Greater Charlotte Biz 2005.12

Stewart Cooper Newell • Agility Recovery Solutions • Southern Elevator • Hood Hargett Breakfast Club

december 2005

Catherine P. (Cathy) Bessant Global Marketing Executive Bank of America

LoftyGoals in Action Bank of America’s Global Reach Begins at Home

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Bank of America – Global Marketing Cathy Bessant, Bank of America’s global marketing executive, sets higher standards for herself as well as the bank, as she talks about her job reinforcing the global reach of the bank’s marketing activities and the “Higher Standards” branding theme. Those activities range from local to national to international civic responsibilities – involvement in ever ything from the Charlotte Chamber to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to NASCAR to baseball to the Olympics. That’s global!

16 Stewart • Cooper • Newell

Although never intending to become specialized, this small architectural firm has gained a national reputation for its work on judicial, law enforcement and fire department projects. Focusing on directly serving clients for the last 34 years, it has designed over 130 facilities across North and South Carolina and the United States.

28 Southern Elevator Group Taking this company from an elevator manufacturer to the largest regional elevator service and repair company in the Carolinas, was no small feat. The genius was not simply cutting out the costs involved in manufacturing, but rather building the face-to-face contact with customers by providing service, repair and modernization.

32 Agility Recovery

departments publisher’s post

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employers biz

6

Legislative and Regulatory Highlights for Area Employers

on top

8

workforce biz

14

CPCC... Promises Made. Promises Kept.

executive homes

25

Luxury Homes above $500,000

biz resource guide

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Solutions

The core of Agility’s service is deceptively simple:They help businesses get back on their feet by providing recovery planning assistance in advance, and then mobile offices, satellite voice and internet capability, power generation, IT hardware, and consulting as necessary during a crisis.The concept is simple, the logistics complicated.

december 2005

38 Hood Hargett

Breakfast Club America Eight times a year business owners in Charlotte gather for what might be characterized as a large coffee klatsch, providing a wake up call to networking new business opportunities. Business members, their customers, employees and guests network with each other, while having breakfast and being entertained by an informative speaker.

on the cover: Cathy Bessant, Global Marketing Executive, Bank of America, standing in the lobby of the Hearst Tower the newest edition to Charlotte’s skyline.

Photography by Wayne Morris.

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(Seated) Andrew Chambers, Mike Monk; (Standing) Lat Williams and Tar Reid of Scott Insurance

Scott Insurance: Over 140 Years of Results “By focusing on safety improvements, loss prevention and claims management, Scott actually lowered our dependence on insurance.” – Charlie Tew, Southern Pump & Tank “We’ve been with a large national broker. After being with Scott Insurance, we now realize we’re with the best. Their innovative and proactive services are the best we’ve ever come across.” – Sheila Williams, B&B Contracting “Scott Insurance has done a great job of further educating us on key issues, especially Workers’ Comp. Their comprehensive approach to our risk management is helping MGM Transport take control of the future and be a better company.”

– Ross Windsor, MGM Transport

Find out how you can benefit from the knowledge and service that have made Scott an exceptional Insurance firm since 1864.

Call Andrew Chambers, Mike Monk, Lat Williams or Tar Reid in Charlotte at (704) 556-1341.

INSURANCE, BENEFITS, BONDS AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE

CAPTIVE INSURANCE DOMICILES IN BERMUDA AND GRAND CAYMAN

scottins.com

[publisher’spost] The Kalamazoo Promise... How about one for Charlotte?

Have you heard about “The Kalamazoo Promise”? It is an amazing commitment by an anonymous donor base to provide students graduating from the Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS) the opportunity to attend post-secondary education with up to 100 percent of their tuition and fees paid. All students who graduate from KPS, who reside within the school district and have been students within the KPS schools for four or more years, are eligible for the scholarship for the four years following their graduating date (unless interrupted for military service), and remain eligible as long as they successfully complete at least 12 hours each semester. The scholarships are available for attendance at any public Michigan state university or community college.

So why is this being offered to Kalamazoo students? According to the program donors, for the following reasons: • First, education is an important key to financial well being.

• Second, it allows KPS to differentiate itself from other public and private school systems.

• Third, it provides a real meaningful and tangible opportunity for all students.

• And fourth, The Kalamazoo Promise will create opportunities for individuals who attend KPS and their current and future families. It follows – and studies have shown – that there is a strong correlation between overall academic achievement and a community’s economic vitality and quality of life.

The program is designed to provide maximum benefit to long-term attendees, to encourage families to make early decisions to enroll their students in Kalamazoo Public Schools and to maintain that enrollment through graduation. The group of anonymous donors sees this as a means of promoting economic development.

Randy Eberts, executive director of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, says a scholarship program on this scale “has to be unprecedented,” adding that the program has “far-reaching implications” for the entire region. “This is going directly into the pockets of residents and it involves an activity that will benefit the entire community,” he continues, “This isn’t trickle down. It’s trickle up.”

“This will result in national attention that’s going to put Kalamazoo in a very positive light,” Eberts says. “People are going to say that this is a community that really values education and that’s serious about having a quality work force. … This is such a boon for the region.”

The mayor, Robert Jones, echoes these sentiments: “This represents a tremendous opportunity for every kid to go to college without any excuses. For the city, well, it sets the city apart. We really have something now that gives us a competitive advantage in attracting business to this area.”

WOW! What an amazing incentive in support of students and residents of that community and a unique vehicle to further economic development!!

