Business North Carolina February 2025

SPECIAL EDITION: BUSINESS HANDBOOK

FEBRUARY 2025

2025 VISIONARIES

INSIGHTS ON NAVIGATING CHANGE FROM 11 LEADERS

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SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2025 • DOWNTOWN RALEIGH

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JOIN OUR NEWSLETTERS Resources for you - telling stories about what makes this state a great place to do business.

DAILY DIGEST DAILY DIGEST EXTRA

The best way to jump start your business day. Daily Digest is a must-read for anyone seeking an insider understanding of North Carolina business. More than 17,000 subscribers and top execs receive the daily e-newsletter covering North Carolina’s most important business news. Subscribe and get the latest business news from all around North Carolina straight to your inbox… for free!

Daily Digest Extra publishes twice a week -- on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons -- and contains breaking news about the latest business dealings in North Carolina, from mergers and acquisitions to executive changes to who’s adding or cutting employees. It focuses on news and analysis that can’t be found in any other media. A complimentary subscription of Business North Carolina magazine is included with the Daily Digest Extra.

The NC Tribune is a great way to find out what’s happening in the state legislature and other legislative bodies around North Carolina and what it means for business. The daily newsletter covers North Carolina politics, politicians, policies and elections and will cover news that directly impacts our state’s business community – including topics that no one else is covering. We’ll also spotlight can’t-miss stories from dozens of other news outlets across our state.

Dan Barkin’s email on our state’s growing military business sector and its impact on the N.C. economy is a must-read. The military provides roughly 11 percent of N.C.’s employment.

That’s 653,000 jobs in North Carolina, over $49 billion in state personal income, and nearly $80 billion in gross state product.

These are some of the reasons why Business North Carolina created the “NC Military Report,” a weekly newsletter covering military-related business news around the state, providing news and analysis that impacts all of us.

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FEBRUARY 2025

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UP FRONT

The sale of Raleigh’s family-owned Wake Stone Corp. leads to unusual generosity.

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POINT TAKEN

A Rocky Mount entrepreneur is building relationships while growing his produce business.

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POWER LIST INTERVIEW

UNC System President Peter Hans discusses higher education’s role in the state and the challenges of keeping it affordable.

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NC TREND

Business North Carolina’s Small Business of the Year winners; roundup of statewide business news from the past month.

COVER STORY SPECIAL ISSUE

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BUSINESS HANDBOOK

Thought leaders from across the state analyze the outlook for 11 key economic sectors. Plus lots of informative data on the state’s economy.

BY PETE M. ANDERSON, KEVIN ELLIS AND DAVID MILDENBERG

18 ROUND TABLE: ECONOMIC FORECAST Experts discuss how to navigate some of the changes from immigration policy to tariffs that could create uncertainty in 2025.

56 COMMUNITY CLOSE UP: NASH, EDGECOMBE AND WILSON COUNTIES Teamwork from three eastern North Carolina counties has attracted industrial-sized investments and strengthened the region as a whole.

29 Agriculture: Coming crisis of farmland preservation 31 Banking: Banks want to do business here 34 Biotech and Life Sciences:

N.C. research universities and community colleges key to growth

36 Construction: Rising population forecasts trajectory 38 Energy: Risk of demand outpacing supply 40 Healthcare: Good decisions equal more access 43 Higher Education: AI is the great disruptor 45 Legal: Law schools compete for resources 47 Money Management: Preparing for retirement 49 Transportation: Toll roads, EVs and public transportation 53 Tourism: How N.C. keeps attracting visitors

Start your day with business news from across the state, direct to your inbox.

SIGN UP AT BUSINESSNC.COM/DAILY-DIGEST.

February 2025, Vol. 45, No. 2 (ISSN 0279-4276). Business North Carolina is published monthly by Business North Carolina at 1230 West Morehead Street, Suite 308, Charlotte, NC 28208. Phone: 704-523-6987.

All contents copyright © by Old North State Magazines LLC. Subscription rate: 1 year, $30. For change of address, send mailing label and allow six to eight weeks. Periodicals postage paid at Charlotte, NC, and additional offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Business North Carolina, 1230 West Morehead Street, Suite 308, Charlotte, NC 28208 or email circulation@businessnc.com.

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UPFRONT

David Mildenberg

A MOMENT OF GRATITUDE

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t age 18 in 1973, Albert “Zeke” O’Neal concluded he didn’t want to spend his life like his father, a tobacco farmer near Knightdale in east Wake County. He noticed lots of activity at a three-year-old rock quarry nearby, so he walked in and asked for a job.

The owner, John Bratton, hired O’Neal on the spot to help with construction projects. He was the company’s eighth employee.

Fifty-two years later, O'Neal still works at Wake Stone Corp., which now has about 210 staffers and five quarries. He turns 70 in April, having celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary in December. He plans to work one more year because he likes his employer and “it’s all I’ve ever done.”

O’Neal’s company loyalty is rare these days.

But Wake Stone’s response is even more rare.

In September, Birmingham, Alabama-based Vulcan Materials bought Wake Stone for an undisclosed sum. Industry sources say it’s a lot more than $500 million.

John Bratton Jr. started Wake Stone in 1970 when about 230,000 people lived in Wake County. He eventually passed voting control to his three sons, Johnny, 71, Ted, 69 and Sam, 60.

John Bratton also had four daughters, who owned shares and received company dividends.

He preferred that women not lead the business.

Wake Stone has thrived along with Wake County, which now has 1.2 million residents.

The company mines materials used for roads and pads for factories and shopping centers.

Potential buyers have targeted the company for years. Quarries are increasingly valuable because starting a new one is nearly impossible because of environmental, regulatory and zoning issues.

But the economy needs rocks more than ever.

Wake Stone had a record year in 2023, with prospects for further gains. Aggregates companies are selling at peak levels. Early last year, the Bratton brothers set a target price, and agreed they would only sell to Vulcan, which they consider the industry’s premier company.

In July, Vulcan, stunned the Brattons by agreeing to their price. The public company also pledged to retain Wake Stone workers at the same pay levels.

Now, it gets interesting. The three brothers quickly agreed to share their gains with their employees as a loyalty bonus. This wasn’t a token effort. Aided by Tom Oxholm, their chief financial officer for 40 years, they agreed on a formula that totals about $70 million.

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Ben Kinney

bkinney@businessnc.com EDITOR

David Mildenberg

dmildenberg@businessnc.com MANAGING EDITOR

Kevin Ellis

kellis@businessnc.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Ray Gronberg

rgronberg@businessnc.com

Cathy Martin

cmartin@businessnc.com EDITORIAL INTERN

Natalie Bradin

Deborah and Albert O'Neal

Rank-and-file workers would receive $10,000 per year of employment; foremen would get $20,000 per year; and superintendents would get $40,000 per year.

Wake Stone workers average 15 years on the job, while many have hung around for decades.

Many hourly employees are receiving $200,000 to $400,000, which is distinct from their 401(k) savings.

At the Nov. 8 closing, the employees received 60% of the total payout, with the balance paid over the next three years. “We wanted to give them a reason to stick around,” CEO Sam Bratton says.

Amazingly, no one in the extended Bratton family – remember John had seven children – has complained about sharing the wealth.

“I’m very proud of my family,” Sam says. “You’d think there would be some dissension, but there was none. We know each other very well. They were thrilled for everyone being able to share a moment of gratitude.”

Bratton says he hopes Wake Stone’s approach spurs thinking by other families selling their businesses. “We’re going to get a great deal of wealth and we believe it was appropriate to share with others,” he says. “My father loved philanthropy and he loved the employees and treated everyone like family.”

Zeke O’Neal says his colleagues hated to see the Brattons sell, but were shocked to learn of the loyalty dividend. “It took us all by surprise, but what they have done for us is unheard of. It has been a nice journey.” ■

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Pete M. Anderson, Dan Barkin CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Cathy Swaney

cswaney@businessnc.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Lauren Ellis

MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jennifer Ware

jware@businessnc.com

ADVERTISING SALES ACCOUNT DIRECTOR

Melanie Weaver Lynch, eastern N.C. 919-855-9380 mweaver@businessnc.com

ACCOUNT MANAGER AND AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST

Scott Leonard, western N.C. 704-996-6426 sleonard@businessnc.com

CIRCULATION: 818-286-3106 EDITORIAL: 704-523-6987 REPRINTS: circulation@businessnc.com

BUSINESSNC.COM OWNERS Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels III, David Woronoff, in memoriam Frank Daniels Jr. PUBLISHED BY

Old North State Magazines LLC PRESIDENT

David Woronoff

Contact David Mildenberg at dmildenberg@businessnc.com.

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Eastern North Carolina:

Anchored by Military Strength,

Empowering our Economy The military is a cornerstone of eastern North Carolina’s economy and community. With five major installations — Camp Lejeune, MCAS New River, MCAS Cherry Point, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, and the US Coast Guard Base in Elizabeth City — the region supports over 76,000 service members and civilians. The defense sector generates an astounding $66 billion annually statewide, much of it concentrated in the 29-county NC East Alliance region, making it the second-largest economic sector in the state.

Eastern North Carolina offers unparalleled opportunities for veterans transitioning to civilian careers. With over 20,000 service members transitioning out of the military in North Carolina

ECVC employs over160 in Pitt County

each year, the region provides a skilled veteran workforce that companies like Fleet Readiness Center East, Aviation Logistics Center, and VectorCSP rely on for their success. Employers in logistics, aviation, and technology consistently honor veterans’ dedication, with several earning the prestigious HIRE Vets Medallion for their commitment to hiring and supporting veterans.

From boosting local economies to offering career pathways for veterans, the military’s influence in eastern North Carolina is transformative.

Discover a region where military strength powers economic growth and veterans thrive in meaningful careers. Learn more about the opportunities at nceast.org.

RC East employs over 4,000 in Craven County

Aviation Logistics Center employs over 1,700 in Pasquotank County J A N U A R Y

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POINTTAKEN

Dan Barkin

REVIVAL SPIRIT A Rocky Mount entrepreneur is translating career and life lessons into an impactful produce operation.

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o start a business, you need to be adaptable and resilient.

You need mentors and relationships. That describes Will Kornegay, who runs a produce business in Rocky Mount.

Kornegay, 38, gained experience working for one of the state’s largest sweetpotato companies. He then picked a tough time to go out on his own, just before the pandemic. He survived, and the business is growing.

Kornegay’s Ripe Revival supplies vegetables and fruit to supermarkets. The problem with produce is that as much as 40% is left in the fields because of imperfections that won’t meet retail specifications.

Kornegay wanted to use all of it. You can process much of that 40%, including slicing and dicing it into products that groceries will buy. The rest can go to folks struggling to put food on the table, which gets to his social impact goal.

He started Ripe for Revival, a non-profit affiliate, with a bus that went around as a pay-what-you-can mobile market. Now he has five buses.

Ripe Revial combines for-profit and In September, phiilanthropic efforts, including providing Ripe Revival won produce for food banks.

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a $1.9 million grant from the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs to fund a 50,000-square-foot facility in Nash County capable of processing 660 million pounds of produce a year. The town of Nashville has agreed to sell him 55 acres to develop an Innovation Campus. The goal is a $10 million project over the next decade that will create 25 new jobs, with a workforce development center, retail market, event pavilion, amphitheater trails and lodging.

His operation is four connected enterprises, including the nonprofit. Ripe Revival Produce is helping farmers sell 100% of their crop. Ripe Revival Market sells and delivers weekly subscription boxes of local produce and meat direct-toconsumers. Ripe Revival Provisions aims to create new consumer packaged goods.

TATER TRAINING Kornegay graduated from Rocky Mount Academy, then earned a business degree at NC State in 2009 and worked as an energy trader in Cary. “I loved commodities,” he says. “I just didn’t love what I was doing and living in the big city.”

After a couple of years, he joined Ham Farms, based in Snow Hill. He was hired to do sales, but what he did was a little of everything, from driving a forklift to running the packing line. “I learned a lot about operations,” says Kornegay.

If you want to start your own business, work for a good company and learn from smart people. One of those people for Kornegay was Bobby Ham, an East Carolina University graduate who came back to his family’s farm in the 1970s and grew it into one of the top growers in the Southeast.

North Carolina, the leading U.S. sweetpotato state, had an opportunity to develop international markets, but needed folks like

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Kornegay to get on planes and build out distribution.

RIPE RELATIONSHIPS Calling himself “very lucky,” he helped Ham’s business land “This whole brainchild of Ripe Revival came from the UK grocery giant Tesco “as one of my first customers in the education I got at Ham Farms,” says Kornegay. “Bobby Ham created sweetpotato world.” the model of vertical integration that allowed him to use every He also gained crucial experience with a couple of ventures. sweetpotato that he grew. He didn’t waste any of them. He had the produce company, he had the puree plant, he had a dehydration He started a business in 2015 called the Sportsman’s Box, a facility, and he had a sweetpotato vodka facility.” subscription-based concept. Every month, outdoor enthusiasts “He’d pick up every potato that was in the field, and processed would receive a box of hunting and fishing gear. After two years, every single thing. I started looking at the impact that it had on the he sold the business. bottom line and realized this works. This is the solution that all Then he helped run a company called Glean, which took these farmers don’t have.” edible produce that didn’t meet retail specifications and turned it While existing nonprofits try into flour that could be sold to help folks who couldn’t afford to consumers. “We were enough food, Kornegay learned taking the leftovers, the ugly there was a need for specialists stuff that nobody wanted, in logistics, food safety and and repurposing it.” distribution. “And I said, I think In 2019, he launched I’ll start a nonprofit that does this Ripe Revival. The plan was and does it well.” to create gummies made Ripe for Revival is expanding from sweet potatoes. He into culinary education, teaching had a $250,000 grant from how to prepare food and to the Kroger grocery chain, grow produce. On the Friday which was staking which of Christmas week, Kornegay’s was staking innovative operation, with help from 75 companies committed volunteers, packed 2,500 boxes of to reducing food waste food for families in need. and hunger. And then One of Kornegay’s key everything changed. “You skills is building and sustaining Will Kornegay shifted from energy trading to produce sales, first for remember that little thing relationships. His farming Ham Farms and then his own enterprise. called COVID?” he says. partners in nearby Whitakers Retailers told him they are high school buddies Billy McDaniel, Peyton McDaniel and Phillip Watson, who supply weren’t taking on new suppliers. some of his produce. The town of Nashville bought into his vision, He had a decision to make. “Do I crawl back to my former selling him land for his expansion at a good price. He developed employer and ask for my job back, or do I just keep figuring it relationships with the companies that donated meat and produce out?” He figured it out. for the Christmas boxes, including Wilders, House of Raeford Kornegay built an online subscription food box service.

“Within two weeks, we had 500 members that we were delivering and Villari Foods, Nash Produce and L&M Produce. About 30 nonprofits and faith-based partners agreed to distribute the boxes. produce to during the pandemic, and produce turned into meat The Merrimon-Wynne House, a special events venue in a historic and milk and eggs.”

The government encouraged this model, enlisting big produce downtown Raleigh property, has chosen Ripe for Revival for its annual event to fundraise for a nonprofit. The goal is $150,000. companies to pack tens of thousands of boxes for home delivery.

It has been a tough slog to get to this point. “The last five “So I got the contract from one of the big produce companies to years, we’ve had to pivot to survive, four or five times, to be able pack 50,000 boxes in this building, … Which kept us alive.’ to continue operations. Failure led to a different venture, led to a “Then the food bank heard about what we were doing, and different domain, led to a different opportunity, led to this ‘Aha, they hired me to come in and buy 7 million pounds of food and here’s how I tie it all together.’ And that’s the Innovation Campus deliver it to their agencies for six months during the pandemic,” that we’re about to embark on.” ■ Kornegay says. This all set the foundation for Ripe Revival and Veteran journalist Dan Barkin writes the its nonprofit.

NC Military Report newsletter for Business NC. He can be reached at dbarkin53@gmail.com.

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PETER HANS

LIST INTERVIEW

with Nido Qubein

JOYFUL PRIVILEGE UNC System President Peter Hans joined High Point University President Nido Qubein in the Power List interview, a partnership for discussions with influential leaders. The interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

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ell us about your responsibilities as president of the UNC System?

We have roughly a quarter million full-time equivalent students, about 80% of those are from North Carolina. The University of North Carolina is a sprawling enterprise that touches the life of every North Carolinian. We have 16 universities, the nation’s finest residential high schools in the N.C. School of Science and Math, in Durham and Morganton. We have a healthcare system, UNC Health with 19 hospitals, as well as ECU Health with seven hospitals. And we have the State Education Assistance Authority, which is the body that provides financial aid to all college students, and now the Opportunity Scholarships. Trying to say grace over all of that can be a challenge, but it’s a joyful privilege at the same time.

Does the healthcare system come under your administration?

Yes, Dr. Wesley Burks is our chancellor, if you will, for the UNC Health system. And Dr. Mike Waldrum is CEO of ECU Health.

Peter Hans became president of the UNC System in August 2020 after leading the N.C. Community College System for two years. He grew up in both Southport in eastern North Carolina and Henderson County in the mountains. Hans spent much of his career as a lobbyist and public relations consultant to leaders including U.S. Sens.

Lauch Faircloth, Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole.

He was a three-term member of the UNC Board of Governors. He has a bachelor’s degree from UNC Chapel Hill and a master’s of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies from Harvard University.

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Now presidents have a lot of power. If I understand how the system works, when a university loses its chancellor, somehow, someway, that board comes up with some names. But ultimately you make that decision as to who the chancellor will be in that institution. Is that correct?

I appoint a search committee, composed of the university’s trustees, representatives of the faculty, staff, students and the Board of Governors from the system. We interview candidates to settle on three names that are forwarded to me. And then I recommend a final list to the Board of Governors for approval. So I play a key role in that decision. But I’m not the only decision-maker.

Has the Board of Governors ever rejected your recommendation?

Well, not yet.

The tenure of university chancellors has gotten shorter. Why?

That’s right. And that’s true in private institutions as well. You know firsthand these are demanding roles. I believe the average tenure in national higher education is now between five and seven years.

Happily, we’ve had many exceptions to that in the UNC System, such as Harold Martin, who was chancellor at N.C. A&T State University for nearly 15 years. And he was chancellor at Winston-Salem State before that and chief academic officer of the system. Randy Woodson, at NC State, will retire next year after 15 successful years at the helm there. So we have a number of exceptions. There’s a certain advantage of continuity and stability that allows those leaders, such as yourself, to see their vision through for that institution.

What is it that you do to guide these chancellors?

You ran the community college system, and before that, you did many other things. You’re familiar with education and what it takes for a leader to survive and thrive in globally competitive times. What are some of the traits you look for that have made a successful chancellor?

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You alluded to one very important trait, which is a certain amount of savvy in dealing with both internal and external stakeholders because we do receive a lot of input. And that’s often helpful. A sign of devotion. We’re a public institution. We expect public scrutiny. I would be more concerned if people weren’t offering input to suggest to me that they don’t care. And yet, I have daily confirmation they care very deeply.

institutions, including five Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and a traditionally Native American-serving institution in UNC Pembroke. And we have the UNC School of the Arts.

This is a very diverse group within the 16 universities. The graduation rate at Chapel Hill is 95%, which is amazing. It’s very high.

It’s an amazing statistic, to say the least.

That’s called complaints?

That’s going to be a complicated matter. It is a point of pride, the UNC System’s affordability, because so much of the questioning nationally is about the cost of higher education and student loan debt.

We’ve actually driven down student loan debt quite a bit because we’ve been able to keep in-state tuition flat for nine years in a row in North Carolina. No other state in the country can make that claim.

We actually have four institutions that charge $500 a semester tuition in a program called NC Promise. That includes Pembroke, Western Carolina, Elizabeth City and Fayetteville State. And so affordability is a hallmark of ours. It’s actually enshrined in the North Carolina Constitution. We have a constitutional commitment to maintain low tuition, but also a moral obligation as well so that firstgeneration families have that opportunity to go to college and afford it without taking on crushing debt.

Well, we’ll call it feedback. But for chancellors to have a certain amount of savvy, to how they deal with those situations, but also internally, when you think about, supporting the faculty, the staff, engaging with students, alumni. Probably if I had to pick just one trait, it would be a certain amount of personal savvy in dealing with the many people who are going to care about your university.

