Business North Carolina September 2025

HAMMER TIME

Daniel Hirschberg and Cyrus Mojdehi create a thriving homebuilding firm in areas avoided by the pack.

4 UP FRONT

6 POWER LIST INTERVIEW

Starting Carolina Core FC was about more than just soccer for Megan Oglesby, who leads her family’s Earl and Kathryn Congdon Foundation.

8 RURAL ROUTE

North Carolina’s voucher program is squeezing poorer rural public school districts, some superintendents contend.

12 NC TREND

Mountain county finds hope in a Chinese company; A New York financier’s Outer Banks visit turns into a real estate project; Veteranowned Southern Pines knife manufacturer breaks into the European market; A California-based contractor builds a solid base in the Tar Heel state; How western N.C. wineries are bouncing back after Helene.

30 HIGHER EDUCATION

North Carolina’s institutions are making it easier for students to enroll in college and taking steps to help more of them graduate.

38

NC PORTRAITS: HIGHER EDUCATION

Community colleges are key in workforce development as the North Carolina economy continues to prosper.

64 COMMUNITY CLOSE-UP: MOORE COUNTY

Golf courses make Moore County world-famous, while other industries are helping the region deal with record growth.

COVER STORY

FAST STARTER

BY DAVID MILDENBERG

Northway Homes gains national acclaim for its unusual approach to single-family projects around the Queen City.

CAROLINA WAY

BY KEVIN ELLIS

A veteran New York home-building family praises North Carolina’s business-friendly style as it expands south.

UNCONVENTIONAL SKILLS

BY DAVID MILDENBERG

Crete United excels under a CEO whose unusual military experiences prepared him for a construction career.

DEALING WITH DOGE

BY MIKE MACMILLAN

The Triangle’s acclaimed research complex seeks a new path forward.

BNC 125

BY DAVID MILDENBERG AND ROBERT SPEIR

Our annual report on North Carolina’s biggest closely held businesses.

WALL WIZARDRY

BY DAVID MILDENBERG

National Gypsum’s quiet style belies its major role in U.S. construction as it celebrates its centennial.

BRICK & MORTAR

Expectations are sky high for Charlotte’s Pearl innovation district.

UP FRONT David Mildenberg

POSITIVE DIRECTION

National Gypsum’s 100th anniversary and Business North Carolina’s annual list of the state’s biggest private companies led to a rare story this month on the wallboard-maker.

CEO Tom Nelson discussed his work at National Gypsum for the story that starts on Page 66. Like his legendary father-in-law C.D. “Dick” Spangler Jr., who bought the company in 1995, Nelson prefers to stay out of the public limelight.

But reporting on the story prompted me to catch up with Peter Browning, one of our state’s more impactful business leaders. He got to North Carolina because of National Gypsum.

Browning says he didn’t have an option to be low-key as the company’s CEO during perhaps its most challenging period.

National Gypsum’s top execs were based in Dallas when they recruited Browning in 1989 to run the company’s main division, which had moved its headquarters to Charlotte a decade earlier.

e plan was for Browning, a 25-year veteran of packaging giant Continental Can, to learn about wallboard, then move to Dallas to succeed an aging CEO.

He got the top job in July 1990, just as the U.S. economy entered a recession that slammed building product sales. It squeezed National Gypsum, which had leveraged up in a 1986 buyout backed by France’s Lafarge construction materials company.

Within three months as CEO, Browning launched a bankruptcy restructuring that kept National Gypsum in the news for the next three years. Forbes magazine, then known for its tough exposés on poorly run businesses, featured Browning in a positive story that he credits for changing Wall Street’s view. e economy recovered by 1992, with wallboard sales rebounding as Browning cut costs. A year later, the company moved its headquarters to Charlotte and exited bankruptcy through a July 1993 IPO.

During this period, Browning helped introduce Lafarge leaders to Spangler and his Charlotte lawyer, Russell Robinson II. at led to Lafarge selling a stake in National Gypsum to Spangler. Two years later, Spangler acquired the entire company.

By then, Browning was gone. He had impressed the Coker family, which controlled the Hartsville, South Carolina-based packaging company Sonoco Products, and its board that included Charlotte kingpins Hugh McColl Jr. and Alan Dickson. In November 1993, he joined Sonoco.

Browning spent nearly seven years running Sonoco, while gaining board seats at Nucor, Lowe’s and Wachovia. A er departing Sonoco, he led Queens University’s business school for three-and-a-half years.

VOLUME 45, NO. 9

PUBLISHER 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 Robert Speir

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Frank Daniels IV, Bill Horner III, Vanessa Infanzon, Mike MacMillan

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Cathy Swaney cswaney@businessnc.com

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Lauren Ellis

MARKETING COORDINATOR Jennifer Ware jware@businessnc.com

EVENT DIRECTOR Norwood Teague nteague@businessnc.com

ADVERTISING SALES

ACCOUNT DIRECTOR

Moreover, the U.S. company faced 40,000 lawsuits because it had owned a business that for decades sold insulation that used asbestos. e unit never made up more than 10% of total totaled millions

total liability totaled declined to company’s line the time I to bankruptcy,” Browning

Citigroup, National lender, declined to company’s in 1990. the in my had to to spell bankruptcy,” Browning

Browning is now 84. A er serving on 14 public corporate boards, he is down to one, Greenville, South Carolina-based ScanSource, which distributes devices for cloud computing. For 13 years, he’s hosted an annual, invitationonly networking event for about 70 corporate directors, sponsored by EY, Moore & Van Allen and others.

An avid cyclist with four children and seven grandchildren, Browning has visited more than 80 nations. In October, he will celebrate his wife Kathy’s 80th birthday in Italy.

In an interview with the Acertitude executive search rm, Browning shared four timeless lessons for leaders:

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

ACCOUNT MANAGER Anne Brundage, western N.C. abrundage@businessnc.com

CIRCULATION: 818-286-3106

EDITORIAL: 704-523-6987

REPRINTS: circulation@businessnc.com

• Listen more than you speak

• Be transparent, even when it's hard

• Earn trust through presence and follow-through

• Don't lose your humanity in pursuit of performance ■

David Mildenberg is editor of Business North Carolina. Contact him at dmildenberg@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 BUSINESSNC.COM

Eastern North Carolina

Transforming Education

Of the 50 schools across the state recognized for excellence in STEM education, 28% are in Eastern NC, thanks to the growing impact of STEM East, an initiative of the NC East Alliance.

is recognition isn’t just about a title — it reflects the commitment of local educators and communities to connect classrooms to careers. With support from STEM East, schools in Pi , Greene, Lenoir, Beaufort, Wilson, and Onslow Counties are aligning instruction with the skills our students need to succeed in a technologydriven world.

More schools are stepping up, with many already preparing to earn recognition through targeted workshops and support from STEM East’s regional network.

Eastern North Carolina is leading the way in building a future-ready workforce, and it’s only the beginning.

Pitt County Schools

MEGAN OGLESBY

KICK STARTER

Megan Oglesby joined High Point University President Nido Qubein in the Power List interview, a partnership for discussions with influential leaders. The interview was edited for clarity.

Megan, you’re the principal investor and founder of the Carolina Core FC soccer team.

That’s just one of the ways you are helping transform your hometown. How do you go from being a communication major to sports ownership?

I’ve always led with my values and what I feel like I can bring to the table. One of the first questions I often get when I tell people I’m the Carolina Core FC founder or principal investor is, “You must really love soccer?”

Soccer was part of my life growing up, along with Girl Scouts. But one of the things that made me decide to become an investor in the team was the work we were doing in our community. You were a big part of that, revitalizing our downtown with a multi-sport, multi-use stadium.

We have a great baseball team there, and I was brought to the table to help bring something to our downtown that’s exciting and vibrant and very inclusive.

Megan Oglesby is the executive director of High Point’s Earl and Kathryn Congdon Foundation, which was formed by the family that built Old Dominion Freight Line into one of the largest U.S. trucking companies. Her great-grandfather, Earl Congdon Sr., started the business in Richmond, Virginia, in 1934. Old Dominion moved its headquarters to High Point in 1962. Oglesby previously worked for Business High Point Chamber of Commerce. Last year, she became the second female to be the principal investor in a U.S. professional soccer club, the Carolina Core FC. She has a bachelor’s degree from Elon University and an MBA from High Point University.

We’re in MLS Next Pro. MLS is Major League Soccer and they came up with a secondary league, kind of like the Triple-A of baseball. It’s a development league that started in 2021. In 2022, we decided to go after an expansion. Because it’s a developing league, it has access to opportunity. And soccer is very, very popular.

So what does it take to start a soccer club?

Somebody must have done a pro forma to determine if this region can support a professional soccer team.

You have to start with vision. You have to know where you’re going, and then you have to have a plan. And obviously the financials play into it. And you have to have the people who have the expertise to get it off the ground, especially for a startup.

We’re an independent club, a part of MLS Next Pro. That means we’re not affiliated with a first club. Crown Legacy FC is a part of Charlotte FC. They’re the Next Pro team that moves players up to Charlotte FC. We’re independent, which means that we can move our players anywhere.

Why would you move your players? Do teams bid on these guys?

We want to move our players. We want them to come to us and develop, and then move on to where you want them to go to a higher level.

How did you start the team? By hiring a coach and players and getting the city on board? Did you find the location first?

The answer to all of that is yes. It all sort of had to happen at the same time. Everything kind of had to fall in line. The first thing we did, besides the vision and the plan, was to make sure we had the right people on board.

We have some other minority owners because everybody brings some expertise and perspective to the table. That’s super valuable for our club. So when I’m making big decisions, I lean on our other owners and our staff because they have expertise that I don’t have.

with Nido Qubein

What is that long-term picture for Carolina Core FC?

A long-term picture is that this club outlives all of us. For me, the definition of success is when I see not just players but staff move on to something better. You know, we’re a small enterprise, and we’re a great place to learn. And if people want to stay with us forever, I hope they do.

Why did you call it Carolina Core?

We were going to call it Triad United, but that sounds like an airline. We got the inspiration for the name from the work that the Piedmont Triad Partnership is doing in our region, yourself included, to bring additional jobs to our region. That’s really what Carolina Core FC is all about, and the vehicle is soccer.

When we think about attracting businesses to our region, whether it’s a small mom and pop or a huge company like Toyota, the first thing they’re looking at is, is there a skilled labor force there that I can hire?

Number two is quality of life. What is there to do? What are the school systems? Carolina Core FC is a small part of that. I am a North Carolina native, I love the state. I love this region, I love our town. And we have something to offer for everybody.

What does the foundation look at when it allocates funding?

The Earl and Kathryn Congdon Family Foundation is a private family foundation. The board members are Earl and Kitty, who are in their 90s, and their three grown children, who are in their 60s and 70s.

Our mission statement is to invest in nonprofit organizations that improve quality of life by reducing barriers to opportunity. We have three areas of focus. One is improving the quality of and access to education, including helping with our school systems. Our second one is critical community needs, including homelessness and food insecurity. We are big supporters of our hospital because you have to have a strong hospital to have a strong community.

The third one, which is where I became personally passionate, is economic development for revitalization and stabilization. If you can’t have a stable job, it’s really hard to do anything else. That’s where my passion for creating jobs turned over into my work with Carolina Core FC. (The foundation isn’t directly involved with the soccer club.)

You’re doing great work. I am quite familiar with many of the projects that the foundation has invested in. Does the foundation work principally in High Point?

We focus mainly within the greater High Point area. The family members decided in 2015 when they founded the foundation with their own private dollars, that they wanted to give back to the community that supported them through the hard years.

Megan, you speak with such clarity and with conviction and, yet in your life, you’ve had a challenge with your hearing. One would never know that. But, and I know you have managed that challenge with elegance and responsibility. To the extent that you’re comfortable, tell us about that.

So I was born with a hearing loss. I have about a 75% loss in both ears. At the time, the hospital didn’t test babies when they

were born for hearing loss, so my parents didn’t find out about my hearing loss until a little bit later. So I was delayed in my speech.

As soon as my parents found out, I had speech therapy every day. I got hearing aids back in the 1980s.

One of the things that I’ve thought about a lot as I reflect on my life is that my parents did not give it power. They didn’t say, “Megan, you wear hearing aids, so you can’t be on the swim team. You can’t play on that soccer team because you’ve already lost your hearing aid for the third time.”

They wanted me to go and do what I wanted to do and just figure out how to work with it. So I thank my parents for that. It has shaped who I am.

I also thank God that I was born in at a time with the technology. Had I not had hearing aids growing up, I wouldn’t have learned language. I probably would have been considered disabled. And the technology gets better.

Now the soccer team had its first season in 2024. Was the main challenge getting crowds out there? Is it attracting players? What is the major challenge?

I wouldn’t say there are any major challenges. We’ve had a really great first year. We’ve got a great foundation. Probably the biggest challenge is just keeping everything aligned and moving forward, making sure that everybody who works for you has the same values. Personally, I don’t want to work for a company that my values don’t align with.

You’re really great about saying these are our values here at High Point University. This is what we stand for, and being unapologetic for it because you’re convicted and that you believe so strongly. And so I need to be better about saying these are our values, come on board with us.

If I came to a Carolina Core game, I assume I would see all ages. But the predominant profile would be a young family with young children who are crazy about soccer?

So one of the things that I love the most about our stadium in downtown High Point is that it is a mixed-use multi-sport stadium. When you’re there for soccer, it feels like soccer. What we thought would be one of our biggest challenges ended up being one of our greatest assets. That is the outfield of the baseball diamond, which we don’t use during the soccer game because soccer is rectangular.

Somebody brilliant on our team said, “How about we allow everybody with a ticket to be able to go down on the pitch in the outfield, and we just make it a party? We have a game down there for the kids and a concession stand.

That outfield has been the best thing. The families love it because the little kids get to run around and parents can watch the game or finish a conversation without being interrupted every two seconds by their kid. So when you look around the stadium, you see families with little kids. We even have people carrying their newborn babies.

We have die-hard soccer fans. We have older clients that come and watch the game. And it’s really been one of those things that has felt like such a unifier for our community. A mother came up to me the day after one of our home games the next day, and she said she had four kids, one in elementary school, two in middle school and a high schooler. This is one thing we can do as a family where everybody has a great time. ■

EXPLORING THE BRILLIANCE OF BUSINESS SUCCESSION PLANNING

As head of Business Owner Solutions at PNC

Private Bank Hawthorn, Charlotte-based Jim Benedict leads a team that is focused on helping business owners prepare for a crucial milestone: a business ownership transition.

When approached strategically, business succession planning is a multifaceted exercise, charted over the course of several years or decades. At the same time, a prudent approach to planning entails preparing for an unexpected transition that could occur at any time.

addresses a multitude of considerations, from business and personal readiness to tax-efficient transfer strategies and estate planning.”

As Benedict explains, engaging in comprehensive financial planning well in advance of an ownership transition can lead to the implementation of strategies to help maximize the value of a business or provide flexibility when the time comes to negotiate a selling price or exit terms.

BUSINESS READINESS

“Business succession planning isn’t linear, it’s circular,” says Benedict. “It’s much more dynamic than the transactional aspect of selling a business or passing it to the next generation. It’s about putting strategies in place to help business owners achieve their long-term goals for their business and family, while also preparing the business to successfully sustain a transition – either voluntary or involuntary.”

BEGINNING AT THE END

When helping business owners navigate succession planning, Benedict and his colleagues take the intentional approach of beginning at the end.

“We discuss with business owners and their families how they want to live their lives after the ownership transition – and how they view their wealth as a tool for attaining their personal, philanthropic and family wealth goals,” says Benedict. “These discussions ultimately help inform the development of a comprehensive plan, which

While the circumstances surrounding each ownership transition are unique, one thing is certain, says Benedict. “Whether voluntarily or involuntarily, every successful business will have an ownership transition someday,” he says.

According to the Exit Planning Institute, approximately 50% of all business exits are involuntary, largely precipitated by one of the “5 Ds”: death, disability, divorce, disagreement or distress.

“While we may want to believe that business succession follows a structured plan or scenario, such as a negotiated sale, the reality is that many ownership transitions are unexpected,” says Benedict. “That’s why it’s important for business owners to take actionable steps to ensure their business is ready for an ownership transition today.”

Keeping the business’ financial house in order is a critical aspect of this preparedness. Among the actions a business owner can take include preparing audited financial statements, obtaining a “quality of earnings” statement and bringing financial reporting up to industry standards.

Preparing the business operationally is another key aspect of optimizing business continuity and post-transfer success. Among the actions owners may consider include retaining and attracting key employees; ensuring the business’ operating structure aligns with what is reflected in legal documents; protecting intellectual property; and scheduling an annual check-in with legal, accounting and tax advisors.

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

Jim Benedict

BEYOND THE TERM SHEET

Benedict is quick to emphasize that succession planning goes beyond preparing the business for a transition. Preparing the business owner for a fulfilling life, post-exit, is just as important.

According to Benedict, personal readiness starts with understanding what a business owner and family need to maintain their desired lifestyle. “While the sale of a business can create a significant liquidity event, it’s important for business owners to ask themselves if their plan and portfolio can generate the cash flow necessary to support the lifestyle they want to lead,” he says. “Considering an owner’s business wealth often represents 80-90% of their overall net worth1, the importance of this exercise cannot be overstated.”

Additional personal readiness considerations include understanding the obligations to which an owner will be held and the impacts of a triggering event, learning how

an ownership change will be taxed and having the right planning documents in place to facilitate a transfer.

Because succession planning is often accompanied by complex emotions and, in some cases, seller’s remorse, Benedict encourages business owners to give substantial thought to their next chapter.

According to the Exit Planning Institute’s Readiness Survey, 75% of business owners “profoundly regretted” selling their business 12 months after finalizing the deal. Contributing to this regret are such factors as lack of purpose, loss of status or boredom.

“When running a business has been such a major part of an individual’s life for 30-40 years or more, it’s important for them to think about what the new meaning of life becomes once they move on from that business,” he says.

“Building a successful business is the work of a lifetime, and a solid succession plan gives credence to the brilliance of that work and legacy.”

REGIONAL PRESIDENTS:

Weston Andress, Western Carolinas: (704) 643-5581

Jim Hansen, Eastern Carolinas: (919) 835-0135

THE VOUCHER DEBATE

$10.8 MILLION INITIAL BUDGET OF N.C. OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM, 2014-15

$632 MILLION BUDGET FOR PROGRAM, 2024-25

32,549 VOUCHER RECIPIENTS, 2023-24

80,470 VOUCHER RECIPIENTS AT 642 SCHOOLS, 2024-25

$3,360 TO $7,468 RANGE OF VOUCHERS AWARDED, 2024-25

$4.6 MILLION VOUCHERS AWARDED, 2014-15

$432 MILLION VOUCHERS AWARDED, 2024-25

135,738 N.C. PRIVATE SCHOOL ENROLLMENT, 2024-25

71% PERCENTAGE OF PRIVATE SCHOOL STUDENTS ATTENDING FAITH-BASED SCHOOLS

25.1% PERCENTAGE OF 1.8 MILLION N.C. K-12 STUDENTS WHO DIDN’T ATTEND A PUBLIC SCHOOL, 2024-25

Sources:: Public Schools First NC, Public School Forum of NC, NC Justice Center, Carolina Demography, NC Dept. of Public Instruction

UNFAIR FIGHT

Rural superintendents say a growing voucher program puts public schools at risk. Lawmakers disagree.