Kalamazoo Public Schools serves over 10,500 students in 2 high schools, 3 middle schools, 16 elementary schools, and 8 magnet schools. Approximately 850 teachers and 1,350 other employees work to meet the needs of their students. According to Superintendent Janice Brown, the district graduates about 500 students a year and about 75 percent to 80 percent go on to college. She estimates the cost of the program will be about $3 million next year, and about $12 million a year by the time four graduating classes are in college. “But as we double our enrollment,” she says to laughter, “that cost would rise to $24 million a year. But we still have a commitment from our donor group. As one of them said to me, ‘Isn’t that the purpose?’”

Ever since court-ordered busing in Kalamazoo, KPS has witnessed an enrollment slide over the past 30 years. Families have moved out of the Kalamazoo school district so that their children could attend suburban and rural districts, attend neighborhood schools and mingle with other students in their socio-economic categories. While that was happening, KPS minority student populations grew substantially and became a majority of the student base.

(continued on page 44)

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December 2005 Volume 6 • Issue 12 Publisher John Paul Galles jgalles@greatercharlottebiz.com

Associate Publisher/Editor Maryl A. Lane maryl.a.lane@greatercharlottebiz.com Creative Director Rebecca G. Fairchild rfairchild@greatercharlottebiz.com Business Development E.Ward Norris wnorris@greatercharlottebiz.com

Account Executives Gary Biernacki gbiernacki@greatercharlottebiz.com

Michelle Killi mkilli@greatercharlottebiz.com Mimi Zelman mzelman@greatercharlottebiz.com

Contributing Editor Susanne Deitzel Contributing Writers Ellison Clary Susanne Deitzel Heather Head Casey Jacobus Contributing Photographer Wayne Morris Galles Communications Group, Inc. 5601 77 Center Drive • Suite 250 Charlotte, NC 28217-0736 704-676-5850 Phone • 704-676-5853 Fax www.greatercharlottebiz.com • Press releases and other news-related information, please fax to the attention of “Editor” or e-mail: editor@greatercharlottebiz.com.

• Editorial or advertising inquiries, please call or fax at the numbers above or e-mail: info@greatercharlottebiz.com.

• Subscription inquiries or change of address, please call or fax at the numbers above or visit our Web site: www.greatercharlottebiz.com. © Copyright 2005 by Galles Communications Group, Inc. All rights reserved.The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable.

However, Galles Communications Group, Inc. makes no warranty to the accuracy or reliability of this information.

Products named in these pages are trade names or trademarks of their respective companies.Views expressed herein are not necessarily those of Greater Charlotte Biz or Galles Communications Group, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher. For reprints call 704-676-5850 x102.

Greater Charlotte Biz (ISSN 1554-6551) is published monthly by Galles Communications Group, Inc., 5601 77 Center Dr., Ste. 250, Charlotte, NC 28217-0736.

Telephone: 704-676-5850. Fax: 704-676-5853. Subscription rate is $24 for one year. Periodicals postage pending at Charlotte, N.C., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Greater Charlotte Biz, 5601 77 Center Dr., Ste. 250, Charlotte, NC 28217-0736.

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Let’s celebrate 8.

Thank you for choosing us as Charlotte’s preferred hospital for the eighth year.

Once again, we at Carolinas Medical Center humbly thank the people of our region for their trust in our expertise and capabilities. By choosing us as your preferred hospital for the eighth year, as designated by the National Research Corporation, we know our hard work, dedication and quest for excellence is appreciated.

Great appreciation also goes out to the hundreds of healthcare professionals at Carolinas Medical Center who make it their goal to provide unrivaled care to their fellow citizens.

Rest assured your trust will always be honored. We spare no expense in securing the talent, technology and expertise required to provide you and your loved ones with the finest healthcare available.

www.carolinashealthcare.org

[employersbiz]

Legislative and Regulatory Highlights for Area Employers

Team Building from a Bird’s Point of View There are a few important lessons about team building one can learn from a flock of geese: •As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an updraft for the bird behind it. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock has a 71 percent greater flight range than a lone bird.

Lesson Learned: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going faster and easier because they are traveling on the strengths each other.

•Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it immediately feels the drag and resistance of flying alone and quickly returns to the group to take advantage of the lifting power from the bird in front of it.

Lesson Learned: If we stay in line with those ahead of where we want to go and are willing to accept their help as well as give it to others, we make it possible for the whole team to function more efficiently.

•When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.

Lesson Learned: Sharing tasks and responsibilities in pursuit of a common goal promotes professional and personal growth and development.

Holiday Gifts May Be Taxable QUESTION: As the holidays are approaching, we are looking for ideas for employee gifts. If we give gift cards or gift certificates, will they be taxable to the employee?

What about bonus checks?

ANSWER: Anything that equates to giving cash must be considered taxable income for the employee. This includes gift cards, gift certificates (even if they cannot be redeemed for cash and can only be used to purchase certain items), and bonus checks. The value of all of these must be included in the employee’s income and are subject to employment taxes.

However, if the employer buys a gift that is not equivalent to cash and gives it to the employee, it is not included in the employee’s income. An example would be if the employer buys $20 boxes of Godiva chocolates and gives them as gifts to the employees: it is not taxable income for the employee. However, if the employer gives Godiva gift certificates to employees, it has to be included as part of the employee’s income. If the employer buys turkeys or hams and distributes them to the employees, it is not considered taxable income. However if the employer gives a gift certificate for a turkey or ham to the

employee, it must be counted as income and is therefore taxable.