So that person has to be a good communicator.

Absolutely. Sometimes you won’t be able to achieve consensus, but you try to be objective and transparent about the decisions you make and so that when we don’t have consensus, at least we can move forward.

You’ve proven that after you led the community college system and now you’re leading the university system. What are the differences between those two?

They’re both doing the Lord’s work, of course. Structurally, though, the community college system is quite decentralized. That’s a defining feature, given that there are 58 spread across the state, and most of those have satellite centers as well. They’re located within a half-hour drive of 95% of North Carolina’s population. So it’s designed to be a partnership with local and state governments.

The university system is more centralized. It’s larger in terms of its budget in reach into, not only higher education but healthcare and other realms of daily North Carolina life. You may appreciate this. It is in some ways more difficult to be president of the university because you come under enormous scrutiny that isn’t always provided to the community colleges.

I think community colleges in some ways are undervalued for the great work that they do. But the advantage of leading the universities is at least there is some alignment between what I’m responsible for. I’d like the corresponding authority to actually affect the outcome.

Wonderful things are going on at the community colleges. I’m quite the ongoing evangelist for their work and support.

Why do we have that policy that traditionally limited institutions to having 18% of first-year students being from out of state?

It was a one-size-fits-all approach. We have changed that. I suggested it to the Board of Governors and they approved changes for 10 of our institutions. So Elizabeth City State, in the Tidewater region on the Virginia border, now allows up to 50%. It varies all the way down to five schools remaining at 18%. Those are Chapel Hill, NC State, Wilmington, Charlotte and App State. Those are the schools within our system that have the most enrollment demand and are the most selective.

As such, we want the people of North Carolina who paid for this great university system to have a chance to send their sons and daughters to those schools.

How would I determine how many people graduate from these 16 institutions?

I hate to average our 16 individual campuses. We have Chapel Hill and NC State at a highly selective level. We have the access

How are you addressing the issue of affordability?

How do you keep costs low and maintain competitive pay for faculty and staff?

We’re trying to drive efficiencies in our business, and operate, so that we free up funds to pay our hardworking faculty and staff and retain that talent. That’s an ongoing challenge. But we’re very fortunate. The people of North Carolina have invested in the university, on a bipartisan basis for many years.

And retaining a level of public trust is a high priority. We want each of our institutions to thrive. The level of academic programs that they’re able to offer, the level of community engagement, the public service that they are able to provide. So certainly affordability, quality and access are very important to me as a first-generation college graduate, that we have access for all of the people of North Carolina.

What do you think about when you look out 10 years from now in higher education? What could we be doing today to ensure greater success? I say that with the understanding that something like 500 private institutions closed in the last decade.

I believe all these things are intertwined and connected. The people are questioning the value of higher education. In some cases, I think the skeptics are right to poke at the cost and the perception of cost and value.

So it’s important for higher education to demonstrate its value proposition. You’ve done that exceptionally well at High Point with the life skills that you develop for your students. We’ve tried to do so by certainly keeping the cost low, by demonstrating what we call the return on investment of degrees at UNC System institutions to actually show what that leads to in careers.

But realizing at the same time our students are not just potential workers, they’re thinkers and citizens and hopefully will leave as very thoughtful human beings.

There’s the perception that is related to higher education veering from its core mission into various political causes. We’ve made a very intentional strategy of trying to remove us from that sphere.

The university is designed to host debates, hopefully, wellinformed debates on various civil debates. Not to settle those debates with statements and various political positions. We belong to all the people of North Carolina, not one group or one faction or one party. ■ F E B R U A R Y A U G U S T

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THE STATE OF THE U.S. ECONOMY IN 2025 Key indicators point to strong economic health, yet uncertainty remains This is the thirty-fifth in a series of informative monthly articles for North Carolina businesses from PNC in collaboration with BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA magazine.

By Gus Faucher, Chief Economist, The PNC Financial Services Group

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s we reflect on a year that saw the U.S. economy achieve continued low unemployment but slower inflation, a feat many thought impossible, several drivers point to continued economic strength in 2025.

Buoyed by solid fundamentals, a strong labor market, Gus Faucher favorable conditions for consumers, lower interest rates and slowing inflation, the U.S. economy should continue to experience growth in 2025, albeit at a more modest rate than we saw in 2024.

The excellent labor market is the biggest reason for optimism around the economy. And while the unemployment rate, at 4.2% in November 2024, is up from 3.4% at its lowest in 2023, it remains remarkably low. Job growth through the first 11 months of 2024 averaged 180,000 jobs per month, down from 232,000 in 2023 – but still almost double the pace sustained during the 2010s. With businesses reporting hiring difficulties, layoffs at historic lows and initial claims for unemployment insurance down from mid-2024, the job market should remain strong throughout 2025.

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This exceedingly strong labor market bodes well for consumer spending and household purchases in 2025.

More jobs and rising wages translate to higher incomes.

And if these attributes continue to hold, the broader economy should expand throughout 2025, especially since consumer spending makes up about two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

Prices increased at the fastest pace in decades in 2022, but inflation is now slowing and putting less pressure on household budgets, much to the relief of consumers and businesses alike. Goods prices are down over the past year as lingering supply chain problems have resolved. Meanwhile, housing inflation is easing as rent growth has lessened. This lower inflation has given the Federal Open Market Committee the leeway to cut the federal funds rate, their key shortterm policy interest rate, starting in September 2024.

Further rate cuts in 2025 can be expected to support growth, particularly in rate-sensitive sectors like business investment and housing.

Another positive for 2025 is continued strength in business investment. Against the backdrop of a tight labor market, firms are investing in equipment, workplaces and technologies to make their existing workforces more productive. These investments are enabled by good corporate profitability and falling interest rates. And in the housing market, an undersupply of housing for the last 15 years, along with lower mortgage rates, should support residential construction.

Among the negatives for 2025 are softer growth in consumer and federal government spending. After SPONSORED SECTION

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a few years of substantial increases in government spending thanks to the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the CHIPS and Science Act, the government’s contributions to economic growth should abate.

As is the case in any year – and particularly during a transition in administration – a force as dynamic as the economy brings with it elements of uncertainty.

Typically, administration changes add some uncertainty to economic outlooks, but there are reasons for optimism, including potential tax cuts and reduced regulations that could lead to stronger economic growth.

However, tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods, would be a drag on consumer spending and cause higher prices. Higher U.S. tariffs could lead trading partners to put their own restrictions on U.S. imports, leading to a potential trade war and slower global and U.S. economic growth.

Additionally, tariffs and tax cuts could lead to higher

inflation, complicating the outlook for the Federal Reserve. Fewer fed funds rate cuts, or even more so rate increases, would likely mean a further slowing in economic growth.

Over the longer run, increased restrictions on immigration would also be a hit to the U.S. economy.

One way an economy expands is through more workers, and with the U.S. birth rate falling for decades, foreign-born workers have been a key source of labor force growth. As such, fewer immigrants entering the labor force would mean slower long-run economic growth.

Overall, PNC expects real GDP growth of 1.9% in 2025, down from 2.4% in 2024 and 3.2% in 2023. We expect the unemployment rate will end 2025 at around its current level of 4.2%, and the labor market will remain solid. Inflation should continue to slow, although it will likely not be back to the Federal Reserve’s 2% objective until 2026.

For more information, please visit www.pnc.com/economicreports

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

This article is for general information purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. PNC urges its customers to do independent research and to consult with financial and legal professionals before making any financial decisions. ©2025 The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Member FDIC.

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CHARLOTTE Duke Energy said its president, Harry Sideris, will succeed Lynn Good as CEO, effective April 1. Good will also retire as board chair, with lead independent director Ted Craver taking that role.

Good had led the utility since 2013.

Sideris became president last April after joining the company in 2014.

Tepper Sports & Entertainment named Eric Sudol its chief revenue officer. Sudol, was senior vice president for the Dallas Cowboys. He will oversee all revenue-producing departments for the Panthers, Charlotte FC and Bank of America Stadium.

Jeld-Wen Holding sold its Towanda Pennsylvania-based plant and related assets to Woodgrain for approximately $115 million under a court-ordered asset purchase agreement.

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Aiwyn, a technology partner for certified public accounting firms, closed on a $113 million funding round spearheaded by global investment firm KKR and venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners.

$32 million in late December. The price was less than half what it sold for in 2015, according to Mecklenburg County real estate records.

Zillow’s annual forecast of the hottest housing markets in the year ahead had the Queen City area ranked at No. 7, unchanged from last year. The analysis is based on factors including projected appreciation in local home values.

Bank of America quit the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a United Nationsbacked global coalition of banks committed to supporting net-zero emissions goals through their lending activities. The move comes after similar decisions by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley.

Hickory Tavern, a restaurant chain started in 1997 in Hickory, has been acquired by Florida-based Artistry Restaurants. There are 20 Hickory Taverns across the Carolinas, 14 of them in North Carolina. The new owners say they do not plan to close any locations.

Truist Financial said Chief Operating Officer Hugh “Beau” Cummins resigned after 20 years with the bank and predecessor SunTrust. He had ranked among its most highly compensated executives. Kristen Lesher and Michael Maguire are taking over Cummins’ duties.

Falfurrias Capital Partners agreed to sell Sauer Brands, owner of the Duke’s mayonnaise brand, to Advent International for $1.5 billion. Former Bank of America executives Hugh McColl Jr. , Marc Oken and Ed McMahan started Falfurrias, which acquired C.F. Sauer Co. in 2019 for a reported price of $300 million.

Connecticut-based Trade Street RSK purchased Uptown’s 121 W. Trade St., the 342,162-square-foot building, for

BELMONT CaroMont Health opened Gaston County’s second hospital here. It is near Interstate 85 and the Mecklenburg County line. It has 54 beds, four stories and cost about $260 million. The 28-acre campus includes a 100,000-square-foot medical office building and parking deck. Monks affiliated with Belmont Abbey College leased the land to CaroMont Health.

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Duke Energy shut down its final coal-powered unit at the Allen Steam Plant, which at one time had supplied electricity to almost 1 million homes in the Carolinas. The 943-acre plant opened in 1957 when Dwight Eisenhower was president. It will be used as a coal ash landfill. A battery energy storage system will be built on about 10 acres of the property. and Another battery storage system nearby is planned.

CONCORD A prototype of NASCAR’s first fully electric race car was developed at its Research and Development Center here. Sponsor ABB showed the vehicle at the electrification company’s North American headquarters in Cary and a plant in Mebane.

MOCKSVILLE SBA Home will invest more than $70 million in a furniture factory that is expected to create 250 jobs. SBA Home is the largest division of SBA Grupe , a Lithuanian conglomerate that exports furniture to 50 nations.

EAST FORT LIBERTY More than 1,100 homes at Fort Liberty — in the neighborhoods of Ardennes, Bataan, Casablanca, Corregidor and Hammond Hills and at the Pope and Randolph Pointe duplexes — will receive $91 million in renovations. Corvias secured more than $560 million to support its privatized military housing at six military installations.

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Riley Outdoor, one of North Carolina’s biggest billboard companies, sold to Adams Outdoor Advertising. The Lansing, Michigan-based company has a big share of Charlotte’s billboard market and ranks fourth-biggest nationally. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but industry insiders say Adams paid in the range of $16 million to $17 million. Riley has 201 billboard faces and seven digital displays in eastern North Carolina.

Maverick Lifestyle hopes an IPO can help its three-year-old hemp-based business turn a profit. The maker of DVNT, Green & Wild and other brands plans to sell 3.4 million Class A shares at a price between $4.50 and $5, netting $4.6 million in proceeds, according to a securities filing.

The money will go toward marketing and advertising, hiring and machinery upgrades.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided the final $1 million grant for the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust’s plan to buy the undeveloped southern tip of Topsail Island. Coastal Land Trust Executive Director Harrison Marks anticipates closing on the nearly 150-acre tract known as “The Point” by April.

The Golden Leaf Foundation is planning a $25 million, five-year grant to help 20 rural middle schools improve their math instruction through 2030.

The money is for coaching teachers, new curriculum, tutoring, career development for students and bonuses for principals who meet certain metrics.

First Carolina Financial Services, which owns First Carolina Bank, raised $45.5 million before fees and expenses by selling shares at $35. The fundraising follows First Carolina’s plan to buy BM Technologies of Radnor, Pennsylvania, for $67 million. BM Technologies is a digital banking platform that provides financial aid disbursement services for more than 700 college campuses.

SPRING HOPE Barnes Family Farms, which manages more than 20,000 acres of farmland, was put into receivership after defaulting on more than $40 million in loans from Agrifinance, a lending arm of Netherlands-based RaboBank, court records show. The farm is owned by the family of N.C. Sen. Lisa Barnes. Her husband, Johnny Barnes, manages the farming business. He is an agricultural community leader with roles at NC State, the North Carolina Farm Bureau and other organizations.

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WILMINGTON Brunswick County musician Madonna Nash disavowed year-old accusations she made against the owner of Wilmington’s Edward Teach Brewery, effectively putting an end to a saga that damaged the brewery’s business, led to multiple lawsuits and resulted in misdemeanor charges against Edward Teach owner Gary Sholar.

“I didn’t consider the impact it might have,” she posted online.

TRIAD HIGH POINT Mickey Truck Bodies, a fourthgeneration family company that produces aluminum truck bodies and ambulances, has brought in an unnamed “institutional investor.” Matt Sink, greatgrandson of founder William Franklin

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GREENSBORO N.C. Department of Transportation is providing $2 million in seed funding for the launch of a new center at N.C. A&T State University to work on “innovative aviation technologies.” The project also will involve NC State and Elizabeth City State University. Officials are calling it the University Transportation Center of Excellence for Advanced Air Mobility and Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

A downtown Westin hotel is set to begin construction after multiple delays since its announcement in 2017. The city issued a building permit for the hotel, with the total cost of construction listed at

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$22.5 million. Most recent plans call for a six-story hotel with 180 rooms.

Almost a year after Greensboro billionaire Roy Carroll’s purchase and subsequent demolition of businesswoman Bonnie McElveenHunter’s Irving Park mansion caused shock in the community, the city has approved his plans to build three new houses on the estate. In February, Carroll purchased the former mansion for $4.5 million, one of the most expensive sales in Greensboro history.

Triad Goodwill plans an expansion including a bigger recycling center on nearly 44 acres of undeveloped land off Interstate 40-85. The plan calls for a 175,780 square-foot building, with relocation of warehousing, logistics, retail production, e-commerce, an outlet store and expanded recycling operations.

The Salvation Army received a $5 million grant from Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chair of e-commerce giant Amazon, and his fiancé Lauren Sanchez through the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund. This is the seventh year the fund has awarded grants to organizations across the country that work to end family homelessness.

PELHAM Cherokee Tobacco will invest more than $14 million to build a manufacturing and distribution operation that is expected to create 39 jobs. The family-owned business has manufactured and sold its own brand of cigarettes, cigars and pipe products for more than two decades and had been based in South Boston, Virginia.

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RANDELMAN NASCAR driving legend Richard Petty is donating 403 acres to Victory Junction, a year-round camp for children with chronic illnesses in his hometown. Petty and his late wife, Lynda, helped found the camp in 2004 by donating 84 acres. The camp honors Petty’s late grandson and fellow NASCAR driver, Adam Petty.

REIDSVILLE Fredonia, Wisconsin-based Guy & O’Neill plans to close Jan. 31, putting 102 out of work here and almost 200 in Wisconsin. The company makes baby wipes and disinfectant wipes and was hoping a new buyer would keep it open after a sale fell through in November.

DURHAM Duke University received a $10 million gift from RaceTrac, an Atlanta-based convenience store company, to expand its law school’s Bolch Judicial Institute. RaceTrac’s gift honors Carl Bolch Jr., and his wife Susan Bass Bolch, who established the Institute in 2018 with a $10 million gift. Carl Bolch is a 1967 Duke Law School graduate and operator of some of the first pump-your-own gas stations.

THOMASVILLE Unilin North America, part of flooring giant Mohawk Industries, is set to receive assistance with an expansion of its operations through a building re-use grant. The grant is to help Unilin North America expand its operations by 105,000 square feet in a project expected to create 44 jobs and attract private investment of $18.6 million.

PHOTO CREDIT: DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW

WINSTON-SALEM The Supply Chain Solutions unit of Inmar Intelligence has been acquired by DHL Supply Chain, the largest contract logistics provider in the Americas. Terms were not disclosed. Inmar, founded in 1980, provides consulting and digital software services to the promotional, healthcare and supply chain industries.

Winston-Salem State University Foundation paid $7.5 million for 42 acres of land about three miles southeast of campus. The property includes 11 residential apartment buildings. Plans are uncertain, but it is expected to be used to increase student housing.

TRIANGLE DURHAM Concrete technology company Biomason sold $36.7 million in equity for the use of “salary and bonus amounts in the ordinary course of business.’’ In 2022, Biomason raised $65 million to support its proprietary “biocement” technology, which it says will help reduce carbon emissions worldwide.

Tulane redshirt freshman Darian Mensah reportedly received a “name, image and likeness” deal from Duke University believed to pay him $8 million over two years to move here.

He threw for 2,723 yards and 22 touchdowns last year, leading the Green Wave to a 9-4 record. The $4 million would be on par or higher than nine base salaries of Power 4 conference head coaches.

San Diego-based National Resilience, a contract drug manufacturer, plans to lay off 120 workers. The company intends to retain roughly 50 Triangle employees through December “to continue to assist with certain tasks.”

Chimerix saw its shares triple in a single day in January, and it has maintained a positive trajectory. In June, Nasdaq threatened Chimerix with delisting for failing to maintain a minimum closing bid price of $1.

Chimerix’s bounce was based on the prospects of FDA approval of a drug to treat brain tumors.

GARNER Thousands of Amazon warehouse workers are set to decide whether to organize in an election that positions a new independent union against one of the world’s biggest companies. The election will be held this month at the four-story, 2 million-square-foot fulfillment center.

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Variety Wholesalers, the 422-store discount chain owned by Art Pope, added at least 200 Big Lots stores in a move that may save thousands of retail jobs in hundreds of communities.

Variety agreed to the bankruptcy courtassisted deal with Gordon Brothers Retail Partners that will involve transferring Big Lots’ brand and stores.

PITTSBORO A unit of Houston-based MetOx International says it will invest $193.7 million in a production facility that is expected to create 333 jobs. MetOx’s main business is making power transmission cables. Its products transmit extremely high power at low voltage with zero heat generation or energy loss. Its products are used in AI-driven applications and data centers, wind turbines, motors and generators for aviation and aerospace, defense systems and fusion energy.

RALEIGH NC By Train carried more than 720,000 passengers in 2024, a 12% increase from the year before and a 55% increase since 2019, prior to COVID.

A mini golf venue is one of the best new attractions in the country, according to USA Today readers. Hop Shots Mini Golf is a new concept from Niall Hanley’s Hibernian Hospitality Group that opened in August. It was ranked No. 8 of the 10 best new attractions of the year.

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Partners John Hardin and Will Morgan launched The Raleigh Group, to provide “comprehensive lobbying, consulting, government contracting and economic development services.” Both previously worked at the Manning Fulton law firm. Hardin is the firm’s president and Morgan is managing partner.

Film productions across the state generated $302 million in direct in-state spending in 2024. That’s the secondhighest year-end total since 2015.

In 2024, the state had more than 55 productions, with 12 projects receiving awards from the N.C. Film and Entertainment Grant.

Fintech startup Plaid plans to open its fourth U.S. hub at an undisclosed Triangle site. The company helps people to link their bank accounts with applications like Venmo and CashApp. It expects to hire as many as 70 people in North Carolina by the end of the year.

CEO and co-founder Zach Perrett is from Forsyth County and has a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. The company has offices in San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., London and Amsterdam.

The State Employees’ Credit Union is launching a new credit card in March that will offer rewards for use. SECU had bucked the industry trend of offering cards featuring cash back or travel benefits tied to usage.

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Design and engineering firm McAdams acquired offices in Asheville and Greenville, South Carolina, from TPD, formerly known as Traffic Planning and Design. This marks the first office in South Carolina for McAdams, which now has 517 employees.