BY BILL HORNER III

Over the years, as he’s worked through the labyrinthine process by which North Carolina funds public schools, Don Phipps updates a “Budget 101” slide deck he created to show his local funders — namely, Caldwell County commissioners — how it all works.

One slide includes a warning. “ is information,” it reads, “changes frequently.”

Running (and paying for) rural systems are vexing enough for superintendents like Phipps, who leads the public schools in the northwest N.C. county. And especially arduous when schools are under re, teacher turnover is high and many of North Carolina’s education metrics, including teacher pay and student funding, rank low compared with most states.

So toss into the mix the expanded Opportunity Scholarships voucher program, which dangles hundreds of millions of dollars in the faces of parents curious to explore private school options.

“It just makes it very di cult,” Phipps, now in his 16th year as a superintendent, told me. “I really like the idea of parents having a choice, but the problem I’ve got with the choice model in North Carolina is it’s not fair to us. We should be on a level playing eld, but the fact is we’re not.”

Funding increasing, enrollment dropping

In Caldwell, like the rest of N.C., state funds allocated to public schools have risen steadily over time. Meanwhile, public school enrollment has been declining including a 19% drop in Caldwell over the past 15 years. About 75% of N.C. K-12 students attend public schools statewide now, versus 86.5% in 2010.

Supporters of Opportunity Scholarships cite that shi in arguments for school choice. Why shouldn’t the state ease the nancial burden on taxpaying parents exploring private education?

In 2024, lawmakers removed income caps for parents and prior public school attendance requirements and ooded the voucher program with new money. An annual outlay of $10.8 million a decade ago grew to $432 million last year. Appropriations will reach more than $825 million annually by 2032-33.

For its part, the General Assembly spent almost $12 billion on public K-12 schools last year. (N.C. counties supplement that by varying amounts.) So why ask for even more when state appropriations are up?

▲Don Phipps

Rural Route is a Business North Carolina column authored by veteran journalist Bill Horner III. He focuses on key issues in less populated parts of the state.

Because, the real value of state funding increases has been outpaced by rising fixed costs and inflation, say the rural superintendents and voucher opponents with whom I spoke. The loss of enrollment (and subsequent reduction coming from total per-pupil funding) makes budgeting even more troublesome. Phipps, pressing for more state and local funds, would love a slice of that voucher money, much benefiting families already paying to send their children to private schools.

‘A finite amount of money’

In rural counties, it’s typically more difficult to generate additional tax revenues for higher local appropriations. For this school year, Phipps requested $447,399 in additional salaries and supplements and another $200,000 for increased utility rates. For the sixth time in the past seven years, Caldwell’s commissioners said “no.” Meaning: the county’s appropriation was $14.7 million back in 2014-15, and has been mostly stuck at $14.8 million since 2016-17, two years before he became superintendent there.

“I show them what the personnel costs are,” says Phipps, who was named the N.C, Superintendent of the Year in 2023. “I show them how our retirement expense has increased, what hospitalization [insurance] costs are So the dollars they gave us back in 2016 just don’t go nearly as far in 2025. I know they’ve got a finite amount of money, and they’ve got a lot of folks coming to the table with their hands out…”

Public schools in North Carolina are funded with state, local and federal tax revenues, with a small portion of operating budgets assisted by a variety of grant sources. The state’s portion — 70% in Caldwell, which includes special supplemental dollars earmarked for small and low wealth schools — is the biggest chunk, followed by local (16%) and federal (9%) money. Of those funds, the vast majority — 86% in Caldwell — is spent on salaries and benefits.

Phipps faces the double whammy of being hamstrung on boosting teacher pay while seeing Caldwell ranked near the bottom for local funding. A couple of years ago, a commissioner asked him what it would take to make Caldwell “average” in that ranking.

“My question to him was, ‘Do we aspire to be average?’” Phipps says. “And then I thought, I probably shouldn’t say that to a commissioner, because if you’re 94th and get to 50th, you’re doing a really good job.” Phipps then calculated it would take an additional $8 million per year, a staggering 54% increase over the current $14.8 million.

“That’s an annual increase of $8 million from the county commissioners, and there’s no way we’re going to do that,” he told me. “And that just puts us at 50th out of 100.”

Money and other casualties

Caldwell County only has two private schools with 167 students as of 2023-24, according to state data. But funding pressures have prompted the public system to eliminate 185 positions and shutter two schools during his time there. Phipps explains that when students move from a public school to private one, the public school can’t conveniently eliminate teacher positions across grades. Lose a few kids in each grade, and you lose per-pupil funding tied to enrollment — but expenses don’t necessarily change.

“You’re still employing basically the same number of teachers,” Phipps says. “We still have to run air conditioning and heat, and run buses.”

Casualties follow. Dollars are stretched, maintenance gets deferred; assistant principals and teaching assistants and summer school programs for struggling students are eliminated. Curriculum updates get put on hold. Phipps saves where he can without sacrificing quality, he says, resorting to strategies such as creating tiered bus routes — which put elementary students on the same buses as high schoolers.

▲Caldwell County Schools Superintendent and NCSSA President Don Phipps, right, talks with students and Davenport A+ Elementary School teacher Dylan Youngsmith.

“It’s not what we want,” he says.

Mike Long, the president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, argues voucher programs are part of sorely needed education reform.

“Since 1980, with the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, over $3 billion has been spent on ‘education,’ and it hasn’t improved one test score — not one,” he told me. “If you ask me what I’d do, I would do everything I could to get the federal government and state government out of public education and let each educational district use those dollars to meet the needs of those children.”

Hard to compete

Phipps isn’t opposed to school choice. As with each superintendent I spoke to, he simply objects to North Carolina’s voucher model. He has the ear of his board’s attorney, N.C. House Speaker Destin Hall, who represents Caldwell and Watauga counties in the legislature.

Phipps argues that if a school receives state money, “if they’re church, private, charter, whatever, they ought to have to follow the same rules that we have, and then we’d be on a level playing field,” Phipps said. “But the fact is, we’re not, and it’s hard for me to be able to compete against somebody who plays by a different set of rules than we do.” He cites minimal private school requirements for teacher credentials, curriculum or reporting on student performance.

In Wilson County, where 1,504 students, or about 10%, attended private schools last year, Superintendent Lane Mills attributes “the required rigor, the targets, the criteria … the demands placed on instructional time” as stressors public schools face — plus expenses such as lunches and transportation that most private schools don’t provide.

“We’re trying to do everything at once, and you get one chance to do it,” he says. “I tell my staff, ‘Everybody says, OK, good, let’s start with perfect and let’s get better from there.’ That’s the expectation.”

Mills, too, has heard the arguments from voucher supporters that more money won’t solve what’s wrong in public schools.

“Well, we’ve never tried it,” Mills says. “It’s unrealistic to think we’re doing right by our educators. They can’t afford to buy a home in the areas where they’re teaching … I think it’s really hard for them to articulate that because we’ve never been fully funded. We’ve got to at least try it, just once.”■

Bill Horner III is a third-generation newspaper publisher who was an owner and editor of The Sanford Herald and the Chatham News + Record. He and his wife Lee Ann live in Sanford. Reach him at bhorner@businessnc.com

Economic Development

EAST MEETS WEST

A Chinese company’s pledge to bring hundreds of jobs brings hope to mountainous Graham County.

By Kevin Ellis

More than a decade after Graham County suffered an economic body blow with the closing of its biggest manufacturer, a Chinese company is stepping up with a planned $80.5 million to create 515 jobs in Robbinsville.

Foreign companies have announced investments of $43.5 billion and the promise of almost 65,000 jobs in the Tar Heel state over the previous 10 years. But mountainous Graham County, the third-least populous N.C. county, missed out.

“It’s an extremely rural county that doesn’t get a whole lot of looks,” says Solange Tricanowicz, a recruitment manager for the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. That’s part of what made EcoKing Solutions’ jobs announcement in July such a major win for the far western edge of the state.

EcoKing Solutions says it will start manufacturing biodegradable paper products by next year for customers, including Chipotle and Panda Express. Plans call for 300 employees by 2027. Another 215 workers are expected after Duke Energy increases the site’s electrical capacity from 8 megawatts to 24 megawatts.

If EcoKing follows through on its promises, it will be the largest private employer in Graham County, which has about 8,050 residents and a labor force of 3,646.

Potential new industry offers hope for an area that lost 400 jobs when Stanley Furniture closed in 2014 after offering employment to generations of workers for three decades. While North Carolina‘s population grew at the eighth-fastest rate in the U.S. over the past decade, Graham County declined by about 800 residents. Robbinsville, the county seat about 90 miles west of Asheville, has a population of about

563 residents, about 190 fewer than in 2010.

“People had to move away to find jobs,” says Lynn Cody, a Graham County commissioner for 20-plus years. “We’re hoping this will bring some people back.” He calls EcoKing’s decision a “true blessing.”

EcoKing’s parent company started in 2008 in China, where it employs about 1,200 workers. The company started looking for a U.S. site more than a year ago because 80% of its products are sold to American fast-food restaurants and grocery stores, says John Lin, the vice president and project lead.

“Our clients like to use a product made in the U.S.A.,” says Lin, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Taiwan. He’s moving his family from Atlanta to Robbinsville.

While EcoKing started looking at expanding before the recent friction in U.S.-China trade relations, Lin says President Donald Trump’s threats of higher tariffs on the Asian nation helped push it forward. “Tariffs do affect us a lot,” he says.

The company will use the region’s forests to turn timber into wood pulp to make its products, helping avoid trade duties, says Lin. “We can say we’re made in the U.S.A. and then sell our products to the world.”

The U.S. had a $101 billion trade deficit with China during the first five months of this year, with $148.5 billion in imports and $48.6 billion in exports, government data shows. The deficit totaled more than $1.3 billion over the past four years.

EcoKing’s new jobs are expected to pay an annual salary averaging $46,707 a year, about $1,100 more a year than the current Graham County pay. Those wages are “incomparable” to the low wages earned by EcoKing workers in China, says Lin, but the company will benefit from lower shipping costs.

WHY ROBBINSVILLE

How did a company 7,500 miles away find tiny Robbinsville? It starts with the 2014 closing of the Stanley plant, says Josh Carpenter, director of the seven-county Mountain West Partnership, which oversees regional economic development.

Stanley’s 601,000-square-foot building is the county’s “largest roof,” Carpenter says. In 2016, Oak Valley Hardwood moved into a “postage stamp” portion of the building, and about 30 workers rough-milled lumber and shipped it to China, where it was turned into furniture and other products. That business closed at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

The previous business owner tried to market the building on his own without success. In late 2023, after Carpenter convinced the owner to use a broker, the building immediately began to attract attention from data centers and potential tenants because of its size and available electric power. The all-brick building is “built like a tank,” says Carpenter. “There’s nothing else like it in the county.”

EcoKing’s parent company was scouring several Southern states to locate its first U.S. factory. A phone call from its real estate broker in Atlanta set the wheels in motion, says Carpenter.

EcoKing needed a big building because it wants to build three production lines here. “More space equals more production equals more people,” says Carpenter.

Before EcoKing’s announcement, Chinese companies had created more than 3,400 jobs and made more than $897 million in capital investments in North Carolina since 2014.

Chinese companies with a large North Carolina presence:

KSM Castings, Shelby

Haeco Cabin Solutions, High Point

Uniquetex, Grover

YanJan, Statesville

CARSgen Therapeutics, Durham

WH Group, parent company of Smithfield Foods, Tar Heel

Lenovo, Morrisville

Recruiting a Chinese company presented unique circumstances. Just before the first big meeting between Graham County leaders and EcoKing executives, Carpenter realized none of the N.C. team spoke Mandarin. A day before the meeting, he recruited Western Carolina University business professor Yue Cai Hillon, who is from the same region in China as EcoKing’s parent company. That was an unexpected bonus, Carpenter says.

The rest of the project followed a fairly normal process. “As everyone is, they were enamored with the beauty of the place, first,” says Carpenter.

State and local incentives totaling about $7.5 million, which are tied to meeting job and investment targets, helped close the deal. About 60 Chinese-owned companies operate in the state, though scrutiny has tightened in recent years as trade relations became more tense, according to state economic development officials.

EcoKing expects to draw workers from a 45-minute drive, including Cherokee, Macon and Swain counties. It plans to invest at least $10 million prepping the property over the next year and will use as many local workers as possible, Lin says. Construction jobs will employ about 100 people. EcoKing plans a showroom in Robbinsville for new customers, bringing more exposure to the region.

County residents also helped sell the project, says Carpenter. EcoKing executives ”just kept saying, ‘You all are the nicest people.’” ■

Billy Welch, center, carved a mask that the town of Robbinsville gifted EcoKing CEO Ping Zhang, left. Graham County Commission Chair Meggan Smith attended the ceremony.

RISK, RETURN AND REAL ESTATE

A kiteboard-loving former hedge fund manager invests in Hatteras Island hospitality.

By Vanessa Infanzon

A

fter Richard Fertig’s 23-year marriage ended in 2016, the hedge fund manager needed a change of scenery from New York City. He’d heard about kiteboarding in North Carolina’s Outer Banks and visited Hatteras Island in Dare County. In 2018, he enrolled in REAL Watersports Zero to Hero Kite Camp, a three-day immersion experience, to learn kiteboarding.

“I had no intentions other than to learn how to kite, [but] fell in love with the area and saw massive opportunities,” Fertig says. He then owned a few short-term rental properties in other states and decided to expand in North Carolina.

Instead of buying houses, Fertig purchased 50 acres of Hatteras waterfront property and began building three singlefamily homes. Several miles away, he converted a former retail location into a lodge that Conde Nast Traveler magazine called one of the most exciting U.S. hotel openings of 2024.

The flagship home under Fertig’s Edgecamp brand boasts 14 bedrooms and 12,000 square feet. The property is zoned for another 45 homes, but Fertig is hesitant, even though he has permits ready for several other lots.

“We’re a little bit on hold primarily because interest rates are so high, construction costs are high and real estate values have flattened or started to decrease a little bit,” he says. “We’re going to be more conservative than aggressive. We view this as a very long-term opportunity. The only thing that I think could derail us is being a little too aggressive at the wrong time.”

In 2021, Fertig launched Stomp Capital, a private equity real estate fund that has invested more than $20 million. He’s the largest investor, along with some limited partners.

Fertig manages five other real estate projects with his second wife, Erika Bossi, from their homes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Sag Harbor, New York. The couple spent summers from 2018 to 2022 in Dare County, but moved once they could hand the project off to staff.

“This is not a reflection on our love of Hatteras Island or Dare County,” he says. “We can’t reside at any one of our properties because we’re a growing private equity firm, and we want to have half a dozen or a dozen locations. We visit them all, but we can’t live at each of them.”

Fertig had an unusual youth, with his family living three months of the year in New York City, then nine months in Costa Rica. His father had a successful mail-order catalogue business, but “prioritized quality of life over income,” Fertig wrote in a 2017 Forbes magazine story.

He majored in psychology and economics at Cornell University, then earned an MBA in finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1998, he joined giant money manager Blackstone, where he focused on “absolute return” investing strategies.

Richard Fertig

Edgecamp Villa in Hatteras Island

“Back then, we said we wanted equity-like returns with bond-like volatility and never lose money,” Fertig says. “Those three principles have guided my investments for decades.”

In 2001 he moved to Ramius, helping founder Peter Cohen grow the business into one of the largest U.S. hedge funds. At its merger with Cowen Group in 2009, Ramius managed $7.7 billion, the New York Times reported. Amid the financial crisis that crippled many banks and investment firms, Fertig was let go, prompting him to start his own business.

GO BIG OR GO HOME

Edgecamp is about three and a half miles south of Rodanthe in Dare County, which has roughly 20,000 short-term rentals, mostly individually owned, and 57 hotels and motels. The county attracts 3.5 million annual visitors, with the three summer months accounting for about 65% of lodging revenue.

“When we looked at the 3,000 single-family homes for rent on Hatteras Island, the vast majority are four to seven bedrooms,” Fertig explains. He had a vision for something different.

“We recognized there are a lot of larger families, extended families, corporate off-sites and small weddings, and people were renting multiple homes in order to accommodate their groups. We thought we could build one larger home and do all that. It’s been wildly successful.”

Edgecamp properties generally sell out during peak season, with the homes renting from $1,000 to $3,000 per night. Most guests come from the Carolinas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. while some fly from California, Florida and New York.

While at the Outer Banks, Fertig often passed by a twostory retail shopping center for sale in Rodanthe. The price

caught Fertig’s attention when the price was marked down to less than both the assessed land value and the replacement cost.

“We said, ‘Gee, everyone is looking at this as a retail center, that’s not the best use of this location,’” Fertig says. “What this island really needs is a hotel.”

Fertig converted the building into Edgecamp Pamlico Station, a two-story hotel. The 14 luxury suites highlight the style of New York designer Jonathan Adler. Rooms range from $250 to $600 a night.

“It’s a fundamental shift in how we view risk and return,” Fertig says. “We like to do things that we believe are needed and are missing, and no other entrepreneur has had the idea, the vision or the wherewithal to actually do it.”

During due diligence, Fertig found a Dare County law calling for 24/7 staffing at hotels but permitting guests to check themselves in at single-family homes. This posed a problem because Pamlico Station’s business model included self-check-in. Fertig was successful in lobbying Dare County to update the law to include hotels and motels.

“We changed the zoning,” he says. “We changed the law and then we gut- renovated the entire thing. We took it down to the studs and the pilings so there was nothing else. We built, from scratch, a boutique hotel.”

As Fertig continues to build the Edgecamp brand, the properties will offer a sense of place with a focus on unique architecture and design.

“We believe that travel and immersive experiences are the future of travel and so we don’t have to be right for everybody,” he says. “We are really niching down to who our target audience is. They tend to be affluent, love the outdoors and want to feel connected to the location.”

Some of them may even learn kiteboarding. ■

Edgecamp Pamlico Station is in Rodanthe in Dare County.

FRESH CUT

A veteran-owned knife business shows persistence in chasing lucrative European sales.

By Frank Daniels IV

It’s important to stay sharp through the years, especially at a knife-making company such as Southern Pines-based Spartan Blades.

After selling 30,000 blades since founding the business in an old mule barn in 2008, Curtis Iovito and Mark Carey keep the company honed through a dedication to excellence and growth.

Most recently, they added the Euro Blade Worx, or EBX, a branch of the company which expands Spartan’s reach into the European market. The joint venture with Czech knife designer Ondřej Němec was born from a series of challenges that are common for American knife makers.

“Whenever we sell knives into Europe, they’re almost double in price — they’re not cheap here in the U.S.,” says Iovito. “People just can’t afford to pay it.”

of the largest outdoor trade shows in the world. So we figured, ‘Hey, we need to go.’

“They loved our knives. They love American quality when it comes to outdoor stuff, whether it’s tents, socks, underwear or knives.”

That comes from shipping costs, import taxes and the EU’s value-added tax, which is a consumer-side tax applied at each stage of the good’s supply chain.

Iovito says Spartan has grown its market share in Europe since it first visited the IWA OutdoorClassics trade show in Nuremberg, Germany, about 10 years ago.

“(Europeans) have a big outdoor camping culture, so a lot of people carry knives, [for] hunting, camping,” says Iovito. “It’s one

Spartan Blades’ quality led to relationships with European dealers and dedicated customers, both for utility and collectors.

Iovito and Carey are former Special Forces soldiers, with more than 40 years of combined military service. After pursuing knife-making as a business, it was their goal to make the highest quality knives for combat, producing a reliable tool for soldiers and civilians alike.