Items such as turkeys, hams, chocolates and some entertainment tickets are considered “de minimis” benefits, which is “any property or service you provide to an employee that has so little value that accounting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable” (IRS Publication 15-B, Employer’s Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits, 2005). These gifts must have a low market value and be given infrequently; otherwise, the IRS may question the practice.

The IRS has determined that if an organization pays its employees a specified percentage of their monthly salary as a holiday gift, the gift is paid as a result of the employment relationship and is therefore taxable. It is immaterial that the gift is not paid pursuant to work quality, quantity or tenure. In view of this, a common practice among employers is to “gross up” cash gifts so that the employee gets the full value of the gift. “Grossing up” is an IRS-approved procedure to calculate the gross payment that the employee must receive when the employer pays the employee’s taxes.

(The Management Association of Illinois)

2005/2006 National Wage & Salary Adjustment Survey

The 2005/2006 National Wage & Salary Adjustment Survey is now available. Twentysix employers associations across the nation contributed data to the survey. This survey covers the pay adjustment practices for 4,218

U.S. employers. As economic conditions change, businesses need to know trends in adjusting employee base pay from one year to the next. For more information, please contact Lauren Merritt at 704-522-8011.

also provide coverage for reconstruction of the breast on which the mastectomy has been performed; surgery and reconstruction of the other breast to provide symmetrical appearance; and prosthesis and coverage of physical complications at all stages of the mastectomy.

Many employers choose to make the annual notice a part of their yearly benefit enrollment process. Companies should provide a notice when new participants first

enroll in their group health plan, and an additional reminder notice once per year.

Notices can be included in a summary plan description, summary of material modifications, summary annual report, benefits newsletter, open enrollment materials, or any other written communication about the plan. Enrollment notices should state what the law requires the plan to cover and any deductibles or coinsurance limitations.

(Bureau of National Affairs)

Mastectomy Notice Employers whose group health plan provides medical and surgical benefits for mastectomies should provide an annual notice to plan participants of such coverage under the Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act (WHCRA) of 1998. The law was passed to require employers to include additional benefits that many plans previously did not cover under cosmetic surgery exclusions. Thus companies whose health plans covers mastectomies must

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Avoiding Liability at Holiday Parties Many employers sponsor some type of year-end event where employees gather together for one large social activity. While companies have good intentions when arranging for a social event, there are many issues they must face. Potential pitfalls are wage/hour issues, “host-liability” issues, and social issues. In order to avoid the liability that may occur when alcohol is served at company parties, many employers have a policy that prohibits the use of company funds for the purchase of alcohol. They may have another policy that prohibits supervisors from providing alcohol to their employees. This is to help protect the employer from any suit that may follow a party where alcohol was served. Here is a list of recommendations as outlined by the Compensation Clearinghouse: party. This tends to make employees feel • Hold parties off-site • Since holiday parties tend to be held close to a obligated to attend.

• Do not label the celebration as a recurreligious time for many different organized ring event in order to avoid having religions, try to incorporate symbols of all kinds employees feel as if the party is a regular equally or not at all. benefit or entitlement of employment.

• Make attendance voluntary. Avoid any • Have employees participate in direct or indirect pressure to attend the event. planning and funding the party.

• Do not keep records of people who attend.

• Do not serve alcohol.

• Avoid holding parties during regular • Events should not be held at facilities working hours. that are known to have discriminated • Do not deduct the cost of the party as a against any minority groups represented business expense. in the workforce.

• Do not hand out awards or presents at the If you plan to serve alcohol, then: • Communicate in advance that excessive alcohol consumption will not be tolerated. • Have plenty of nonalcoholic beverages and food on hand. • Stop serving alcohol at a specified time, well before the scheduled end of the party.

• Inform all servers (including caterers) not to serve intoxicated individuals. • Provide alternative transportation. • Do not pay for drinks. • Establish a policy that prohibits alcohol from being consumed on company premises during or after working hours.

Denying WC Benefits If Employee Intoxicated Recently Governor Easley signed legislation intended to reform North Carolina’s workers’ compensation laws. Among the changes adopted is a measure intended to make denial of benefits easier for employees who return a positive postaccident drug or alcohol test. Currently, positive test results can serve as grounds for denial of benefits, but only in cases where the employer can demonstrate that the employee was intoxicated at the time of the accident, and that the accident resulted from such intoxication.

The new law shifts this burden of proof from the employer to the injured employee. If the employee tests positive, the law establishes a rebuttable presumption that the employee was intoxicated at the time of the accident, disqualifying him or her from receiving benefits. The

greater charlotte biz

claimant would have to rebut this presumption through evidence that his or her faculties were not impaired at the time of the accident. Exactly what evidence would meet this test remains unclear.

The General Assembly did not adopt measures in place in some states that automatically disqualify claimants from workers’ compensation benefits in the event of a positive test.

However, this new legislation provides employers with a useful tool for discouraging workplace drug or alcohol use, and for managing workers’ compensation losses. The law should convince more employers to adopt mandatory post-accident testing, and to communicate to employees the consequences of a positive post-accident test. (Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP)

2005 and 2006 Holiday Surveys

The Employers Association 2005 and 2006 Holiday Surveys indicate how local area companies will observe the upcoming holidays that fall over weekends. Of the 281 survey respondents, 43.8 percent will observe Christmas Eve on Friday, December 23, 2005; 77.9 percent of respondents will observe Christmas Day on Monday, December, 26, 2005; 17.8 percent of respondents will observe New Years’ Eve on Friday, December 30, 2005; and 89.7 percent will observe New Year’s Day on Monday, January 2, 2006.