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UNC Charlotte’s Air Institute’s firstof-a-kind partnership with the Charlotte Douglas International Airport aims to transform the aviation industry by using the airport as a “living lab” to advance research, workforce development and community engagement.

WEST ASHEVILLE Congress approved $1.65 billion in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds to help rebuild communities damaged by Hurricane Helene as part of a larger $100 billion disaster supplemental bill. Gov. Josh Stein also established a Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina.

BLACK MOUNTAIN Ingles Markets reported $34.9 million in impairment losses in damage related to Hurricane Helene, and the grocery chain’s sales decreased in the fourth quarter and in its annual results.

BOONE Nearly three months after it was severely damaged by Hurricane Helene’s flooding, Walmart reopened with major renovations and updates. Store manager Joshua Daniels said the lead time for some of the refrigerated units is pretty substantial, which has led to the delay of opening the full store.

CANTON The former Pactiv Evergreen paper mill has been shut for more than a year and a half. With several lawsuits underway, the site’s future and the status of the city’s wastewater treatment remains in limbo. Pactiv Evergreen was a town economic engine for generations.

WAYNESVILLE A new chunk of Interstate 40 has crumbled into the Pigeon River, dealing a blow to the anticipated reopening of one lane in each direction in January on the Haywood County route to Tennessee.

Heavy rains, coupled with the freezethaw cycle, destabilized the slope below the roadbed. ■

PHOTO CREDIT: HOP SHOTS MINI GOLF

HENDERSON

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2024 EVENTS

SCENESETTERS Small Businesses of the Year Awards luncheon December 10, 2024 We had a great time at The Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill honoring our 2024 N.C. Small Businesses of the Year, RiverWILD Construction, North Carolina Trailer Sales, Weldon Mills Distillery and Riverbend Malt House.

Thanks to our partners Duke Energy Corporation, Delta Dental of North Carolina and NC SBTDC for their support of the program and small business.

Photos by John Gessner

WELDON MILLS DISTILLERY

PHOTO CREDIT: HOP SHOTS MINI GOLF

Carolina Inn luncheon.

RIVERBEND MALT HOUSE

RIVERWILD CONSTRUCTION

NORTH CAROLINA TRAILER SALES

Delta Dental celebrates with the winners.

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ECONOMIC FORECAST

MAINTAIN YOUR SPEED North Carolina’s economy continues to accelerate and collect accolades. And while an increasing population, improving tax situation and welcoming regulatory environment help pave the road to success, it’s tough to see around some of the upcoming turns.

Potential changes at the federal level, including immigration policy that could further empty a labor pool already running on “E” and tariffs intended to park the state’s largest trading partners, create uncertainty. Business North Carolina recently gathered a panel of experts, representing some of the state economy’s most-important facets, to help businesses and others map out the coming year. Their conversation was moderated by Publisher Ben Kinney. The transcript was edited for brevity and clarity.

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The discussion was sponsored by: •Lundy-Fetterman School of Business, Campbell University •Robeson Community College •Ward and Smith

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Sen. Jim Burgin N.C. District 12 — Harnett, Lee and Sampson counties

Lee Hodge business and economic development lawyer, Ward and Smith

Phil Mintz executive director, NC State University Industry Expansion Solutions

Byron Hicks executive state director, Small Business and Technology Development Center

Aubie Knight CEO, Independent Insurance Agents of North Carolina

Mark Steckbeck associate professor of business and Lundy chair in business philosophy, Campbell University

FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, WHAT’S THE ECONOMY’S CURRENT STATE? STECKBECK: We forecasted the economy would slow last year, but it did much better.

Revised real GDP growth for the U.S. was 3.1% in the third quarter of last year. Most sectors did well except for leisure and hospitality. Construction was down but is bouncing back, and manufacturing is down some.

North Carolina’s unemployment increased a bit, but most of that was tied to Hurricane Helene’s impact. Asheville’s unemployment rate, for example, was 7.8% at October’s end. But that will fall. There was a large increase in initial claims for unemployment, which peaked at 300%, in early October.

Recovery efforts in the mountains are taking effect. FEMA has spent about $15 million, and the state has requested more federal money. So, things are starting to return to

normal, and that will continue.

Growth will be about 2.5%, maybe slightly lower, this year. Unemployment will remain where it is, 3.7% or 3.8%. We don’t see a recession coming, though there are caveats. We still have higher than normal inflation. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index is running about 2.5% to 2.8%, which is higher than the Fed’s mark of 2%. I’m guessing the Fed won’t change interest rates soon. There were indications that they would, but inflation hasn’t come down like they believed.

Slightly higher interest rates would slow inflation but impact housing. Housing starts in North Carolina have decreased about 0.4%, and that’s affected construction employment. The Fed is building some estimates of President Trump’s proposed tariffs into its models. That also plays into any decision to change interest rates.

I don’t expect a 35% tariff on imports from

China and 25% on goods from Mexico and Canada. Republicans are going to have to stop any Trump tariff, though he has the unilateral ability to enact them. He’s a lame-duck president. Republicans must be looking at four years. Cooler heads will prevail. I’m optimistic that tariffs either won’t be enacted or less than proposed if they are. I think he’s using them as a threat.

Tariffs would have a big impact on North Carolina. It’s the 14th largest exporter of the 54 U.S. jurisdictions — states and territories. Its three largest export destinations are Mexico, Canada and China. Tariffs would raise prices on imports, too. So, there will be an inflationary effect if they transpire. I don’t think it will be negative, but we’ll see some economic slowing, more than anybody anticipated.

BURGIN: I’m optimistic, but there’s uncertainty. People are still dealing with Jan. 1: When you woke up, North Carolina taxes were less. Many people are F E B R U A R Y

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concerned that there isn’t enough money to run the state. But it has done extremely well over the last few years under the Republicans, especially Sen. Phil Berger’s wise hand. We would have been first on CNBC’s America’s Top States for Business list again last year, but they changed the formula and we’re second. That would have been a three-peat. I’m tired of people saying the first this or the first that. I just want us to be the best.

Childcare is a big concern. North Carolina can’t continue to grow if it isn’t more widely available. I’m proposing we completely change education in North Carolina.

I’m a proponent of starting school at age 3 and moving 11th and 12th grade to the community colleges. I want to turn education into statewide, year-round schools. We could save billions of dollars on school construction and invest more in our teachers and programs. We’re not competing just with Southern states or California and New York. We must compete with the world.

I attended a meeting at Google headquarters in Palo Alto, California, just before Christmas. Eleven legislators were invited. About 40 people, including from Google, American Medical Association, American Hospital Association and Stanford University, talked to us about artificial intelligence and its possibilities. It can do some scary things.

I asked Google’s head of government affairs about AI’s direction, especially in regards to social media and young people. Australia has initiated a socialmedia ban for children younger than 16 years old. The algorithms used need to be made public. We need to know if they’re being used to change our behavior or encourage addiction. I’ve worked a lot on mental health and addiction issues.

N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Sec. Kody Kinsley and I have traveled the state, discussing addiction with residents. I think the biggest addiction that we’re dealing with is anything AI related, including gambling.

I’m excited about AI, but people need to know when it’s used, especially to make healthcare decisions. If someone is

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denied a potentially life-saving MRI, they need to know if a human being or an AI algorithm made that decision. I plan to introduce legislation that requires AI use be disclosed.

Everybody presenting at the meeting said AI doesn’t bring savings. It’s expensive and requires a lot of energy. We met with Duke Energy not long ago, and the amount of energy required to run the two big data centers eyeing North Carolina is massive.

We need to be looking at more nuclear generation, including small modular reactors. Two nuclear plants were recently built in Georgia.

HODGE: We have a diverse base of clients. Despite soft spots here and there, most had a good 2024. We’re dealing with comparing 2023 and 2024 to 2020 and 2021, when there were artificial stimulants in the economy.

North Carolina remains a great place to do business. We have great education systems that produce a steady stream of university, college and community college graduates. N.C. Community College System is a great resource, adding workforce development to economic development projects. That’s a gamechanger when a company is considering a location.

I spend most of my time in the mergers and acquisitions world. It was a little slower last year than in 2023, but we weren’t twiddling our thumbs. The Fed lowered interest rates last year, so most transactions are leveraged transactions. The cost of capital matters. We see a lot of appetite there. We’re in an environment where private equity groups’ asset hold timeline is six, seven or eight years. There’s momentum for them to sell, returning capital to their investors who can then invest in a different fund that they’re raising.

The state’s regulatory climate is very good, but it could be better. The tax climate continues to improve, thanks to the General Assembly’s tax cuts. The future of the 2017 Trump tax cuts remains in question. The

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consensus says they are extended. But with tight margins in Washington, it’ll be interesting to watch what happens.

I spent time raising money for several groups, primarily in the industrial and warehouse space in central North Carolina. There’s plenty of demand. The real estate sector will continue to perform well. The single family home builders continue to do well. Many people rent.

There’s a new phenomenon — developers undertaking build-to-rent projects instead of build-to-sell ones. It’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out. People are still coming to North Carolina. They need a place to live and somewhere to work.

HICKS: Our members have a cautiously optimistic outlook. Many issues have a 10fold effect on small businesses. There are workforce issues, including rising healthcare costs. Interest-rate increases decrease capital access. Many small businesses have more debt than they’re comfortable carrying, making growth challenging. That’s playing out in the mountains, where small businesses have access to hurricane relief capital but are sitting on capital from the pandemic. Do they want to incur more debt to survive? It’s still a great time to start a business despite those issues.

We’ll probably see many issues that impact small businesses reversed or changed this year. Tariffs, if enacted, will create opportunities, particularly filling supply chain gaps. Beneficial ownership information reporting requirements have been going back and forth. Small business owners were supposed to disclose the other owners of their LLCs among other responsibilities by Jan. 1. Then there was a stay, pushing it to Jan. 13. Think about the average small business owner, trying to decipher the requirement. Is it important?

Will it be kicked out altogether?

MINTZ: We spend a lot of time talking to manufacturers about three things: workforce, supply chain and technology.

Orders are being placed, and bidding opportunities continue. So, manufacturers are doing businesses. But they’re struggling to do that work, because workers are scarce. The best-performing companies 22

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have a workforce plan. They assemble effective training programs and work with community colleges.

The supply chain side is more difficult.

While there are efforts to make more domestically, manufacturers continue to purchase many products internationally.

Some of those items have never been made stateside. That’s not easy to turn around. Efforts that pressure other countries to lower prices, including tariffs, won’t work here, because we need those items.

Productivity challenges our state’s and country’s competitiveness. We must be more productive. That requires workforce and technology. There’s sticker shock associated with some technology pieces.

Manufacturers don’t want to borrow to buy them, so many ask the government for help with these investments.

KNIGHT: Insurance is like many other industries. Its success mirrors the overall economy. Take inflation. Most everyone has watched their home and auto insurance costs increase, sometimes significantly. I don’t expect that to stop.

The cost of building or rebuilding a home is outpacing inflation. The cumulative impact of inflation from January 2020 through June 2024 was 21%. The cost of construction materials increased 41% during that period, and trade-labor costs increased 35%.

Automobile parts have a similar story.

More than 60% of auto parts are imported from Mexico, Canada and China, which are the targets of recent tariff discussions.

If a 20% or 30% tariff is added to those parts, then repairs after auto accidents will be more expensive, which will drive up insurance costs.

Supply chain issues continue, making car repairs take longer. The average rental car period after an auto accident has increased to 17 days from 13 days, so insurance companies are paying more for that. And the average claim for auto repairs has increased significantly.

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BEYOND TARIFFS, WHAT CONCERNS YOU AS WE MOVE INTO 2025?

BURGIN: Big retail concerns me.

Amazon, for example, was delivering to most everyone’s home over the holidays. Its drivers seemed to stop at my house several times each day. The thrill of receiving a delivery sets off a chemical reaction in your brain, making it addictive. I want to get it. I want to open it. We’re all addicted to getting stuff. Big retail has that figured out, but it needs to be watching what it’s doing.

I’m concerned about that and other big businesses.

Immigration concerns many people. If you visit a construction site in North Carolina, most of the workers are Hispanic. I believe many of them lack a tax ID or a driver’s license. Some businesses hire many of these folks, and they’re concerned what will happen if Trump’s proposed immigration policy changes are enacted.

Are they going to have to leave? Will there be a fast-track program for those who have been here?

Some of my business clients have been here decades, raised their kids here, sent them to NC State, UNC and Wake Forest.

They’re concerned. We must figure that out. I hope the administration gets rid of the bad guys but spares the families that have established roots and invested in the community.

STECKBECK: Foreign-born people in this country commit far fewer crimes than native-born citizens. It’s a myth that they are here to commit crime. There are people here to work, and they’re going to be tough to replace if proposed immigration policy changes are enacted.

The rising cost of healthcare is my biggest concern. It’s a big issue and will remain one. It’s driving up insurance rates. We subsidize healthcare demand, but we don’t increase supply.

MINTZ: There has been a lot of investment — federal and private — in the sustainability market such as electric vehicles and battery technology, but there’s a lot of noise about challenges 24

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ECONOMIC FORECAST

within it. We’ve worked with many small manufacturers within it. They’re preparing for it to grow, but a policy change could stifle it. That could take a big chunk out of the state’s economy.

KNIGHT: The insurance industry spends a lot of time thinking about climate. Twentytwo of the 25 most expensive insurance events have happened since 2004.

Hurricane Andrew, for example, was the biggest in history when in hit Florida and Louisiana in 1992; it would be a top-10 event today. Population is concentrating along our coasts, and storm frequency and severity is increasing. That’s causing problems for the insurance industry.

WHAT OPPORTUNITIES ARE YOU EXPECTING? HICKS: About 50% of our clients now use nontraditional funding instead of traditional bank loans to start their business. Whether it’s the State Small Business Credit Initiative offering money through more Community Development Financial Institutions or a different avenue, small business owners have many options today. That’s positive, and we’ll see more of that.

North Carolina is blessed to have many resources that support small businesses.

Owners can reach out to N.C. Community College System’s Small Business Center Network, NC IDEA, and Small Business and Technology Development Center.

HODGE: The labor market isn’t as tight as it was the past several years, so there’s talent available. North Carolina continues to see significant population inflow. That includes talented people with good ideas who work hard.

MINTZ: Concerns about importing supplies have created opportunities for business diversification, making items that you or others buy. We routinely receive calls about finding local suppliers who can make these things. So, any manufacturer with a diversified structure has an opportunity to grow.

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ECONOMIC FORECAST

GROWTH & IMPACT ROBESON COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Melissa Singler president Robeson Community Collge

WHAT DIRECTION DO YOU SEE THE STATE’S ECONOMY MOVING IN 2025?

SINGLER: I believe our economy will continue to thrive. North Carolina remains an attractive destination for businesses and industries, offering both a high quality of life and a strong labor force. Our robust community colleges play a key role in quickly upskilling workers to meet the needs of employers. These factors, along with many others, position us well for sustained economic growth in 2025 and beyond.

WHAT CONCERNS DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION HAVE FOR 2025?

SINGLER: We are always concerned about operational costs. With the rate of inflation that has increased significantly over the last 4 years, our costs have risen as well. We are here to serve students, and we will continue to do that, no matter the costs, and we will continue to provide a quality education at an affordable price, we just have to continue our fundraising efforts to make sure that our students have everything they need when they attend classes at Robeson Community College.

WHAT OPPORTUNITIES DOES IT SEE? SINGLER: At Robeson Community College, we are always identifying new opportunities for growth and impact. In 2025, we will be launching our athletics program, a major milestone that will transform our institution. We remain committed to enhancing our support for business and industry through tailored training and innovative programs. We have recently added electrical lineman to our list of programs thanks to a partnership with local industry. We anticipate adding additional certificate and degree programs in the near future. As mentioned earlier, we are also focused on expanding our fundraising efforts to provide students with the financial support they need to succeed in their education.

The RCC executive team; president Melissa Singler and vice presidents Tami George, Dustin Long, Johnny Smith and Eric Freeman

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We all rallied to make more items domestically during the recent pandemic.

But once it passed, we began buying imports again. So, that business disappeared for companies willing to make them. Manufacturers remember that, and it’s a concern for future diversification.

What’s their guarantee that people will continue to buy domestic products?

BURGIN: We’re seeing more small businesses and entrepreneurs, especially in many of our smaller communities. Many people who worked at big companies want to slow down and do something they always thought about doing.

North Carolina has recently made some significant economic development announcements connected to its megasites.

But the economic development people I talk to say about 80% of businesses that have come to North Carolina needed 100 or fewer acres. It’s great to land big deals, but to eat you just need to catch fish. I encourage people to look at sites 100 acres and smaller. I think that’s where they’ll find many opportunities.

STECKBECK: North Carolina’s population has grown about 11% during the past decade. Real personal income in North Carolina increased 4.3% last year compared to 2.9% for the rest of the country. The positive side of this population growth is there’s many opportunities, especially in small business and macro economy.

WHAT PREPARATIONS SHOULD BUSINESSES BE MAKING? HICKS: Invest in technology and explore AI. Both increase efficiency and productivity, manage costs and optimize pricing to protect against inflation.

BURGIN: With Medicaid expansion, hospitals will receive $6.3 billion from the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program. I challenge them to use it to promote healthcare and better health.

Many things have driven up costs, and many things can drive them down.

Everybody seems to be on a pill for SPONSORED SECTION

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something. Many U.S. children are prescribed Adderall and Ritalin, but those drugs aren’t allowed in Japan, South Korea or Saudi Arabia. I talked to principals at two Harnett County elementary schools.

They said the same thing: More than half of their 9-, 10- and 11-year-old students take medication at school. I’m an older guy, and the only kids I remember receiving medication at school were those needing insulin. We need to reduce waste and waist. If I reduce my waistline, I’ll be healthier. Many of us need to look at that.

MINTZ: Many times when manufacturers ask for technology support, they’re given big solutions that ultimately quell their initiative. A robot isn’t a solution for everything. If you’re small, there’s small things you can do. Data collection and management can help. Learning more about your processes helps, too. They’re not expensive, but you receive many benefits from them. They need more

promotion. You must get in the game. You can’t not do technology.

HICKS: Focus more on retaining employees. They’re expensive to replace.

When we teamed with Business North Carolina for the Small Business of the Year awards, the winners had great stories of investing in their teams, adding training and creating culture. You used to be able to hang a help-wanted sign, and the line of applicants would be out the door. Now you need ways to keep the employees you have. Small businesess are doing things they’ve never done before.

HODGE: We have large clients who lament the fact that it’s difficult to get somebody to pass a drug test and show up five days in a row. But we’re spending a lot of time working on incentive compensation plans for their management team. You must have a good culture. But you’re not unique in that way, so companies need the

financial piece, too. Key leaders’ incentives must align with owner’s incentives, so the company’s profitability increases. We spent a lot of time during the past few years searching for creative solutions to that and continue to do so.

KNIGHT: We must be mindful of the litigious environment in North Carolina. The dangers are apparent nearby. Georgia not only has the No. 1 college football team many years, but American Tort Reform Association recently put it first on its Judicial Hellhole list. And South Carolina has insurance crises, including with premises liability and liquor liability.

Nuclear verdicts — $15 million or more — are becoming too common. They’re up 65% among automobile claims.

Think about someone being awarded $15 million or more in damages after an automobile accident. It takes many $2,000 annual premiums to make up for that. ■

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2025

2025

BNC Business Handbook

BY PETE M. ANDERSON, KEVIN ELLIS AND DAVID MILDENBERG

Small business optimism is up. Unemployment is low. Inflation remains sticky, but rates have stayed below 3% since July. People aren’t talking as much about the pandemic, although concerns about Hurricane Helene recovery for western North Carolina are top of mind.

Where 2024 had a contentious election, 2025 brings about a new, yet familiar, president. North Carolina’s new governor spent the past eight years as the state’s attorney general. The Democrat will be working with a Republican majority in the General Assembly, but one lacking the veto-proof power of a supermajority.