They considered the Yarborough knife as a premier example, and reached out to Chris Reeve Knives in Idaho, which makes the knives exclusively for the Army to award to freshly forged Green Berets.

“We called them, and said, ‘Hey, we’re two guys — just got out of the Army — we’re looking to start a business,’” says Iovito “‘We want to make knives and wondered if you would help us out?’

“And they said, ‘Absolutely.’”

Iovito and Carey visited the Idaho facility, and came away days later with a leg-up in their process, and a connection to the industry “family” that they still value.

Spartan Blades founders Curtis Iovito and Mark Carey have sold more than 30,000 blades since their launch in 2008.

That connection led to meeting with William W. Harsey Jr. and the company’s first collaboration with a world-renowned blade designer. The Spartan-Harsey Model I garnered the company its first award.

The company’s growth has continued, sometimes as much as 400% year-over-year, Iovito says.

In the late 2010s, he and Carey developed a relationship with John Stitt, the CEO of Olean, New York-based KA-BAR, which is considered a legendary company by knife lovers. Iovito and Carey converted Spartan Blades’ assets into a new corporation called Pineland Cutlery.

“We sat down, had a meeting, and we showed them our books,” says Iovito. “We can tell you in 2009 how many green handles we sold on a knife, and we keep exacting records. We told them that, and I think there was a little bit of eye rolling, and then we showed them.”

In 2019, KA-BAR bought half of the company. Iovito and Carey declined to disclose company finances.

Even KA-BAR has been hampered by the European trade system. As Spartan Blades became known in Europe and throughout the world, Carey and Iovito struggled to gain military contracts around the European Union because of one overriding factor.

“Three different contracts in Europe we bid on,” says Iovito. “All three times the competition came down to us and one other knife. Well the knife manufactured in Europe always won.”

In recent years, the Spartan founders have explored ways to move some manufacturing to the EU. They searched in Italy, where an award-winning consortium operates in Mantego, but its necessary markup would repeat Spartan’s original problem. Manufacturers in Germany say their costs are already too high to quote work for new lines.

“We finally realized, ‘Hey, we found it here in North Carolina, maybe we just should do it ourselves,’” says Iovito. “And we’re not moving any manufacturing from here. We just want to sell more in Europe.”

So they made an offer to Němec, who agreed to run a manufacturing facility as EBX’s managing director, making Spartan and KA-BAR knives for the European market. The team began setting up the facility about a year ago.

It remains too early to tell how successful they’ll be. “It’s far too early for sales projections in the EU as we are just finishing our first production knives now,” Iovito says.

Expanding U.S. offerings has been another priority. The merger with KA-BAR gave them access to broader production capabilities, and they added silver pro-grade blades, which are produced in New York by KA-BAR, and bronze field-grade ones, produced in Taiwan. They now use the term gold, or elite grade, for the original line of knives, still manufactured in North Carolina with Crucible Particle Metal steel.

The elite grade is manufactured at sites in Moore County, where they have 10 employees, Union County, High Point and Greensboro. They order the specialty steel from Akron, New Yorkbased Niagara Specialty Metals.

“We bring it to Monroe. We water-jet all the blanks out. We take it here (Southern Pines) and machine them just across town here. Take them to High Point for heat treat, Greensboro for coating, bring them back here and then we do all the assembly, laser marking, sharpening shipping and send it out,” says Iovito.

Zoning regulations prevent them from manufacturing at their Southern Pines headquarters, Iovito says. Visitors are often surprised when they don’t find a factory, he adds.

Němec will be overseeing the gold line in South Moravia in the Czech Republic, where they have six employees.

“This is more than a factory — it’s a knife-making and logistics hub designed for the next generation,” he said in a news release. “We’re blending European manufacturing tradition with American design innovation to serve a truly international community.”

Iovito says the designs coming out of EBX will be unique, utilizing Němec’s skills and knowledge of the region.

“It’s amazing the amount of people that’ll travel to knife collecting meetups and build out their collections,” said Iovito. “Part of making knives in Europe, that are specific to Europe with slightly different designs, is the collectors have new things to collect, and they can interface with other people they normally wouldn’t. Because really it is a culture.”

That process started in early July with the Willow, a variation on the Enyo, a small, fixed-blade knife that sells well in Europe.

“It’s the easiest model for us to make first,” Iovito says. “As we train our people and progress, we can do knives that get a little more difficult over time.” Plans call for three fixed-blade knives, and then a folding knife.

Back stateside, Pineland Cutlery is planning to expand into kitchen and home utility, including titanium chopsticks the company made in its early days, along with wine tools and steak and chef’s knives.

“We’re doing them a bit different, higher-end,” said Carey. “They’ll have carbon fiber handles, silver tool handles — they’ll match modern kitchens.”

For the time being, Spartan and KA-BAR will focus on ramping up sales of knives made in the U.S. Once EBX’s production has smoothed, they will look to expand distribution partnerships with other knife brands with an eye on the European market.

“(The new initiative) is going to tighten ties between us and people [in Europe]” says Iovito. “What we want to do is take American manufacturing excellence, and just show everybody else, ‘Here, look what the Americans can do.’” ■

This story first appeared in The (Southern Pines) Pilot.

Spartan Blades’ elite-grade knives are assembled by hand in Southern Pines.

NC TREND ›››

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

Swinerton cracks into Carolinas contracting.

By David Mildenberg

It takes serious aspirations for a West Coast general contracting rm to break into North Carolina’s competitive construction business, but Swinerton isn’t lacking ambition.

Founded in 1888, Swinerton emerged in the early 20th century as one of California’s largest contractors, building or renovating many of the largest and most famous structures in Los Angeles and San Francisco. It expanded in other western states and Texas, but didn’t make a transatlantic bet until 2018. at’s when it remodeled a 67,000-square-foot building in a gentrifying west Charlotte neighborhood, FreeMoreWest, and set up an East Coast regional headquarters.

Seven years later, East Coast projects will produce revenue of about $450 million, including about $185 million in the Carolinas, says Kevin Smith, who has been the region’s division manager since 2023.

at makes up a small part of Swinerton, which reported $4.85 billion in revenue last year, earning the No. 30 slot on ENR’s annual list of the largest U.S. contractors, up ve spots from the previous year. ( e company is named a er Alfred Swinerton, who joined the company in 1906.)

Swinerton’s regional enterprise remains smaller than rivals such as Greensboro-based Samet, the largest N.C.-based contractor with revenue of $1.4 billion last year, ENR reports.

“I’ve been surprised at how many general contractors there are [in the Carolinas],” Smith says. “We’re growing every year, year over year, at a steady pace. We are being innovative, executing really well, keeping to our principles and listening to how we can help our clients.”

Asked what sets Swinerton apart beyond the basics, Smith points to its strategy of o en handling carpentry, drywall and other work with its own employees, rather than using subcontractors. Many work on the company’s adaptive reuse projects, which typically range from $500,000 to $5 million.

“It’s a big di erentiator for us, and we’re trying to let people know that we are not just general contractors,” he says.

en there’s the rm’s push into alternative building materials, most prominently through its mass timber a liate, Timberlab. Mass timber involves nailing or gluing multiple solid wood panels together, providing a low-carbon option to concrete or steel structures.

Projects include a four-story building in Wilmington and apartment developments in Charlotte’s NoDa neighborhood. e process o en remains more expensive than traditional construction, but tends to be more cost-competitive in larger projects, Smith says.

“Mass timber is taking o because some architects and owners are excited by the sustainability factor and the ease of construction,” he says.

Like other contractors, Swinerton is facing more delayed private-sector projects, partly because of higher nancing costs and space vacancies. at prompted the business to seek more public-sector jobs, which have included the rst all-electric rehouse in Charlotte and a police station in the Queen City. Smith says he’s also pushing hard for more healthcare projects because of the sector’s robust growth.

e success in making that shi is evident in the higher ENR ranking, o cials say.

Swinerton also distinguishes itself as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan business, with each sta er having equity. Its ESOP rules limit any employee from owning more than 4% of the company, unlike some ESOPs that are tilted to senior leadership ownership.

“Everyone has a nancial stake in the company, so everyone is incentivized to make good business decisions, whether you are a carpenter or division manager,” says Smith, who joined the company in Hawaii in 2010. “ e goal is to push wealth down to all of the company.”

Concern over the impact of higher tari s is a real issue, but Smith says the company has a backlog of projects extending through 2028. “ e name of the game is constantly lling the pipeline with new projects,” he says.

“Your foot always has to be on the gas pedal.” ■

NC TREND ››› Wineries

of their wine club. For two weeks, everybody chipped in to complete the harvest.

That full harvest was great for Marked Tree, except the lack of power meant the grapes could not be stored in the winery’s chilled fermenting tanks. For several nights, co-owner Lance Hiatt drove a truckload of grapes 155 miles to Childress Vineyards in Lexington, joined by a second truck driven by an employee of a nearby apple orchard.

While Childress Vineyards near Lexington wasn’t impacted by the storm, owner Richard Childress and winemaker Mark Friszolowski agreed to store Marked Tree’s grapes for as long as needed. Meanwhile, on return trips, Hiatt stopped at a Sam’s Club to fill the truck with food, water, cans of gasoline and other necessities to help people in Henderson County.

ROOTED IN RESILIENCE

How several N.C. wineries rebounded from Helene.

After Hurricane Helene brought historic flooding and tropical storm force winds to western North Carolina last fall, several industries struggled to get back up and running. Among them were dozens of wineries and vineyards directly impacted by the storm.

Each year, N.C. wine producers thread the needle with a delicate business model that relies on viticulture (growing grapes), enology (the science of making wine) and tourism (the primary way wineries sell their product).

With the full fury of Mother Nature unleashed on the region, all three aspects of the region’s winemaking industry were severely impacted. By banding together and mixing ingenuity with determination, the wineries in WNC made it through what could have been a fatal blow to their operations.

Earlier this year, leaders from several mountain vineyards shared their stories on the “Cork Talk” podcast produced by the NC Wine Guys, Joe Brock & Matt Kemberling.

“This is a story to me of serious resilience. In the midst of that hurricane, life went on,” says David Coventry, winemaker and general manager at Mountain Brook Vineyards in Tryon. “A bunch of us had wine and grapes in fermenters and we had to keep going. We had to be very, very creative.”

Coventry reverted to ancient winemaking techniques that predated the invention of electricity. At Parker-Binns Vineyard in nearby Mill Spring, Cory Lillberg hauled water to a bathtub so he could clean the newly harvested grapes, then sourced an old compressor from Mountain Brook Vineyards, which helped his winery get back on its feet.

In Helene’s wake, Flat Rock’s Marked Tree Vineyard was left with 30 tons of grapes to pick, nearly half its crop. They cobbled together an army of employees, volunteers and even members

“We were a mini-gas station for a few days, we were a minigrocery store for a few days,” Marked Tree co-owner Tim Parks said on the podcast. “We were giving things out to people on our road because it is hard to get to.”

Marked Tree is one of eight wineries in Hendersonville’s crest of the Blue Ridge wine region, which has gained popularity since its federal designation as an American Viticultural Area in 2019. However, all that momentum took several steps back last fall.

Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards and Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery in Hendersonville lost $1 million in revenue because of the storm, says owner Alan Ward. But, he adds, you can’t live in the rearview mirror.

“We had wine tastings without electricity during the daytime, so we tried to keep things moving forward,” Ward says. “We’re doing a lot of new and different things we probably would not have done if this hadn’t happened. And that may actually make us bigger, better and brighter.”

Heath Little, whose family owns Stone Ashe Vineyards in Hendersonville, stresses the importance for wineries “to not let this define the future of the area or the businesses in the area.” However, Little echoes what other mountain wineries have noticed in 2025: Visitor traffic has been slow to return.

Not too long ago, Marked Tree Vineyard, which also operates a tasting room in downtown Asheville, received a phone call with those all-too-familiar questions: Are you open? Is it safe to travel there? Are there hotels and places to stay available?

“That’s probably the biggest thing that we’ve been having to do is get the word out that ‘we’re open, we’re ready, we’re safe,’” Parks says.

Podcast co-host Kimberling says oenophileswill enjoy visits to the region: “We’ve been coming to western North Carolina for 10 years now, and people may not realize there’s really great quality wine coming out of the western part of the state.”

On Sept. 27, the wineries will experience the one-year anniversary of Helene’s unwanted swing through the mountains. When asked about preparing differently for a future storm, Little points out that Stone Ashe, like most vineyards in the region and the state, plants its vines on terraces and the steepest slopes possible. “There isn’t too much else we can do.”

CHARLOTTE

CHARLOTTE

Duke Energy made several moves to help finance an $87 billion, fiveyear capital campaign. It is seeking regulatory approval to merge its two distinct divisions in the Carolinas; it plans to sell 20% of its Florida business to Brookfield Asset Management for $6 billion; and it will trade the Tennessee division of its Piedmont Natural Gas subsidiary for $2.48 billion to St. Louisbased Spire.

Six Flags CEO Richard Zimmerman will step down at the end of the year. He joined Cedar Fair in 2006, when it acquired Kings Dominion, where he had been a vice president and general manager since 1998. He had been CEO of Cedar Fair, the owner of Charlotte’s Carowinds theme park, since 2018. He remained as CEO after last year’s merger with Six Flags.

SPAR Group is relocating its corporate headquarters from Auburn Hills, Michigan, putting the provider of merchandising services closer to southeastern-based retailers. The South End area office will have 50 to 60 team members. The publicly traded company is leaving the Detroit suburbs after it terminated its merger agreement with Highwire Capital.

BankUnited, the fourth-largest bank based in Florida, is expanding here, marking its fourth growth market outside of the Sunshine State. The Miami Lakes-based bank has hired three local commercial bankers in the Queen City, although it hasn’t picked an office location. It has about $35 billion in assets.

Dentsply Sirona appointed Daniel Scavilla as CEO, succeeding Simon Campion, who had held the post since September 2022. The manufacturer of dental products and technologies, has been restructuring for more than a year, including laying off about 640 of its 16,000 global employees. It also sold its Swedish-based Wellspect Healthcare

business, which provides treatments for bladder and bowel dysfunction.

USAA plans to grow its workforce by as many as 300 at its South End office, citing strong demand from the region’s large military population. The digitalfirst financial company, which serves more than 1 million in the Carolinas, opened the site in 2022 and now employs about 700 in the region.

Sullenberger Aviation Museum named former educator Stephanie Hathaway as its president, replacing Stephen Saucier, who announced his plans to retire earlier this year. Saucier guided the museum through a $34 million capital campaign and reopening in 2024. The museum reported more than 100,000 visitors last year and $3 million in revenue, about 14% more than expenses.

CLAREMONT

CommScope shares more than doubled after it agreed to sell its Connectivity and Cable Solutions segment to Connecticut-based Amphenol for $10.5 billion. The deal

is expected to close in the first half of 2026. CommScope expects to use about $10 billion in net proceeds to repay debt, redeem preferred equity and pay a special dividend to shareholders

KANNAPOLIS

Novant Health received approval from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services to build a 50-bed acute-care hospital, about five miles west of Atrium Health’s facility in Concord. Novant Health Cabarrus Medical Center is slated to open in 2030 and cost about $336 million. It will serve residents from Cabarrus, Rowan and Stanly counties

MONROE

Atlanta-based convenience chain RaceTrac will open its first North Carolina location in September on U.S. 74. The privately held company has more than 800 stores, including about 300 in Florida.

SALISBURY

Duke Energy wants to add two natural gas-powered turbines at its former coal-fired plant in Rowan County, according to a filing with the N.C. Utilities Commission. The project at the former Buck Steam Station would have a combined capacity of 850 megawatts and may open by 2030. A 718-megawatt natural gas-fired plant opened at the site in 2011.

STATESVILLE

Dallas-based Compass Datacenters plans a five-building data center on 340 acres of farmland off I-40 in west Iredell County. The rezoning proposal faces community opposition over environmental concerns. The Planning Board will consider the project Aug. 26, with City Council hearings in September and October.

FAYETTEVILLE

Fayetteville State University unveiled Bronco Pride Hall, a $50 million, 87,930-square-foot residence for 336 freshmen and sophomores. The four-story hall offers single- and double-occupancy rooms, study spaces, a full kitchen and laundry facilities. It replaces the aging Vance Hall. Students chose the building’s name.

EAST

BAILEY

KS Bank opened its 11th office, and first in Nash County. The town has about 600 residents and is 15 miles west of Wilson. KS has branches in Harnett, Johnston, Nash, Wake, Wayne and Wilson counties. It had assets of $613 million on Dec. 31,, and a $6.1 million profit in 2024. The market cap is $59 million. The market cap is $59 million.

CLINTON

LG Textile, a fabric developer and apparel manufacturer, will add a cutand-sew plant here that is expected to create about 70 jobs this year and another 130 by 2027. The company says its move marks its commitment to 100% domestic production.

FAYETTEVILLE

Sun Asian Supermarket, a locally owned grocery store, will become an anchor tenant of the Midtown at Coalition mixed-use property being built at the Military Business Park near Fort Bragg. Construction for apartments and a food hall is underway at the site.

FORT BRAGG

The U.S. Senate’s fiscal 2026 defense authorization bill includes $240 million for Fort Bragg, supporting infrastructure and the readiness of elite units. Funding covers new infantry training facilities, a four-bay maintenance hangar, and an $80 million microgrid for energy resilience.

NC TREND ››› Statewide

WILMINGTON

Predicate AI Labs has partnered with Mayo Clinic to advance early detection of sepsis using predictive AI. The firm’s OpenDx platform analyzes real-time patient data to identify risk earlier. CEO Morris Nguyen called the agreement a major validation for the pre-market company.

HAMPSTEAD

NCDOT awarded a $182 million contract to Wilson-based S.T. Wooten for the second phase of the Hampstead Bypass, with construction starting this fall. The full 12.6-mile project aims to ease U.S. 17 congestion and is set to open by 2030. Total costs have risen to $502 million.

WILMINGTON

Despite losing nearly $10 million in pledged support from New Hanover County and the New Hanover Community Endowment, Northside Food Co-op officials say they remain committed to opening a grocery store in the city’s underserved Northside. Leaders are reassessing the store’s location and business model while seeking new funding and community partnerships.

Florida-based 4th Dimension Properties bought most of Independence Mall for $48.8 million and a nearby Wells Fargo site for $2.45 million. The firm, which owns malls nationwide, plans to

position the property as a community hub. Former owner Rouse Properties redeveloped the mall after acquiring it in 2017.

TRIAD

GREENSBORO

Qorvo will shut down its chip fabrication plant here and cut 175 jobs in 2026 as part of a multi-year restructuring. The company hasn’t disclosed the closure timeline. As of October, Qorvo employed about 1,400 people in Guilford County.

HIGH POINT

City taxpayers will provide $75,000 in incentives to The Mason Jar Group for a new cocktail bar near Truist Point Stadium. The group pledges 22 full-time jobs and a $625,000 investment. Other cities considered included Winston-Salem, Lexington and Greensboro.

Furniture Clearance Center, which also has a store in Greensboro, has launched Furniture Clearance Direct, expanding from brick-and-mortar to a national omnichannel model. The site offers factory-direct pricing, free nationwide shipping and optional whiteglove delivery, aiming to reach customers across the U.S.

Lumos, now owned by T-Mobile and EQT, has grown its workforce by 18% since 2024 and expects 13% more growth by late 2025. T-Mobile is investing $1.45 billion to expand Lumos’ 7,500-mile fiber network. Lumos, which acquired the former North State Communications, will retain its name locally but transition customers to T-Mobile Fiber this fall.

