for kids ages 11 and under. Bring your catch to the Derby Headquarters to measure and enter for great prizes. No pre-registration is necessary, and there are no fees to enter.

> Free > 828-295-5222 april 4

Easter on the Green 2-5pm Pack Square Park, Asheville, NC The very well-attended, sixth annual Easter on the Green, sponsored by Ingles Markets, will offer age-specific egg hunts. Children will get to play in giant inflatables, and the Easter Bunny will be present for photo ops.

> 828-251-9973 or

ashevilledowntown.org

april 1- 30

Dollar Days at Grandfather Mountain 9am-6pm Grandfather Mountain, 2050 Blowing Rock Highway, Linville, NC Grandfather Mountain is the tallest peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a scenic nature preserve of no small reputation. Attractions include high-altitude panoramas, biodiversity in flora and fauna, twelve miles of maintained trails that include a mile-high swinging bridge, picnic tables and grills, and a nature museum.

>Tickets: $3 each provided one person in the vehicle has proof of High Country residency. > 800-468-7325 or grandfather.com 90

april 4

| April 2015

april 4

6th Annual {Re}HAPPENING 3-10pm (Dinner & Cocktail Reception: 5:30-7:30pm) Camp Rockmont, 375 Lake Eden Road, Black Mountain, NC This annual immersive, multi-sensory experience of art, performance, and food takes place on the grounds of the Black Mountain College Lake Eden Campus and pays tribute to the groundbreaking innovations of that community of artists. Simultaneously, the event launches a contemporary platform for artists and attendees to experience adventurous

art and creativity in the present day. The event is organized in collaboration with The Media Arts Project.

>Tickets: General Public $20, BMCM+AC Members $18

> Admission + Dinner

& Cocktail Reception: $85 (BMCM+AC members $75)

> rehappening.com april 4

ReptiDay Asheville 10am-5pm Boone Building at the WNC Agricultural Center, Fletcher, NC Repticon has been traveling the country with reptile expos for the last ten years. Participants will get to see live and exotic animals from around the world. Pets will be for sale, along with pet products and advice from experts. Seminars and demonstrations will run throughout the day. Among exhibitors signed are Bounty Hunter Exotics, Carolina Dart Frogs, Gecko Ranch, LLC, and Wreck Room Snakes.

>Tickets: Adult $12, Youth (5-12) $5, Infants (0-4) Free

> 863-268-4273 or reptiday.com april 5

60th Annual Easter Sunrise Service 6:30am Chimney Rock State Park, 431 Main Street, Chimney Rock, NC Join 1,000 early risers for praise and worship in the glory of nature. Weather permitting, spectacular panoramic views of the sun rising over Lake Lure, softened by the soft greens of spring, will provide backdrop for scripture and song. Music this year will be provided by John Mason on the hammered dulcimer. Gates will

open at 5am, and participants are welcome to spend the remainder of the day in the peace of the park. The regional draw has been described as “legendary.”

> Free > 800-277-9611 or chimneyrockpark.com april 4 - 5

Easter Ski Benefit Weekend 9am-6pm Appalachian Ski Mountain, 940 Ski Mountain Road, Blowing Rock, NC Appalachian Ski Mountain will stay open an extra weekend this year to raise funds for the Middle Fork Greenway, which will connect Blowing Rock and Boone. Over thirty area businesses are collaborating to contribute a portion of the weekend’s proceeds, and all Saturday ticket sales at Appalachian Ski Mountain will support the cause. A number of special packages are advertised on the website.

april 7 & 8

Pilobolus 8pm Diana Wortham Theatre, Asheville, NC Pilobolus is a world-renowned, highly-acclaimed dance company. Its website claims the performers are “named after a barnyard fungus that propels its spores with extraordinary speed, accuracy, and strength.” The name is an excellent fit for the group’s weirdness, speed, accuracy, and strength. Pilobolus was founded by a group of students at Dartmouth College in 1971, and today a new generation of dancers continues the tradition of prompting quizzical audiences to ask: “Is that a person?”