The past few years have been good for North Carolina in economic growth, with above-average job growth helping make it one of the fastest-growing states, especially around large metro areas. Randolph County will soon reap the rewards of past job announcements as the $13.9 billion Toyota battery manufacturing site is expected to begin production and head toward the expected 5,100 jobs it will create. Visitors are also discovering what makes North Carolina such a great place to live as visitor spending has set records two consecutive years. To give a snapshot of the state’s economy, Business North Carolina selected statistics for 11 key industry sectors and asked a diverse group of leaders to share perspectives on important trends. The general consensus is that while economic prosperity should continue, there are challenges to navigate.

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AGRICULTURE

Farm aid A native of McDowell County in western North Carolina, Maier lobbies for trade associations representing the cattle, dairy and pork industries. She has worked for the N.C. Pork Council and as an N.C. General Assembly staffer. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from NC State and has worked on bills that changed the state’s right-to-farm laws and development of swine and renewable natural gas projects.

2025 VISIONARY

ANGIE MAIER Principal Valley View Insights Raleigh

North Carolina’s growing population has reduced the state’s farmland. How is the state handling this?

We are quickly headed for a crisis. Having more funding for the preservation of farmland is always needed, but we cannot just rely on payments for land conservation.

Preserving farmland is not just keeping productive land from being developed. It also includes protecting the viability of farmland so that it is not adversely affected by growth upstream.

For North Carolina to remain a strong agricultural state while also being one of the fastest-growing states in the country, we will need to be decisive about what smart growth looks like over the next five to 10 years. Developing reasonable policies to protect farmland will require some crucial conversations with stakeholders including homebuilders, commercial real estate developers, local government leaders and the agricultural community.

Over the last year, I have been a part of NC Ag Leads, a strategic planning initiative for the North Carolina agriculture industry. Sponsored by the Golden LEAF Foundation and the NC Chamber Foundation, with support from the N.C. Farm Bureau and Google, NC Ag Leads has engaged with more than 400 individuals in the agriculture community to identify areas of focus for a strategic plan focused on the longevity of farms and agribusinesses.

Harmonizing land and resource use, such as farmland

preservation, was one of the six major areas of focus for NC Ag Leads. The group that worked on this topic has developed some innovative approaches to tackling this problem that includes augmenting the state’s existing Streamflow Rehabilitation Assistance Program to increase stream rehabilitation projects and reduce flooding across North Carolina’s waterways. Another recommendation is for a new program that would provide direct payments to landowners who enroll in “Enhanced Voluntary Agricultural Districts” conservation agreements for farmland preservation. Unlike permanent conservation easements, these agreements would incentivize farmland preservation in a shorter term to stabilize land use in areas that are seeing significant population growth.

Finally, we need a better understanding of what farmland is critically under threat and needs to be kept in production.

Not all farmland is equally important in terms of productivity.

Fewer farmers feed more people. Yet, net farm income is forecast to decrease by 6.3% to $9.5 billion in 2024, from the previous year according to the USDA. Are we seeing a similar trend in North Carolina?

N.C. farmers are not insulated from these national trends.

Consumers are paying more for groceries, but that does not mean that farmers are getting paid more for what they produce. Input costs are up, on-farm labor regulations and pay continue to increase, the threat of tariffs looms large and there is no shortage of costly regulations with which farmers must comply. But North Carolina has a geographic advantage. Our ports provide us with the opportunity to further streamline N.C. products by having more valueadded production facilities.

In 2023, the General Assembly created a new economic incentive fund called the NC Agricultural Manufacturing and Processing Initiative to encourage the expansion of food manufacturing capacity to better utilize the commodities being produced here. If there is a market, farmers will survive.

Strengthening farmer support systems was also one of the six major focus areas of the N.C. Ag Leads strategic planning initiative. I was co-leader of this group, which contemplated how to ensure that farmers have the support needed to remain both viable and profitable. It became clear that the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service, backed by the state’s two land-grant universities, NC State and N.C. A&T State University, gives our farmers a competitive advantage.

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To be able to deliver the services needed by our farmers, Cooperative Extension needs to revise the way that county agriculture extension agents are placed to better reflect what agricultural commodities are being produced in individual counties and areas of the state. In addition to adopting a more efficient and effective staffing model, our group determined that Cooperative Extension needs more funding from the General Assembly. Funding has not recovered since deep cuts were made to the program in 2012.

RANK AMONG U.S. STATES

How does North Carolina convince young people to study agriculture in college?

In the words of British television personality Jeremy Clarkson, “to be a farmer, you need to be a vet, an untangler of red tape, an agronomist, a mechanic, a gambler, a weather forecaster, a salesman, a laborer, an accountant, a midwife, a tractor driver, a tree surgeon and an insomniac.”

But those are just some of the hats worn by the men and women who spend their days on the farm. So much more happens before the earth is plowed and any seed is sown. The field of agriculture is vast, fertile and diverse, all puns intended. The career paths are endless and involve much more than what a young person might expect of a job in agriculture.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture

TOP 10 AG COUNTIES

Changing the narrative for young people and their families about what a career in agriculture looks like is no easy task. It will require a collaboration between agribusiness, high school teachers and guidance counselors, and our community colleges and universities. Farming becomes more sophisticated by the day. We need to make sure we are recruiting and training the kind of workforce that will be needed in the next five, 10 or even 20 years.

Livestock, dairy and poultry account for almost 75% of North Carolina’s farm cash receipts. That leads to a lot of manure. What is the industry doing to be good neighbors?

N.C. swine and dairy farms have some of the nation’s most stringent regulations. Hog farms with 250 or more animals and dairy farms with 100 or more animals must operate under a lengthy permit that is 18 pages long with more than 70 different conditions. It dictates how much manure can be applied to a growing crop, and what kind of crop and under what weather conditions that manure can be applied (not when it is precipitating or windy or when a tropical storm or hurricane is approaching), how the manure must be stored, and even what a farmer must do with a bale of hay cut from a field fertilized with manure.

The records that farmers must keep to operate under their permits are extensive. Those records are reviewed annually during an on-farm inspection by state regulators.

*

It is important to remember that manure is valuable. When a farmer can utilize manure as a fertilizer, it reduces or eliminates the need for petroleum-based synthetic fertilizers. But the real value of manure is just beginning to be realized. There are exciting innovations happening in North Carolina that are changing the way that farmers are monetizing manure.

N.C. hog farms are producing renewable natural gas by covering lagoons to capture methane gas. That gas is refined and then injected into the natural gas pipeline. This reduces greenhouse gas emissions, prevents flooding and minimizes odors. Dairy farms in our state are now beginning to add this technology to their farms as well. There are also efforts underway to transform swine manure into a dried, pelletized product that can be commercially sold. Farmers work hard every day to be good neighbors and minimize their impact on their communities by continuous improvement and innovation. agriculture extension agents are placed to better reflect what agricultural commodities are being produced in individual

Source: USDA, as of Aug. 31, 2023, via N.C. Department of Agricutlture and Consumer Serivces * includes government payments

FARM ACERAGE AND NUMBER YEAR 2022 2017 2012 2007 2002

NUMBER OF FARMS 42,817 46,418 50,218 52,913 53,930

AVERAGE FARM SIZE (ACRES) 190 182 168 160 168

Source: USDA

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BANKING

Less home cooking Davis has taught students in Boone since 1976 while staying engaged with the state’s banking industry. He provides periodic economic forecasts for the North Carolina Bankers Association and speaks frequently on industry topics. He has a bachelor’s degree from UNC Chapel Hill, a master’s in economics from Vanderbilt, and a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Georgia. He’s consulted for more than 25 startup banks and is a director at LifeStore Bank in West Jefferson.

2025 VISIONARY

HARRY DAVIS Professor of Finance Appalachian State University, Boone Economist, North Carolina Bankers Association What is your view of the state’s banking industry?

The number of banks based in our state has declined markedly. Most of that has to do with mergers in which larger banks have bought smaller ones. Because of their size, they can provide services for capital markets and investment banking that gives them another way to make money and help them grow.

In the last 10 years, we have gone down to about 36 statechartered banks, but there are still about 90 banks that compete in North Carolina. There has been a tremendous influx of banks that want to compete here because of our strong economy.

Pittsburgh-based First National Bank buying Yadkin Bank is a good example of an out-of-state bank that wanted to get to North Carolina.

What has been lost is the smaller banks in the $200 million to $2 billion or $3 billion range.

Now most of the competition is between banks of $10 billion to $30 billion versus the much larger banks.

Do community banks have a future?

They can survive and thrive because they are close to their customers. They also give a great deal back, and they know the small business community.

They make their money making commercial loans and mortgage loans.

But the question is why do we have fewer small community banks? The answer may surprise you. It’s because of succession. When you have three or four people on a senior management team all getting to their 60s, who is going to take over the bank? The investment bankers notice that and say, “Why don’t you sell to Bank A, B or C?” And they often do.

You get a dividend for selling, and it is much easier to get out rather than putting together new management teams.

There are exceptions in North Carolina such as North State Bank of Raleigh, HomeTrust of Asheville and LifeStore Bank of West Jefferson. It’s just that the number has gotten much smaller.

The ones that have remained have recognized that there has to be a succession plan. You need a middle management group in their 40s and 50s.

Uwharrie Bank is another community bank that has put together a next generation to lead the bank. They will be around for a long time.

Starting a bank has become a rarity, it seems.

We don’t start banks anymore. There are only two or three new banks starting up in the U.S. every year now. There used to be about five a year in North Carolina in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, the total number of community banks keeps going down. Unless we have a new way of starting up banks, we’re going to keep seeing them go down.

I helped start a lot of new banks. But it’s now become so expensive and the regulations are so great. Years ago, the IT person didn’t have to be much of an expert. Now, he has to be an expert. That person can be very expensive. There’s also a tougher regulatory environment, with the government piling on more regulations.

But I haven’t really seen a pushback from anyone in the General Assembly or Congress.

Have regulations become onerous?

We clearly need regulations to make sure our banks are safe and sound. The trick is how much is required to do just that. Some administrations have been more likely to trust bankers to do the right thing. Others have really tried to collar banks.

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NORTH CAROLINA

Many North Carolina banks started because of the model of relatively new banks being bought out at a premium stock price. That became more difficult when regulators raised the capital requirements to start a new bank.

BANK DEPOSIT MARKET - JUNE 30, 2024

Twenty years ago, a bank could start after raising $6 million or $8 million.

Now, it takes $20 million or $30 million. That can be very challenging.

BANK

Do you think access to credit is a problem for our state’s businesses?

BANK OF AMERICA TRUIST BANK FIRST CITIZENS WELLS FARGO LIVE OAK PNC FIRST BANK FIFTH THIRD FNB FIRST HORIZON

The banks are out there and willing to do business. First Citizens, Truist, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and the community banks love to lend money. There are plenty of credit opportunities.

North Carolina is a unique banking state. There’s no better leadership than what we have. Bank of America, First Union and BB&T were going national before others thought about it. We have had a very innovative group of leaders.

Hugh McColl did what very few bankers in the U.S. were able to do.

The Holding family at First Citizens doubled the size of their bank in one transaction by buying the assets of Silicon Valley Bank. Ed Broadwell was the CEO of Clyde S&L. He turned that rural savings and loan into HomeTrust Bank.

DEPOSITS (Billions)

N.C. MARKET SHARE

$339.23 $107.98 $77.97 $56.58 $10.76 $10.30 $9.15 $7.70 $7.64 $6.80

48.9% 15.6% 11.3% 8.2% 1.6% 1.5% 1.3% 1.1% 1.1% 1.0%

Source: FDIC

NORTH CAROLINA’S STATE-REGULATED BANKS

How will a change in leadership in Washington, D.C., affect the banking industry?

The first Trump Administration appointed people to the SEC and FDIC who were much more likely to be friendly to banks than the people they replaced. That will happen again this time. That’s why the day after the election, bank stock prices went up like crazy. The market clearly believes the regulatory environment will be much kinder and more sensible.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be reined in, and the agencies that have written regulations at a phenomenal pace will also be reined in. There will be more sensible regulations that come into place.

An example are the Basel 3 rules that will raise the capital requirements for the biggest banks. Trump will never allow that to become law. It is dead in this country.

The more you raise them, the harder it is to provide a good return.

Regulators want lots of capital, while many CEOs and boards are willing to take more risks. It’s a tug of war.

Are your students enthusiastic about banking careers?

$791.11 BILLION

$800 $700 $600 $500 $400 $300 $200 $100 $0

$135.11 BILLION

87

56

33

2004

2014

2024

number of banks

We have three endowment professorships in banking at App State: the North Carolina Bankers Association Professorship, the Harry Davis Distinguished Professorship and the Alfred Adams Professorship. We have great leadership at the University and the industry has been very supportive.

How has Hurricane Helene affected the industry in the region?

I know western North Carolina banks that are deferring payments to people who have lost everything. Banks don’t want to foreclose on anything. They want people to succeed, because that’s how a bank succeeds.

total assets

Source: N.C. Banking Commission

We had more students interested in banking before the Great Recession.

That took the wind out of the sails of the industry and fewer wanted to enter the business.

Now in the last five or six years, it has turned around. We have a very healthy program at Appalachian State. The students are as sharp as ever, and the number applying keeps going up. They are motivated, smart and interested.

$243.73 BILLION

N.C. BANKS’ PROFITABILITY

YEAR

RETURN ON ASSETS

NET INTEREST MARGIN

2024 (third quarter)

0.84%

3.22%

2023

0.97

3.49

2022

1.02

3.46

Source: FDIC

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BIOTECH + LIFE SCIENCES

Biotech benefits Edgeton became NCBiotech’s president and CEO in 2014, after joining the nonprofit two years earlier as senior vice president for financial planning and development. State lawmakers created the group in 1984 to strengthen the industry. The state now has 830 biotech companies employing 75,000 people. Edgeton previously worked for 17 years at Wake Forest University in its medical school and affiliated healthcare system, including five years as president of Piedmont Triad Research Park in Winston-Salem. Edgeton received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama and MBA and master’s in public health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

2025 VISIONARY

DOUG EDGETON President, CEO NCBiotech Durham

The life sciences industry has been a key growth source for our state. Do you see that continuing over the next decade? Why?

I believe the life sciences in North Carolina will continue to grow throughout the coming decade. Two of the major factors that underpin that growth continue to be strong: our great research universities and community colleges across the state, and the business-friendly environment created by our municipal county and state leaders. Our universities provide research horsepower and innovation, and our community colleges provide workforce development expertise. The cooperation and collaboration of our government leaders and business community continue to make North Carolina one of the most attractive places in which to expand or locate a life sciences company. Other reasons why the life sciences will continue to be a key growth source for North Carolina are the continuing global demand for new therapies and the need for multiple supply chains. We found during the pandemic that the world cannot depend on single suppliers of anything, particularly vaccines and other drugs, and that this country cannot solely depend on overseas suppliers for our domestic needs. We have many other qualities in our favor, but these are key.

What is the environment for capital raising for N.C. biotech companies?

Is there more available capital from the state and Southeast?

The finance centers in the Northeast and Bay Area

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remain the dominant forces in capital raising. That said, we’re starting to see more funds and firms spring up in the Southeast and even in North Carolina. The environment in 2024 was a bit less challenging than it was in 2023, yet still down from its frothy heights two or three years ago. At NCBiotech, we are proud of the fact that since 2021 we have helped to attract $4 billion of investment for early-stage companies statewide.

The N.C. biotech sector has long had a mix of small and large companies. Are you seeing growth in both sectors?

Yes, we saw that mix continue in 2024. However, we also saw several large biopharma companies with already sizable footprints in the state decide to increase their investments and expand here, including leading companies such as Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, Novo Nordisk and Amgen. And we’ve seen several large companies make plans to come to North Carolina. Examples include Kyowa Kirin, Reckitt, Nipro, Johnson & Johnson and Schott Pharma. I don’t believe that it’s more challenging for smaller companies. As most venture capitalists will tell you, all good ideas will find money. And we’re starting to see funding for smaller companies loosening up.

What are the key obstacles, in general, for the state’s biotech industry? Labor availability?

Regulations?

We don’t focus on obstacles. Rather, we focus on opportunities! On the regulation front, we are grateful to partner with local and county officials, plus the General Assembly, to help reduce or eliminate any r≠≠egulatory barriers that might exist for further investment from life sciences companies. Generally, these companies look for a highly skilled workforce, affordable business operating costs, with easy access to transportation hubs such as airports, highways and ports. We have all that here.

A common question life sciences companies have is if they will find enough talent once they locate their facilities here. Since winning the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant of $25 million in 2022, we have worked with the community college system, the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Historically American Indian universities and other local community organizations

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to expand the capacity of existing biomanufacturing training programs and add new ones. We worked with life sciences companies to expand an apprenticeship program. We also made a dedicated effort to inform people across the state, particularly in underserved and distressed communities and to historically excluded populations, that these training programs exist and that college degrees aren’t necessary to get started in a life sciences manufacturing career. We are already seeing the success of those efforts.

Could you share examples of how the sector is promoting its importance and influence in our state?

LARGEST N.C. BIOTECH INVESTMENTS 1 NOVO NORDISK $4.1 BILLION JOBS - 1,000 LOCATION - CLAYTON ANNOUNCED - JUNE 2024 2 FUJIFILM DIOSYNTH BIOTECHNOLOGIES

5 FUJIFILM DIOSYNTH BIOTECHNOLOGIES

JOBS - 725 LOCATION - HOLLY SPRINGS ANNOUNCED - MARCH 2021

JOBS -680 LOCATION - HOLLY SPRINGS ANNOUNCED - APRIL 2024

$2 BILLION

In the state, we hold or participate in numerous events that shine a spotlight on in-state companies. Our biennial Triad BioNight was in June in Greensboro and featured the winners of our NC Biotech Venture Challenge, a statewide pitch competition for the most innovative of North Carolina’s life sciences startups.

Source: North Carolina Biotechnology Center

$2 BILLION

JOBS - 420 LOCATION - WILSON ANNOUNCED - OCTOBER 2024

UNC Charlotte’s CIPHER (Center for Computational Excellence to Predict Health and Environmental Risks) Research Center focuses on genomics and computing technologies as applied to microbiology, biological and human diversity, and health.

Another notable development this year was at NC State, which welcomed a $30 million award from the Bezos Earth Fund to create the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein there. That center of excellence will be a biomanufacturing hub for dietary proteins that are environmentally friendly, healthy, tasty and affordable.

Our community college system and our HBCUs/HAIUs have been excellent partners in helping prepare people across the state for life sciences careers. They have become essential builders of our talent pipeline for the biotech companies that are locating or expanding here in North Carolina.

9 MERCK

6 AMGEN

$680 MILLION

$ 1.02 BILLION

JOBS - 425 LOCATION - DURHAM & WILSON ANNOUNCED - JULY 2019

JOBS - 370 LOCATION - HOLLY SPRINGS ANNOUNCED - DECEMBER 2024

10 AMGEN

7 ELI LILLY

$550 MILLION

$1.85 BILLION

JOBS - 691 LOCATION - JOHNSTON COUNTY ANNOUNCED - AUGUST 2015

JOBS - 355 LOCATION - HOLLY SPRINGS ANNOUNCED - AUGUST 2021

JOBS - 589 LOCATION - CONCORD ANNOUNCED - JANUARY 2022

BIOTECH FIRMS IN N.C. HEADQUARTERS

GREATER CHARLOTTE

25

TRIANGLE

203

8

23

SOUTHEAST

13

Source: North Carolina Biotechnology Center

LARGEST BIOTECH FIRMS (500+ EMPLOYEES) VISITOR SPENDING

1 RTI INTERNATIONAL LOCATION - DURHAM EMPLOYS - 2,000+ 2 THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC

5 FUJIFILM DIOSYNTH BIOTECHNOLOGIES

LOCATION - MORRISVILLE & WILMINGTON EMPLOYS -2,000+

LOCATION -MORRISVILLE EMPLOYS - 1,000-1,999

3 BASF AGRICULTURAL SOLUTIONS

LOCATION - DURHAM EMPLOYS - 1,000-1,999

LOCATION - DURHAM EMPLOYS - 1,000-1,999

4 FUJIFILM DIOSYNTH BIOTECHNOLOGIES

6 KBI BIOPHARMA INC.

7 SYNGENTA CROP PROTECTION LLC LOCATION - DURHAM EMPLOYS - 1,000-1,999

LOCATION - HOLLY SPRINGS EMPLOYS - 1,000-1,999

8 ALCAMI CORPORATION LOCATION - MORRISVILLE EMPLOYS - 500-999

9 BIOAGILYTIX LABS LLC LOCATION - DURHAM EMPLOYS - 500-999

10 NOVONESIS BIOAG LOCATION - MORRISVILLE EMPLOYS - 500-999

11 NOVONESIS

LOCATION - FRANKLINTON EMPLOYS - 500-999

Source: North Carolina Biotechnology Center

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EAST

PIEDMONT TRIAD

How are the state’s higher education institutions stepping up to support the industry? What are some prime examples?