MOUNT AIRY

Nester Hosiery acquired the majority of the assets of Fox River Mills, a sock manufacturer in Osage, Iowa. Nester will relocate Fox River’s production from Iowa to Mount Airy, according to the company. Nester’s ranks will grow from about 155 employees to 195, with about 175 in N.C. About 20 will remain in Iowa in sales, marketing and design.

THOMASVILLE

Old Dominion Freight Line reported a 16.6% decline in second quarter net income and reduced its workforce by 1,081 jobs as shipping demand softened. Earnings missed analyst expectations by 2 cents per share. Its workforce reduction of 4.8% brings its payroll to about 21,600 employees.

Novant Health opened a $6 million, 18,000-square-foot Wellness and Education Center at Thomasville Medical Center, including Davidson County’s first outpatient mental health facility. Services include behavioral health, diabetes care, lactation support, occupational medicine, and therapy. Leaders say the center redefines holistic care for the region.

DAILY DIGEST

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

Daily Digest Extra will publish twice a week – on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons – and contain 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 will focus on news and analysis that can’t be found in any other media.

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 Simply set up a username name and password on the Tribune website. After that, apply the discount code “founders” to receive a $100 discount for an annual subscription.

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.

NC TREND ››› Statewide

WINSTON-SALEM

Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist opened a $426 million, seven-story critical care tower, the largest singlecampus investment in its history. The 327,000-square-foot facility, featuring new ICUs, operating rooms and emergency space, was named for retiring CEO Dr. Julie Ann Freischlag. An endowed chair was also announced in her honor. Brasfield & Gorrie and Frank L. Blum Construction were the general contractors and the architects were HKS and CPL.

Canada’s Gildan Activewear will buy HanesBrands for $2.2 billion, keeping the company headquarters in Montreal, but promising the combined company will continue to have a strong presence in Forsyth County. The companies put the transaction’s value at $4.4 billion when

HanesBrands’ debt is included. The transaction is expected to close in late 2025 or early 2026.

A Florida-based real estate group purchased the 17-story, downtown Marriott for $56.15 million. The buyer, an affiliate of 1754 Properties, specializes in resorts, hotels and apartments. The 2.12-acre site spans more than 219,000 square feet. Built in 1986 and last renovated in 2000, the property was previously owned by Rockbridge, which purchased it in 2022 for $49.5 million.

MedCost was acquired by HPI, a third-party administrator based in Westborough, Massachusetts, and a subsidiary of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. The seller, Charlotte-based Advocate Health, had owned MedCost as part of its regional benefits offerings.

TRIANGLE

CARY

Cornerstone Building Brands named Gunner Smith as its CEO. Smith had worked for Owens Corning almost 17 years, and had been president of its roofing division since 2018. He replaces Rose Lee, who left the manufacturer of windows, siding and other building materials following a $1.19 billion net loss for 2024.

CHAPEL HILL

Mama Dip’s, the Southern soul food restaurant founded by Mildred “Mama

Dip” Council in 1976, has closed. The institution that grew out of an 18-seat diner had transitioned a year ago to takeout-only. The Council family plans to carry the brand forward with a new fast casual concept. Mama Dip died in 2018 at age 89.

UNC Chapel Hill leaders outlined plans to cut roughly $70 million from the university’s operating budget, citing reduced state and federal funding — including research cuts from the Trump administration. Proposed measures include consolidating jobs and reducing financial aid for out-of-state students. Separately, university leaders proposed the “NC Colosseum,” a 25,000-seat stadium at Carolina North less than two miles from the main campus to host soccer, rugby and cricket ahead of the 2028 Olympics. The project could generate more than $5 billion of economic activity over its first decade.

CLAYTON

UNC Health acquired full control of Johnston Health Services from a countyaffiliated not-for-profit, enabling better access to capital as the area’s population surges. More than $100 million in expansions are planned at hospitals here and Smithfield, with construction expected to

begin by year’s end. A local advisory board replaces prior joint governance.

DURHAM

Sarepta Therapeutics laid off 21 employees as part of a companywide cut of 493 jobs, following FDA concerns over patient deaths linked to its gene therapy Elevidys. The Massachusettsbased biotech also paused U.S. shipments and saw its stock plunge nearly 90% this year. Sarepta has longstanding ties to the Triangle.

Biogen will invest $2 billion to boost manufacturing here, where it operates seven regional factories with plans to open an eighth later this year. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company is known for its treatments for neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s. Since 1995, it has invested $10 billion across campuses in Wake and Durham counties, and employs more than 1,500 employees and 400-plus contractors.

Avalara, which creates tax compliance software and employs 5,300, filed for an IPO. The business was acquired by Austin, Texas-based Vista Equity Partners for $8.4 billion in 2022. That was much lower than its peak market

DURHAM

Sprouts Farmers Market will anchor the $200 million Westside Bottling project, joining Shake Shack, Ulta Beauty, and others in the 70% pre-leased development. Located on the former Coca-Cola bottling site, the 12-acre mixed-use project includes 370 apartments and 35 townhomes. Plans call for a buildout by mid-2027.

NC TREND ››› Statewide

value during the pandemic. Avalara was running at about $800 million in annual revenue at the time of the acquisition.

Duke University will conduct involuntary layoffs following nearly 600 voluntary staff buyouts amid federal funding threats under the Trump administration. Additional faculty retirements and budget cuts are expected. The university cited a need to offset reduced research funding and endowment taxes, aiming to trim as much as 10% of its budget.

PBS NC will cut jobs, freeze hiring and offer voluntary separations after losing nearly $5 million in federal support. CEO David Crabtree said the network aims to avoid layoffs. Programming impacts remain unclear.

HOLLY SPRINGS

Drone delivery firm Flytrex ceased operations, citing FAA restrictions that prevent necessary automation for scaling. The move ends a longrunning pilot program launched with NCDOT and the FAA. Flytrex is now expanding in Texas, while NCDOT says North Carolina remains committed to advancing drone integration statewide.

MORRISVILLE

New York-based gene therapy biotech Kriya Therapeutics, which has joint headquarters here and in Palo Alto, California, raised $313 million, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. It was the fourth-biggest biotech capital raise this year. Kriya was co-founded by Liquidia CEO Roger Jeffs, who remains a director.

The U.S. Department of Transportation will give RaleighDurham International Airport $24.6 million to improve traffic flow near two terminals. Planned upgrades include lane expansions, curbside enhancements and

RALEIGH

Baker Roofing, which ranks among its sector’s national leaders with about 27 locations, has converted to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. W.P. Baker formed the business downtown in 1915. It now operates in eight states and employs about 1,000 people.

intersection redesigns to ease congestion. The project was selected from more than 800 grant applications.

RALEIGH

Virginia-based TowneBank is buying Dogwood State Bank in a deal valued at $476 million. The move will add 17 offices in eastern North Carolina and South Charlotte to TowneBank, which now operates 55 offices from Richmond, Virginia, through upstate South Carolina. It also has significant insurance, mortgage and wealth management units.

Martin Marietta and Atlanta-based Quikrete Holdings will exchange certain assets. Martin Marietta will receive aggregate operations producing approximately 20 million tons annually in Virginia, Missouri, Kansas and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as $450 million in cash. In exchange, Quikrete will receive Martin Marietta’s Midlothian cement plant, related cement terminals and North Texas ready-mixed

concrete assets. The transaction is expected to close in early 2026.

Los Angeles-based Olive Point Capital purchased Amazon’s warehouse for $44 million, marking its entry into the Triangle. The facility, fully leased to Amazon on a 15-year deal with renewal options through 2061, spans 129,500 square feet on nearly 26 acres. Olive Point plans to prioritize industrial investments in the region.

Turnbridge Equities has started site demolition and will build Highline Glenwood, a 37-story, $200 million residential tower downtown — the city’s tallest to date. Slated for 2028 completion, the project includes 300-plus apartments, luxury amenities, retail space and preserved historic structures.

The North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association named former Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas as its next CEO, following a national search. Thomas started working for the organization Aug. 29 and will assume the CEO role in the fourth quarter, succeeding Lynn Minges, who has had

NC TREND ››› Statewide

SOUTHERN PINES

Titleist will open its first dedicated U.S. retail shop at Pinehurst Resort in September, taking over the Padgett Learning Center. Overlooking the driving range and iconic courses No. 2 and 4, the Titleist Shop at Padgett Center will serve both resort guests and day visitors.

the job since 2012.

The UNC System Board of Governors issued a new memo requiring each university to verify compliance with its 2024 Equality Policy, which eliminated DEI roles. Trustees must form subcommittees to review realignments, assess personnel changes, and report back by Sept. 1. The move follows secret DEI-related recordings and recent staff dismissals.

Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon’s Pacific Elm Properties is exploring a deal with the RaleighDurham Airport Authority to develop 100-plus acres near Lake Crabtree. Plans include outdoor recreation and retail. Dundon is also leading a group to buy the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, a move he says will not interfere with his NHL team or desire to bring Major League baseball to the city.

Spirit Airlines canceled its planned Raleigh-Durham to Nashville service and will end its Baltimore route in September, while also scaling back Detroit flights. A part of the airline’s

ongoing restructuring following its 2024 bankruptcy. It plans to furlough 270 pilots this fall.

Following its loss of accreditation, Saint Augustine’s University is urging alumni to help raise $1 million to support legal action against its former accreditor. Sophie Gibson of Atlanta was elected board chair.

SMITHFIELD

Aaron Mullins is the new CEO at the Johnston County Visitors Bureau, succeeding Donna Bailey-Taylor, who retired after leading Johnston County’s tourism and hospitality industry since 1996. The Johnston County bureau had total revenue of $2.7 million last year, according to its annual report.

SOUTHERN PINES

Southern Pines plans to pay $6.4 million to buy the 21,000-square-foot corporate headquarters of First Bank and establish a town hall. The bank has about 113 offices, 1,350 employees and assets of $12.6 billion.

A nearly 13-acre parcel in Morganton Park South, home to BJ’s Wholesale Club, sold for $27.285 million to New Yorkbased entities managed by Thaniel Beinert. Morganton Park South also includes Target, Lowe’s Foods and other retailers.

WEST

ASHEVILLE

UNC Asheville paused its plans for a 5,000-seat soccer stadium and mixeduse development on 45 wooded acres of campus following widespread criticism. The university will instead form a commission to gather public input on future uses for the land.

KINGS MOUNTAIN

The Carolina Panthers signed a multiyear sponsorship deal with Catawba Two Kings Casino, their second gambling partner. The deal includes in-game promotions and VIP hosting. The $1 billion casino is opening in phases, starting in 2026. It follows FanDuel’s 2024 partnership with the NFL team.

SWANNANOA

Ingles will build a new store here, using the former post office and Ace Hardware site next to the old Ingles destroyed by flood waters from Tropical Storm Helene.

WEAVERVILLE

Mission Hospital has petitioned the N.C. Supreme Court to block AdventHealth’s plans for a 67-bed hospital here, escalating a nearly three-year legal battle. Mission argues procedural errors and a lack of clarity around “substantial prejudice” in the state’s decision. AdventHealth says the appeal is a deliberate delay tactic against needed competition. ■

We’ve been working on some other ways to provide North Carolina’s decision-makers content in a variety of ways. One of these is a new monthly video series we are pretty excited about.

Business North Carolina and Bclip Productions Inc. are proud to present "On the Ground: The Grit That Drives Carolina Business," a behind-the-scenes video series filmed on location with the entrepreneurs, risk-takers and innovators shaping North Carolina's economy. Each episode offers an unfiltered look at the bold decisions and daily grit required to build impactful businesses.

Over the past few months, we’ve covered two impressive innovators. Riverbend Malt House is a Buncombe County-based business that has been serving the craft beer industry since 2011.

Durham-based custom carwash services group Spiffy has transformed traditional car care in more than 30 cities with a fleet of mobile technicians, backed by custombuilt vans and powerful cloud-based technology.

We’ll be uploading a video each month on our YouTube Channel. You can scan the QR code and check out these cool companies, with more to come.

ADVANCING PLACEMENTS

North Carolina’s higher education institutions are collaborating and streamlining pathways to post-secondary education and training so more North Carolinians can enroll. That’s creating better lives for them and building the workforce.

Last summer, a new program helped 63,000 high school seniors learn that a seat with their name on it was waiting at select North Carolina colleges and universities. “We piloted NC College Connect with community colleges and independent universities using a simplified application process,” says Shun Robertson, senior vice president for strategy and policy with the University of North Carolina. “This year marks the first time we’ve offered direct admissions.”

NC College Connect casts a large net. “We have 98 institutions across North Carolina participating, including all 58 community colleges, 29 independent colleges and universities, and 11 public universities,” Robertson says. Qualifying for admission starts with a grade-point average of at least 2.8. Some colleges and universities have additional requirements, depending on a student’s course of study. “As long as they meet the requirements at their chosen institution, they are guaranteed acceptance,” she says.

NC College Connect is one effort in an all-hands-on-deck approach to increasing enrollment and graduation rates at North Carolina’s higher education institutions. The returns are many, including helping residents thrive in today’s world and providing a workforce for North Carolina’s expanding economy.

Defining the needs

UNC enrollment reached a record last year. At nearly 250,000 students, it was 2.2% more than the year prior, according to the 16-university system. While that number is healthy, Robertson says data is predicting a steep drop in enrollment, the result of fewer high school graduates nationwide, starting with the class of 2028. The largest factor contributing to the decrease is the country’s falling fertility rate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there were 1.93 babies born per woman in 2010. That’s down from 2.08 in 1990 and 2.48 in 1970.

“If we want to continue ranking as the best state to do business, we must produce the kind of workforce our business and industry needs,”

– Hope Williams, NCICU President

A UNC System report points out the other factors contributing to the predicted enrollment drop. They include concerns about the upfront cost of college and a shift in public perception of a college degree’s value in the marketplace. NC College Connect, along with expedited financial aid, increased focus on outcomes and a compressed timeframe to earn a degree, are some ways those concerns are being addressed.

Compounding the expected drop in the number of high school graduates is the growing number of North Carolina residents enrolling in out-ofstate colleges. NCICU President Hope Williams believes NC College Connect will keep more home, not only to receive an education but pursue a career after graduation, too. She believes it’s good for students, the state’s higher education institutions and economy.

Business news channel CNBC recently ranked North Carolina as its top state for business, the third time it has earned that honor since 2022.

Supplying the state’s growing business community with qualified employees is higher education’s North Star, so it’s always top of mind for Williams. “If we want to continue ranking as the best state to do business, we must produce the kind of workforce our business and industry needs, and we need to figure out how to keep more of our students in North Carolina,” she says.

NCICU members serve about 60,000 undergraduates and 24,000 graduate students. From the smallest colleges, such as Cabarrus College of Health Sciences, to behemoths, such as Duke University, it’s a diverse group of 36 institutions. Williams says no two are alike.

One NCICU member is Campbell University in Buies Creek, which offers undergraduate, graduate and continuing education programs. It offers experiential learning at its Raleigh campus, where students can earn a law degree from its law school or a business degree — either a bachelor’s or a master’s — from its business school.

Campbell University reported an enrollment of 592 freshman students in fall 2024. That’s 6% more than the previous year and nearly 20% more than in 2022. There were 169 transfer students this past year, an increase of 32% from the year prior.

William Downs began as Campbell University’s sixth president in July. He succeeds J. Bradley Creed, who retired after a decade-long tenure. Prior to joining Campbell, Downs served as Gardner-Webb University’s president.

for strategy

Shun Robertson senior vice president

and policy University of North Carolina

Dr. Jeff Cox, president of the North Carolina Community College System, has announced plans to retire at the end of the fiscal year in June 2026. The State Board of Community Colleges will outline its formal transition process in the coming months. This will likely include the hiring of a national search firm with expertise in higher education. While the State Board can select its finalist for the position, the General Assembly will have the final say.

Paying for education

There’s a price tag attached to higher education, whether it’s undertaken at a community college or private university. And while NC College Connect lays out a smooth pathway to admission for eligible students, they still must pay for it. Need-based scholarships, Pell grants and financial aid are available to close the cost gap, helping keep higher education affordable. Students also can find tuition money through college and university scholarships, and many businesses and communitybased organizations offer help.

Independent College Fund of North Carolina recently completed its 20242025 fundraising campaign. A division of NCICU that provides scholarship aid and enrichment programs, it raised nearly $2.7 million, the fourth-highest amount in the fund’s 70-year history.

It includes $438,936 for scholarships, more than $1 million in grant support for NCICU programs and more than $1.2 million of in-kind donations.

Among the initiatives and programs benefiting from the recent fundraising campaign is NCICU’s new Transfer Pathways Initiative. The statewide portal streamlines course credit mobility between community colleges and NCICU’s four-year institutions.

“We are fortunate in North Carolina to have both a comprehensive articulation agreement for students to be able to transfer the first two years of college courses, and we also have discipline-specific agreements for those students who know the major they wish to pursue,” Williams says.

UNC System created Transfer Guides last year. The online tool matches a student’s community college credits with four-year degree requirements in specific majors at

Governor Josh Stein visits Surry-Yadkin Works FLEET program. With the help of Altec, the program, allows students to thrive in the classroom while offering pre-apprenticeship opportunities in the manufacturing industry.

the state’s public universities. N.C. Community College System President Jeff Cox welcomes the college transfer programs. “This represents a significant milestone in our ongoing collaborative commitment to enhancing economic mobility for families across North Carolina,” he says.

Cox says community college enrollment, including continuing education, curriculum programs and the high school dual enrollment programs, is increasing. The system, whose budget is $1.6 billion, serves more than 600,000 students, preparing them to fill in-demand jobs upon graduation or program completion. And that responsibility continues to grow. Amazon, for example, recently announced a $10 billion data center and 500 jobs in Richmond County, and aviation startup JetZero expects to create more than 14,500 jobs at its $4.7 billion Greensboro factory. “Business is booming in North Carolina for sure,” he says. “And we continue to receive new record-breaking economic development announcements.”

contract nurses to fill the gaps,” he says. “But using apprenticeship programs, the partnership was able to build an adequate supply of nurses, and the hospital system is now out of the contract nurse business.”

Cox touts Propel NC, which would shift the system’s funding to a programbased model from full-time course enrollment. He says it’s a better way of meeting the state’s growing workforce needs. “What keeps me on my toes are the thousands of jobs we need to fill over the next several years,” he says. “And we need to make sure we’re not just graduating more students, but we’re graduating the students with the right credentials.”

The community college system has requested $93 million to fund Propel NC in the next biennium, and the Senate has included $73 million in its budget. But as of Aug. 1, the General Assembly had not passed a full 20252026 budget.

Cox shares success stories, including a partnership between Northern Regional Hospital in Mount Airy, Surry Community College and Surry-Yadkin Works that’s building and filling a talent pipeline for nurses, which are much in demand. “The hospital was investing millions of dollars in hiring

Crystal Folger-Hawks is executive director of Surry-Yadkin Works, a program that takes a streamlined approach to connecting students with apprenticeship opportunities. The program serves students starting in high school and a variety of businesses and industries. It turned its attention to the state’s nursing shortage, which UNC Chapel Hill’s Sheps Center for Health Services Research expects to reach 12,500 by 2033, a few years ago.

“We started partnering with Northern Regional Hospital in 2020 and started a youth pre-apprenticeship program,” she says. “This enables high school students to become paid certified nursing assistants while they work toward earning an associate nursing degree.”