>Tickets: Regular $35, Student $30, Child $15

> 828-257-4530 or dwtheatre.com april 15

Harlan E. Boyles Distinguished CEO Lecture Series 10am

>Tickets: Regular $48, Student $43,

Holmes Convocation Center, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC

> 828-257-4530 or dwtheatre.com

BBDO New York’s award-winning president and CEO John Osborn will share how the company, under his leadership since 1991, has more than doubled revenues, expanded its client base, and diversified its workforce. Clients include FedEx, Foot Locker, Johnson & Johnson, GE, Lowe’s, Mars, Monster. com, Visa, and the American Red Cross. BBDO offers digital marketing and more

Child $20

april 11

New York Voices

>Tickets: General Public $50,

8pm Diana Wortham Theatre, Asheville, NC

> 828-295-7828 or appskimtn.com

The Grammy Award winning jazz quartet entertains with sight and sound. They

Residents and Lodging Guests $25

have been described as “chameleon-like.” Their energetic performances flow from one genre to the next as melodies are executed with professional precision. Influences cited include jazz, Brazilian, rhythm and blues, classical, and pop.

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traditional publishing services. Following Osborn’s presentation, Wells Fargo’s senior vice president and director of National Partnerships, Gigi Dixon, will speak at an executive luncheon.

> Free > 828-262-2544 or covington@appstate.edu april 15 , 22 & 29 & may 6

Puppetry Design, Construction & Manipulation 4pm Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts, 1028 Georgia Road, Franklin, NC Independently Owned by

Susie Tarantino

Providing you with the care & support to:

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Individualized planning for your medical and home care needs.

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>Tickets: $35 > 866-273-4615 or greatmountainmusic.com april 16 -18 Blue Ridge Wine and Food Festival Beginning 11am Thursday Blowing Rock, NC The town of Blowing Rock will open for seminars and tastings at various venues. In addition to eating and learning, festival-goers can enjoy easel painting and a 5K Corkscrew Run.

> Events ticketed individually > 828-295-7851 or blueridgewinefestival.com april 16

Gardening in the Mountains: Irrigation and Waterwise Gardening

Licensed in Nursing by the state of North Carolina Companionship & Home Assistance Independent Living In-Home or Facility care Long-term care insurance accepted

828-670-1379 ofﬁce 828-777-0340 cell tlcforyouinc@gmail.com www.tlcforyouinc.com

In four courses children aged nine to 109 will learn how to build foam puppets and make them dance. Students will develop characters with personality in addition to putting the materials together.

ASHEVILLE AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

10am NC Cooperative Extension Offices, 94 Coxe Avenue, Asheville, NC Buncombe County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers share their expertise with the community in this lecture series. Lectures are given on third Thursdays from March through October. Plant clinics and compost demonstrations are offered on second and fourth Saturdays from 11am-2pm.

> Free > 828-255-5522 or buncombemastergardener.org

– may 3 A Streetcar Named Desire april 17

Fridays & Saturdays 7:30pm, Sundays 2:30pm Asheville Community Theatre, 35 East Walnut Street, Asheville, NC This Tennessee Williams classic opened on Broadway and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. It tells the story of a woman who moves into a small apartment with her sister and her husband. The woman’s delusions intensify as do the husband’s drunken rages. Skeletons come out of the closet, but the poker game goes on. This performance contains content that may not be appropriate for some audiences.

>Tickets: $18 > 828-254-1320 or

ashevilletheatre.org

april 17

Koresh Dance Company 8pm-9:30pm

april 10 & 18

Carolina Day School 2015 Auction Willypalooza: April 10, 5-7:30pm The Big Bash: April 18, 7:30-11pm Carolina Day School, 1345 Hendersonville Road, Asheville, NC This “School of Rock” themed auction includes two special events: The Family Night Auction celebrates all musical genres in a Willypalooza theme, including a silent auction evening filled with games, activities, and dinner in the Lower School gym. The School of Rock Big Bash returns to its original home in Nash Athletic Center with attendees encouraged to dress as their favorite musical performer for an evening of fabulous cocktails, food, and live and silent auctions. Proceeds support enhancement to the school’s music education program, improvements to the student workout facility, and support of faculty professional development.