Earlier this year, U.S. National Science Foundation announced that one of its first-ever NSF Regional Innovation Engines would be the Piedmont Triad Regenerative Medicine Engine, which is led by the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM, part of Wake Forest University School of Medicine) and includes Forsyth Technical Community College, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, the RegenMed Development Organization, and Winston Salem State University.

JOBS - 175 LOCATION - CLAYTON ANNOUNCED - SEPTEMBER 2022

$939 MILLION

4 NOVO NORDISK

2024 was extra special for NCBiotech because it was our 40th anniversary.

Through the support of sponsors, we held a celebration event in September that was attended by approximately 550 people and highlighted the accomplishments of North Carolina’s life sciences sector and our organization since 1984. The evening included amazing recollections from leaders throughout North Carolina who helped us along the way. We even had some truly heartwarming stories told by people whose lives were made better by therapies that were manufactured locally or by training that led to a new career in the life sciences.

Our larger universities, including UNC Chapel Hill, NC State and Duke, continue to produce top-level research and groundbreaking technologies for which they have become well-known around the world.

$750 MILLION

$1.2 BILLION

We create and take part in many events and other programs throughout the year, all of which help promote the life sciences. We have a limited budget, of course, but we participate in numerous trade shows and conferences, including the big annual ones such as BIO and BIO-Europe. Typically at these events, we partner with other economic development organizations like NCLifeSci, EDPNC (Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina) and other county or regional economic development partners to demonstrate North Carolina’s many advantages and meet with companies to educate them on the strengths and business advantages of being part of our life sciences community.

Also, when the state goes on trade missions to other countries, representatives from NCBiotech go along to help recruit life sciences companies.

3 JOHNSON & JOHNSON INNOVATIVE MEDICINE

8 NOVO NORDISK

2 0 2 5

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CONSTRUCTION

Structure stature Wang is a professor and chair of the Department of Construction Management at East Carolina University’s College of Engineering and Technology. He joined ECU in 2007 and is the Gregory Poole Distinguished Professor. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. Before entering academia, he worked for EXP and LVM Engineering in Toronto.

2025 VISIONARY

GEORGE WANG Gregory Poole Distinguished Professor Chair, Department of Construction Management East Carolina University, Greenville What is the state of construction in North Carolina?

The construction industry in North Carolina has demonstrated resilience. However, supply chain disruptions, high material costs and labor shortages remain challenges.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis notes North Carolina’s GDP grew 8.2% in 2023, reaching approximately $788 billion. Based on the average of the last three years, construction will account for 4.5% of the state’s GDP in 2024, translating to around $35.46 billion.

North Carolina has about 23,000 construction firms, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. The state ranks as the sixth-largest construction employer nationwide, with 173,640 employees, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

North Carolina’s population is expected to grow to 11.7 million residents by 2030 and become the seventh-most populous state. New business registrations, which set records in 2024, will fuel demand for residential and commercial construction.

Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, North Carolina will receive about $7.8 billion over five years (2022–2026) for federal highway and bridge funding.

An additional $2.6 billion is designated for bridge replacements, public transportation, electric vehicle charging networks and water infrastructure improvements.

How can the industry deal with its challenges?

1. Partner with high schools, community colleges and universities offering construction management programs

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to address workforce gaps; develop apprenticeship and training programs to attract and retain skilled labor; improve benefits and wages.

2. Mitigate supply chain disruptions by diversifying suppliers, particularly for critical items such as electrical components and HVAC equipment.

3. Embrace technology, including drones and AI-driven robotics, to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Recent advancements include autonomous excavators, robotic machinery for bricklaying and steel assembly tasks and prefabrication techniques.

4. Adopt prefabrication and modular construction methods to improve project timelines and reduce waste. Focus on lean construction, resilience, recycling and risk management techniques.

What are the state’s colleges doing to provide a well-trained workforce?

Four-year construction management programs exist at Appalachian State, East Carolina, N.C. A&T, UNC Charlotte and Western Carolina. Some community colleges also offer degrees in construction management technology.

These programs collectively nurture the future construction professionals and workforce for the industry in North Carolina and beyond.

ECU established its construction management program in 1984 and has produced about 3,950 graduates. A notable feature of the program is the Caterpillar and Gregory Poole High Bay Lab, established in 2007, which enhances students’ hands-on learning. The program emphasizes realworld exposure.

Are changes needed to occur to keep N.C. construction workers safe?

Construction remains a hazardous industry, largely due to the “Fatal Four” causes of fatalities: falls, struck-by incidents, caught-in/between accidents and electrocutions. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, construction accounts for nearly 20% of workplace fatalities. The North Carolina construction industry has consistently recorded the highest number of workplace deaths over the past 14 years, with more than 250 fatalities since 2009. In 2021, the state reported a construction workplace fatality rate of 11.5 deaths per 100,000 workers — higher than the average across 43 states.

In a multilingual workforce, addressing communication barriers is essential. Providing bilingual safety training and signage in languages such as English and Spanish can significantly prevent accidents.

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NATIONAL CONTRACTORS WITH A LARGE N.C. FOOTPRINT

How does the state’s housing shortage affect the construction industry?

2023 REGIONAL REVENUE

COMPANY

Affordable housing has not kept pace with the state’s growing population. As of November 2024, the average home value rose to $325,800 (a 2% increase over the past year), while the number of homes sold declined by 2.5%. Compounding the issue, North Carolina has a shortage of nearly 196,000 affordable rental units for its 326,751 extremely low-income households. Many families spend over half their income on housing.

BRASFIELD & GORRIE BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA $4.99 BILLION

To address this crisis, the construction industry requires targeted support in several critical areas: Financial incentives Grants, tax breaks or low-interest loans to developers building affordable units.

Property tax credits for mixed-income and affordable housing projects.

Public and private collaboration with developers to share costs and risks for large-scale housing projects.

Public funding and support Increase funding through programs like HUD and state-specific housing initiatives.

Establish land banks to repurpose underutilized properties for housing development.

Allocate public funds to directly build or subsidize affordable housing projects.

Regulatory reforms Simplify and expedite the permitting process to reduce delays.

Revise zoning laws to allow higher-density developments such as multifamily housing and mixed-use projects.

Reduce parking requirements to cut construction costs and maximize land use.

CHOATE CONSTRUCTION ATLANTA

$2.93 BILLION

DPR CONSTRUCTION REDWOOD CITY, CA

$2.08 BILLION

TURNER CONSTRUCTION NEW YORK CITY

$2.01 BILLION

JE DUNN CONSTRUCTION ATLANTA

$1.98 BILLION

WHITING-TURNER CONTRACTING ATLANTA

$1.92 BILLION

BALFOUR BEATTY ORLANDO, FLORIDA

$1.61 BILLION

ROBINS & MORTON BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

$1.48 BILLION

SAMET CORP. GREENSBORO

$1.45 BILLION

SKANSKA NEW YORK CITY

$972.62 MILLION

Source: U.S. Engineering News-Record

BIGGEST HOME-BUILDING STATES

Workforce development Invest in vocational training and apprenticeships for trades such as carpentry, plumbing and electrical work.

Provide housing subsidies or relocation assistance to attract and retain workers.

Support policies to employ skilled immigrant labor to address workforce shortages.

STATE

2024 UNITS THROUGH JULY

CHANGE SINCE 2023

TEXAS

133,549

(-1.89%)

Infrastructure investment Build water, sewage and power infrastructure to support housing developments.

Improve transit networks near housing to increase accessibility and desirability.

FLORIDA

111,024

(-3.43%)

CALIFORNIA

59,263

(-8.91%)

NORTH CAROLINA

58,587

2.5%

Innovation in construction Promote modular and prefab construction techniques to lower costs and accelerate timelines.

Community and stakeholder engagement Reward municipalities that adopt housing-friendly policies such as density bonuses and inclusionary zoning.

Involve community stakeholders in planning to minimize opposition (NIMBYism) and foster support.

Include affordable housing safeguards like rent controls to prevent displacement.

How could the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, a priority for President Donald Trump, affect construction?

An estimated 325,000 individuals may be eligible for deportation in North Carolina.

This could lead to labor shortages, increased project delays and higher costs. Small and medium-sized construction companies, which often depend on immigrant labor for cost-effective operations, would be most affected.

Over time, the situation could serve as a catalyst for reform and modernization in the industry.

Encouraging companies to utilize existing visa programs such as the H-2B visa, which allows temporary foreign workers to fill labor shortages. The current cap of 66,000 H-2B visas per fiscal year, divided between two halves of the year, must be increased.

Introducing a specialized visa program tailored for construction workers, like those in Canada and Australia, could create a sustainable labor pipeline. Extending the duration and easing the renewability of such visas would also benefit employers and workers.

While mass deportations pose immediate challenges, they offer an opportunity for the construction industry to transform. By adopting innovative technologies, reforming visa policies and tapping into alternative talent sources, the industry can overcome these hurdles and position itself for sustainable growth.

GEORGIA

41,347

5.2%

ARIZONA

36,282

13.91%

SOUTH CAROLINA

26,651

17.11%

Source: LendingTree analysis of U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey

CONSTRUCTION EMPLOYEES NORTH CAROLINA YEAR

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

2024 NOVEMBER

296,600

2022 NOVEMBER

251,000

2020 JANUARY

231,500

2010 JANUARY

178,400

2000 JANUARY

228,100

1990 JANUARY

168,600

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

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ENERGY

Transition time Brannan leads a 170-employee group that represents the state’s 26 cooperatives, serving more than 20% of North Carolina’s population. The organization secures its power mainly from its 61.5% ownership of Catawba Nuclear Station’s No. 1 unit, which is managed by Duke Energy, and 13% share of a Duke Energy-run natural gas plant in Anderson County, South Carolina. North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives is slated to own 16.5% of a planned 1,360-megawatt natural gas plant in Person County.

Brannan joined North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives in 2006 after spending much of his career at PPL, an Allentown, Pennsylvania-based electric utility. He has an electrical engineering degree from Penn State University and an MBA from Lehigh University.

2025 VISIONARY

JOE BRANNAN CEO North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives Raleigh

What challenges does the industry face as power generators transition away from fossil fuels?

The greatest risk the industry currently faces is that energy demand is on track to outpace supply, which puts electric reliability at risk. Across the state and the entire country, the demand for power is growing, and at the same time, many plants powered by fossil fuels are being retired. This tipping of the scales is concerning.

As a country, we are adding new generation from renewable energy resources, and that’s important, but that generation isn’t always available. Renewable energy resources are highly weather-dependent, and because of the variability of their performance, they have to be backed up by firm-generating resources, which include nuclear and fossil-fuel generation capacity.

Natural gas is and will continue to be critical to the energy transition in North Carolina because it is affordable, highly reliable and can be dispatched in real time to meet demand. These characteristics make it a strong complement to renewable energy resources and necessary to support future growth of renewables in our state.

NCEMC’s portfolio is now 54% weighted toward nuclear generation. Will that be even higher 10 years from now?

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Nuclear generation is the workhorse of our generation fleet, providing affordable and steady generation 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It checks a lot of boxes in that it is safe, reliable, affordable and creates zero emissions.

Nuclear generation, as we know it today, is challenging to site and takes a long time to build, which makes forecasting its future role difficult. We will, however, be monitoring advancements in emerging nuclear energy technologies to determine if and when there’s a place for new nuclear generation to serve co-op members and communities.

While these technologies grow, it will be critical to expand natural gas generation to make sure North Carolina’s homes, businesses and the economy can maintain the benefits of reliable and affordable electricity.

How are N.C. utility organizations collaborating to ensure a reliable grid?

The opportunities for utility collaboration continue to change and grow through the industry transition.

The electric grid was built and expanded over many decades to accommodate large, central station generation and accompanying transmission and distribution infrastructure. Electricity was considered to flow across the grid in one direction, “downstream” to homes and businesses. Only recently has generation been integrated at the distribution system level, dramatically changing the operation of the grid and impacting grid reliability.

Now, there are technologies, capabilities and generation assets, dispersed across distribution systems, and more are being added every day. Think about utility-scale solar, home solar, microgrids and utility scale batteries.

Each of these resources has a primary purpose at the site of installation, but they also have upstream impact that can help or hurt reliability.

As a network of electric cooperatives, our goal is for the impact of these distributed energy resources to always enhance grid reliability. Resource visibility and coordination are fundamental requirements of achieving this goal.

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We developed a capability called the Distribution Operator that monitors, aggregates and deploys energy resources on distribution grids, providing visibility and coordination with other grid operators.

This coordination supports the precise balance of electric supply and demand, which is essential for reliability. Beyond reliability, the Distribution Operator provides cost efficiencies because it can mitigate the need for capital-intensive infrastructure builds.

Are the cooperaties’ efforts in solar power showing strong promise?

Electric co-ops have provided practical solar energy solutions for more than a decade. We got our start with community solar back in 2014, installing the first community solar farms in the state, making solar an option for members whose home or financial circumstances presented challenges.

N.C. ENERGY CONSUMPTION

BY SOURCE

SOURCE

ALL SOURCES

PETROLEUM ELECTRICITY NATURAL GAS RENEWABLE COAL

Across the network of North Carolina’s 26 electric cooperatives, we share a vision called Brighter Future. This vision sets us on a path to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 while also upholding our members’ priorities of receiving reliable and affordable electricity.

Solar energy is a part of this path, and we are balancing it with the flexibility of on-demand resources like batteries and natural gas to make sure we can uphold our commitment to members.

What key lessons are the cooperatives’ learning from its experience with Hurricane Helene?

Our state’s geographic and cultural diversity is met by the diversity of severe weather events that impact the state. Unfortunately, severe weather and power outages go hand-in-hand, and North Carolina’s electric cooperatives are always prepared.

However, the severity of damage to homes, communities and infrastructure was inextricably linked to the geographic characteristics of Helene’s hardest-hit areas. Cooperatives were able to apply the same fundamentals from tropical weather events in eastern North Carolina to the rugged, mountainous terrain of western North Carolina, but the geographical characteristics created an unprecedented level of damage requiring restoration efforts of the same magnitude.

In spite of the challenges brought by this historic storm, one of the greatest strengths of electric cooperatives is the power of the network. Almost immediately, central and eastern North Carolina co-ops moved west to help crews in the hardest-hit areas. In fact, crews from Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative — a barrier island as far east as you can go — were among the first to deploy. They were joined by every single electric cooperative across our state. Twentysix co-ops providing line crews, operations support, warehouse and dispatch personnel, as well as materials and vehicles, all worked together during this historic storm.

Every storm presents its own unique and challenging circumstances, and Helene dealt more than expected, but electric cooperatives will always show up for each other and the members they serve.

53.0% 26.6% 15.1% 4.7% 0.6%

945.1 475.0 269.1 84.1 11.0

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2022

Now, we have 20 community solar installations at 11 co-ops across the state, as well as 13 solar storage sites and 341 megawatts of utility scale solar and renewables connected to cooperative distribution grids.

We paired solar and storage together to capture the sustainability benefits of solar, while also positively contributing to the reliability of the grid by dispatching the stored solar power when demand for electricity is highest.

ENERGY EMPLOYMENT NORTH CAROLINA

YEAR

CLEAN ENERGY JOBS

ENERGY JOBS

TOTAL STATEWIDE EMPLOYMENT

2023 2022 2021 2020

109,723 105,315 103,472 99,314

223,095 208,682 204,813 194,709

4.9 MILLION 4.8 MILLION 4.6 MILLION 4.4 MILLION

Source: NC Sustainable Energy Association

UTILITY SCALE GENERATION

BY SOURCE

SOURCE

N.C. SHARE

U.S. AVERAGE

48.8% 29.4% 14.4% 7.2%

47.2% 17.4% 19.7% 15.2%

NATURAL GAS NUCLEAR RENEWABLES COAL

Source:U.S. Energy Information Administration, September 2024

NET ELECTRIC ENERGY GENERATION NORTH CAROLINA

YEAR

KILOWATT HOURS (BILLION)

2022 2020 2018 2016 2014

134.3 124.4 134.2 131.5 128.1

2021 2019 2017 2015 2013

129.9 131.2 130.8 128.9 125.9

Source: N.C. Office of State Budget and Management

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AMOUNT (trillion British Thermal Units)

2 0 2 5

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HEALTHCARE

Plain and simple

Kinsley stepped down from his state post in early January after six years with the department. The Brevard College graduate, who has a master’s in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley, was a senior budget executive at the U.S. Treasury before joining the N.C. agency in 2018. He led operations for the state during the COVID pandemic, then in early 2022 succeeded Mandy Cohen as the department’s leader. He won bipartisan kudos for his leadership of the $38 billion, 18,000-employee agency. His comments are edited for brevity and clarity.

KODY KINSLEY 2025 VISIONARY

Former Secretary, N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Raleigh

What have been your main priorities as DHHS secretary?

If you were to ask any North Carolinian sitting at home with his family, they would say what they want from their healthcare system is to be plain and simple. It just feels like it is too hard to navigate, too hard to get the outcomes you want. It often doesn’t make sense. You have insurance and you are still paying something. It has all of these complexities. It is like a puzzle.

So what we’ve done at the department over the last eight years, and particularly over the last three years when I’ve been in this seat, is to honor that fundamental wish to just be plain and simple.

Step one was to engage. The health system requires insurance, and we knew we had to get more people insured. Medicaid expansion has been a phenomenal tool to do that. We have more than 614,000 newly insured people with relatively good benefits. Physical, mental, vision, and pharmacy benefits and co-pays that don’t cost more than $4. That’s lifechanging for a lot of folks.

Step two is how do we pay more for what drives healthcare. About 80% of what drives health is what happens outside the doctor’s office. So Medicaid in North Carolina is leading the charge. We are doing more than private insurance and any other example by putting money into food and transportation, so your health insurance dollars are going to the inputs that drive health and help poor people.

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We’ve seen our Healthy Opportunities pilot program cut emergency department trips and hospital visitations, leading to a savings of $85 per month.

If there is an insurance company that could save $85 a month per member, and you let me spend some of this money on food and transportation, that would be pretty enticing. We are paving a path for a lot of other insurers to follow.

Last but not least, there’s a big investment in mental health, a part of our system that has been forgotten for so long because of the feeling it was a moral failure issue.

But if people have uncontrolled mental health issues, then we have higher costs for other chronic diseases, homelessness and jail expenses that the entire state has to bear. It makes sense to put investment in mental health because it lowers the cost on the social services side.

In the last three years, we have put a number of major changes in place that put us on a fundamentally different path for the next several decades. We just need to continue that trajectory.

How did you arrive at that $85 savings?

Almost three years ago, we started the Healthy Opportunities pilot to allow us to pay for food and transportation. We’ve done pilots in 33 counties across the state. Two years in, through April 2024, we found roughly 20,000 pilot participants with hundreds of thousands of services provided. Surveys showed their needs were being met. The number of ED visits and hospitalizations were down with some statistical significance.

If you add the total cost of the program and subtract what we have saved on hospitalization, we were saving $85 a month per person over two years. In insurance dollars, that’s huge. That is so promising that the federal government has approved it to take the program statewide. We need to work with the General Assembly to get the money to get this off the ground.

Why did North Carolina agree to cover weight-loss drugs?

Unlike other states, we decided to cover the weightloss drugs as part of the State Health Plan. We did that because we spent a billion dollars a year on Medicaid for obesity-related diseases. If N.C. can shave a couple percent off that, the weight-loss drugs start to pay for themselves.