Folger-Hawks says the youth preapprenticeship program is an important recruitment tool for the hospital. The program has expanded. “We serve about 100 nursing students per graduating class, and we encourage them to earn their bachelor’s degree at cooperating universities,” she says.

Crystal Folger-Hawks, executive director of Surry-Yadkin Works

Returning to the classroom

There may be as many as a million North Carolinians whose efforts to earn a college degree were halted when life got in the way. They have a second chance to finish what they started thanks to Project Kitty Hawk, says its president and CEO, Andrew Kelly. The statewide initiative helps adults with some college coursework but no degree or credential complete their studies at UNC System schools. “Project Kitty Hawk grew out of a sense that we needed to do a lot more to serve individuals in North Carolina over the age of 25 who had not yet completed that bachelor’s degree,” he says.

North Carolina Central University, Appalachian State University and East Carolina University are Project Kitty Hawk’s partner universities. They offer 14 undergraduate programs and one graduate program. Programming is structured so it’s convenient for returning students. Five semesters are offered on a rolling basis. Each lasts eight weeks, providing structure, flexibility and opportunities for acceleration. “To date, 1,700 students have started in the

program since 2023, and we have 20 graduates,” Kelly says. “We are on an upward trajectory and expect to grow over time.” The next step is to partner with employers to help graduates start their new careers.

Not all adult learners seek degrees. NC State offers continuing education for those seeking professional development. Its Division for Continuing and Lifelong Education efforts started a century ago as a public service to residents. That mission continues today as the division expands to meet existing and new needs of individuals, organizations and communities. “Today, we have a robust program portfolio,” says NC State Vice Provost Mark Bernhard. “In fiscal year 2025, which just ended, we served 162,616 adult learners in over 1,000 different continuing education events.”

Most of NC State’s continuing education happens at McKimmon Conference and Training Center. The dedicated space hosts conferences, workshops, training sessions and seminars. “We work closely with state agencies, corporations, nonprofits that do educational programming,” Bernhard says.

NC State’s customized training and development services are

growing to fit industry and state and local government needs. That includes a partnership with the town of Cary; the university creates tailored programs, including one that uses real-time projects and town data in its curriculum. The university also works with The Golden LEAF Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center on Centennial Campus, training and developing the skills of professionals for that industry’s workforce. “Our mission is to empower individuals to pursue a lifetime of success and impact,” Bernhard says. “And we’re developing a framework for how to deliver credentials for highdemand skills.” Bernhard says it’s an exciting time for NC State. ■

Teri Saylor is a freelance writer in Raleigh.

“We have over 38,000 students at our university, and we want to provide them with a wonderful education, but we also offer openenrollment programs that benefit businesses and the economy in the state,” he says. “Continuing adult education is becoming more and more a central core piece of the learning experience, and that’s not going to change.”— Mark Bernhard

Mark Bernhard, NC State Vice Provost

WCOMMUNITY IS KEY

By Alyssa Pressler

orkforce development programs are hot right for good reason. Every community wants to develop workforce not only for the health of the community, selling point to potential companies and industries looking at North Carolina for potential sites or expansions.

that we for community

But these types of programs can be difficult and even more difficult to see through to success. spoke with three organizations and education for this section, we noticed a common theme contributed to the overall success of their workforce development and career training programs: the the local community.

From partnering with local businesses and centers to building homes for affordable housing area, each program pointed to cultivating community relationships as the key to the work they were And thanks to those community relationships, seeing those areas of North Carolina thrive.

A FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH: PITT COMMUNITY COLLEGE POWERS

PITT COUNTY’S WORKFORCE

CUSTOMIZED TRAINING FOR A DEMANDING MARKET

Uconda Dunn, the Vice President of Business and Workforce Solutions, is at the heart of this effort. She works with local companies to identify their needs and then collaborates with various college departments to create customized training programs.

The BioWork Certificate Program is a prime example. This intensive 12-week program gives participants the necessary skills to become lab technicians in the biotech, pharmaceutical, and chemical manufacturing industries.

As Dunn explains, the program offers more than just technical skills. “It’s an entryway into the company; it provides an opportunity for growth, and students can always come back with that certificate to take additional classes in our biotech field.”

Upon completion, graduates are guaranteed an interview with a local company. In addition to industryspecific education, students also receive professional development training in resume writing, interviewing, and conflict resolution. This targeted approach benefits companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific and Catalent, both of which have a significant presence in the region.

BUILDING THE FUTURE FROM THE GROUND UP

PCC’s commitment extends beyond the life sciences. The Construction and Industrial Technology Division offers students hands-on training that has a tangible impact on the community. Students in this program build homes from the foundation up, with the finished homes being purchased by the city of Greenville to be used as affordable housing. The college even partners with local industries that donate some of the construction materials, creating a true winwin scenario.

High school students can get a head start on these careers through PCC’s Tech Academy, a program that brings them to the college for half-day sessions to focus on their future career paths.

While the college continually adapts to new challenges, one thing remains constant: its commitment to meeting the needs of local businesses and helping students achieve their goals.

“Pitt Community College is transitioning to meet the demands of business,” Dunn says. “We are not a one-size-fits-all. We respond to individual company needs, creating customized training programs that build the skills our workforce needs, and we know that’s valuable.”

“I think one of the main benefits from programs like these is that the team members who come in are extremely passionate about their work, they feel a connection to the business and the people behind it.”

– Jon Kegerise, CSL Seqirus, Vice President of Manufacturing

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT FOR ALL

Partnering with local colleges and universities for workforce development and career training means everyone in the region—and even the industry— wins. And when it comes to public health, that’s the whole goal.

This is the belief CSL Seqirus has adopted as its growth in Holly Springs allows them to fill business needs, create life-saving vaccines and give back to the region.

As the vaccine-focused division of major biotech company CSL, they rely on a flourishing talent pipeline in a variety of fields, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle had the promise of fulfilling that need when they first broke ground on the facility in 2007. In the nearly 20 years they’ve been operating in the region, the company has expanded several times and now employs approximately 1,000 individuals.

The need is ever-growing, so creating programs to develop the workforce and partnering with education centers and colleges is not only a smart move—it’s necessary.

“We’ve put hundreds of employees through customized training programs for our industry through Wake Tech and NC State University programs,” says Jon Kegerise, Vice President of Manufacturing and Site Head of the Holly Springs facility. “It’s how we’ve built out our workforce over the years.”

Through multiple partnerships with community colleges, universities, and industry associations, CSL Seqirus is able to hire primarily from the well-trained local talent pool and keep the entire industry growing in North Carolina.

CSL Seqirus was a pioneer in creating an apprenticeship program focused on training maintenance employees and technicians who would be able to fulfill the specific needs of a biotech manufacturing site. Early on, the company recognized there would be a need as the current workforce begins to age out of those fields, and the apprenticeship program has helped them fill that need. It currently boasts a 100% conversion rate.

CSL Seqirus also partners with NCBiotech, a biotechnology center

based in Durham, to provide access to unique workforce development programs. Case in point is the Military Outreach and Veterans Engagement (MOVE) program, which assists veterans looking for civilian careers in life sciences through on-the-job training during their final months in the military. Kegerise says they’ve hired several MOVE veterans for needed manufacturing and maintenance roles.

Most recently, CSL has joined Wake Tech’s BioMechatronics Apprenticeship program, which launched in July.

The eight-month program will train apprentices as advanced maintenance technicians in partnership with CSL Seqirus, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies and Eli Lilly and Company.

“This one is really interesting because it prepares a workforce across a core curriculum and it’s a wonderful partnership between education and several life sciences businesses so we can grow the talent pool in the area rather than compete for that talent,” Kegerise says. “The program is going to raise the bar for the talent in this region.”

WAKE TECH LAUNCHES ONE-OF-A-KIND PROGRAM

Wake Tech has announced a new BioMechatronics Apprenticeship Program in partnership with three life sciences leaders in the Research Triangle.

Alongside CSL Seqirus, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies and Eli Lilly and Company, this eight-month program will prepare and train students for careers in advanced maintenance technician roles in the life sciences and biotech industries. Participants in the program will learn mechanical engineering skills, hydraulics and pneumatics as well as skills and processes that are specific to biotech companies.

“It essentially combines mechanical electronics and biotech into one program,” says Scott Ralls, President of Wake Tech.

The community college has long worked to provide career training and workforce development opportunities in partnership with businesses in the region and beyond. In addition to the partners they have in the BioMechatronics Apprenticeship Program, Wake Tech boasts over 150 employer partners for various industries, including biopharmaceutical, cyber security and engineering companies.

Not all programs within Wake Tech require a degree, making them

approachable for folks who want to advance in an existing career or go into the workforce with less education debt. For example, students can participate in a non-degree bootcamp program in partnership with biotech company Amgen, which has a presence in Holly Springs. Students spend their first six months as Amgen employees taking courses at Wake Tech to train for their roles. Not only is their schooling paid for—these participants are actually being paid to go to school.

“We have many applied programs where students are trained for the skills that they need right now to go into the workforce, but they also get a lot of focus on science,” says Ralls. “The programs mirror the real world in many ways, which is a unique niche for us.”

That mirroring of the real world is taken to new heights at Wake Tech, which uses simulations as an educational tool for its students. Simulated labs are increasing in number on campus for areas like emergency medical science, law enforcement and most recently, drones.

In September, Wake Tech will break ground on a simulated hospital building. The goal is to create realistic workforce facilities that mirror what students will handle upon graduation or completion of their certificate program.

But ensuring students and these types of programs are successful goes beyond the latest technology or simulations. Stellar student support is a driving force of everything Wake Tech does.

Each student is equipped with a team of advisors, coaches and mentors specific to the field they are studying while they are enrolled at the college. This academic team supports the students’ needs, helps them determine courses, connects them with opportunities in the industry and more. The goal is ensuring anyone in Wake County or the greater region has the ability to move up economically without leaving their home.

“I think Wake Tech is uniquely positioned as one of the strongest STEMbased community colleges in the nation,” Ralls says. “We make it approachable but we also make it applicable.”

FastStarter

A hard-charging Charlotte homebuilder makes a dent in what nowadays accounts for affordable single-family housing.

By David Mildenberg

Veteran viewers of local Charlotte television news are familiar with Hidden Valley, a 4,600-home neighborhood that for years struggled with rising crime and declining property values.

Started in 1959 and home to an estimated 12,000 people, Hidden Valley is famous in the Queen City because it was ground zero for “white ight” in the 1970s and ‘80s. In less than a generation, the area went from an all-white population to mostly Black. e change has been well-chronicled by local historians. It occurred because of misinformation from real estate agents looking for commissions and vulture investing by rental-property investors, coupled with the desire of many Black families seeking housing in a welldesigned neighborhood accessible to Charlotte’s center city and the UNC Charlotte area.

Fortunately, Marjorie Parker and other longtime residents are working to restore Hidden Valley’s reputation, block by block. A resident since 1977 and president of the community association, Parker says Hidden Valley is experiencing lower crime rates, more resident participation in neighborhood improvement e orts and rising property values. She credits better collaboration with Charlotte police and other city agencies.

In that mix, Cyrus Mojdehi and Daniel Hirschberg saw an opportunity where others saw turmoil.

eir Northway Homes has built more than 40 detached, single-family homes in Hidden Valley since 2021. Several homes in their latest project, Echo Glen at Hidden Valley, were still on the market in early

PHOTOS BY JOSHUS STEADMAN

“We’ve been able to attract a lot of family businesses who have stayed with us over the years,”Mojdehi says.

and Daniel Hirschberg

August.

It’s the most new construction in Hidden Valley since the 1960s.

“We look at Northway as a positive investment in the community,” Parker says. “ ey have sold homes to people who want to live in the neighborhood, and they have built nice homes that look good.”

Taking chances in unconventional places and an aggressive approach has made Northway one of North Carolina’s fastergrowing home builders and attracted national attention. In July, the EY consulting rm named Mojdehi a nalist for its national Entrepreneur of the Year honors.

It's a respected awards program that measures entrepreneurial spirit, purpose, growth and impact. ree other N.C. executives made the list, including Raleigh’s Cindy Eckert, who previously sold her female libido drug company for $1 billion.

Northway’s success comes in an industry that is mostly split between large, national builders that dominate the market and dozens of smaller, closely held companies that tend to build fewer than 25 homes annually. “No one else does what we are doing in Charlotte at a production scale,” Mojdehi says.

North Carolina is a great place for homebuilders because so many people want to live here. It ranked fourth nationally among the states with 365,000 new homes constructed between April 2020 and July 2024, according to Census Bureau data.

Mecklenburg County added 48,000 single and multifamily units in that period, 19th most in the U.S., while Wake County

added 66,000, ranking sixth.

Most of the single-family construction comes from big companies based in other states. e 10 largest builders in the Charlotte area accounted for 75% of closings in 2023, building from 467 to 1,326 homes, according to Charlotte Business Journal research. ey tend to sell most of their homes in several large subdivisions, in tranches of dozens or hundreds of units. Only one N.C.-based company ranked in the top 10: Monroe’s True Homes, which ranked third with 1,141 closings in 2023, for a 10% market share.

Northway is a rare mid-sized company that builds on smaller parcels scattered in many places. It completed 260 homes last year, It expects to add 300 more this year, spaced around about 150 locations, such as Hidden Valley. Most sites are in the Charlotte metro area, extending as far as Hickory.

Most of the homes are targeted at rst-home buyers and sell for less than $400,000. Wickenden Partners, a separate company owned by Mojdehi and Hirschberg, originates construction loans to third-party developers for homes that in some cases top $1 million.

Now $400,000 may not sound like a starter home. But the median price of a new home in Mecklenburg County has topped $400,000 since 2023 and was $465,000 in June, according to the Red n real estate research rm.

In 2024, 19% of Mecklenburg homes sold for less than $300,000, while only 2% sold for less than $150,000, according to UNC Charlotte’s Childress Klein’s Center for Research. at is a massive change from a decade earlier when 75% of homes sold for

Cyrus Mojdehi

The Carolina Way

less than $300,000, and about 34% traded for less than $150,000.

A New York homebuilder finds a business-friendly environment after heading south.

By Kevin Ellis

Breaking into Chapel Hill proved to Steven Dubb that his family’s Beechwood Homes made a good decision to branch out to North Carolina a er 40 years of building homes in New York.

Beechwood bought 103 acres on the south edge of the Orange County town for $7.25 million in 2021, with plans for a 250-home retirement community. “ e town actually said, ‘We need more homes in Chapel Hill,’” Dubb says.

So the company countered with a 600-home proposal, presented at a Town Council meeting. With his father, Michael Dubb, the company founder and CEO, and Beechwood’s top lawyer watching the meeting online, the younger Dubb didn’t know what to expect.

“When the town board came back asking for even more density, I could hear their jaws hit the oor in New York,” he says.

Chapel Hill ended up approving the 815-home South Creek development of condominiums, townhomes and apartments. e rst phase of 92 apartments in the $500 million project should open next year, a mile from the UNC Chapel Hill campus.

Mecklenburg households would “need to assume that starter homes are those with prices of $375,000 or higher,” the UNC Charlotte researchers wrote in their 2024 annual report.

eoretically, 71% of Charlotte-area households don’t make enough money to a ord a median home priced at $435,000, according to National Association of Home Builders research. e crunch is even worse in most other N.C. metro areas.

Northway’s homes at its Echo Glen at Hidden Valley site are priced at $380,000 for a four-bedroom, three-bathroom, 1,929-square-foot home. A slightly larger model is o ered at $435,000. Older homes for sale on nearby streets are mostly priced at $250,000 to $300,000, which is in many cases triple the valuations of 10 or 15 years ago.

Land prices in Hidden Valley, though among the lowest in Mecklenburg County, make it infeasible to build new homes at prices that used to be considered a ordable, Mojdehi says.

e process took 18 months, says Dubb. In contrast, Long Island, New York, spent seven years mulling a 700-home Beechwood project, and that was considered “lightning speed.”

“It was a di erent world,” he says.

Started in 1985, the company rst considered a North Carolina expansion in 2020. “My dad and I were looking at each other and said we’ve got to get a foothold in a more business-friendly state,” he says.

It wasn’t until 2023 that they opened their rst two projects, totaling 100 homes, in the a uent Queen City suburbs of Weddington and Marvin in Union County.

Another project underway is a 217-home Catawba County development Lakeside Points on Lake Norman in Sherrills Ford, about 35 miles northwest of Charlotte. Homes mostly range from the mid-$600,000s to $1.4 million. Some of the 46 waterfront properties are priced at more than $2 million, with buyers attracted by a private marina, clubhouse and swimming pool.

Beechwood has built about 10,000 homes, mostly in New York, with a current pace of 150 to 300 units per year. In 2024, it had about $250 million in revenue, including $90 million from North Carolina.

Beechwood expects further growth in the Triangle and Charlotte areas. “We’re here to stay,” Dubb says. “ is isn’t a one-o or a couple of projects, and then we take our ball and go home.”

Using local contractors and listening has paid o for Beechwood. “I think a lot of nationals come into a market and say, ‘We’ve got a way of doing things, we’ve got a set of houses, you’re going to build our houses, here’s our models,’” says Dubb. “Our approach couldn’t be more opposite to that. We think people in the Charlotte area and Chapel Hill know much better what to build and how to build than we do in New York.

e economics are di erent in outlying areas such as Hickory and Shelby, where Northway has started selling newly built, 726-square-foot homes with two bedrooms and a bathroom for $185,000. Demand for the small homes has been strong from rst-time home buyers, so Mojdehi says Northway is looking for property to establish similar homes.

WATER POLO AND TENNIS

Taking a di erent approach than the mainstream has worked for Northway. “We came into the business with no bad habits,” he says. Instead, they entered with Ivy League and Wall Street pedigrees.

“We’re very conscious of what people think of New Yorkers, so we try to have a very so touch and hopefully change some minds at least within the company,” he adds. ■

Hirschberg played tennis at Brown University, then spent six years at the Macquarie Group and Paci c Coast Capital Partners rms in New York, before joining Mojdehi to found Northway in 2021. Mojdehi had played water polo at Brown, then took a job with San Diego-based Alliance Real Estate investments, assigned to nd distressed homes to purchase in Charlotte and other Southeast cities. Four years there provided lots of exposure to real estate investing. He later earned an MBA at Columbia Business School and worked at a New York private equity business specializing in real estate before starting Northway. ey had limited nancial resources, but bootstrapped during the post-COVID days when a shortage of homes sparked frenzied competition for homes. ey bought their initial land with a dollar of equity leveraged by $10 of borrowing.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BEECHWOOD HOMES

OUT OF REACH

HOME COSTS VS. AVERAGE INCOMES (2025)

“We took a lot of risk, but our building cycle was very quick, about 70 to 90 days, and we felt like the economy was going to be ne,” Mojdehi says. “And we didn’t have much to lose.”

Reaching 32 employees and the annual pace of 300 homes within ve years of starting the company has required some unconventional strategies. Mojdehi ticks o several:

✓ Designing a precise, so ware-driven plan for the building process that de nes speci c, repeatable steps.

✓ Developing simple housing plans, repeated over and over.

✓ Completing homes several weeks faster than the industry average.

✓ Providing subcontractors with a steady volume of work, reducing pressure to constantly look for new painters, roofers, carpenters and others.

“We’ve been able to attract a lot of family businesses who have stayed with us over the years,” he says. “ ey’ve found ways to scale with us, and a lot of them only work for us. It’s a luxury for them because they don’t have to do business development.”