> Willypalooza Tickets: $5 each,

$20 for groups for four or more

Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts, 733 Rivers St, Boone, NC

> Big Bash Tickets: General $125, VIP

South Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Appalachian State University have partnered to bring the Koresh Dance Company to Western North Carolina. The company was founded in 1991 in Philadelphia by choreographer and director Roni Koresh. The troupe is the resident dance company of the Suzanne Roberts Theatre and has toured in seven countries. Its interdisciplinary genre draws from Graham technique, Luigi jazz, classical ballet, hip-hop, and Israeli folk dance.

> carolinaday.org/auction

>Tickets: Adult $20, Student $10 > 828-262-4046 or pas.appstate.edu

N T H A N UA L

$175

april 18

JOIN US FOR

3 Days of Live Music, Outdoor Sports & Craft Beer May 22-24, 2015 Carrier Park, Asheville, NC FREE www.mountainsportsfestival.com info@mountainsportsfestival.com Music Featuring: The Lee Boys | The Congress | Funk You | East Coast Dirt Events Including: Rock2Rock 10K | MSF Cyclocross | NCOBS Collier Lilly Ride | Heartstrings Family Fun Center & More Eat & Drink: Pisgah Brewing Company & lots of local food vendors New This Year: A silent auction!

Handel’s Alexander’s Feast 8pm Thomas Wolfe Auditorium at the US Cellular Center, Asheville, NC The Asheville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Meyer, will partner with Western Carolina University students and soloists from the Pittsburgh Opera to perform Handel’s cantata. The work tells the story of a banquet thrown by Alexander the Great in the captured city of Persepolis. The emperor

Race to the Stage: A battle of the bands for an opportunity to play at Mountain Sports Festival

April 30, 2015 6-10PM at Highland Brewing

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 93

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Capitalize on your creativity with Performers from 30 countries including R. OCarlos Nakai, B A A L The Karsh Kale, G R Duhks, Donna the Buffalo, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo plus Poetry Slams, Healing Arts, Local Brews & MORE! T

FULL LINEUP ONLINE!

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undergoes a number of mood swings until, mourning the soldiers he lost, he finally resolves to burn the city. Rumor has it that, back in the day, the work was so successful, it persuaded Handel to transition from writing Italian opera to scoring English choral music.

>Tickets: Adult $22-62, Student $11-43

> 828-254-7046 or

ashevillesymphony.org

april 18

Carolina Concert Choir Spring Concert 3pm Thomas Auditorium at the Blue Ridge Community College, 180 West Campus Drive, Flat Rock, NC The choir first organized as the Carolina Chamber Singers in 1979 to sing madrigals under the direction of Dr. Robert Barrow. Under the leadership of Beverly Ward, the group’s repertoire expanded to include classical and contemporary pieces. Following a rash of guest conductors, the choir is now led by Lawrence Doebler, who claims a strong background in a rich diversity of musical activities in Ithaca, New York. Selections for the performance have yet to be announced.

>Tickets: Adult $22, Student $5 > 828-216-1753 or carolinaconcertchoir.org

april 18

Valdese Annual Triathlon 9am 312 Massel Ave SE, Valdese, NC

At beautiful Lake Eden ASHEVILLE | BLACK MTN, NC 94

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The triathlon has been a tradition since 2004. The event will kick off at the Valdese Community Center pool, where 100-200 athletes will swim 250 yards in staggered shifts, changing lanes as they

go. Then, they will bike a nine-mile roundtrip down Carolina Street and finish after a 5K run on Laurel Street. Registration is closed, but spectators are welcome.

> Free > 828-430-1838 or valdesetri.com

– may 2 Designer Showcase Loft Tour april 18

Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 1-4pm 104 Main Street, Hendersonville, NC Seven interior designers will attack the 2,500-square-foot loft above one of the businesses on historic Main Street. A before picture shows a brick wall with a claw-foot bathtub. Though rough right now, the room promises potential with its solarium showcasing the golden dome of the courthouse and mountainscapes beyond. The event will raise funds for the Downtown Façade Grant Program.

>Tickets: $20 > 828-233-3216 or

downtownhendersonville.org

april 24 - 26

West Side Story Friday & Saturday 8pm, Sunday 3pm Diana Wortham Theatre, 2 South Pack Square, Asheville, NC The Asheville Lyric Opera will undertake performing this classic, which features hits such as “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” and “I Want to Be in America.” The cast of over 30 includes well-trained singers, dancers, and actors. No microphones will be used, and the performance will be backed by a full classical orchestra.