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I think competition will help drive down those costs. In the meantime, I’m foolish not to try to start to get those savings. In the long haul, by curbing chronic disease and helping people age in place at home we will be better off.

Are you worried about provider shortages?

It’s a pretty uneven problem. Our provider networks have absorbed 614,000 new Medicaid expansion beneficiaries with billions of dollars in claims paid, millions of prescriptions filled, hundreds of millions of dollars in dental services. And nobody has told me from that population that they haven’t been able to get in.

I do not discount that in certain communities there is a struggle to receive care. This is a legacy of a state that has had a 10% to 12% uninsured rate.

That was our selling pitch with our Medicaid expansion push.

N.C. HOSPITALS (2023) WITH MOST NET PATIENT REVENUE

HOSPITAL

LOCATION

DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM

$4.03 BILLION

ATRIUM - CAROLINAS MEDICAL CENTER

CHARLOTTE

$3.73 BILLION

UNC MEDICAL CENTER

CHAPEL HILL

$2.88 BILLION

ATRIUM WAKE FOREST BAPTIST

WINSTON-SALEM

$1.71 BILLION $1.56 BILLION

ECU HEALTH

GREENVILLE

NOVANT HEALTH FORSYTH

WINSTON-SALEM

$1.52 BILLION

UNC REX

RALEIGH

$1.51 BILLION

Source: Definitive Healthcare

What are key issues ahead for N.C. public health?

PER CAPITA - NORTH CAROLINA

The second thing that drives public health is the centralization and market pressures that have created a lot of consolidation in the last few years.

North Carolina is uniquely positioned with Medicaid expansion and our population growth, diversity and geography to really write a new chapter in what rural health should look like.

HEALTHCARE SPENDING

YEAR

PER CAPITA

% CHANGE

TOTAL SPEND

2020

$8,917

37%

$94.5 BILLION

2010

$6,581

65%

$62.4 BILLION

2000

$3,950

76%

$31.9 BILLION

1991

$2,251

NA

$15.3 BILLION

Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, KFF

It should look like rural centers of care that provide urgent care, maybe only an emergency room and a helipad and community-based workers going door to door to do in-home healthcare.

North Carolina is aging rapidly. We’re growing in retirees as much as we are growing in families. The current model of caring for people as they get older is very dependent on facility-based care.

But we want to reduce the dependence on some of these facilities. That goes back to how do we reduce chronic diseases, and get diabetes and heart disease under control. We want to help people age with grace age in place with their families and communities. Fighting loneliness is another big goal.

Last, I think a big focus area is going to be child welfare. We are one of nine states that has a decentralized child-welfare system, meaning ours is state-supervised and county-run. We have a misalignment of who is the responsible person. We’re seeing growing numbers of kids getting stuck in emergency departments and sleeping in DSS offices, and kids who end up in juvenile justice because they’ve had such a rough childhood experience.

We need more investment for our children. We’ve spent nearly a billion dollars in the last couple of years, but there’s going to need to be more there.

When you look at the amount of money that the state puts in the child welfare system, we are one of the lowest per capita in the country.

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$2.72 BILLION

NOVANT HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN CHARLOTTE

Particularly in rural communities, if you were a business selling bicycles, and 30% and 40% of your potential customers didn’t have money for bicycles, how did you stay in business? That’s why we’ve seen a lot of providers not moving to rural counties, and why we’ve seen almost a dozen rural hospitals close in the past decade. Medicaid expansion is a fundamental shift to get the fundamentals right to make this better in some of those spaces.

The next opportunity to rise to the moment is rural health. Our rural health system of care is driven by two things. One is Hill-Burton hospitals that were built in the early 1900s, community hospitals that are coming due in their aging and investments. But they are deeply tied to the fabric of these communities. They are usually the largest employer. People often associate the existence of a hospital with the presence of health. But sick care is not the same as healthcare. Health promotion and really reducing our dependence on hospitals is the direction we have to be headed.

REVENUE

MOST COMMON DRUGS (2023) USED BY STATE HEALTH PLAN MEMBERS (Largest N.C. health insurance payer with 750,000 members)

DRUG NAME

THERAPUTIC CLASS

TOTAL USERS

ATORVASTATIN CALCIUM

ANTIHYPERLIPIDEMICS

AMLODIPINE BESYLATE

CALCIUM CHANNEL BLOCKERS

39,147

LISINOPRIL

ANTIHYPERTENSIVES

33,028

45,277

ROSUVASTATIN CALCIUM

ANTIHYPERLIPIDEMICS

28,762

HYDROCLOROTHIAZIDE

DIURETICS

27,900

LOSARTAN POTASSIUM

ANTIHYPERTENSIVES

25,861

ESCITALOPRAM OXALATE

ANTIDEPRESSANTS

28,573

OMEPRAZOLE

ULCER DRUGS

31,430

BUPROPIN HYDROCHLORIDE E

ANTIDEPRESSANTS

25,396

LEVOTHYROXINE SODIUM

THYROID AGENTS

20,694

Source: www.shpnc.org

C A R O L I N A

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Period of change Friga researches best practices in strategy, problem-solving and the transformation of higher education, while teaching courses in management consulting and strategy. He is the former director of the Student Teams Achieving Results program and has led various courses that included travel in China, India, UAE and Switzerland. He previously taught at Indiana University and worked as a management consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and McKinsey. He is the author of two books and has written more than 20 book chapters. He has a doctoral degree and MBA from UNC Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree from Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania.

2025 VISIONARY

RS

HIGHER EDUCATION

PAUL FRIGA Clinical Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship UNC Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School Consultant Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

What’s the challenge of getting college graduates ready to start careers?

There was a time when colleges would say, ‘We know what to teach you. We want to teach you how to think. We, on our own, will set all your curriculum.’

Over time, there’s been more connection and relevance to the real world. The rise of business schools and STEM programs, all of those are efforts to get more connections to the real world. They were always around, but they’re growing and that’s because society has said, ‘Yes, we need smart people, who can think and communicate, but we also need to get them working.’

Businesses are looking for some evidence of a student’s ability to jump into a career. At Chapel Hill, students start with two years of general education then go to a particular college program. There we train them with exercises, skills, tools and experiences that help them hit the ground running.

How do students keep up in a fast-paced world?

The New World is all about technology.

AI is going to be a huge disruptor, and we’re just starting to see how that’s going to work its way through. Students need the skill to be able to ask the right question, to take a stab at things then refine and dig deeper, check the validity and search for new trends.

Things that historically have been done by people will be done by technology, but you have to elevate the skills of people graduating to leverage that. AI is disrupting what we teach and how we teach. The question for educators is how do we integrate AI better so our students are ready to employ AI tools to better society.

What is a key challenge facing higher education?

Institutions have quite a few headwinds pushing for change, even more than in the past. And institutions, much like individuals, will not change unless there’s a tremendous amount of pressure on them to do so. Why would they change if things are working out for the faculty and students and ultimately for employers, who are hiring the graduates?

One of the forces really pushing institutions to do things differently is the “enrollment cliff ” where there’s going to be a 10% to 15% drop in the number of high school graduates over the next eight to 10 years. That’s just because fewer children were born 18 to 20 years ago coming out of the Great Recession.

That’s a dramatic decrease in the traditional demand for higher education.

There are also estimates that the number of seats available now is 15% to 20% oversupplied for the current level of demand from high school graduates and adults coming back into higher education. So we’re starting with a period of oversupply. Now we’re going to have a decrease in the number of traditional students coming into it, so that’s going to put pressure on certain segments of higher education that are extremely dependent on enrollments to make their ends meet.

Your top 50 to 100 universities in the country are going to be just fine, but it’s the small private colleges and the regional public universities that are so dependent on enrollment because they don’t have the huge endowments and continual supply for their product. You’re going to see a lot of pressure and competition for the students who are coming in, and financial challenges for the institutions that are losing enrollment.

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LARGEST ENROLLMENT Making the financial situation worse is economic pressures, cost of operations, inflation, all of that is making things harder. North Carolina won’t be hit as hard in part because of its population growth. In the Midwest and Northeast, they are not only dealing with population shifts going down, but also students wanting to go to different locations for higher education.

I’m not saying smaller colleges all need to lay off employees.

Some will need to adjust their business model based on the number of students they have. I think we’ll see some consolidations. They must have a positive operating margin.

If small colleges and universities just cut, they’ll end up in a spiral. They have to transform and transformation doesn’t mean just cutting. It means cut in some areas but grow in others. They have to offer programs, in demand by students, not just programs they’ve traditionally officered or that faculty want to offer.

What happens to the smaller colleges given the declining student head counts?

If there’s a decrease in demand, a big corporation might say, ‘All right, 10% slash, we’re going to cut our personnel costs.’ That’s not so easy in higher education. Part of that is because of their inert nature. It also takes two or three years of lower enrollment to feel those things through.

We’re going to need to see some right-sizing taking place. We’ll probably see some consolidations. Industries would consolidate operations to deal with the fact they have an oversupply and there would be some exits. There are tremendous exit barriers in place in higher education. Alumni don’t want to see their institutions go under; communities don’t want to see their institutions go under.

Every institution, autonomously created, has to build all these costs up independently. If you don’t have enough students coming through, you can’t have enough infrastructure to have a good offering. Sixty percent or more of your costs is personnel and that’s expensive. So you’re going to see some consolidations and some exits, particularly of those institutions with fewer than 1,000 students.

UNIVERSITIES RANK

UNC SCHOOL

FALL 2024

1 2 3 4 5

NC STATE UNIVERSITY UNC CHAPEL HILL UNC CHARLOTTE EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

38,464 32,438 31,091 26,940 21,570

Source: University of North Carolina System

LARGEST ENROLLMENT PRIVATE UNIVERSTIES

RANK

UNC SCHOOL

FALL 2023

1 2 3 4 5

DUKE UNIVERSITY WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY ELON UNIVERSITY HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY

17,112 9,121 7,207 6,052 5,115

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

TOTAL ENROLLMENT BY YEAR UNC SYSTEM (2015- 2024) FALL 2023 FALL 2022 FALL 2021 FALL 2020 FALL 2019

242,518 239,663 244,500 242,446 239,981

You don’t ever want it to be someone vs. someone else. If you have different groups, you need to have discussions about what’s important, how do you define success then see how those discussions align with that particular institution. And you need to be transparent.

236,993 232,872 228,527 224,915

Source: University of North Carolina System

TOTAL ENROLLMENT BY YEAR

N.C. COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM

2023-2024 2022-2023 2021-2022 2020-2021 2019-2020

615,508 593,902 574,042 525,402 640,260

You’re also going to see more collaborations. A small college can’t afford to invest in a new school of data science and society for AI. That would just be too expensive. I think you’ll see an increase in a private system affiliation.

Is there a way to take politics out of higher education?

FALL 2018 FALL 2017 FALL 2016 FALL 2015

Source: N.C. Community College System

STUDENTS’ FEDERAL DEBT

AT GRADUATION (UNC SYSTEM)

YEAR

# W/DEBT

% W/DEBT

2023-2024 2022-2023 2021-2022 2020-2021 2019-2020 2018-2019 2017-2018 2016-2017

21,040 21,570 22,599 24,524 24,304 24,094 23,737 23,298

50.1% 52.4% 54.7% 57.9% 59.2% 60.2% 61.3% 61.80%

AVERAGE BORROWER’S DEBT $19,244 $19,621 $20,013 $20,935 $21,383 $21,913 $22,416 $22,616

Source: University of North Carolina System

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LEGAL

Practice ready

Timmons-Goodson became dean in 2023 after serving as an associate justice at the N.C. Supreme Court from 2006 to 2012. She had been on the N.C. Court of Appeals from 1997 to 2005 after working as a District Court judge for 13 years. President Barack Obama nominated her for a federal judgeship, but she was not confirmed by Congress. The Fayetteville native has bachelor’s and law degrees from UNC Chapel Hill.

She leads the nation’s second-oldest law school affiliated with a historically Black university. It was formed in 1939, opening the doors for African-Americans to get a legal education in North Carolina.

2025 VISIONARY

PATRICIA TIMMONS-GOODSON Dean N.C. Central University School of Law Durham

How do you help make the university’s law school distinctive?

We strive to make sure that it is an inviting and energetic community. We want to make sure students and faculty feel as if they belong and they are invested. We celebrated our 85th anniversary in 2024, after being created by the legislature in 1939.

At the time, African-American students were barred from admission at UNC Chapel Hill. Following a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that said states must have an option for African-Americans to attend a state-supported law school, our legislature quickly came into session and created one.

From that time, we have created an environment, a school, a place where we’d want to make sure that folks felt valued and included.

We have tried to continue that tradition and that history. We ask ourselves how we are doing and are we accepting of differences such that folks feel comfortable expressing their views?

We don’t have to all agree and rarely do, but we have worked very hard to foster a community that is accepting.

Has it been a challenge to get resources for the school?

Yes, the law school struggled to get adequate resources. One can look at the budget and the appropriations from the

legislature compared with UNC Chapel Hill, and you can look at the tier system that is set up.

We’re a Tier 3 school, which sets ranges for the amount of salaries and everything. Resources have long been a challenge for this law school and many other HBCU professional schools. [Michael Bloomberg gave $600 million in August] to four HBCU medical schools, and they cited the inequities and insufficient financial resources. There are several law schools within 200 miles of North Carolina Central’s law school, and we’re all after the same thing, quality faculty and students. It is very difficult at times to recruit based on the constraints that we have regarding salaries and resources.

The school has a fascinating history.

It has an amazing history. You have a lot of proud alumni and influential alumni. No institution survives for 85 years unless they’re doing something right. One of the things that the law school has done right is we have stepped forward and at appropriate times made the kinds of adjustments in our legal education so that we remain relevant.

For example, you will often hear that our school produces practice-ready lawyers. That goes back to our history, the founders and early faculty. Folks argued the graduates of this law school had to be ready when they left here, because they were not likely to find firms that would take them in and mentor them. There weren’t many black lawyers out there.

So you have to be competent in handling the affairs of others. We continue to produce practice-ready lawyers.

One way that we do it is our legal clinics. They afford our students an opportunity to handle legal matters under the supervision of licensed attorneys.

That’s one of the ways that legal education has shifted.

Once upon a time, there was more theory taught in law school. We do that now, but we make sure there’s a practical component.

What’s your goal in terms of students and faculty?

I want the strongest, the most engaged faculty that you can find. I want the most energized and the hungriest students that want to make a difference. They are looking to become the leaders in their communities. In many respects, that’s

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what we have been able to do in the past. Do you realize that one out of every five state judges in North Carolina is a graduate of North Carolina Central’s law school? That tells me that the law school indeed has done the work that it carved out for it. The students who come here are often committed to public service.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe that we’ve done a very good job of telling our story. We also have a large percentage of students that are first-generation lawyers. We have transformed the lives of the graduates and their families.

How did you pick Chapel Hill as your law school?

I completed public high school in Cumberland County. When I looked around to go to college. UNC Chapel Hill had a program called Project Uplift that was designed to introduce minority students to the university. My guidance counselor came to me and said they were trying to attract minority students and that she thought I would like it. I fell in love with Chapel Hill, and I did my four undergraduate years there, and then three years at the law school.

LARGEST N.C LAW FIRMS LAW FIRM

2024

2022

MOORE & VAN ALLEN WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON MCGUIREWOODS PARKER POE ROBINSON BRADSHAW SMITH ANDERSON

323 253 220 166 163 156

315 256 213 158 152 140

N.C. OFFICES 1 5 2 2 3 1

Source: Charlotte Business Journal, N.C. Lawyers Weekly

I did the seven years consecutively, but I would advise students to take that gap year. Do something for that year to just broaden your perspective and give you a chance to breathe a little bit.

Do you have a wide range of ages at the school?

LARGEST N.C LAW SCHOOLS

We were the first law school in the state to have an evening law school program, and the students tend to be older. It’s not uncommon to have folks in their 30s and 40s in law school.

BY ENROLLMENT (J.D. STUDENTS)

Is legal training a launching board for many other pursuits?

SCHOOL

2023/ 2024

2013/ 2014

% CHANGE

DUKE UNIVERSITY

752

647

16.2%

You have identified the versatility of the law degree first and foremost. I believe that it teaches you the law, a legal education that will allow you to move in so many directions. That’s why you see lawyers as the head of corporations and higher educational institutions, along with being lawyers and judges. There’s just so much that you can do.

UNC CHAPEL HILL

572

720

(-20.6%)

WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY 488

506

(-3.6%)

ELON UNIVERSITY

291

52.9%

N.C. CENTRAL UNIVERSITY

430

611

(-29.6%)

What is your view on the increased politicization of our court system?

CAMPBELL

560

422

32.7%

Our courts perhaps have not pushed back as much as I’d like to see against the perception that the courts are just another bunch of politicians. I don’t think that’s the truth. There appears to be more politics around. But judicial independence is prized. We’ve got to have the rule of law and the judicial independence that allows our decision-makers to decide the issues before them. That’s what accounts for the prosperity and stability in our nation.

TOTAL ENROLLMENT

3247

3197

1.60%

* High Point University started its law program with 70 students in 2024

Source: American Bar Association

I’m concerned if people begin to see the judiciary as just another group of politicians. The courts have to be able to peacefully resolve disputes.

The history that I read says that we worked hard to get to that point. The confidence of the people in the courts, that’s where the power comes from. I am frankly concerned that we are losing that.

As a judge, what percentage of your decisions would have had any political basis?

The majority of the appellate opinions when I came along were unanimous.

There’s only about 15% where there was any disagreement. But I believe our citizens are bringing to the court more political and contentious issues. So the courts don’t have any choice but to handle what comes to them.

Is access to the courts an important issue?

It’s a fact that legal representation is so expensive. Even the middle class has been priced out. There are a number of counties in North Carolina where there are not enough lawyers to handle the cases. That’s a real issue here in North Carolina in what are called legal deserts. Folks want to live and work in larger cities, so the lawyers in these smaller communities are aging and not being replaced in many cases.

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445

RESIDENT AND ACTIVE LAWYERS IN NORTH CAROLINA

2024

26,515

2023

25,735

2018

24,087

2014

21,855

2010

20,226

Source: American Bar Association

C A R O L I N A

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MONEY MANAGEMENT

Trust issues

Butler has taught at Campbell for 16 years after working for three decades as a banker in auditing, trust and compliance posts and a national trust examiner in the federal Office of the Comptroller of Currency. He co-authored the book “Trust Department Risk Management – Preparing for an Exam.”

More than 3,000 students have earned degrees in trust and wealth management at Campbell, with a job placement rate of 95%, Butler says.

2025 VISIONARY

DAVID BUTLER Assistant Professor of Business, Trust & Wealth Management Lundy-Fetterman School of Business Campbell University, Buies Creek

Do you think Americans are doing a good job of saving for retirement?

They’re doing a better job of it. A Fed study in 2023 said that most Americans were doing better as far as retirement savings go. Of course, that’s been helped by the market. But the onus for retirement is now mostly on yourself as opposed to the old-fashioned pension plan. The number of those plans has gone down considerably over the last several years.

Is that a positive trend?

It’s a positive from the standpoint that people realize they have to save more for retirement. Social Security is not going to be the answer for most people. It is going to be a supplement for everybody theoretically, yes. But I’m hoping that most people start their own planning, whether it’s an IRA or participating in their 401(k) plan.

Young people are the group that lags behind a little bit to get started, and that’s one of the things I try to impress on my students. You need to start now. You’re not even graduating from college yet, but you need to start saving for retirement. They say, well, I need all my money for paying bills. I tell them they need to develop a philosophy that ‘you need to pay yourself first.’

Because if you don’t, it’s not going to get paid.

If you are in that 25 to 35 age group, you need to be saving 10% to 13% of your income, including the employer match that you might get for a 401(k).

As you get older, that goes up. If you wait until you are age 45 before you start saving for retirement, then you’re looking at having to save 25% up to 35%, just to catch up.

The stock market has had a strong run for the past 10 years. How much of an impact has that had on retirement savings?