Northway’s goal is to “never have a dead day” in which construction slows or stops because of various snafus. “Our subcontractors o en joke with us that they are on top of each other because of how we schedule,” Mojdehi says.

Most Northway homebuyers tend to be former apartment dwellers whose monthly mortgage outlay equates to Charlotte’s pricey, in ating rental rates. “Our customers enjoy having a backyard, and they want to build equity and actually own something,” he adds.

Because neither founder had much building experience, they have leaned heavily on their construction head, John Hardisty, who was a longtime family friend and an experienced contractor. Having two owners with di erent, complementary skills has also been important. Hirschberg oversees operations, while Mojdehi is the strategist and deal guy.

“Daniel is just a great operator. I’m risk on, he’s risk o , but we get to the right place,” Mojdehi says. “We make every decision together and we have a healthy debate every day. We need

Source: National Association of Home Builders

Higher interest rates and a more sluggish economy are slowing the rst-time home buyer market, prompting Northway to reduce prices and o er increased incentives. e company has started its own mortgage company and is expanding outside of Mecklenburg County, where it does about 80% of its business, down from 95% a few years back.

“It’s been a lot of fun to work in a great environment with a hardworking, competitive group of people,” Mojdehi says. “ e majority of our homes are the most a ordable available on the market. It’s been fun to deliver as many homes as we have.”

Homes in Northway's Echo Glen at Hidden Valley development are priced for about $380,000 to $400,000.

consensus before we make a decision.”

The Backbone of Our State’s Economy

On behalf of Ward and Smith, P.A., we are honored to sponsor Business North Carolina’s annual BNC 125, recognizing the state’s largest and most influential private companies.

For decades, Ward and Smith has been North Carolina’s established legal network, serving the unique needs of private businesses across our state. From our offices spanning the coast to the mountains in Asheville, Greenville, New Bern, Raleigh and Wilmington, we understand that privately held companies face distinct challenges that require a deep understanding of North Carolina’s business landscape.

The companies featured in this year’s BNC 125 represent the backbone of our state’s economy: family-owned enterprises, closely held corporations, and private equity-backed businesses that drive innovation, create jobs, and build communities. These organizations require legal counsel that appreciates their entrepreneurial spirit, complex ownership structures, and long-term vision.

We are proud to celebrate these remarkable North Carolina companies and the entrepreneurs who lead them. Their success strengthens our state’s economy and exemplifies the innovation and determination that make North Carolina a premier destination for business.

Whether navigating complex mergers and acquisitions, structuring business relationships, managing regulatory compliance, or planning for business succession, Ward and Smith delivers the reliability, responsiveness, and strategic insight that private enterprises demand.

North Carolina’s Power of 10:

A MISSION-DRIVEN EXPANSION FROM MOUNTAINS TO COAST

In a year marked by growth, connection, and forward momentum, DMJPS PLLC (DMJPS) proudly celebrates our deepening roots across North Carolina by expanding our presence into the Charlotte metro area.

As a North Carolina-born CPA and advisory firm, our footprint now spans 10 offices statewide, from the mountains to the coast — a powerful testament to our mission:

“DMJPS empowers through expertise, delivering personalized, proactive solutions that build trust, drive innovation, and inspire our people, clients, and communities to Be Greater.”

As proud sponsors of Business North Carolina’s Top 125 Private Companies, we recognize and celebrate the integral role privately held businesses play in our state’s thriving economy. Whether you’re in agriculture in the east, manufacturing in the Piedmont, or hospitality in the mountains, DMJPS is committed to your success — and we’re here to help you Be Greater.

Built for North Carolina Business

With offices in Greensboro, Asheville, Boone, Concord, Durham, Marion, Monroe, Mooresville, Sanford and Wilmington, DMJPS offers a seamless network of more than 200 professionals equipped with advanced technology and specialized industry knowledge. We serve a wide array of sectors — from real estate and professional services to healthcare, nonprofit, and closely held companies — providing tax, assurance, and strategic advisory solutions built for growth.

Clients work with us because we deliver more than answers — we build lasting partnerships rooted in trust and reliability. Whether you’re navigating a merger, planning an exit strategy, or scaling your operations, DMJPS is the strategic business partner that works for you and with you.

From Growth Comes Greater Purpose

At DMJPS, growth is not just about numbers — it’s about purpose. As we plant deeper roots from the North Carolina mountains to the coast, we remain grounded in our values to best serve North Carolina’s dynamic business community.

Our mission isn’t just a statement — it’s a promise to: Be Greater. Learn more about our mission, team and services at dmjps.com

BNC2025

TOP PRIVATE COMPANIES

By David Mildenberg and Robert Speir

Public companies tend to dominate the headlines, but middle-market enterprises make up the core of North Carolina’s business community. e annual BNC 125 list continues a decades-old tradition of highlighting the biggest private employers based in the state.

is year’s list cites 59 enterprises with annual revenue topping $300 million, including 30 that top $1 billion.

e goal is to make the list more comprehensive every year, although we unintentionally miss some businesses. Tips are always appreciated, and we’ll keep looking.

Most companies on the BNC 125 list provide revenue and employment information. For the others, we conduct

research through public sources to develop estimates. Trade publications with deep expertise in speci c industries are key data sources.

Newcomers this year include building products distributor Cornerstone Building Brands of Cary; construction services contractor Crete United of Charlotte; transportation broker Odyssey Logistics of Charlotte; and medical services provider Lumexa Imaging of Raleigh.

Each of those four companies is controlled by private-equity companies, while many others on the list are closely held organizations, including many family-owned operations.

Many thanks to the contributors to this report.

$1 BILLION AND MORE

31 Clancy & Theys Construction

$300 MILLION TO $499 MILLION

$150 MILLION TO $299 MILLION

KEY UPDATES

Changes at some BNC125 Top Private Companies during the past year.

2 Epic Games

e games company won a decisive court victory over Google in late July, meaning its games store for Android users will be available on the Google Play store, CEO Tim Sweeney said on July 31. Epic rst led its lawsuit against Google in 2020, with a jury and trial judge saying Google needs to open its store to rivals. Google is expected to appeal. Epic doesn’t share information about its nances or operations, but is believed to employ more than 5,000 people. Its estimated valuation was $31.5 billion in 2022, Reuters reported.

4 Cornerstone Building Brands

e Cary-based manufacturer of windows, siding and other building products named Gunner Smith as CEO in August. He had worked for Owens Corning for 17 years. He succeeded Rose Lee, who resigned in March a er heading the company since 2021. Cornerstone was acquired by New York-based private equity rm Clayton Dubilier & Rice for $5.8 billion in 2022.

14 Bojangles

Private-equity owners Durational Capital Management and Jordan Company are shopping the restaurant chain, seeking a $1.5 billion sale, e Wall Street Journal reported in June. Franchised chicken restaurants are hot, with more consumers opting for the protein over beef. e chain has expanded aggressively under CEO Jose Armario, and operates more than 830 restaurants in 20 states. at compares with about 600 units in 12 states in 2019.

23 Variety Wholesalers

CEO Art Pope studied the Big Lots chain for decades, then pounced when the business went into bankruptcy reorganization. In April, Raleigh-based Variety took over 219 Big Lots stores and has gradually reopened the locations with remodeled stores, lots of closeout deals and new merchandise categories including apparel and electronics, says CEO Lisa Seigies. Variety promptly ended Big Lots’ ecommerce website, focusing purely on brick-and-mortar retailing.

47 Window World

e North Wilkesboro-based franchise company operates more than 220 locations and says it is the largest U.S. replacement window company with sales of more than 1 million windows annually. It was formed in 1995. CEO Tammy Whitworth has orchestrated more than $19 million of donations to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital over the past 12 years, the company says.

Hoyle, lead its based transactions Partners. since Charlotte

69 Quality Restaurant Group

e newcomer to the Private 125 operates about 350 quick-service restaurants across about 15 states. e Greensboro company was formed by Matt Ailey and Matt Slaine in 2017 with its brands including Arby’s, Moe’s, Pizza Hut and Sonic. Matt Zeiger, a former executive with Yum! Brands and Fleet Feet, succeeded Slaine as CEO in 2021.

Plan this summer. W.P. Baker formed the business in downtown Raleigh in 1915. It now operates in eight states and employs more than 1,000 people, making it one of the largest roo ng contractors nationally. Leadership isn’t changing as a result of the corporate change. Mark Lee has been president since 2010, having joined the company in 1998. e move rewards its workforce and “ensures the company’s core values endure for generations to come,” according to a press release.

90 Landmark Builders

e Winston-Salem-based general contractor is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and now has other o ces in Charlotte, Columbia and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Paul Stephens, a civil engineering graduate of NC State, started Landmark in 1975 and led the business for more than 30 years. Randy Elliott was named president in early 2024. In April, the company said it established an Employee Stock Ownership Plan that will provide equity to all employees.

Renewables

projects faces a more challenging future the budget bill passed by Congress reduced various incentive for alternative energy development. In July, solar energy trade reported that Pine Gate had laid o about 15% of its sta , or than 50 people. e company,

utility-scale a er programs publications more which was formed in 2016 declined comment, citing the privacy of its employees.

105 Mt. Olive Pickle Company

In a very big dill for downtown Mount Olive, the company opened a museum and merchandise store, the Pickle Parlor, in June. An “immersive, Mt. Olive Pickle-themed experience” is promised. When CEO Bobby Frye joined the company 44 years ago, it sold pickles in three states and was outsold by rival Vlasic by 30 times. “Now we outsell them by $140 million” and operate in 50 states, he told the Mount Olive Tribune. e company will reach 100 years in business next year.

July, comply regional Japan. its its sector-speci c mandates. It has more than 120 customers. Overall, Pendo has six data centers in the U.S., Europe and It employs more than 750 people and has 10,000 companies using platform to make soware more e ective and easier to use, according to website.

DIVING DEEP

A Charlotte construction services conglomerate excels under a CEO with unusual skills.

By David Mildenberg

Crete United, a new entry on the Private 125, owns more than 40 commercial HVAC, electrical, plumbing, building automation and other companies that CEO Mike Cox says have a core mission of “making every building healthier.” Four of the companies are based in North Carolina.

Crete was cofounded by Frank Zhang and Jake Sloane, both Harvard MBAs who had worked on Wall Street. They previously cofounded Alliance Animal Health, a veterinary service company based in Stamford, Connecticut.

In 2022, Charlotte’s Ridgemont Equity Partners bought majority control of Crete and helped accelerate growth to more than $1 billion in annual revenue and 4,000 workers. That same year, they also recruited Cox as CEO. He had most recently led Texasbased Bilfinger North America, which maintains offshore oil and gas projects.

Cox is an unconventional boss. The Charleston, South Carolina, native didn’t get adequate grades during his freshman year at the University of South Carolina. So he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, spending 16 years there, mostly as an underwater construction diver. It prepared him for a strong construction industry career.

He also earned an undergraduate degree from St. Leo’s University near Tampa, Florida, a master’s degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from The Citadel. This interview was edited for clarity.

You have an interesting military service history. How did that fit in your life?

I went to college, and I didn’t understand the importance of attendance, so I le Actually they told me to leave. But I went to the Navy and got my head on straight, then went back to school. I learned a lot about accountability and leadership. I grew up in the military. I was mostly in a specialized unit and that molded my leadership style.

When I joined the military, I went to California to work on the USS Flint. I was on a ship for a year, then I went to the Navy diving program and then I spent 10 years on the underwater construction team. We did underwater construction and demolitions all over the world. Our 15-man squad was among only about 150 divers in the entire Navy.

We did just what it sounds like. We built cable. We blew things up on the water. We repaired things in both combat and non-combat situations. It was pretty interesting, a special forces or special operations-type role.

Did it help you get into the construction industry later?

I was trained as a construction electrician, but I can’t wire a light. at was one of the jobs they had, so I picked it and it sounded attractive to me.

I can’t do basic electrical work, but I can wire C4 (explosive), and I can walk on the bottom of the ocean, and do those kinds of things. I’ve had some close calls and I’ve been pretty deep, 300feet plus. I think I’ve walked on the bottom of the ocean in every main body of water in the world. ey’re not resort locations.

I look back sometimes and say, man, I don’t know how I’m here. ere have been some hairy moments.

Did this experience aid your civilian career?

When I was in the Navy, I had a choice. I could go to door number one and go be a Navy SEAL. Or I could go to door number two and go to the underwater construction team. e training is very similar.

I had met a guy, who said, “If you become a SEAL, what are you going to do with that post career? But if you go to the underwater construction team, there are jobs to be had in the construction industry when you get out.” He was absolutely correct.

at’s how I got into this world, because I could easily transfer my knowledge.

Is Crete a classic rollup strategy?

I think it started that way for sure, absolutely. ere are a lot of good businesses built that way. I would say two years ago, it was a classic rollup. Today, it’s much di erent.

I like to use the phrase, ‘We’re not a bag of marbles, we’re a bowling ball.’ ere’s a big di erence being that we’re fully integrated. ese 42-plus companies share in a common strategy or common thread.

Have most of those 42 owners stuck around?

We want them to stay. I’m guessing here, but 90% are still running their company. e other 10% elected to retire or take a back seat. e owners are still running the company and we’re just guiding it.

Is it hard for those owners to give up some control, because they’ve been doing the same thing for many years?

It’s incredibly di cult, and we’re super sympathetic to it. ey go from being owners to partners. ey have to kind of work as a team, so we’re looking for special people with a right mindset. We actually turn down more deals than we do because we are looking for the right mentality of a person or character that wants to come in and see the bigger picture and say, “I’ve taken my business as far as I can take it. With backing and support, I can break through and get to the next level.”

Are you buying successful companies or also turnarounds?

Most of them are growing and some are showing double-digit growth. We like successful businesses with really good leaders.

Are baby boomer owners retiring, creating M&A opportunities?

e reason a lot of people sell to us is because they don’t have a second generation or third generation to run the business. ey also have a great commitment to their employees and want to see the business go forward and continue to scale, and they want to have a voice in how that happens. We give them that strong voice.

How do you make sure they have a continued voice?

Our deal structures are just unique, and kind of a secret weapon. We don’t mute their voice or minimize their involvement.

None of these are cookie-cutter. ey’re all di erent, but we try to weave in what we call three strategic threads that we need to wind through every business, while maintaining their original identity. We love service-based businesses, we love cross-selling and we love working directly with owners, not through self-contracting. ose are three things that we can get traction behind.

How has Ridgemont’s ownership affected Crete?

You couldn’t ask for a better private equity sponsor. Instead of saying “We want you to be a traditional rollup,” they leaned into our strategy and said, “this is unique, the right strategy and we will back you.” at really says a lot because a lot of private equity people wouldn’t take that chance. It’s working out. How we’ve built Crete is largely because of teamwork with Ridgemont and their commitment to the state of North Carolina and Charlotte.

HVAC and energy efficiency companies are highly prized. Is that sustainable?

It’s very sustainable. Even with the new administration probably not doubling down on energy e ciencies, like the former administration, it’s still top of mind for a lot of companies. A lot of our larger customers really see the value of sustainability

and how we want to connect the energy e ciency and operating systems of their buildings. If they get it, it’s a pretty direct correlation to better health and better environments for their employees, but also cost savings.

Are reduced subsidies because of Trump administration policies affecting business?

For some of the larger companies like Wells Fargo or Bank of America, it’s not such a big deal. Maybe for some smaller entities, they might have some reservations because some of the [subsidies] aren’t there any longer. But for the most part, most of our customers are doing it because it’s the right thing to do to reduce energy costs. ey o en can prolong the life of their buildings and save money at the same time. And if there are subsidies, great,

So energy efficiency remains critical? ere’s a lot of education that needs to happen for a lot of folks on energy e ciency. We all think about it in terms of emissions from cars. But buildings put o between 35% and 40% of greenhouse gas in your city today. So if you get all the buildings more e cient, you actually have a bigger impact than switching to electrical vehicles. It’s not hard, you just have to be deliberate.

Media reports earlier this year said that Ridgemont was considering selling Crete. Did that affect business?

I think this is the worst time to sell a business, especially in the rst quarter this year, because of higher interest rates and other uncertainties. We know we have a really good business, and when the time is right, we’ll explore that option. But the time is just not right for us today. We’re well ahead of our schedule, and our strategies work. No one’s pressing to do it tomorrow.

What is the most fun part of your work?

As CEO, you know, you have to be a strategy person, and I love it. I let the team run the day-today of the business. I’m trying to be six months out in front, looking for the next opportunity, both from an M&A or your market expansion. And I like to spend time with our partners. is is a business of blue-collar people who have just built really good small companies.

If you just take your time, even if you are the CEO, there’s an education to be had. Absolutely every time I go, I learn something. We can build on that. Big companies can start getting too big for their britches. As long as we keep it humble and local, we’ll be in good shape.

Have you been pleased with having the company based in Charlotte?

I lived in Charlotte for nine years before I moved to Houston. e culture, the talent, the economy, it’s second to none. When we’ve recruited people to come to Charlotte, there have been no reservations. People want to move to Charlotte. It has a great reputation. ■

Mike Cox, CEO

Wall Wizardry

National Gypsum’s quiet style belies its major role in U.S.

construction.

By David Mildenberg

In the decade before C.D. “Dick” Spangler Jr. bought National Gypsum in 1995 for today’s equivalent of $2.5 billion, the wallboard company was in the business news pages for most of a decade.

In the mid-1980s, the company was among the early, oldline industrial businesses to undertake a leveraged buyout, with management teaming with Lafarge, a French company. e 1986 deal occurred two years before the RJR Nabisco buyout that changed the future of Winston-Salem.

e National Gypsum LBO sounded wise for a short period, until wallboard sales fell o the cli . U.S. housing starts plummeted 44% between 1986 and 1991. e debt-heavy business lurched into a bankruptcy reorganization in late 1990. It wasn’t fun for investors or employees, with cumulative losses topping $700 million during the three years under court direction. But the realignment period enabled new leadership to create a more focused business.

By 1993, Spangler and other shrewd investors realized a strong rebound was possible at National Gypsum as construction picked back up. A er the company returned to the public stock market, a spirited takeover battle ensued, and Spangler won control in May 1995. at year also marked his 10th year as president of the UNC System.

Fortunately, this is National Gypsum’s 100th anniversary year, so Nelson agreed to a rare interview to share some insights on the company’s history and performance over the past 30 years.

While speci c details are scant, it’s obvious that Nelson has been busy, and his long-term investment strategy has proven e ective.

“[Dick Spangler] loved the company and believed it made an important, essential product that you use every day,” Nelson says. “So his investment rm bought the company with a clear mandate to invest for the long term. He wanted to make sure we are prioritizing innovation and talent. And we capitalized on what has been a great period since the early 2000s.”

C..D. .”Dick” Spangler Jr.

Almost immediately, the headlines stopped. For three decades, folks outside the wallboard industry have heard very little from National Gypsum. e low pro le re ects the style of Spangler and Tom Nelson, who succeeded his father-in-law as CEO in 1999. While many closely held companies prefer their privacy, National Gypsum excels at keeping on the down low.

Peter Browning, who was National Gypsum’s CEO for three years during its bankruptcy reorganization, praises Spangler’s vision at a time when others saw a stodgy commodity enterprise. “What he saw was an extraordinary business with great assets in place, and operating in a highly cyclical industry, but still able to compete through good times and bad.”

He also saw the fundamental importance of wallboard.

It’s among the few products that is used in all types of construction, including both new construction and remodeling of residential and commercial properties and manufactured housing, Nelson notes.

An early Gold Bond wallboard advertisement.