WC Ruling Favors Employers The North Carolina Supreme Court recently ruled that an injured Wal-Mart employee in Winston-Salem must prove that she continues to be disabled – rather than having the company prove that the employee is now able to work. In this case, a legitimately injured employee received workers’ compensation payments for a number of years. However, the company later questioned whether the employee was still disabled and tried to stop the payments. The company tried for five years.

The North Carolina Industrial Commission and the N.C. Court of Appeals both ruled that she could continue to receive compensation. However, the N.C. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, said the burden was on the employee to prove that she could not work. The lower courts must now review their findings based on the shifting of the burden of proof. biz The Employers Association is a nonprofit Charlotte organization providing comprehensive human resources and training services. Founded in 1958, the Association maintains a broadbased membership of over 700 companies from all industries in the greater Charlotte region.

The above excerpts were taken from The Management Report, the Association’s monthly newsletter. For more information, please call Laura Hampton at 704-522-8011 or visit the Web site at www.employersassoc.com.

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[ontop] Awards & Achievements

Site Selection magazine has named North Carolina as the state with the best business climate for 2005; it is the fourth time in five years the state has received the designation.

North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry and Junior Achievement of the Carolinas, Inc. have named this year’s honorees to the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame as follows: William A.V. Cecil – owner, Biltmore Estate, Asheville; Hugh L. McColl, Jr. – former CEO, Bank of America, Charlotte; W. David Stedmann – former textile executive, entrepreneur, and former NCCBI chair; and Joan Zimmerman – CEO, Southern Shows, Inc., Charlotte.

Grant Thornton and Business North Carolina have announced Grant Thornton’s North Carolina 100 for 2005, an annual ranking of the state’s largest privately held companies. Charlotte-based Baker & Taylor, a wholesale distributor of books and valueadded services to libraries and bookstores, and Charlotte-based National Gypsum Company, the second largest producer of gypsum wallboard, are listed number three and five respectively.

Advertising & Media

The 2005 Business Marketing Association of the Carolinas has announced the following awards in the ProAd Competition: the Best of Show to Strickland & Company; Best of NC to SELMARQ; the Best of SC to Virtual Connect Technologies, Inc. Other gold award winners include: A3 Design, Wray Ward Laseter, Vantage Point, Inc., SELMARQ and Walker Marketing, Advertising & PR. Moonlight Design Group Inc. has received one silver and two bronze ProAd Awards.

RED F, a strategic marketing company, has received an ECHO Award from the Direct Marketing Association.

PRSA Charlotte has awarded Carol Hughes, chief executive officer of Carol Hughes

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[ontop] Mecklenburg County's Crisis Assistance Ministry, the Pegasus Award, recognizing superior knowledge and use of public relations skills.

Wray Ward Laseter, a creative marketing communications firm, has named Larry Spada as interactive account manager, promoted Amanda Williams to public relations senior Larry Spada account manager, and hired Ashleigh Lockhart as public relations account manager.

Business and Professional

CBIZ Benefits & Insurance Services, Inc., has been ranked as the number one benefits specialist for the fourth year in a row by Business Insurance magazine.

The Mecklenburg County Bar has recognized Julius L. Chambers for a distinguished career of exemplary professionalism with its second annual Ayscue Professionalism Award.

Mason Alexander, managing partner of the Mason Alexander Kate Shook Charlotte office of labor law firm Fisher & Phillips, LLP, has been recognized in the 2006 edition of The Best Lawyers In America. Attorney Kate Shook has also joined the firm.

Debra Foster, a partner with the law firm Essex Richards, P.A., has been appointed chair of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Estate Planning and Fiduciary Law Section.

Carpenter, Cammack & Associates, Inc. has promoted B.J. Finnerty to assistant vice president at the firm’s Charlotte office.

The professional service firm of LarsonAllen has hired Anna Vernon and Brandon Martin to its health care group; Kevin Bill has joined the company’s commercial services group; and Tera Robinson has been hired as a client service assistant.

Patrick Hall has joined Crumley & Associates as a social security disability attorney.

Summa Allan & Additon has changed

greater charlotte biz

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[ontop] its name to reflect the contributions of partner Rich Additon, and the firm has added Paul Pedigo to its team.

Sarah Motley has joined Womble Carlyle's Charlotte office in the business litigation area of practice.

Poyner & Spruill has added Brian A. Hayles as an associate in the litigation practice group of the firm’s Charlotte office; Robert B. Meyer has been named of counsel to the firm’s Charlotte office.

Construction & Design

Gifts • Home Accents • Holiday Items • Vera Bradley • Stationery • Lamps • Mirrors Artwork • Fitz & Floyd • Children’s Items • Handbags • Accent Pillows • Boxes

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Garden Accents • Chandeliers • Tablecloths • Wine Accessories • Party Napkins

BLACKLION GIFT CARD MAKES THE PERFECT GIFT!

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Jewelry • Egyptian Cotton Sheets • Furniture • Florals • Ceramics • Christopher Radko

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Area homebuilder, Saussy Burbank, has been ranked third in the J.D. Power & Associates 2005 annual customer satisfaction survey for the Charlotte market. The homebuilder also earned three medals in the 2005 Parade of Homes.