>Tickets: Adults $30-$58, Students $17-$40

> 828-236-0670 or ashevillelyric.org

april 23 - 26 Merlefest 2pm-8pm Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC One of the nation’s premier music festivals, Merlefest was founded in 1988 in memory of Eddy Merle Watson as a fundraiser for Wilkes Community College. It celebrates what Doc Watson referred to as traditional Appalachian music “plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play.” For four days, artists will play Americana, country, blues, rock, and bluegrass on thirteen stages. Big name headliners include Dwight Yoakam, the Avett Brothers, Bela Fleck, Lee Ann Womack, the North Mississippi Allstars, the Marshall Tucker Band, and Steep Canyon Rangers.

> Admission: $40-$260 (Parking extra, see website for details.) > 336-838-6267 or merlefest.org

april 24 - 25 Blue Ridge Bookfest

Over 30 authors will be presenting workshops and exhibiting at the 7th annual Bookfest. The featured presenter will be Joseph L. Galloway, who served as one of the country’s premier war and foreign correspondents for half a century. He is co-author of We Were Soldiers Once… And Young. This is an opportunity to network and gain knowledge not only about writing, but also about publishing and marketing. Authors will be grouped loosely by theme for group discussions with readers.

Consult website for schedule Blue Ridge Conference Hall at the Blue Ridge Community College, 180 West Campus Drive, Flat Rock

A L

G R

> Free > 828-694-1700 or

brbookfest@gmail.com

FULL LINEUP ONLINE! April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 95

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SEW SWISS For The Love of Sewing:

april 24 - 25 Lanier Library Poetry Festival Consult web site for schedule Lanier Library Association, 72 Chestnut Street, Tryon, NC

FABRIC • SEWING MACHINES

BERNINA • BABY LOCK • HORN 1378 Hendersonville Road, Asheville (next to Fresh Market) 828-277-4100 • Mon-Sat, 10a-5:30p

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For the second year in a row, the Lanier Library is recruiting preeminent poets from across the country to teach writing workshops and provide free public readings. The keynote speaker will be Richard Blanco, whose work has been published in multiple literary journals, on NPR, and at President Obama’s 2013 swearing in ceremony. Workshops are for poets of all skill levels; there will even be learning activities for elementary schoolchildren. Call for reservations.

> Events charged individually > 828-859-9535 or

lanierlibrarypoetryfestival.org

april 26

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Minneapolis Guitar Quartet 3pm First Congregational Church, 1735 5th Avenue, Hendersonville, NC Joseph Hagedorn, Maja Radovanlija, Benjamin Kunkel, and Wade Oden are most noted for their performance of tunes with flavorings from Latin and South America. They are well-traveled and all are faculty members who frequently conduct master classes. Sunday’s performance will feature sounds from around the world, ranging from a Bach fugue to “Scarborough Fair.” The performance will end with some of the performers’ trademark danza numbers.

>Tickets: Adult $20, Students Free > 828-808-2314 or 828-696-2118 or hendersonvillechambermusic.org

| April 2015

april 24 - 26 USDAA Dog Agility Trial Fri & Sat 8am-2pm, Sun 8am-12pm Foothills Equestrian Nature Center, 3381 Hunting Country Road, Tryon, NC Agility is a sport where dogs and their handlers navigate an obstacle course that includes hurdles, climbs, slaloms , teeter totters, tunnels, and more. Dogs are judged on both speed and accuracy. The Blue Ridge Agility Club’s trials are open to dogs regardless of breed. Spectators are welcome, but are asked to “please leave their dogs comfortably at home.”

> Free > 828-859-9021 or fence.org april 26

We’ve Only Just Begun: The Carpenters 3-5pm BAC Theatre, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC The Carpenters’ original sound will be reproduced by a live, seven-piece Nashville band led by vocalist Michelle Berting Brett. The emulation and nostalgia will send a shiver up the spine.

>Tickets: Adult $21, Student $16, Child $7 > 828-277-2479 or wcu.edu

If your organization has any local press releases for our briefs section or events that you would like to see here feel free to email us at events@capitalatplay.com Please submit your event by the first day of the month preceding your event.

April 2015 | capitalatplay.com 97

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