Wallboard started becoming an essential product early in the 20th century when the mixture of a mineral called gypsum, newsprint and starch started replacing plaster as a superior way of making interior walls and ceilings. Among the early pioneers was Melvin Baker, who joined Joseph Haggerty and Clarence

Williams in forming the company near Bu alo, New York, in 1925. Baker would go on to lead National Gypsum for 40 years, including taking it public in 1937 and overseeing a diversi ed building products business that once employed more than 13,000 people.

Its historic rival has been Chicago-based U.S. Gypsum, which was created through the merger of many smaller companies in 1902. For decades, it dominated the wallboard market, but it gradually lost market share to competitors, including the feisty Bu alo-based group.

Like National Gypsum, U.S. Gypsum had a run through bankruptcy court, having also taken on massive debt in the mid-1980s to avoid a hostile takeover. It got help from Warren Bu ett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, which converted a loan into a 31% equity stake in 2001. e company emerged from court protection ve years later. Bu ett held on until 2019, when the world’s largest gypsum company, Germany’s Knauf Group, bought U.S. Gypsum for $7 billion. e world’s most famed investor later called the holding a “disappointment” and derided the company’s directors for “not doing their jobs.”

With USG now foreign-owned, National Gypsum is the largest U.S. wallboard manufacturer, Nelson says, declining to share other details. USG had revenue of $3.3 billion in 2018, its last year as a public company.

But it’s clear that National Gypsum has moved aggressively since 1995, defying the notion that newly private companies don’t reinvest much money.

“A lot of capital has gone back into the business,” he says. e company has made “big capital investments that will be around for generations if we do it right.”

C.D. Spangler Jr., who died in 2018 at age 86, was perhaps best known for leading the UNC System for 11 years, and for those interested in business, as the largest shareholder of the predecessors of Bank of America. He was a critical behind-thescenes force during the years in which Hugh McColl Jr. built the Charlotte-based megabank.

But the Spangler family’s roots were in contracting, with Spangler’s father starting his business in the 1930s. For many

The CEO’s story

Tom Nelson is among Charlotte’s most prominent civic leaders. He is vice chair of the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, whose members include CEOs of many key employers. He’s a director and past board chair of Advocate Health, which is the owner of Atrium Health, the Queen City’s largest employer. Before joining National Gypsum in 1995, he worked for Morgan Stanley and in the venture capital industry. In 1992, he was one of 15 people selected as a White House Fellow, serving as Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Special Projects. e Chicago-area native earned a bachelor’s degree at Stanford University and an MBA at Harvard Business School. He and his wife, Anna Spangler Nelson, have two adult daughters.

Tom Nelson, in the white shirt, joined National Gypsum colleagues at a Habitat for Humanity building site in Charlotte.

Tom Nelson

Dick Spangler’s father started a construction company in the 1930s.

years, Spangler Construction had an o ce in south Charlotte that was next door to National Gypsum’s local sales o ce.

Indeed, the family and National Gypsum had a relationship long before the 1995 acquisition. In 1955, Spangler’s father appeared in a Saturday Evening Post ad, testifying that National Gypsum’s wallboard was a superior building material.

National Gypsum timeline

In 1978, the company moved the main o ce of its key brand, Gold Bond, from Bu alo to Charlotte, marking an early, important corporate relocation for the Queen City. e main headquarters later also moved from Bu alo to Dallas, but company leadership shi ed to Charlotte when Browning was named CEO.

Private ownership has been an advantage, says Nelson. “We’ve been able to invest for the long term and been free from thinking about quarterly performance.” Nelson has plenty of boardroom experience, serving as a director of publicly traded Yum! Brands, the Louisville, Kentucky-based company that owns Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, and Bechtel, the San Francisco construction business that is one of the world’s largest private companies.

Since the family bought National Gypsum, it has added new wallboard plants in Mount Holly in Gaston County; Tampa, Florida; Shippingport, Pennsylvania; and Eloy, Arizona. e latter site opened earlier this year and is the company’s largest facility,

A 1955 Saturday Evening Post ad featured C.D. Spangler Sr.

enabling expansion in the western U.S. Again, National Gypsum doesn’t disclose its investment in plants. But for perspective, Georgia-Paci c said it spent $325 million for a wallboard plant that opened in Sweetwater, Texas, in 2023.

National Gypsum has also established several plants that produce so-called “joint compound” and “cement board” under the ProForm and PermaBase brands, Nelson says. Joint compound is used for nishing drywall, while cement board is o en used in wet areas such as bathrooms or kitchens.

Overall, the company operates more than 40 plants in the U.S. and Canada and employs more than 3,000 people. Revenue is in the billions; anything closer than that is a guess. Asked about overseas expansion, Nelson says he has plenty of remaining opportunities in North America.

Innovation is a vital issue for any business, including centuryold wallboard rms. It operates a research center in Charlotte that includes several Ph.D. scientists and technicians who work on issues including re, sound and air quality.

For creativity, National Gypsum may be best known for its Purple line of mold- and moisture-resistant wallboard products used for interior areas. In 2012, the company scored the rare feat of gaining a building product trademark for a color. Purple has been “very e ective” for National Gypsum, Nelson says, without elaborating.

A stable senior leadership team also suggests the company’s success. Its top managers have a cumulative 250 years of experience at National Gypsum, with many having worked there for 20-plus years. Earlier this year, John Mixson was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating o cer. He started as a strategic planning director in 1999. Other key executives include CFO Lori Hudson, Chief Information O cer Chuck McMinn and Corporate Counsel Laura Budzichowski.

Looking ahead, National Gypsum expects to bene t from more housing starting in the coming years. “We underbuilt new residential [property] as a country for a decade,” Nelson says. “I think there will be a big unlock on that because there are a lot of people in their early 30s who are hitting their principal rst-time buyer age. ey are forming households and tending to get married later … but they have the same aspiration to live in their own home.”

While the lack of a ordable housing is a major national issue, “We made it through a lot of other cycles and I’m con dent things will play out well here,” Nelson says. “I think we have some great tailwinds here.”

Since leaving National Gypsum, former CEO Browning has had lots of contact with the company as a director of home improvement retailer Lowe’s and Atlanta-based Gypsum Management & Supply, a distributor of building materials that is being acquired by Home Depot for $4.3 billion.

“Tom has done a helluva job leading that business. Morale is high and they’ve invested in the business even when things were so er in the economy,” Browning says. “A er sitting on the board of their biggest customer (GMS), I can assure you they are highly regarded.”

Beyond capital investments and product innovations, National Gypsum has also instilled a winning spirit, he adds. “ ey haven’t had signi cant executive turnover, which they would have had if they had problems with their culture. ey have done great things for that business.”

Asked what the fun of the work is for him, Nelson’s answer is simple. “It’s our people and their deep sense of pride. I’m reminded it’s our people behind the product and they keep us moving forward and keep me coming back every day.” ■

National Gypsum’s headquarters is in Charlotte’s SoutPark business district.

An Unexpected Fight

Dialing back federal funding strikes the Triangle’s acclaimed research complex.

By Mike MacMillan

When the wrecking ball known as DOGE (the Department of Government E ciency) began its run through the federal bureaucracy earlier this year, it was inevitable that North Carolina would nd itself in its path. With a multiplicity of nonpro ts and federally funded university research organizations, the Triangle region looked especially vulnerable. And so it has proven to be.

It has never been hard to nd tales of government waste, as Ronald Reagan demonstrated many decades ago. But the plural of anecdote is not data; that some money is wasted does not make all spending pointless. In North Carolina and elsewhere, federal monies have underwritten countless innovations in healthcare and technology and improved the lives of millions of people around the world.

A short list of world-changing innovations developed in the Triangle would include Taxol, the most widely prescribed cancer drug of all time, discovered at Research Triangle Institute, or RTI, one of RTP’s foundational companies, which also developed the technology behind wind shear detection; 3D ultrasound, introduced by researchers at Duke University; the “big data” revolution, ushered in by SAS; the UPC barcode, created by IBM researchers working at RTP; and Burroughs Wellcome’s development of the first effective treatment for HIV/Aids, for which the inventors received the Nobel Prize.

Much of the culture that fostered that innovation is now under threat, says Peter Colcanis, an economic historian who has taught at UNC Chapel Hill since 1996. “It’s been one of our great successes, this working together of government and the universities that has made the U.S. the envy of the world. The real blow (from the cuts) is to our R&D infrastructure and the research ecosystem the U.S. has been building since World War II. He (Trump) responded to some real problems, but the instruments used were too blunt.”

Research Triangle Institute has seen 174 federally funded projects terminated as of early June, or about 34% of its backlog. It has cut around a third of its workforce, or 2,000 people, including 355 in North Carolina. It now has around 3,800 employees worldwide, with 1,885 based in the state.

Durham-based FHI360, a global nonprofit focused on healthcare, announced in April that it would lay off 483 workers, including 144 in North Carolina. Grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, accounted for more than 65% of its portfolio in 2024.

Duke and UNC Chapel Hill have taken major hits to funding as well. UNC has seen federal funding terminated for 115 projects so far, with total grants down about $126 million. In July, UNC announced $70 million in cuts, or about 2% of its operating budget.

Duke has had at least 28 National Institutes of Health grants canceled worth about $96 million, according to the Duke Chronicle. In July, Duke said nearly 600 employees had accepted a buyout, and that “involuntary staff reductions” were likely on the way. The Durham university employed about 48,000 people in 2024.

“Most balanced assessments would say there are some issues that need to be addressed,” Colcanis notes. “There are legitimate differences of opinion on (issues like) indirect costs — were they too large or used in the proper manner? USAID has sometimes been out of its lane.”

But, he contends the administration’s approach, was misguided. “Reform would have been better than what we’re seeing.”

Adds Dan Gross, an associate professor at Duke’s Fuqua School and Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, “This is not just collateral damage. This

is a fundamental change in perspective and approach to the government’s role in the innovation sector. We’re going through a substantial experiment right now in what federal innovation and immigration policy does to local and national economic and health outcomes.”

Not everyone forecasts doom and gloom. Gerald Cohen, chief economist at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise in Chapel Hill, says, “There’s so much uncertainty over who’s spending or not spending what, what actually is being cut, and what are the downstream implications of that.

“I don’t want to be sounding five alarm bells because it’s hard to know how things will end up. I don’t think it (the Triangle) will stop being an attractive place. We’re still going to graduate these great students, we still have all these underlying investments that have been made. (But) the tailwind is smaller,” Cohen says.

Research Triangle Institute CEO Tim Gabel, speaking at a July forum sponsored by The Assembly news service, said that the current cutbacks are “sort of a typical business cycle.” The nonprofit made layoffs of a similar magnitude early in the Reagan administration in 1980-81, he noted.

In an email response to a question, Gabel said, “We’ve been actively diversifying (away from the federal government) for years and that has helped us in recent months.” He joined RTI in 1983 and has been CEO since 2022.

Federal contracts accounted for about 80% of RTI's revenue for the past seven years. Gabel cites defense as an area of opportunity, suggesting that breaking RTI’s dependence on government funding may be hard. Like others, RTI expects major benefits from more use of AI.

UNC System President Peter Hans, speaking about pressure on research spending, has said North Carolina is dealing effectively with a “populist backlash” against elite universities.

He noted in July that state lawmakers have boosted recurring spending for the system by 32% over the past five years, and have not raised in-state tuition for nine years.

▲ Tim Gabel

The overhead question

Further debate is occurring about what are called facilities and administration expenses, or F&A. is refers to the cost of the infrastructure needed to conduct research, including resources such as facilities, computing, safety and compliance, administration support and libraries. At UNC, the current F&A rate is 55%, meaning 55 cents of every dollar spent is needed to fund “indirect” costs. At Duke, the number is around 61%; at Harvard, 69%.

Duke’s Gross suggests that the e ective F&A rate is actually around 35-40%. “ ere’s a lot of misunderstanding about indirect cost recovery in science funding. In practice, Duke and most universities are actually collecting around 40 cents on the dollar, not 60 cents,” he says, noting that there are some direct costs on which overhead can’t be collected. Further, the administrative component of F&A rates has been capped at 26% since 1991. Now, federal agencies are proposing capping F&A expenses at 15%. Industry participants are discussing how to better manage these costs, and to provide better transparency. e likely result is that F&A rates will be coming down.

Global talent pool

Beyond funding cuts, other policy changes could threaten the region’s long-term health, with e orts to curb immigration topping the list.

e Kenan Institute’s Cohen notes that, “ e U.S. bene ted from the brain drain in Europe in the 1930s.” Now, the nation is in danger of reversing gains that accrued in the country over the ensuing decades. “If we are discouraging people from coming (to the U.S.) to get their degrees or staying a er they graduate, that’s bad,” he says. “Immigration is an important aspect of the knowledge economy.”

Colcanis adds, “One thing I don’t think you can overestimate is the shock to the area that will come from the potential loss of international researchers and students. A large part of our research, publications and reputation rests on our international talent. e

U.S. is 4% of the world’s population. Assuming talent is distributed evenly, you have to draw people from around the world to play at the highest levels,” he says, noting that both of UNC’s Nobel Prize winning professors were immigrants (Oliver Smithies, from England, and Aziz Sancar, a native of Turkey, both received the prize in chemistry).

Across the U.S., foreign born individuals account for 45% of doctorates in the science, technology and math disciplines, according to Gross. “Immigrants and children of immigrants are over-represented in science,” he says.

So far, UNC System o cials have not cited a signi cant decline in enrollment by foreign students. Details on this fall’s student count weren’t available at press time.

"I don't think [the Triangle] will stop being an attractive place. We’re still going to graduate these great students, we still have all these underlying investments that have been made. (But) the tailwind is smaller,”

– Gerald Cohen

Tech-driven growth

In January, before DOGE cuts took e ect, the Kenan Institute and Fi h ird Bank released the Empowering American Cities report, forecasting GDP growth rates for 150 economic areas across the U.S. e Triangle ranked as the country’s fourth-fastest growing “extended metropolitan area” with growth for 2025 pegged at 3.1%, versus 4.1% the prior year. Much of that growth is attributed to biotechnology and technology, as well as the area’s ability to attract and retain talent. More recently, the growth rate for Raleigh/Durham has been marked down to 2.3%, anticipating the impact of tari s and reduced federal funding. Conversely, the forecast for employment growth has increased from 0.2% at the start of the year to 0.7% in July.

Johnston and Chatham counties in the Triangle region are bene ting from pharmaceutical and other high-tech manufacturing facilities. at has provided support for other projects. Housing is a major bene ciary, with multiple major developments throughout the region, including Disney’s plan for a 4,000-home community on the banks of the Haw River near Pittsboro.

Restaurants and other service providers are similarly dependent on an expanding work force. e impact of slowing growth and a potential decline of migration would ripple through the local economies. As Cohen says, “ ese jobs have signi cant multiplier e ects.”

▲ Gerald Cohen, The Kenan Institute

Owning the IP

e commercialization of academic research has been central to the Triangle’s growth. Passage of the Bayh-Dole Act by Congress in 1980 kickstarted the innovation economy, with the law allowing universities and nonpro ts to retain ownership of inventions and patents developed with the aid of federal funds. Previously, the rights to this intellectual property had generally been retained by the government.

“As a result of this Act, IP created at universities could be considered the property of the university and the people who developed the patent rather than the federal government,” says Colcanis. “ is totally incentivized researchers to try and commercialize their work.”

At the same time, these engines of innovation were increasingly powered by federal funds. In 2015, Duke and UNC collectively received about $542 million from the National Institutes of Health. By 2024, the number was $1.1 billion. e 4th Congressional District, which includes Durham, Orange, Granville, and part of Wake counties, has been the fourth-largest recipient of USAID funds among the 435 U.S. congressional districts. RTP and environs ranks ninth for life sciences funding from the NIH. Total federal funding at UNC rose from about $570 million in 2014 to nearly $800 million in 2024.

e soaring federal support created a new set of vulnerabilities. “One could argue that [RTI and FHI360] had an unbalanced portfolio,” Colcanis says. “In hindsight, (there was) too much reliance on federal funds.” A 2012 Business North Carolina article reported on how RTI was trying to reduce its reliance on federal funds.

Adds Gross, “Whenever you have a large share of your revenue tied up in a single exposure, (you) would be exposed to the risk that customers take their business elsewhere or that demand contracts for unexpected reasons.”

But, he adds, the government sector is a little di erent. “ ere’s long been an expectation of predictability. ere’s been an implicit contract in place since the end of World War II that the federal government is going to fund research that we think will deliver bene ts and largely leave (the universities) to do their science. e compact was predicated on the idea that science is good for the nation. at compact has now been disrupted.”

Expecting private funding to ll the research funding gap le by the DOGE cuts draws skepticism. “I hope that’s true, but a large body of evidence speaks to the contrary,” Gross says.

Companies tend to shy away from investing in fundamental research, which has generally been the domain of governments.

Sixty percent of university research is federally funded, with 6% funded by industry and another 6% by foundations, with the rest coming from institutional sources. Private funding would have to increase 10 times to replace federal funding.

e $190 billion of cuts cited by DOGE as of June involves a rounding error against $6.75 trillion in federal spending in scal year 2024. But the impact on the region’s R&D infrastructure is likely to be disproportionately large.

As Coclanis says, “Our innovation ecosystem is going to be compromised by these cuts to universities and ancillary programs. ( ey are) small in a relative sense, but they will impede our ability to grow going forward.”■

Sandhills Community College has a stated mission of “providing the highest quality education to all we serve.”

Although the mission statement is simple and elegant, the service we provide is multi-faceted. It touches nearly all parts of our community in the present while helping to build its future. Community colleges have never been more important. I often say Sandhills is increasingly the first choice in higher education for students and families in our region.

The cost of four-year colleges and universities has risen dramatically. An increased need for skilled trades, and high demand for careers in health care, construction, and logistics, are driving those choices. At SCC, this “first choice” has manifested in enrollment increases each semester. We now serve more than 11,500 students annually across all programs. Growth isn’t just about numbers; it’s a reflection of the trust our communities place in us and continued relevance of the programs we offer.

There is no “average” community college student. Over 68 percent are part-time students who balance family, a job, and life. Some are dual-enrolled high school students. Many are first-generation college students, veterans, or adults upskilling or seeking a new career. I am proud of the ways we serve these students, treating each one as an individual.

A clear focus on the student generates more successful educational and economic outcomes. SCC students persist or graduate with the first year at a rate seven percent higher than the state average for community colleges. This is due to the dedicated work of the exceptional SCC faculty and staff – it is a culture of care for our students.

The college has a renewed effort to forge partnerships in the community which will benefit our business partners and students. Programs to develop apprenticeships, internships, career services, intellectually and developmentally disabled (IDD) services, customized workforce training and the Small Business Center are synthesized to our internal program research and reviews. An emphasis on being enmeshed within our communities ensures our programs are relevant, intentional, and provide more student opportunities and economic development for the region. Partnerships are the cornerstone for these opportunities. SCC has developed a new Grow Moore Teachers scholarship program and pathway with Moore County Schools and UNC Pembroke. There are multiple transfer pathways with UNC system schools. There are customized training agreements with local businesses, such as Spiritus and Hamilton Beach, and the only apprenticeship of its kind for Automotive Collision, Repair and Refinishing on the East Coast with Enterprise. New apprenticeship programs have commenced with FirstHealth and the USGA Turf Management program.

These are just a few examples of how Sandhills Community College is anything but an insular academic institution: instead, it’s a vibrant, participating and leading part of our community.