Jodie Bolewitz has joined Builder Services, Inc. (BSI) as marketing director.

The Salins Group, a Charlotte custom home builder and remodelers, has Jodie Bolewitz named Chris Inglehart as project manager.

Education/Staffing

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte has named Toni Marsh director of the Paralegal Studies Program in the Office of Continuing Education, Extension and Summer Programs.

Toni Marsh Gaston College has received a grant of $28,948 from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Engineering

Mulkey Engineers & Consultants has ranked among the best employers of civil engineering firms nationwide according to CE News, a leading trade magazine.

Electrical engineer David Daignault has joined Charlotte Engineers, LLP. David Daignault

Financial & Insurance

The board of directors of First Bancorp

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[ontop] has named Anna Hollers as chief operating officer of First Bancorp and First Bank, the company’s principal banking subsidiary, and Jerry L. Ocheltree president of First Bank.

Charlotte-based Bank of Commerce (proposed) has named Derek Thompson as chief lending officer and senior vice president, Stuart Hester and Ed Mennona, as Derek Thompson vice presidents and commercial banking officers, and Lisa Jameson as assistant vice president and loan operations manager.

Jessica Grogan has joined Hinrichs Flanagan Financial, a MassMutual general agency in Charlotte, as a financial services professional.

Jessica Grogan

Government/Non-Profit Fabi Preslar, owner and creative director of SPARK Enterprises, has been named to the board of directors for the Business Marketing Fabi Preslar Association (BMA) of the Carolinas. Preslar will serve as vice president of membership for the 2005-2006 term.

Rowan County Chamber of Commerce President Bob Wright has been named the 2005 North Carolina Chamber of Commerce Executive of the Year by the Carolinas Bob Wright Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives.

Tony Marciano of Charlotte Rescue Mission has been honored with delivering the opening prayer at the U.S. Tony Marciano House of Representatives.

The 2006 Mooresville/Lake Norman Relay for Life has announced this year’s first major sponsor is the NASCAR Technical Institute (NTI).

Charles G. (Chuck) Raymond, chairman,

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[ontop] CEO and president of Horizon Lines, has been named Kings Pointer of the Year 2005 by the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Alumni Foundation.

Health Care

Carolinas Medical Center (CMC) has been recognized for the eighth time with a Consumer’s Choice Award from the National Research Corporation.

CEO Inc. has promoted Ingrid Howard as an associate Ingrid Howard of CEO Healthcare.

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Manufacturing

John H. Saunders Jr. has joined Simpson Performance Products, a manufacturer of safety apparel and equipment to the motorsports industry, as vice president of business dev.

Real Estate Commercial/Residential

Colliers Pinkard has announced that Lane Holbert and John Cashion John Cashion Lane Holbert have been elected as vice presidents.

James E. Rogers, an executive with First Colony Capital, LLC, has been inducted into the East Tennessee State University’s College of Business and Technology Hall of Fame for his significant accomplishments in business, technology and public service.

Drew Basinger has joined Builder Services Inc. (BSI) as account manager for Pierce Homes of Carolina.

Retail/Sports/Entertainment

Targeted Golf Solutions has announced the addition of Ed Sehl to its team.

McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant has appointed Chris Karas as the company’s newest regional manager, with Courtney Penhall replacing Karas at the uptown location as general manager.

Humpy Wheeler has celebrated the 30th anniversary of his association with Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

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[ontop] Technology

Peak 10, a data center operator and managed services company, has been ranked 69th in Inc. magazine's annual Inc. 500 ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. Peak 10 has also announced the addition of Churchill Downs Incorporated, which owns and operates world-renowned horse racing venues throughout the United States, to its list of clients.

Tourism & Travel

Three restaurants and six accommodations in Charlotte have earned AAA’s Four Diamond rating for 2006, giving the city the highest concentration of Four Diamond facilities in the state (winners indicating consecutive years won): McNinch House (9); Zebra Restaurant and Wine Bar (3); Bonterra Dining and Wine Room (2); The Park Hotel (17); Hilton Charlotte Center City (9); Omni Charlotte Hotel (5); Ballantyne Resort (3); The Westin Charlotte (2); and The Duke Mansion Historic Inn and Meeting Place (first time).

THE

#1 SOURCE FOR YOUR

HUMAN RESOURCE NEEDS

At The Employers Association, our goal is to provide human resource and training services to build a better business climate. Our services include: • Management Training • Human Resource Classes • Outsourcing of Benefits

• Extensive Wage, Salary and Benefits Surveys • Employee Opinion Surveys

The

EMPLOYERS A S S O C I A T I O N

your trusted resource since 1958 with 750 local member companies

For more info: 704-522-8011

|

www.employersassoc.com

Duke Mansion

The Charlotte Convention Center has been recognized for outstanding service in the meetings industry in MeetingNews magazine, a nationally trade publication.

Mann Travel & Cruises has added Paul Korry to its corporate staff as director of sales.

According to the second annual survey conducted by Carolina Field Trips Magazine, several local attractions have made the list of the state’s Top 25 School Field Trips, including Discovery Place, Paramount’s Carowinds, and Lazy 5 Ranch located in Mooresville. biz To be considered for inclusion, please send your news releases and announcements in the body of an e-mail (only color photos attached) to editor@greatercharlottebiz.com, or fax them to 704-676-5853, or post them to our business address – at least 30 days prior to our publication date.

greater charlotte biz

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[workforcebiz]

Workforce Training and Development

CPCC... Promises made. Promises kept.