I always try to emphasize that it’s not about beating the market for most clients. It’s about investing so that once you’re comfortable, you sleep well at night and the investments you have are on track to meet your long-term financial planning goals. Investments are a tool, and they’re part of an overall planning process that we like to advocate. Saying, “I’m going to beat the market” is not a really long-term survival strategy.

There are some people that might be able to do it, but the average investor probably won’t.

Have the industry and regulators struck a good balance on investor protection?

There’s been a major push from regulators to get more transparency into the system. I think FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) does a good job. I can’t speak to the SEC, but I think the transparency has gotten better.

We’re dealing with investors now that are more educated, whether they’re self-taught or had formal education. More than any other generation in history, everything’s at the fingertips, on the devices they carry around in their hands or on their laptops. We’re dealing with a much more conscious investor.

There’s tons of information out there on how to start investing. There’s so much investor help now, from a technology standpoint. Even if you are not very knowledgeable, you can get help from these programs and apps to start a portfolio.

Why do you think FINRA is effective?

In my experience, they’re very conscious about trying to make sure that the firms that they regulate abide by the rules. Now, having said that, there are a lot of rules

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NET HOUSEHOLD WORTH

to follow. I read an article recently that said that financial firms have to spend 41% of their time on compliance issues. That’s a lot.

In an industry as big as this, you’re always going to have issues at some point now. I always advise people using a regular brokerage firm and planning to get a broker to use BrokerCheck at finra.org Do a little research on the person you are dealing with.

Do you think North Carolina has done a good job of regulating the trust industry?

I can only speak to the banking commission. I think they do a really fine job. They regulate both some very large banks (Truist and First Citizens) and some very small ones.

How is technology affecting the trust industry?

The industry is struggling with a lot of legacy systems out there that have to get moved over the next two or three years to sort of catch up with certain things. AI is certainly changing the way we do things. While it’s still in its infancy, it is going to go a long way toward the personalization that has been a big challenge for the industry. There are aspects of AI that may be able to analyze things that maybe someone sitting down just talking to somebody may not pick up on.

BY STATE - 2024 (Based on 2.8 million customers of Empower, a leading retirement planning firm.)

STATE 1. CONNECTICUT 2. CALIFORNIA 3. VERMONT 4. NEW JERSEY 5. WASHINGTON 10. VIRGINIA 18. NORTH CAROLINA 28. SOUTH CAROLINA

For the younger generations, it’s not as much of a personal business.

They don’t necessarily want to interact in person, but they still want a seamless way of doing their business without having to go through someone. But in the trust industry, clients want to know they can get hold of somebody if there’s an issue.

Any other key topics affecting wealth managers today?

For 2025, I think the new administration is probably going to make the tax cuts to the 2017 act permanent. If those provisions expire, it could cost a lot of people a lot of money, so I think we need to keep an eye on that. The personal side really doesn’t get a lot of benefit, compared with the corporations, so it would be nice to do something for them.

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$81,332 $85,581 $82,598 $76,167 $127,823 $78,373 $58,630 $34,560

BY STATE - 2024

STATE

MEDIAN INCOME

1. MARYLAND 2. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 3. MASSACHUSETTS 4. NEW JERSEY 5. NEW HAMPSHIRE 6. CALIFORNIA 38. NORTH CAROLINA

$90,203 $90,088 $88,645 $89,296 $88,465 $84,907 $61,972

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

CREDIT CARD BURDEN - 2023

People of modest means need financial planning help as much or more than folks with big net worths. How does the industry make that work?

People wanted advice in 2008, 2009 and 2010, when everything went south. It happens every time there’s a financial crisis. People realize, maybe I need to talk to somebody who’s got a little more expertise in this than I have.

$878,513 $787,755 $782,375 $775,885 $766,158 $646,839 $597,834 $542,638

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME

The trust industry is very much alive and well. The industry is going to have the largest generational transfer of wealth. There are going to be families that are going to struggle with that, and that’s why we have a business and an industry.

There’s so many things that are online. I’m not advocating this, but there are certain estate planning documents available online, without having to go through a lot of others.

MEDIAN

Source: Empower Annuity Insurance

Will the personal touch in wealth management continue to matter?

Yes, I think it will. From the perspective of high-net worth individuals, the trust industry is still a people business. There are a lot of things that some people won’t accept a computer’s idea of what they think it should do. They still want a person’s point of view. That still is going to be important for a certain level of clients.

AVERAGE

AVERAGE RANK BY STATE (Ranked by months to pay off)

STATE 1. LOUISIANA 2.MISSISSIPPI 3. OKLAHOMA 4. WEST VIRGINIA 5. NEVADA 14. SOUTH CAROLINA 17. NORTH CAROLINA

MONTHS TO PAY OFF 22 22 21 21 20 19 18

AVERAGE CARD BALANCE $5,796 $5,332 $5,862 $5,333 $6,710 $5,894 $5,853

Source: Bankrate.com

C A R O L I N A

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Full speed ahead Milazzo has led the Alliance since its formation in 2002. It leads the regional business community’s advocacy efforts on transportation issues, funding and strategy. He holds master’s degrees in management and civil engineering from NC State University and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Penn State University. He’s a licensed engineer and lobbyist.

2025 VISIONARY

023

TRANSPORTATION

JOE MILAZZO II Executive Director Regional Transportation Alliance Raleigh

What do congested roads cost in time and dollars?

Congestion creates havoc. From the standpoint of business, it is both the constrained travel flow at certain times of day and the uncertainty due to unexpected jams that are the biggest issues, as they impact scheduling, productivity and revenue potential. The specific impacts on business — time and money — depend on where and when particular delays occur in a region, along with how well you can schedule around them and the costs of doing so.

Are things getting better or worse?

Traffic is generally getting heavier post-pandemic, to the extent that it is more spread out over the day, which lessens its impact somewhat. When North Carolina makes strategic investments along critical transportation corridors things do get noticeably better. The I-85 widening northeast of Charlotte, the improvements to I-40 in southeastern Wake and northwestern Johnston counties and the steady completion of the 540 turnpike in the Triangle and the Winston-Salem northern beltway are all recent examples of this.

What are the obstacles to a good transportation plan in North Carolina?

The two biggest challenges we have, and these are not unique to North Carolina, are financial and time. The financial side involves both revenue and expenses. While funding has been growing, it is insufficient and unstable; meanwhile, construction costs

have increased significantly over the past several years, even more than general inflation. Also, projects frequently take too long to move to construction.

What needs to happen with mass transportation in the Triangle?

We are seeking to develop a multipronged system of BRT (bus rapid transit, or as we in the business community often refer to it, “Buses Resembling Trains”) along several corridors; developing transit priority infrastructure and BRT linkages along our freeways and major roadways; and expanding our intercity rail network in a purposeful, scalable fashion. There is an active study on Freeway, Arterial, Street and Tactical (FAST) transit (letsgetmoving. org/FAST) that is being spearheaded by the regional business community and managed by N.C. Department of Transportation — this will hopefully jumpstart our region’s efforts to make our primary roadways “transit ready.”

Does North Carolina still earn the status of the “Good Roads State?”

The Department of Transportation has remained focused on building and maintaining the system we need for our growing population as well supporting commerce in all 100 counties and recovering from Helene and other storms. We will need increasingly resilient statewide funding sources to preserve and expand our network; our organization has been elevating an access user-fee approach as a framework to do this.

Editor’s note: An access user fee applies a consistent fee to all registered vehicles, regardless of annual usage, and is a method to replace the state gas tax. It also involves raising the fees for electric vehicles ($214.50 per year) and plug-in hybrid vehicles ($107.25 per year) to what the owner of a typical gasoline-powered vehicle pays in gas taxes in a year ($252 per year or about $21 a month).

Will North Carolina embrace electric vehicles? What obstacles need to be overcome?

Our business leadership organization has launched a member recognition initiative for those companies that are supporting electrification in transportation by removing barriers or facilitating use. For North Carolina as a whole, my sense is that there are two key priorities: Getting Level 2 chargers in homes and residences and investing in grid capacity and resilience.

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The Raleigh to Wake Forest segment of the northern corridor from the Triangle to Richmond, Virginia, is already under construction, thanks to the largest federal grant N.C. DOT has ever received in any mode of transportation ($1.1 billion.) We have a few daily intercity trains between Raleigh and Charlotte, with some having less than three hours of travel time, and 30-minute travel time between Raleigh and Durham. We are grateful to N.C. DOT Rail Division and their partners, including the N.C. Railroad Company, Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation and Amtrak.

Our business group been focused for two decades on improving intercity passenger rail from Charlotte to the Piedmont Triad to the metropolitan Triangle (including Durham, Cary, Raleigh and a future RTP station) and on to Richmond and Washington, D.C.‚— and doing so in a way that is complementary to our freight rail system in North Carolina.

2024

(PROJECTED)

AT THREE LARGEST N.C. AIRPORTS 60

59 MILLION

20

15 MILLION

10

1.8 MILLION

0

60

2014

Is high-speed rail, such as Charlotte to Atlanta or Raleigh to Washington, D.C., a pipe dream?

PASSENGER TRAFFIC

20

44.3 MILLION 9.5 MILLION

10

20

25.6 MILLION 7.2 MILLION

10 0

1.4 MILLION

CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS

RALEIGH-DURHAM

PIEDMONT TRIAD

PASSENGERS

PASSENGERS

PASSENGERS

(CLT)

(RDU)

(PTI)

Source: Charlotte Douglas International Airport

Air travel, continues to recover and expand since the pandemic, provides a host of benefits to our state. What investments do we need to make to ensure success for North Carolina?

Charlotte Douglas International Airport is one of the most important economic drivers in the state. Fast-growing Raleigh-Durham International Airport is the largest airport in the eastern half of North Carolina with a catchment area that extends into southern Virginia.

1.2 MILLION

0 60

2004

Getting Level 2 chargers into homes and residences will ensure that electric vehicles become a viable and convenient option for most trips.

Duke Energy already has a charger installation credit program that is very helpful for this. Grid and capacity investments are the strategic investments needed, particularly given the increasing demands on electricity overall.

CARGO TRAFFIC

AT THREE LARGEST N.C. AIRPORTS * 2024 data is for first 11 months

YEAR

CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS

Commercial airports across the state provide vital connectivity and positive economic development impacts, and the General Assembly has recognized this with strong state investments in airport infrastructure.

These airports will continue to require investments from several funding sources, in both landside and airside infrastructure, to maintain a quality air travel experience and to ensure that they can serve as economic catalysts for their respective regions.

2024

187,000 TONS *

93,000 TONS *

86,000 TONS *

2014

138,000 TONS

96,000 TONS

82,000 TONS

2004

123,000 TONS

86,000 TONS

63,000 TONS

What are some difference-makers happening?

Source: airports, Bureau of Transportation Statistics

(CLT)

First, the expanded use of tolling can focus revenues on regionally critical corridors to accelerate freeway improvements along those routes.

We already have seen successes in tolling in the Triangle and Charlotte and that must expand, particularly in our metropolitan areas. The N.C. Turnpike Authority has been an essential champion for effective multimodal mobility in our region and state and their best work is yet to come.

Second, bicycle lanes, protected intersections, greenway corridors and the availability of e-bikes are expanding across the state, and those can create new transportation options for shorter-length trips, catalyze complementary real estate and spur improvements to overall health.

Finally, the transportation construction cost curve simply needs to come down. While there is no easy answer, I sense that a combination of innovation, reprioritization, reimagining solutions, transparency, leadership and a continued sense of urgency will be needed to accomplish this.

RALEIGH-DURHAM

(RDU)

(PTI)

VEHICLE REGISTRATIONS NORTH CAROLINA

YEAR

NUMBER OF REGISTRATIONS

2024 (first 9 months)

8.9 million

2014

9.5 million

2004

7.7 million

Source: N.C. Office of State Budget and Management

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TRAVEL + TOURISM

Visitors welcome Isley promoted Bermuda, Washington, D.C., and Tampa Bay, Florida, before taking her current job, leading tourism efforts in Buncombe County, at the height of the pandemic in 2020. She is now tasked with helping bring back visitors to the county after catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Helene in late September.

In North Carolina, travelers spent a record $35.6 billion on trips to and within the state in 2023, topping the previous record of $33.3 billion set the year before. Data for 2024 is pending. With almost 43 million visitors, North Carolina ranks among the five most-visited states.

2025 VISIONARY

VIC ISLEY CEO Explore Asheville Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority Why does North Carolina keep winning visitors?

The state’s success in attracting visitors is rooted in its diverse offerings: mountains to the west, coastal beaches in the east, and both small towns and vibrant cities in between, combined with a strategic focus on marketing and storytelling that highlights local culture, natural beauty and unique experiences.

How does western North Carolina recover from Helene?

The lingering perception is that all of Asheville, western North Carolina and the entire state were severely impacted by the hurricane. That is projected to dampen visits this year.

Explore Asheville, Visit NC and neighboring destination marketing organizations are working diligently to amplify accurate messaging about the region’s reopening and revival. Partnerships with key allies such as Biltmore, Allegiant Airlines and Visit NC are also helping rebuild trust and attract visitors.

Beyond bringing visitors back, these initiatives are helping restore livelihoods, support local businesses and sustain the cultural and natural assets that define our community.

The partnerships

reflect the strength of our shared vision for Asheville’s recovery and growth, ensuring our message resonates deeply and broadly as we reopen with optimism and purpose.

The lack of housing supply was an issue for many communities, including Asheville before Helene. Now more than ever, our community needs to focus on smart, dense infill development, and city leaders need to revise restrictive and antiquated zoning laws that haven’t been updated since 1997.

How does the travel industry attract young people to build careers?

Travel and hospitality employed more than 29,000 workers in the Asheville area in 2023 and wages topped $1 billion for area residents.

Universities, such as Appalachian State, Western Carolina and North Carolina Central University offer strong hospitality programs that connect students to the industry, which offers countless opportunities for upward career advancement and leadership.

Explore Asheville launched a workforce development initiative to work with area high school students and open their eyes to careers in travel and hospitality. Interested in math? There are revenue management positions in hotels and airlines. Interested in marketing? There are marketing, PR and social media jobs in destinations and attractions.

Many of our board members who are executives had frontline entry positions as their first job. Sharing real life career stories, experiences and pathways is so important.

You have worked in coastal areas and now the mountains. What makes them different?

Seasonality often plays a role in areas whose identities are linked to natural assets and attractors such as beaches and mountains.

What’s been so challenging and rewarding over the years working on behalf of various communities is getting beyond assets and into the attitude or culture of a place and its people.

Shining a spotlight on the distinct DNA of a community and mapping that to potential audiences is when the magic happens. I’ve been fascinated by the paradox of Asheville — it’s a deeply rooted place in Appalachia that has drawn an everevolving creative culture.

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Why is travel and tourism important beyond the industry itself?

Travel and hospitality support our neighbors’ livelihoods and the economic well-being of our communities. Travel and hospitality brings in net new dollars to our cities, towns, counties and the state. Think about it this way, as residents, when we spend money in town, that same dollar just circulates from one business or worker to another. When a visitor comes into the state or into a town, that is net new revenue to support wages, businesses and taxes for our communities to run.

If it weren’t for visitor spending in Buncombe County, each household would have to pay an additional $2,600 in annual taxes. (Each North Carolina household saved $518 on average in state and local taxes as a direct result of visitor spending in the state. Savings per capita averaged $239, according to state figures.)

Tourism fuels local economies by supporting small businesses, artists and cultural institutions. We know that 70% of visitor spending takes place in a wide variety of businesses outside of lodging. Beyond its direct impact on hospitality businesses, tourism touches a variety of sectors like transportation, agriculture and manufacturing, while also fostering a sense of community pride and belonging.

TOP 15 N.C. COUNTIES VISITOR SPENDING

RANK

COUNTY

2023 VISITOR SPENDING

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

MECKLENBURG WAKE BUNCOMBE DARE GUILFORD BRUNSWICK DURHAM NEW HANOVER FORSYTH MOORE CARTERET CUMBERLAND CABARRUS CURRITUCK WATAUGA

The area businesses need more emergency grants from state and federal resources to sustain them through the recovery period which preserves jobs, community character, and economic vitality. FEMA reports that 40% of small businesses never reopen following a disaster like the one we experienced. That’s why just two weeks after the hurricane, Explore Asheville launched the Always Asheville Fund, a small business grant that has so far raised more than $1.3 million in financial support to local travel and hospitality businesses. Much more assistance is needed. As you are able and so inclined, consider contributing to the fund.

9.6% 11.4% 3.0% 8.8% 8.7% 7.5% 10.5% 5.9% 6.9% 7.4% 5.3% 4.6% 10.3% 4.3% 3.2%

16.4% 9.2% 8.3% 6.0% 4.7% 3.3% 3.2% 3.1% 3.0% 2.3% 2.1% 2.0% 1.8% 1.6% 1.5%

VISITOR SPENDING

What’s an immediate Helene-related need for tourism in western North Carolina?

Businesses can consider booking a meeting or conference in Asheville. Aside from personally visiting, folks can buy from more than 700 area creators and makers from the Love Asheville from Afar section on ExploreAsheville.com.

$5.85 BILLION $3.29 BILLION $2.97 BILLION $2.14 BILLION $1.68 BILLION $1.17 BILLION $1.13 BILLION $1.12 BILLION $1.06 BILLION $805.1 MILLION $732.2 MILLION $697.1 MILLION $624.9 MILLION $573.4 MILLION $517.5 MILLION

Source: Visit North Carolina / Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina

A vibrant tourism economy preserves natural and cultural assets, which make up the soul and character of the community, for future generations.

Right now, we need the support of our friends throughout the state to come for a visit and spend some money on our delicious food and beverage scene, take in some live music, shop in art galleries and stay overnight. It will be the most enjoyable sacrifice you’ll make to help sustain our creative community through spring.

% INCREASE % OF STATEWIDE FROM 2022 SPENDING

STATEWIDE (BILLIONS)

2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 0

$5

$10

$15

$20

$25

$30

$35

( BI L L I O N S ) Source: Visit North Carolina / Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina

Can you share a story of a sector of the industry that turned around a challenge?

From the very early hours of Helene, the heart of hospitality has been on full display. Asheville tourism and hospitality businesses faced immense obstacles during Hurricane Helene, including the loss of potable water. With little staff, electricity or water, hotel owners and operators opened their doors to local first responders, displaced residents as well as emergency workers, who answered the call from around the country.

A particularly inspiring response to the disaster has been the number of businesses downtown that have offered to share their spaces with other businesses and artists displaced by flooding. In November, the River Arts District Association hosted RAD Fest, an event that provided critical exposure and revenue to artists and makers in the neighborhood.

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DIRECT TOURISM STATEWIDE EMPLOYMENT YEAR

2023 2022 2021 2020 2019

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

227,224 216,890 197,511 178,685 242,650

YEAR

2018 2017 2016 2015 2014

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

236,664 232,437 226,729 211,911 204,909

Source: Visit North Carolina / Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina

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arolina

rolina

EES

arolina

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ANNUAL UPDATE from BOARD CHAIRMAN BILL LEHNES As we celebrate another year of exceptional care at UNC Health Nash, I am proud to share our progress and highlight key accomplishments as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners. With a focus on quality, safety, and patient experience, we’ve seen significant growth in the past year and are making exciting strides to better serve our community.

A major change on the horizon is the construction of a new inpatient hospital tower, set to begin in early 2025 and expected to take 18-24 months to complete. Updates will be posted on our website and social media channels.

Additionally, the UNC Nash Emergency Department began renovations in late 2024 to improve patient flow, enhance privacy, and increase treatment efficiency. We’ve also opened a new urgent care facility on campus to offer same-day care for non-life-threatening conditions, reducing wait times in the Emergency Department.

To better meet community needs, UNC Nash has worked to become a transfer-in facility for neighboring hospitals, facilitating the transfer of nearly 500 patients in its first year from regions as far as the Outer Banks and southern Virginia.

Generous donations have enabled the UNC Nash Foundation to fund several community health initiatives, such as the Community Paramedic Program, inpatient food pantry, and patient assistance services. These programs address social determinants of health, improving outcomes for vulnerable patients and reducing their overall medical costs. The Employee Giving Campaign raised over $123,000 to support these initiatives, as well as the United Way Tar River Region. Significant milestones include the 1,000 th food box distributed by the Food Pantry and the expansion of the Community Paramedic Program with new certifications in heart failure and diabetes care.