This fall, we welcomed the first freshman class of the Moore Innovative High School, which is unique in the state because of its focus on skilled trades and is opening just two years after a $25 million appropriation from the General Assembly. The vision is clear: an accelerated, focused and opportunity-driven high school experience right here on our campus.

SCC has incredible community support for its students and programs. The SCC Foundation is one of the most successful and largest of its kind in the nation. It is truly amazing and humbling to see the investment of time, talent, and treasure people will make for our students and the college.

County commissioners in Hoke have committed to a shared future of growth with SCC as a partner, and in Moore the Board of Commissioners has dedicated a greater share of tax dollars to the upkeep of the physical plant.

In addition, the General Assembly has made the largest single appropriation in the college’s history. As the legislative chair for the N.C. Community College Presidents’ Association, I can attest to the goodwill and importance our state places on community colleges.

For all these reasons, and many more, I am humbled, dedicated and, above all, optimistic for our shared future. Our region is on the cusp of tremendous growth. I believe Sandhills Community College will be right in the thick of that growth — facilitating it, equipping our people to take advantage of it, nurturing it, and in some cases leading it.

Dr. Alexander “Sandy” Stewart President of Sandhills Community College

Bill

are the architects designing Pinehurst No. 11. The Pinehurst Resort golf course is expected to open in 2027.

IN DEMAND

Moore County is a popular place, and not only with those taking a swing at its legendary golf courses. It’s adding residents and growing businesses, too.

It has been a busy 12 months for Moore County Economic Development Partnership, which announced more than $138 million in capital investments. There was Reliance Packaging’s $7.5 million expansion in Aberdeen, the $100 million Uwharrie Motorsports Park and Resort, which covers 400 acres near Robbins, where OA Defense is building a 30,000-squarefoot factory, and Amazon’s 65,000-square-foot center at Southern Pines Corporate Park.

Growth is the name of Moore County’s game. Sandhills Community College is answering the call for more people certified in welding, plumbing, electrical, HVAC and advanced manufacturing. Moore County

Airport, which handled 1,800 flights the week of last year’s U.S. Open golf championship at Pinehurst Resort, is eyeing a return of commercial flights. A 2023 study found the airport’s annual economic impact is more than $130 million, up from $90 million in 2019.

There is more golf, too. Work on Pinehurst No. 11 is expected to start this fall and be completed by 2027. Its designers, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, are the golf course architects behind the most-recent renovation of famed Pinehurst No. 2, which was designed by Donald Ross. The county already boasts 40 courses in a 15-mile radius.

Tourism is escalating, evidenced by the more than 250,000

directed the most-recent renovation of its

visitors who came for the recent U.S. Open. It seems everybody wants Moore. And that’s creating plenty of opportunities and a few challenges.

Golf course architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have history with Pinehurst Resort. They

famed No. 2 course.

Coore, along with Ben Crenshaw,

HOUSING

Moore County’s population of 108,417 is expected to swell to more than 147,000 by 2040 and 170,000 by 2050, according to N.C. Office of State Budget and Management. That puts housing in demand. “We’re an attractive place to live,” says Natalie Hawkins, who was named Moore County Economic Development Partnership president in 2021 after a 20-year stint with the village of Pinehurst. “We are in our high-growth rate, and the growth we’ve seen in the last few years is the basics of economics — high demand and low supply. We have

to figure out a way to get more supply and make it easier and less costly for developers to construct housing.”

A 2024 Bowen National Research report revealed Moore County faces a housing inventory gap of 7,724 units — 1,916 rentals and 5,808 for sale — between 2024 and 2029. The number of households is expected to increase 2% — 1,824 — by 2028, making Moore the Carolina Core’s third fastest-growing county.

According to a report commissioned by NC Chamber Foundation, North Carolina Home Builders Association and NC Realtors, addressing the housing gap could generate $489 billion in

economic activity and nearly 2.2 million jobs. “We’re looking for highquality development that’s consistent with the character we have now,” Hawkins says. “So, the point is, if we have this community, they need services. They need healthcare and pharmacies and grocery stores, and we have to find the workers to support the needs of those residents. And in order to recruit people to work in our restaurants and hotels and have our nurses and our police officers to maintain our safe community, those are the workers who are having a hard time finding an affordable place to live. We cannot benefit our community by saying, ‘You can work here but you can’t live here.’”

Clockwise from upper left, Moore County Economic Development Partnership President Natalie Hawkins says new and affordable housing is needed to meet the county’s growing population. A mixed-use development in Southern Pines will feature dozens of condominiums above retail space. Southern Pines Town Manager Reagan Parsons, pictured with his wife, Linda, says the town’s recently updated comprehensive long-range plan addresses housing and development needs. Pinehurst Surgical Clinic and FirstHealth of the Carolinas are partnering on an orthopedic surgery clinic in Southern Pines, which will have two operating rooms and four procedure rooms.

Southern Pines addressed housing issues in its recently updated comprehensive long-range plan.

“Southern Pines is a role model for other communities, not only in Moore County but across the state, in how they’re investigating and identifying solutions to address the need for housing that’s attainable,” Hawkins says. “They put a task force together that has been phenomenal in identifying regulatory solutions, knowing that it alone isn’t going to solve the problem, but it’s going to make it easier.”

Southern Pine’s plan points out the realities of a growing population. “[The plan] recognized the forthcoming shortage of living units and the increasing difficulty for individuals and families earning local wages to find housing in Southern Pines and its immediate

surroundings,” Southern Pines Town Manager Reagan Parsons says. “The planning team went about inviting individuals from all aspects of the development process — land planners, realtors, homebuilders, bankers, etc. — to the table to discuss ways in which the local government might be less of an impediment to the decision to build while still maintaining a Southern Pines standard and feel. The group has been working together to determine ways in which a target number of units within an accessible price range might get developed on an annual basis moving forward.”

Parsons says Southern Pines, like much of Moore County, welcomes development, and several largescale multifamily developments are in various stages of construction. “A surgery center representing a joint

effort between Pinehurst Surgical and FirstHealth as part of the Morganton Medical Complex is under Phase I construction,” he says. Pinehurstbased FirstHealth of the Carolinas has four hospitals, including Moore Regional, and specialty offices across a 15-county region. It was named to Forbes’ 2025 America’s Best Employers list.

Development is happening elsewhere, too. “A number of restaurants have begun construction in the Tyler’s Ridge/ACE Hardware area near the community college and airport, and any number of small commercial sites are in various stages of application and review townwide,” Parsons says. “Even with its growth trajectory, Southern Pines remains a community with a wide variety and balance of residential, commercial, office and service opportunities.”

WORKFORCE

Moore County was one of the few North Carolina counties without a Cooperative and Innovative High School, also known as Early College. That changed when Moore Innovative High School opened, welcoming an inaugural class of 70 freshman, last year, says Ashlee Ciccone, its principal. “Moore County was granted a legislative appropriation to open a CIHS as a partnership between Moore County Schools and Sandhills Community College,” she says.

The appropriation carried a requirement: focused vocational pathways. “While all pathways at

Sandhills Community College are available to our MIHS students, focused pathways will be an area of exploration based on identified local needs,” Ciccone says. “These focus pathways include Architecture/Engineering/ Construction, Education, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Information Technology. Work in focused pathways begins in the junior year of high school based on individual student interests.”

The Pinehurst school’s mission and beliefs statement reflect its ambition of affiliating with local workforce needs: “Develop the knowledge and skills necessary to secure workforce certifications and specialized career training to meet the needs of a growing

community. Empower students by providing personalized support, real world experience, and a focus on entrepreneurism.”

Ciccone says MISH is prepared to carry out its mission. “At Moore Innovative High School, we believe in the power of hands-on learning, strong partnerships and personalized pathways to success,” she says. “Our unique approach connects the high school experience directly to real-world opportunities, including career training, college credit and meaningful experiences that prepare our Red Wolves for life beyond graduation. Here, all students are challenged to think critically, collaborate effectively and grow into the best version of themselves.”

Moore Innovative High School Principal Ashlee Ciccone meets with students at the school, left, which opened last year. Ciccone, pictured with Moore County Schools Superintendent Tim Locklair, says the school offers focused vocational pathways, which prepare students for careers pertinent to the local economy.

TRANSPORTATION

Moore County Airport’s roots stretch back to 1929, when the Tufts family, who established Pinehurst Resort, plowed a dirt runway in Carthage. After several name changes, it took its current moniker in 1980 and began offering commercial service to and from Charlotte through CCAir-USAir Express in 1991. While commercial service ended in 2002, an N.C. Department of Transportation Division of Aviation report says the airport supports 590 jobs, generating almost $36.4 million in personal income and $4.2 million in state and local taxes.

Phil Werz, president and CEO of Convention & Visitors Bureau for the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area, says Moore County Airport’s classification may change in response to the county’s growth and success of its golf and tourism industries. “The Moore County Economic Development Partnership is also signaling the return of commercial flight service back to the Pinehurst area,” he says. “This is

a major opportunity for additional growth from air passengers accessing the area by plane, not just by car, in the coming years.”

Moore County Airport Director Rick Cloutier presented a proposal to commercialize the airport to the CVB in June. A two-year NCDOT study found that commercialization could stimulate car rentals, restaurants, hotels and attractions by $300 million. “[The airport] does not have a specific proposal from an airline at this time,” he says.

Cloutier says the airport’s runway and taxiway facilities are adequate for commercialization. “Most of our runway rehab projects were completed in 2024,” he says. “We are currently working on a runway safety area project that will increase the available length of the runway without extending the current pavement. The airport is self-sufficient on itself when it comes to funding operations. The airport does not receive any local tax dollars or, for that matter, even the federal funds we receive for airport improvements come from the Airport Improvement Program of the FAA. These funds come from fees on airline tickets purchased, not general fund tax dollars.”

Commercialization would require some changes. “We would have to do some temporary terminal expansion and some upgrades to our emergency equipment to support commercial service,” Cloutier says. Funding would be mostly federal and state grants with a match from airport funds.

NCDOT is upgrading Moore County roads, too. “According to DOT, these projects constitute the largest single complex of highway expansion in the state of North Carolina,” Werz says. “Many highways are expected to be expanded to four lanes to accommodate increased visitor traffic and be mostly completed in time for the 2029 U.S. Open.”

Phil Werz, president and CEO of Convention & Visitors Bureau for the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area, says commercial aviation service would bring more visitors to Moore County, creating opportunities for additional growth.

Rick Cloutier, Moore County Airport director, says a terminal expansion and additional safety equipment would be needed to welcome back commercial aviation to the airport, a move that is being discussed.

INDUSTRY

Moore County’s top industries include retail, manufacturing, healthcare and defense. Its proximity to Fort Bragg and the state’s other military installations helped local businesses secure more than $25 million in Department of Defense contracts in 2023.

Moore County EDP lists tactical gear manufacturer Spiritus Systems, consultant K2 Solutions, specialized vehicle-maker Growler Manufacturing and Engineering, and Telum Protection, which offers specialized equipment and intelligence solutions, as local members of the defense industry. OA Defense says its new factory in Robbins will help the company keep pace with demand and allow for future growth.

“We are excited to join the ranks of other prestigious manufacturers in North Carolina and to expand our team and our capabilities at our new Moore County headquarters,” said David Wollman, company co-founder and vice president, in a press release.

Retail is Moore County’s third-largest industry. Its 2024 taxable sales totaled more than $2.46 billion, mainly supported by walkable downtowns, varied dining options and craft breweries. Morganton Park South, a 266,000-square-foot upscale shopping center adjacent to a 269-unit high-end apartment complex in Southern Pines, is the latest addition. “There is a little something for everyone when you look at Moore County as a whole,” Parsons says.

Parsons says the region’s momentum is based on unity of industry, education, recreation

and lifestyle. Southern Pines is an example. “Citizen input and future planning with intent have created a welcoming atmosphere for those desiring to invest in, and become

part of, the local community in a manner that augments it rather than takes from it,” he says. ■ Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

MONEYBALL

Tourism dollars roll into Moore County thanks to its golf courses, tournaments and amenities.

Moore County counted a record $900 million in visitor spending in fiscal year 2024-2025, which ended June 30, says Phil Werz, president and CEO of Convention & Visitors Bureau for the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area. Its 40 golf courses and associated amenities play a big part in making “The Home of American Golf” the state’s 10th-largest tourism economy.

In turn, the CVB recorded one of its best years for occupancy-tax collections, totaling $3.8 million. A big boost came from the U.S. Open, which

was played at Pinehurst Resort and drew more than 250,000 visitors. “The destination is still reaping the benefits of the momentum created by the enormously successful and historic 2024 U.S. Open,” he says.

The U.S. Open returns in 2029 for a double dip with the men’s and women’s championships to be played in consecutive weeks on the same course, Pinehurst No. 2, for the first time since 2014. That repeat performance will feature plenty of debuts, including accommodations, amenities, transportation options and a golf course.

“Overall, the destination is poised for continued tourism growth for the next several years,” Werz says. “While a golf-driven economy, the CVB markets the area to attract a diverse visitor base, which enjoys non-golf pursuits such as the vibrant and local dining scene, ability to stroll quaint and charming downtown shopping areas, proximity to Seagrove potters, and an abundance of outdoor pursuits with miles of hiking and biking trails throughout Moore County.”

Bryson DeChambeau won the 2024 U.S. Open golf championship. It was his second U.S. Open title. The tournament will return to Pinehurst Resort in 2029..

Southern Pines offers visitors more than golf. Its downtown is filled with shops and restaurants.

Pinehurst Resort, which opened its Pinehurst No. 10 course in Aberdeen in April 2024, recently announced plans to build Pinehurst No. 11.

“It will be shaped by renowned golf course architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw with anticipated opening in the fall of 2027,” Werz says. “The resort completed a full renovation of the historic Carolina Hotel and also opened up a new series of luxury cottages at Pinehurst No. 8. Not to be outdone, the owners of Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club and Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club announced plans in June 2025 for a $47 million joint venture with Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts to completely renovate the lodging and improve select services at both properties.”

them available to the public at a reasonable price.”

A key industry event occurred in mid-July when The Country Club of Whispering Pines and Foxfire Country Club were acquired by Rolling Pines, a new management group within its parent company, Mid Pines Development Group. Kelly Miller, managing partner of the new ownership group, is also president and CEO of Ross Resorts, which owns the Pine Needles and Mid Pines clubs. “The Sandhills area is growing, North Carolina is growing, and Raleigh, Sanford and Fort Bragg seem to be getting closer and closer to us,” he said in a story published by Golf Wire. “There has been very little new golf built in Moore County in the last 20 years. This is a chance to polish some classic golf courses from outstanding designers and make

In March, Moore County Commissioners unanimously approved a hotel-occupancy tax increase, upping it to the state maximum of 6% from 3%. “This will essentially double the CVB budget and allow for the CVB to have more dollars for marketing and for tourism product development,” Werz says. “That increase will take effect on Jan. 1, 2026.”

Aberdeen will welcome a Courtyard by Marriott in late November. It’s owned by Southern Pines-based McPeake Hotels, which owns a Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn and TownePlace Suites nearby. The company may add a Home2Suites extended-stay hotel, but owner Bonnie McPeake says that project is on the back burner as the company moves forward with plans for a boutique hotel — Tapestry by Hilton — on Broad Street in downtown Southern Pines. “We’re in the early stages, and we still have to get the drawing from Hilton, and we’ll get their approval,” she says. “The architect is working with the town now. The property will be designed to fit in with Southern Pines, and we hope to have the front look like the early 1900s.”

The Tapestry hotel is slated to have 100 rooms, a rooftop bar, spa, restaurant and 12 retail spaces. “Once we break ground, it will take about two years,” says McPeake, whose son, company President Samuel A. McPeake II, and daughter, Vice President Christa Gilder, are assisting with its development. “This will be the most upscale hotel I’ve ever done, and the one I’m most excited about.”

McPeake Hotels owner Bonnie McPeake, pictured with its president, Sammy McPeake, and general manager, David Byers, says the company is developing a Tapestry by Hilton hotel in downtown Southern Pines.

A new course, designed by Bill Coore and fellow architect Ben Crenshaw, and a full renovation of the historic Carolina Hotel, highlight a number of improvements at Pinehurst Resort.

Golf in Moore County isn’t only for adults. First Tee – Sandhills combines a life-skills curriculum and golf instruction for children and teens in Moore, Lee, Harnett, Cumberland, Hoke, Robeson, Scotland, Richmond and Montgomery counties. “Our mission is to impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character and instill life-enhancing values through the game of golf,” says Executive Director Courtney Stiles. “We do this by combining mentorship with accessible programming and outstanding curriculum, creating active learning experiences that build perseverance, confidence and resilience.”

In December, First Tee – Sandhills purchased 34 acres along U.S. 1 in Cameron. “We are currently pinning the space The Hub, because we envision it as a place where we will develop our programming and opportunities and then push out into the Sandhills community,” Stiles says. “Resources and opportunities will constantly be moving in and out of The Hub. Plus, everything we do today will remain the same, and the opportunities we will develop at the permanent site will only expand and enhance for all.”

Stiles says The Hub will have year-round programming, field trips for its 67 Title I School partners, and a workforce development program for teens and young adults. It will have a driving range, putting green, short game area and 9 hole short

course. There also will be a community pavilion, administrative offices, teen tech lab and walking trails. “We have projected that once all five phases of the project construction are complete, the facility will provide access to up to 10,000 guests annually, including up to three days a week that we will be open to the public,” she says.

Operating costs are about $400 per child per year, and charges range from $30 to $125 per participant. “It is our mission that no child is ever turned away due to ability to pay,” Stiles says, adding that many current participants are on scholarship and use loaner equipment. “Bringing this vision to life is going to pay out dividends for the future of the communities we serve. I strongly believe this.”

More golf and more attractions add up to more visitors. “Tourism in Moore County continues to grow at a vigorous and steady pace, bolstered by a record-setting demand for golf in an area that is globally recognized by the sport,” Werz says.

Werz says the N.C. Department of Transportation has several Moore County projects underway to handle increased traffic. “According to DOT, these projects constitute the largest single complex of highway expansion in the state of North Carolina,” he says. “Many highways are expected to be expanded to four lanes to accommodate increased visitor traffic and be mostly completed in time for the 2029 U.S. Open.”■

Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.

First Tee - Sandhills recently purchased 34 acres in Cameron, where it offers programming through The Hub. It will have a driving range, putting green, short game area and nine-hole short course.

CHARLOTTE’S PEARL

Global businesses and medical students launch a district expected to spark innovation.

Atrium Health’s $1.5 billion innovation district, known as The Pearl, welcomed its inaugural class to Wake Forest School of Medicine in July.

Created in partnership with Baltimore-based Wexford Science and Technology, The Pearl’s first two buildings connect medical training with research, and should generate 5,500 on-site jobs over the next 15 years, says Atrium Health CEO Eugene Woods.

The first phase creates about 700,000 square feet of space, about a mile from Atrium’s 874-bed Carolinas Medical Center. The 14-story medical school is expected to reach an annual class size of 100 students, shedding Charlotte’s distinction as the largest U.S. city without a medical school. The 10-story building includes a research center and the North American headquarters of France-based IRCAD, a surgical training facility expected to train 7,000-plus surgeons annually.

Construction by Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner and Charlotte-based RJ Leeper began in early 2023. Future plans call for apartments, a hotel and a restaurant.

The Pearl is on the edge of the once-thriving Brooklyn neighborhood, a mostly African-American community displaced by redevelopment efforts in the 1960s and 1970s. ■

Kevin Ellis