Did You Know?

•According to the U.S. Department of Labor, only 22% of the nation’s jobs require a bachelor’s degree or higher, but 75% of the nation’s jobs require training by community or technical colleges.

•Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) is the largest community college in North Carolina, offering 100 degree, diploma, and certification programs, customized corporate training, market-focused continuing education, and special interest classes.

•CPCC is academically, financially and geographically accessible to all citizens of

Mecklenburg County.

•CPCC serves more than 70,000 people on its six campuses.

•Since its founding, CPCC has served more than 1.4 million citizens in Mecklenburg County.

•CPCC has served more than 3,000 businesses through its corporate and continuing education program.

•CPCC offers more than 10,000 different classes each year.

•CPCC is projected to serve more than 105,000 students in the year 2015.

CPCC Of fers

Economic Impact of CPCC on the Community

Central Piedmont Community College continues to be a driving force in this region’s economy. The goal of the college is to be financially accessible to the community and to provide a strong return on investment.

As an institution of higher education, CPCC offers many benefits to the community: •Students benefit from higher earnings as a result of education and training.

impact study done by the North Carolina Community College System, for every $1 spent by students, CPCC provides a cumulative return on investment of $3.90 annually over their working lives. For every dollar invested in CPCC, the community sees a $5.94 return on its investment through expenditures, wages and student financial aid.

The Harris Corporate Training and Conference Center

CPCC’s Financial Performance

For every dollar

•6,000 jobs generated annually •$187,768,332 in annual contribution to local economy through operations and capital spending •$326 million boost to local earnings from workforce training •500% return on investment

invested in CPCC, the community sees a $5.94 return on its investment through expenditures,

CPCC is Financially Accessible

wages and student financial aid.

Investment

Return

•The community-at-large benefits from social cost savings such as reduced unemployment, welfare costs, and incarcerations.

•The community benefits from a unique blend of economic opportunities and other outcomes that have a strong impact such as increased earnings and productivity.

According to CCBenefits, an economic

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•Students classified as North Carolina residents pay $39.50 per credit for courses. The maximum a North Carolina resident would pay is $632 per semester or $1,264 per year.

•Basic Skills, (literacy) including Basic Skills English as a Second Language, classes are free.

•Occupational extension classes typically cost about $60 per class.

•North Carolina residents who are 65 years of age or older can take courses at CPCC for free. Certain exceptions may apply.

More information at www.cpcc.edu.

W

ith the ever-changing needs of today’s workplace, employees must constantly take advantage of ways to enhance their skills. In addition, businesses must be on the cutting edge, offering the latest in professional development. Central Piedmont Community College offers training solutions for business and industry that are customized and affordable. Contract training is delivered to the business and scheduled in a way that best fits the business model.

Training solutions offered by CPCC include: ! Computer Training – CPCC is Mecklenburg County’s largest computer training organization, providing skills and knowledge to nearly 8,000 individuals each year at companies including AT&T, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, Family Dollar, Bell South, and United Auto Workers, among others.

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Solutions for Business and Industry ! Quality and Process Improvement – These courses benefit managers and leaders who work with cross-functional teams to define and measure problems ! Finance and Licensure – Courses in and implement improvements. Courses personal finance strategies, finance for nonsuch as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, financial managers, money management, Process mortgage The corporate and continuing education Improvement, banking, program at CPCC is Mecklenburg County’s only and Decision notary Licensed Official Registered Provider of Making are public training Command Spanish, the nation’s leading provider among the offerings. and more of Spanish training programs for the workplace. ! Technical are availTraining – From Basic Conventional able at the college.

Machining, to Blueprint Reading or ! Health and Safety – CPCC helps Metrology, the corporate and continuing businesses build safety training programs in education program offers practical compliance with North Carolina’s training for hourly workers, frontline Occupational Safety and Health Act supervisors, and managers in technical (OSHA) by offering customized classes and positions. workshops.

In addition to training that takes ! Leadership Development – The place at client facilities, CPCC’s six area hallmark of corporate training at CPCC is campuses the cusare also tomized available to training business solutions partners. As programs a result of that help business businesses community meet their feedback, goals and CPCC objectives. opened the In addition new Harris to leaderCorporate ship and Training team skill and training, Conference programs Center this year. Located near Charlotte include business writing, communication Douglas International airport, the conskills, time and stress management, and 360 ference center is Charlotte’s only degree skills assessment. The corporate and purpose-built executive conference continuing education program at CPCC is facility. In the first four months of operMecklenburg County’s only Licensed Official ation, the conference center welcomed Registered Provider of Command Spanish, more than 4,000 guests, far exceeding the nation’s leading provider of Spanish trainits goal. ing programs for the workplace.

! Employee Wellness – CPCC offers a wide array of wellness courses that add balance and energy to employees at all levels.

greater charlotte biz

Kurt Kottkamp President, Enterprise Security Systems, Inc. CPCC Institute of Entrepreneurship

Student Profile Who Are CPCC Students?

•Individuals served - 70,000+ •Males - 47% •Females - 53% •Full-time curriculum students 35% •Minorities - 47% •Countries represented - 161 •Average age - 33 •40% take college credit courses.

