CORPORATE COLLABORATION

PHILIP BROWN Novant Health

RUSTY CARTER Atlantic Packaging

HUNTLEY GARRIOTT Live Oak Bank

CHIP MAHAN Live Oak Bank

JOHN MONTEITH Monteith Construction

GEORGE TAYLOR TRU Colors

LANDON ZIMMER Zimmer Development Co.

PUBLIC problems through A

CORPORATE

BY CECE LENS NUNN

AN INFORMAL GROUP NAMED THE “BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE,” CREATED BY SOME

OF WILMINGTON’S MOST

INFLUENTIAL BUSINESS

LEADERS, AIMS TO SHED LIGHT

ON SOME OF THE AREA’S MOST

IMPACTFUL SOCIAL ISSUES.

In January, the group authored an editorial on affordable housing.

“The state of housing in New Hanover County has reached crisis levels, and as business leaders and major employers in this community we believe that immediate catalytic funding is a critical component to solving this crisis,” the editorial stated.

The piece was signed by leaders with Monteith Construction, Live Oak Bank, Novant Health, Zimmer Development Co., Atlantic Packaging and TRU Colors.

Some of those same leaders had already begun discussions about change through Initiative 1897, an effort focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.

The initiative’s name refers to the year before Wilmington’s thriving Black community was struck down by a white supremacist coup d’etat. The corporate partners in Initiative 1897 last year commissioned nine large-scale portraits of prominent Black men and women living in Wilmington during the post-Reconstruction era for display to the public.

“The art was meant to be kind of the welcome to the conversation – let’s have the conversation, let’s celebrate these people. And then phase two, let’s get to work on doing the work to change some things,” said John Monteith, founder of Monteith Construction. “So this (the Business Roundtable) is kind of the outcropping of that

initiative.”

During a Zoom meeting with WilmingtonBiz Magazine in February, Monteith talked in more depth about the Business Roundtable, along with members Huntley Garriott and Philip Brown.

Garriott, president of Live Oak Bank, agreed with Monteith about the origins of the roundtable, saying, “Some of the discussions following the 1897 project were around the state’s Healthy North Carolina 2030 framework that says, ‘Here are all of the metrics we all think are important for us as a community to improve upon.’ And one of the stark ones was housing.”

Garriott pointed out that Cape Fear Collective, a Wilmington-based nonprofit social impact organization supported by Live Oak, has been gathering data and working on housing crisis solutions (read more about Wilmington-area affordable housing efforts on page 22).

The area’s lack of affordable housing “really felt like one that made a lot of sense for us all to spend time thinking about and seeing how we could play a part,” Garriott said.

Brown, chief community impact officer for Novant Health and former chief physician executive for NHRMC, said housing can have a major impact on health as well as the economy.

“Much like our letter said, the main thing is that our firefighters, our police officers, our school teachers and the first responders ... need to be able to live in the communities where they serve,” Brown said. “And so our commitment is to continue to shine a light on this issue, until we really begin to make significant progress to solve it.”

In addition to Monteith, Garriott and Brown, the editorial signers included Live Oak Bank Chairman and CEO Chip Mahan; Landon Zimmer, managing partner at Zimmer Development (read more about Zimmer on page 34); Rusty Carter, CEO of Atlantic Packaging;

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and tech entrepreneur George Taylor, founder of TRU Colors.

“When we all identify the same root causes, and we all have the same goals and objectives, we’re all working in the same direction, generally speaking, things work better and are more productive,” Garriott said. “And so when everybody in the boat rowing the oars in the same direction, the boat really does move much more efficiently and forward. That, I think, is point No. 1.”

No. 2, he said, “We all lead companies and think about the world from a corporate lens. … And sometimes I think it’s healthy to take that lens and that frame of reference to public-sector problems and to think about how ‘the business community’ would work toward solving those.”

Garriott used the example of how Live Oak and Cape Fear Collective have worked together on purchasing housing units to make them affordable housing permanently.

In the end, Monteith said, it’s about accountability.

“We are all part of the same community; our employees are in this community. And even if it’s not our direct employees, it could be someone we trade with, we partner with through our work. And there’s no scenario where we should be doing anything other than feeling accountable and really bothered by data that paints a really stark picture of disparities around these discussions. So it’s a conscious effort to really lean into this with an accountability,” he said.

Monteith said Novant and Live Oak “have a lot of employees, a lot of impact. But they’re also known as disruptors. They’re also not afraid of anything, they’re bold, and they don’t let things just go away. They stick with things until they’re perfected. And to Huntley’s point, it’s bringing that kind of mentality that we really kind of takes some accountability and even ownership, if you will, to the point where we don’t get distracted, we don’t move on, we get to the core of these things, and we see it through.”

WilmingtonBiz Magazine asked the trio why they themselves don’t just “pay everybody a whole lot more?”

“That’s a great question. I think I can speak for ourselves (Monteith Construction) on that. We always start by taking a look inside our company,” Monteith said. “And we committed as a company to paying a living wage that’s measured by county, by individual circumstances in our company and not paying what the market would bear. Because we’ve seen what happens when you leave it 100% to the market – it’s a race to the bottom. And of all the things that 2020 and COVID showed us, it’s that it doesn’t always treat people fairly. Just because it’s an open market doesn’t mean it’s going to be fair; often that race to the bottom leads to some very unintended consequences, and many of those were exposed by essential workers during COVID and scenarios like that.

“Are we saying we’re perfect? No, absolutely not. We have to constantly have our eye on these things, and be aware and aspire to do better.”

Garriott added, “We similarly spend a fair amount of time thinking about what that level ought to be. … and you’re right, none of us is perfect. And we all have various constraints, right? And we’re all operating within those, but we try really hard to get to the right place.”

When Novant Health completed its purchase of New Hanover Regional Medical Center in February 2021, one of the first items of business was “the healthy living wage, which elevated the income of our lowest-paid employees, and we’re actually right now in a multi-market market adjustment … everyone is being looked at from a market adjustment of their pay,” Brown said.

But wage adjustments alone at one company here or there won’t be enough.

“We have to keep this discussion at the forefront in such a way that that multi-part solution can come together from different stakeholders,” Brown said. “And that’s really what this (the Business Roundtable) is about.”

Monteith said he and other members of the roundtable find themselves at events and meetings on a lot of different topics with the same people, “with shared interests, concerns and motivations. And this (the Business Roundtable) is trying to give a little bit of form to that so that we can move with some certainty, but also be kind of nimble, and move quickly on something.”

The group may include different members for different topics or projects, Monteith said, “but for the time being, this is just taking people you’re seeing all the time anyways, and saying, ‘Hey, let’s push this forward in a little more formalized way.’”

THE MAIN THING IS THAT OUR FIREFIGHTERS, OUR ” POLICE OFFICERS, OUR SCHOOL TEACHERS AND THE FIRST RESPONDERS ... NEED TO BE ABLE TO LIVE IN THE COMMUNITIES WHERE THEY SERVE. AND SO OUR COMMITMENT IS TO CONTINUE TO SHINE A LIGHT ON THIS ISSUE, UNTIL WE REALLY BEGIN TO MAKE SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS TO SOLVE IT. ”

PHILIP BROWN Novant Health