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Our medical staff also grew this year with the addition of new specialists in heart care, oncology, orthopedics, general surgery, and more. We partnered with OIC Family Medical Center to open new pediatrics and OBGYN practices, further meeting the needs of our community.

In early 2024, UNC Nash earned recognition from Business North Carolina as one of the Top 25 Best Hospitals in the state for the third consecutive year, rising from 22nd in 2022 to13th in 2024. This ranking reflects our commitment to improving healthcare outcomes and addressing social determinants of health. A key driver of our success is our dyad leadership model, which pairs physician and nurse leaders to foster continuous quality improvement.

UNC Nash also earned four stars in the annual Hospital Quality Star Ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, placing us among the top hospitals in the nation for the second year in a row. We continue to receive national recognition in areas such as maternity care, breast care, stroke, and heart care. For the first time, we were rated as “High Performing” by U.S. News & World Report in both Heart Attack and Heart Failure care.

Looking ahead, our strategic vision is clear: to solidify UNC Nash as the region’s healthcare leader, offering easy access, expanded services, top-quality care, and strong community and workforce engagement. We are committed to providing the best care for the communities we serve, right here at home.

Sincerely,

Bill Lehnes Chair, Board of Commissioners UNC Health Nash

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COMMUNITY CLOSE-UP NASH, EDGECOMBE & WILSON COUNTIES

WORKING SIDE BY SIDE Edgecombe and Nash counties have welcomed high-dollar business investments. Those and the preparations they’re making to bring more strengthen the region as a whole.

PHOTO CREDIT:NANATRON ENERGY/BUSINESS WIRE

N

atron Energy, a global pioneer in research, development and manufacture of sodium-ion batteries, evaluated 70 sites across the United States last year. It chose Edgecombe County’s Kingsboro Business Park megasite, where it’ll build its first U.S. factory, spending $1.4 billion and creating more than 1,000 jobs. “[Natron] started their search back in October of 2023 and narrowed it down very quickly,” says Laura Ashley Lamm, marketing consultant for Carolinas Gateway Partnership, which serves Edgecombe County, Rocky Mount and Tarboro. “Kingsboro is the only shovelready megasite in North Carolina, and Natron put us in the global spotlight. We think we’re going to have some great tenants in the next several years.”

Edgecombe officials toured Natron’s manufacturing facility in Holland, Michigan. It opened last year and promotes itself as “an epochal milestone for the entire battery industry” that sources and creates its product entirely stateside. “We were extremely impressed with their technology and their facility,” says Bob Pike, president and CEO of Carolinas Gateway Partnership. “This factory may not be right up there with

big pharmaceutical companies, but being [non-flammable] sodium-ion, it’s a lot safer compared with a lithium plant. It will be something the community is very proud of, to have them in our neighborhood.”

Colin Wessells, Natron founder and chief technology and product officer, summarized the camaraderie of the two counties and region when announcing the Kingsboro investment: “North Carolina, with its leadership in clean energy manufacturing and commitment to fostering innovation, is an ideal home for Natron and this groundbreaking facility,” he said.

“We look forward to becoming a member of the North Carolina business community for years to come.”

Natron will impact the region, says Nash County Economic Development Director Andy Hagy. But it isn’t the only means for strengthening it. Workforce development efforts, site preparations and varied investments within the city of Rocky Mount are contributing, too.

THE EDGECOMBE SIDE Edgecombe County has plenty of history. Tarboro, its seat, is the birthplace of Janice Howroyd, founder and CEO of The ActOne Group, the largest privately

held, minority woman owned personnel company founded in the U.S. and first African-American woman to build and own a billion-dollar company. Princeville, established by freed slaves after the Civil War, is the first independently governed African-American community chartered in the country. Its Princeville School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. “Princeville is part of the whole history in and around Tarboro,” Pike says.

Pike calls Tarboro a gem. “It has all the attributes that people with the major companies want, a small town with a beautiful downtown area along the Tar River,” he says. “If you want to live in a small town as opposed to Rocky Mount or Greenville, this is it.” Its stretch along Interstate 64 is becoming home to large and small business investments.

Amazon spent $512,000 on 77.4 acres at the Tarboro Commerce Center last fall. It has broken ground at the site but hasn’t disclosed its plans. Japanbased automotive and motorcycle parts manufacturer Hitachi Astemo, Prudential Stainless & Alloys, a distributor of stainless steel, nickel alloy and aluminum pipe, and Piedmont Natural Gas are already working at the Commerce Center.

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THE NASH SIDE While Natron executives searched the country, others were searching the state for potential megasite locations.

North Carolina consultants and engineers narrowed their choices to 12, ultimately choosing 1,300 acres in Nash County. They’ll be home to the future Northern Nash Megasite, which will stand near Interstate 95 and intermodal access at CSX Carolina Connector in Rocky Mount.

Northern Nash Megasite should have its $2 million in state funding and due diligence complete by the end of the year. It’s the latest addition to its namesake county’s list of industrial, corporate and business properties.

“We have three 1 million square feet building sites, and we have a 300 acre rail site that received a grant in order to complete its readiness,” Hagy says.

“Not too many counties can say they have one or two, but we have three, two of them in the [322-acre] Middlesex Corporate Center.”

The Crump Group, a Canadian manufacturer of all-natural treats for pets, announced it was investing $13.2 million for its first U.S. manufacturing and distribution center in Nashville, about a dozen miles west of Rocky Mount, in 2021. It released plans for an expansion, which includes more product lines and a dehydration system, three years later.

“Just like with the influx of projects we saw coming out of COVID, we saw their timeline shortened,” Phelps says. “So, we’ve been very aggressive the last two years in completing shell buildings and making sure sites are ready.”

North Carolina is the nation’s largest producer of sweet potatoes — 60% of the U.S. supply, according to NC State — which are the main ingredient in most Crump products. “They’ve been shipping sweet potatoes to Canada from Nash County for years, and now they’re announcing an $85 million expansion,” Hagy says.

PHOTO CREDIT: NASH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The Partnership is developing shell buildings, creating opportunities for local expansions as well as future projects that require existing buildings. “We continue to recruit and have a lot of interest in all types of projects,” Pike says. “Kingsboro is still the No. 1 site. It started at 2,200 acres, and Natron is taking 440-plus. So, we still have about 1,700 acres that are very attractive for the same reasons.”

Pike echoes the importance of a regional approach, such as with enginemaker Cummins, which announced a $580 million, 80-job expansion in Rocky Mount’s Nash County side last year. “We work very closely, and we help each other out,” he says. “It’s been great to work with [Nash County EDC officials] Susan Phelps and Andy Hagy. The same with Wilson County and what they’re doing as part of the BioPharma Crescent. One side of that bookend is Pfizer, right here in Rocky Mount.” It is one of the world’s largest factories for sterile injectables, with more than 1.4 million square feet on 250 acres and an annual production of 200 million units, shipped worldwide.

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es College contribut Nash Community ce or kf regional wor in myriad ways to rts, including its development ef fo ter MP-East and Cen membership in RA vation nology and Inno for Industr y, Tech nicutt, un H president, Lew High School. Its ent em d a transfer agre left, recently signe ’s ernors University with Western Gov d an l na io ng educat Ben Coulter, addi ties. ni rtu lopment oppo professional deve

In November, Nashville Town Council agreed to sell 55 acres at the West Nashville Commerce Center to produce company Ripe Revival for $150,000. The company, which processes excess produce into valueadded foods, intends to invest $10 million during the next 10 years, construct a 50,000-square-foot building and create 25 full-time jobs.

“Their other phase will be a mixed-use development, so there will be agriculture training, a market and some attractions for agritourism,” Hagy says. “With the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, which we’re a member of, we want to let the partnership participate in marketing and network opportunities. We have the ag; we need the tech.”

Phelps says Nash County developed a Workforce Evaluation and Strategic Action Agenda in response to its abundance of economic commitments.

“We see the hurdles that industries have that we’re trying to recruit, so we worked with the economic leadership to look at our future workforce and work with our community partners,” she says.

“We looked at things like childcare opportunities, housing, quality of life.

How many daycare sites do we have available? How many do we need?

We’re looking to get qualified teachers and shift-type employment. We know we won’t solve it overnight, but we’re working together to see what works for our region and our county and where we go from there.”

THE COLLEGES Edgecombe and Nash share Rocky Mount, a county line and Regional Advanced Manufacturing Pipeline of Eastern North Carolina. RAMP-East was developed in 2018 as a means for Edgecombe Community College, Nash Community College and others to create workforce development for advanced manufacturing. Put on hold during the COVID pandemic, the program is expected to resume this year. “It’s eight community colleges in 10 counties, and 70 industries have agreed to hire its graduates,” Lamm says. “So, it’s a direct pipeline to be qualified and hired by the industries in our region.”

Last spring, Nash County Public Schools and Nash Community College announced their Center for Industry, Technology and Innovation High School was moving to the college’s Rocky Mount campus for the current academic year.

CITI High students are dual-enrolled, allowing them to complete an associate degree in one of five career paths — Automotive Systems Technology, Hospitality Management, Industrial Systems Technology, Information Systems Technology or Medical Office Administration — during high school.

“Relocating to campus presents CITI High students with many more opportunities for skilled trades training,” NCC President Lew Hunnicutt said in a news release. “I firmly believe that having CITI High on campus will allow

its enrollment to grow and even surpass that of the Early College already located here.”

Edgecombe Community College, which has campuses in Rocky Mount and Tarboro, has several pathways to industrial careers: Continuing Education, College & Career readiness, a free certificate program for high school students and direct ECC enrollment.

“The city of Rocky Mount is at a turning point, ready to soar with the incredible work being done by our local schools, community colleges and North Carolina Wesleyan University paving the way for progress,” Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson says. “This is an effort to reduce our unemployment rate while getting ready for new jobs coming to our region. These institutions are not just educating, they’re equipping our workforce with the tools, training and confidence to step into meaningful careers close to home.”

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THE MIDDLE At a December presentation to the Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce, Roberson discussed Project 336, whose name counts the acres across from Nash Community College where a future private investment anticipated at $2 billion could bring 800 jobs to the region. The city’s vision for the property includes a new I-95 exit at Sunset Avenue.

“About 100,000 cars pass this site daily, highlighting its strategic importance,” he says. “What makes this site truly remarkable is its potential to become a shining example of multifaceted, multi-use economic development. It’s not just a piece of land — it’s a canvas for opportunity, strategically positioned to drive growth and prosperity for our city and region.”

Rocky Mount community leaders are developing a commuter bus system between the city and Raleigh. “If we can close this gap — if we can connect our talented residents to the abundant opportunities here — it will mean more

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than just filling jobs,” Roberson says. “It will strengthen families, support businesses and lay the foundation for long-term economic growth in our region.”

Rocky Mount Event Center draws almost 3,500 visitors each week, creating a $22 million annual economic impact. The city’s Downtown Major Investment Program is providing $500,000 for each of three projects. Sixteen upstairs apartments and 8,700 square feet of ground level retail space will be constructed at 201 S. Washington St. Twenty apartments will be above 17,500 square feet of retail space on Southwest Main. And Legacy Lofts will transform 216 S. Washington St. into two commercial spaces totaling about 1,400 square feet on the first floor and 12 luxury studio residential units upstairs.

“These projects are expected to invest over $19 million in downtown Rocky Mount,” Roberson says.

Rocky Mount Mills closed in 1996. But the historic cotton mill reopened in 2018 with a new purpose, an 82-acre campus of residential, business, restaurants and

C A R O L I N A

NASH, EDGECOMBE & WILSON COUNTIES

breweries on the edge of Rocky Mount, along the Tar River.

Residential units in one-, two- and three-bedroom lofts are fully leased. “We keep a steady waitlist on our residential leases, both Lofts and Village, and we are currently finishing up a set of 10 more Village homes that will be available for lease in 2025,” Evan Covington Chavez, Rocky Mount Mills’ director of real estate, said late last year. “Rocky Mount Mills has served as a point of pride for the community at large and also a necessary stop during recruiting tours with our economic development partners. A dynamic center for business, culture and leisure, [it] offers guests places to dine morning, noon and night; places to live along the Tar River and places to work with soaring views of the Tar River.” ■ — Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

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TRIPLE PLAY

I

nternational pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is investing about $2 billion in an innovative biologics factory in the city of Wilson. The Wilson Corporate Park complex is expected to create 420 jobs over five years with an average which exceeds the Wilson County average of $52,619, and hit the region with a yearly payroll impact of more than $45.7 million, according to N.C. Department of Commerce.

J&J’s commitment in October was one of four multimillion-dollar deals for Wilson County last year. Reckitt, a global health, hygiene and nutrition company, announced a $145.6 million investment; it will produce over-the-counter medicine Mucinex at the former Sandoz building in Wilson Corporate Park, former Sandoz building, employing 289 when it opens in 2027. That’s when Schott Pharma’s $371 million investment will open on 150 acres at Campus at 587 industrial park, putting 401 people to work making glass and polymer syringes, tripling the company’s output in U.S. markets by 2030. And IDEXX Laboratories is investing $147 million at Wilson Corporate Park, where it will make veterinary diagnostic products and create an annual payroll impact of $18 million.

The announcements continue a low-key campaign of creating a

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welcoming environment for manufacturers and the people they employ. “If you look at the last 20, 30 years, we’ve been attracting $100 million in investments every year,” says Jennifer Lantz, who has served as Wilson Economic Development Council executive director since 1989.

“We’ve been growing our industry all this time, but we suddenly had four big announcements in one year, so it looks like everything is going on all at once.”

Lantz says county prosperity is a three-part story. “We’re in the center of Rocky Mount, Greensboro, Goldsboro and Raleigh, so for a small county, we have a population of 2 million in a 30-mile radius and a workforce of 1 million,” she says. “Labor is a critical factor.” Other strengths are infrastructure and land. “Wilson has water, fiber, sewer and natural gas, so we can provide all that,” she says. “Then it comes down to having the right property, and we’ve been developing that through our private nonprofit [Wilson County Properties] since the 1950s.”

The additions of Reckitt and IDEXX bring the number of companies at Campus at 587 to an even dozen. Most are medical related. And they all benefit from being near Interstate 95 and U.S. 264. “Location means so much for us,” Lantz says. “We’re halfway between Florida and New York, and so much of C A R O L I N A

what is made here is shipped out utilizing I-95 with a lot going toward the Northeast.”

Business size doesn’t determine the amount of success. “Obviously, we have a lot of industries coming here, but we also have a lot of smaller ones,” says Lindsay Perry, marketing and events manager for the Wilson Chamber of Commerce. She points to quite a few, including Stephenson Millwork, a third generation family business, and Construct, a fabrication services company founded in 1999. “A lot of those kinds of places bring people into Wilson to work,” she says. She cites Greenlight Community Broadband, a city-owned fiber-optic network, and Wilson being a public power community as “a key factor in our economic revitalization.”

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT Johnson & Johnson intends to hire analysts, engineers, microbiologists, scientists, specialists, managers and senior leaders at its recently announced Wilson location. Efforts are underway to ensure it finds workforce locally.

Next door to Campus at 587, Wilson Community College is building a $30 million biologics training center. A regional hub for workforce development, SPONSORED SECTION

PHOTO CREDIT: WILSON COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND JOHNSON & JOHNSON

Teamwork makes Wilson County stronger. That includes attracting industrial-sized investments, expanding workforce development and improving quality of life, including a new baseball stadium.

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QUALITY OF LIFE More than two dozen wind-driven sculptures — crafted from reflective highway signs, ball bearings, steel rods, ceiling-fans parts, mirrors, stovepipes and other metallic items — clatter and spin 50 feet above the ground in Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. The colorful 2-acre display in downtown Wilson attracts national and international visitors. Simpson, a local farmer born in 1919 who served in World War II, built his concoctions on his farm before plans for a park were announced in 2010. He saw the first of his whirligigs installed there before his death in 2013.

Wilson is synonymous with the arts.

Wilson Arts Center and Edna Boykin Cultural Center are hubs for instruction in visual and performing arts, hosting youth workshops, community theater groups and concerts. “Wilson Arts has a very nice facility,” Perry says. “Our job in all of this is to support projects that are doing good for Wilson and make sure the business community is adequately prepared for this growth. I think that Wilson County’s location has been the draw for a while, that you can live in Wilson and go other places.

But now, with everything going on, you can come to Wilson and have everything you need in jobs and activities. It’s definitely a fun place to live. There are tons of things going on here all the time. We have big industries, but we also have a lot of smaller industries as well as art galleries that are very unique for the size of our town. It shows how big our arts community is.”

A November ceremony at the Wilson Industrial Air Center celebrated the future $63.6 million downtown baseball stadium, which will go up adjacent to Whirligig Park.

It will welcome the Milwaukee Brewers’ Single-A affiliate, which currently plays in Zebulon, for the 2026 season. The team will rebrand as Wilson Warbirds, honoring the city’s former role as a World War II naval aviation training center. Professional baseball adds to a sports destination that includes several soccer tournaments, amateur baseball and Miracle Field, which opened in 2023. It’s a specially designed baseball field for children with intellectual and physical disabilities.

Wilson’s history is rooted in tobacco.

The Wilson Tobacco Market, known as

C A A R R O O LL II N N A A C

the world’s greatest, was established in 1890. The city’s historic downtown is home to Artisan Leaf, which crafts custom surfaces and furniture from tobacco leaves.

“You may have seen some of their work across the state in various restaurants and buildings and not know that it was made right here in Wilson,” Perry says.

Wilson’s reputation for arts, sports and culture attracts visitors. They spent $143.7 million in 2023, up 6.3% from the year prior. A new app, Come See Wilson, and printed visitor’s guide show them around.

“The Come See Wilson app has been very successful so far,” says Brandt Harrell, Wilson County Tourism Development Authority’s executive director. “It allows us to have tours like the Christmas Light home tour, which is called Christmas Cheer Challenge. The app also gives valuable information about hotels and restaurant menus and has a link to our new community events calendar and allows us to pull data for location usage and mapping for the users as well.”

A hotelier tax supports Wilson’s tourism efforts. Harrell says it collected more than $1.6 million last year. “That allows us to fund projects like the baseball stadium and the pickleball courts as capital projects in partnership with the city,” he says. “We also give out about $300,000 in local grants for events and in support of tourism and art-related entities.”

Harrell has watched Wilson evolve. “As someone who grew up in Wilson and saw the whirligigs in the ‘wild,’ before they were in the park and were around a pond out in the county, it has been transformative to have the park and museum in downtown,” he says. “The kinetic sculptures created by Vollis Simpson are truly unique, and the identity of Wilson will forever be linked to the whirligigs.”

While there’s plenty that makes Wilson unique, Harrell says its people are the best.

“I am truly blessed to be able to come back to the town I grew up in and be able to have a job where I get to share all the wonderful things I loved about my community.” ■ — Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

PHOTO CREDIT: EDNA BOYKIN CULTURAL CENTER

it’s expected to open in June 2026.

It will serve the region’s companies by providing workforce development pathways customized to each industry.

While the center’s scope will be similar to Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center in Raleigh, it will be tuned to local workforce needs. “The community college system is doing a regional approach to training centers, so we’re working to have everything that is needed here in our area rather than reproducing what is taught elsewhere,” says Melissa Vandemark, WCC’s dean of applied technologies. “This hub will allow us to support all the new biologics and life sciences coming to our county without them having to use BTEC. [The center] will be not only for WCC students but will train through NCEdge. When NCEdge has a customized package approved, we will do that training here at the biologics training center.”

WCC also works with Wilson Academy of Applied Technology earlycollege route. “It’s for students who want to complete high school and attend college at the same time,” Vandemark says. “They stay for five years, and when they graduate with a high school diploma, they also have an associate degree or credential in their field. One of the major benefits we have in Wilson County is our collaboration. We work in partnership with the school system and have innovative programs to make students as successful as they can be.”

Lantz says economic development is a team activity. “So, while the Economic Development Council gets the accolades, in reality the city, the business community and the education community all work together to get these projects,” she says.

“It’s really everyone across Wilson working together.”

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