•21% take literacy, adult high school and English as a Second Language courses (adult basic skills).

•39% take job enhancement and certification courses.

•Approximately 25% have earned an associate, bachelor or graduate degree before coming to CPCC. To find out more about corporate and continuing education opportunities at CPCC, call 704.330.4660. For more inormation about the Harris Conference Center, call 704.330.4611 or log on to www.cpcc.edu/hcc. biz This section is intended to highlight workforce training and development programs and initiatives delivered by community colleges within the Charlotte region. Community colleges are invited to submit substantive content ideas to editor@greatercharlottebiz.com.

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15

pictured (l to r): James R. Stumbo, AIA Partner James C. Stewart, AIA Partner Kenneth C. Newell, AIA Partner Stewart • Cooper • Newell • Architects, P. A.

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by Eloise D. Morano

[bizprofile]

ARCHITECTURE NICHE YIELDS SUCCESS Stewart • Cooper • Newell designs its reputation through public safety facilities

J

im Stewart and John Cooper were classmates at Clemson University. After graduating, they worked for a number of years with firms in Charlotte and Atlanta, before deciding to open their own architectural firm in Gastonia.

“At that time there wasn’t a lot of architectural representation in Gaston County,” says Stewart. “We had gotten a wide range of experience working for larger firms and wanted to build a firm that would focus more closely and directly on serving our clients.”

Stewart and Cooper, who is now retired, never intended to become specialized, but over time their small architectural firm has gained a national reputation for its work on judicial, law enforcement and fire department projects.

Over the past 34 years, the firm has designed over 130 fire/EMS stations, fire training campuses, and law enforcement facilities across North and South Carolina and the United States. Several of their designs have won ‘Station Style’ Design Awards from Fire Chief Magazine. More importantly, the firm’s specialized expertise has helped many cities and counties to decrease insurance rates, improve the morale of their firefighters, and provide better protection for their citizens. !

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Drawing up a foundation When Stewart and Cooper hung their shingle on the door of a small building at the corner of Chestnut Street and Second Avenue in 1971, they established the goal of providing excellence in planning, design, and construction administration to their clients, while keeping in mind the client’s budget and schedule.

“Any architect can design an attractive building,” says Newell. “Our goal is to draw a functional plan that meets the needs and budget of our clients.”

During its initial decade, Stewart-CooperNewell concentrated on creating a client base, which over the years, would return to the firm for all of its architectural needs. Repeat customers provided a firm foundation for the company, at one time making up 90 percent of its business.

One of its earliest clients was the city of Gastonia. Stewart-Cooper-Newell did the renovations for several of the city’s fire stations and then designed a new one in the early 1980s.

Not only did this help to build the firm’s reputation as an expert on fire stations, it began a relationship with the city that continues today.

As the city of Gastonia has continued to grow, it has retuned to Stewart-Cooper-Newell to design many of its important buildings. In addition to its eight fire stations, the firm designed Gastonia’s Police Department Headquarters and the city’s Operations Center, a multi-building complex for the public works department.

“One of Stewart-Cooper-Newell’s hallmarks is that they design a very good looking building with an eye for function,” says City Manager Ed Munn. “Not only are their buildings very functional, they are easy on the maintenance

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budget. The firm has served us very well over the last 30 years.”

Gaston County was another client pivotal to the firm’s early success that has also become a frequent customer. Over the years, StewartCooper-Newell has designed Gaston County’s Sheriff’s Office and 424-bed Detention Center, the $25 million Gaston County Courthouse, the $11 million Department of Social Services Building, and two libraries. The firm has also designed the 200,000-square-foot Forrest View High School in the rapidly growing southeast part of the county.

pfeiffer.edu/info

Firm specifications Today Stewart-Cooper-Newell-Architects operates out of an old mill building directly across the street from its original location. It has a second office in Columbia, South Carolina.

With Cooper now retired, the firm is headed by Stewart, the senior partner, Ken Newell and James Stumbo. The firm employs 19 people in both offices.

Newell, 41, joined the firm in 1981. A native of York County, South Carolina, Newell was educated at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State. Jim Stumbo joined the firm in 1999 after getting his degree from the University of Tennessee and working in Hickory, N.C. The three partners share not only the workload, but the same sense of values.

“All three of us are pulling the yoke in the same direction,” says Stumbo. “It is important to me to partner with people who share the same Christian ethics I do.” All three men are

greater charlotte biz

motivated by their love of architecture, their families and their churches. All three men share a love for architectural design.

“Every building that The H. Lawrence Patrick Senior and Conference Center serves as the gatewe design is way into Kings Mountain, N.C. The facility hosts a variety of events including one-of-ahigh school proms and trade association meetings. Stewart Newell Cooper, kind,” says Architects.

Stumbo. “It’s a ing to the final inspection.” very satisfying process to talk with a client, This involvement can sometimes outlast the draw from him his needs and desires, and then life of the design project. Stewart mentions the translate that into a design drawing. There’s phone call he had from a client recently wantnothing like walking through the finished ing to know the manufacturer of the light building.” fixtures used in a building the firm designed The three partners are very much involved over twenty years ago. Stewart, a self-professed in every project the firm undertakes. While “pack rat,” was able to find the information. they each have different areas of expertise and From the very beginning Stewart and each responds to different clients in different Cooper pledged not only to meet their clients’ ways, all three are committed to working needs, but also their employees’ needs. As a closely with the clients and the design team to result the firm has a great track record for keepmake sure every client is satisfied with their ing staff and the turnover rate is very low. project.

“We are only as good as the staff,” says “What makes us a little different from other Stumbo. “They make us or break us. firms is our approach to projects,” says Newell.

Fortunately we have a tremendous office and “We don’t believe in handing projects off to the design staff.” Early on Stewart and Cooper design team and keeping clients in the dark. instituted an excellent health plan for employSince no two projects are exactly alike, we ees, as well as a retirement plan and a profit make every effort to involve our clients in every sharing plan. “Our employees are family,” says! aspect of the design process from the first meet-

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Stewart. “We judge our success by how happy the people are who work here.”

Designing a reputation When Stewart-Cooper-Newell started building fire stations for the city of Gastonia, it never planned on establishing a national reputation in the area of public safety. However, it was their design work in that area that took the firm outside the boundaries of the Carolinas.

Over the past 34 years, the firm has provided architectural and consulting services for fire departments and municipalities in Texas, Kentucky, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Montana, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, as well as North Carolina and South Carolina.

When the city of Sunset Beach on North Carolina’s southern coast recently decided to spend $4 million to renovate the town hall and extend it to make room for new headquarters for the police department and to build a new fire station, it interviewed seven firms and chose Stewart-Cooper-Newell. City administrator Linda Fluegal says, “They’re doing an excellent job for the town.”

In addition to building on their experience

designing fire stations, the architects at Stewart-CooperNewell have also taken the initiative to understand the complexity of designing law enforcement and justice facilities. In years past many archi- City of Rock Hill Fire Department Station No. 5 is the prototype for Station No. 2 and two additional stations that are currently in design. tects saw a law IACP and helped establish the “National Design enforcement project as an office building with and Building Standards.” He is also a member some extra security. In the aftermath of 9-11 of the American Correctional Association and and with rapid changes in the technology of has the firm actively involved with the North law enforcement, much more is required today. and South Carolina Chiefs of Police and “The technology of law enforcement has Sheriff’s Associations, which helps the firm stay changed dramatically in a very short time,” says abreast of the regulations and other code Stumbo. “Police buildings used to have full changes that effect the design of these facilities. photo labs, now everything is digital. Crime Members of the firm attend about twenty labs and support facilities have changed drastitrade shows a year, including the North cally.”

Carolina State Firemen’s Association, the South Stewart is the law enforcement design Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, and the North expert on the team. He is a member of the

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Carolina League of Municipalities. Newell, who has received certification in training centers and burn facilities from the University of Maryland, often speaks or leads workshops at these conferences. He has also published several articles in the Carolina Fire Rescue publication and in the national Fire Chief Magazine.

In 1990 the firm teamed up with Gaston College to begin development of the Gaston College Regional Emergency Services Training Center, a facility that would give professionals, volunteers and students a place to train and refine their skills as firefighters. The facility includes a five-story burn building and drill tower that is the largest in North America at over 20,000 square feet. The interior floors are set up to replicate different fire scenarios and are equipped with burn pads and skids. The bottom floor of the $1.4 million building is designed like the interior of a nuclear reactor

Stewart-Cooper-NewellArchitects, P. A. 719 E. Second Avenue Gastonia, N.C. 28054 Phone: 704-865-3611 Principals: James C. Stewart, AIA, Kenneth C. Newell, AIA, James R. Stumbo, AIA, Partners Headquarters: Charlotte, N.C.; other offices: Columbia, S.C. Employees: 19 Founded: 1971 Business: Providing quality planning, architectural design, and construction administration services; extensive design experience with fire/EMS stations, fire training campuses, and law enforcement facilities.

Awards: Several ‘Station Style’ Design Awards from Fire Chief Magazine: Gold Award for Hilton Head Fire Dept. #7, Silver Award for Denton,Texas Fire Headquarters, Silver Award for Old Richmond Volunteer Fire Department in Tobaccoville, N.C.Also AIA Judicial Merit awards for the Gaston County Courthouse and the Gaston County Sheriff’s Department and Jail.

Clients: Town of Hilton Head Island, Gaston College, BB&T, Salvation Army, Roechling, Clarendon County, S.C., City of Gastonia, N.C., State Highway Patrol,Wake Forest University, First Gaston Bank, University of South Carolina www.scn-architects.com

and is used by energy companies for training.

The commercial burn building designed by Cooper-Stewart-Newell was just the beginning of the relationship with the Training Center.

The firm has worked on a number of associated projects, including the completion of a residential burn building in 2003 and the construction of a 15,000-square-foot office building.

“We’ve developed a great relationship with Stewart-Cooper-Newell,” says Phil Welch, director of the Gaston College Regional Emergency Services Training Center. In fact, Welch has been on the building committee of Calvary Church in Gastonia which hired Stewart-Cooper-Newell to design an extension and was the former fire chief at the Union Road Fire Station when the firm designed a training room extension there.

“They are the best in the state at designing training facilities,” declares Welch.

After 9-11, the need for emergency training centers has became even more important.

Stewart-Cooper-Newell has completed or is currently working on nine training centers throughout North Carolina for fire fighters, SWAT teams, police departments, rescue workers, and EMS squads.

A number of the buildings designed by Stewart-Cooper-Newell have won awards, including the Hilton Head Fire Dept. #7, Denton, Texas Fire Headquarters, Old Richmond Volunteer Fire Department in Tobaccoville, N.C., Gaston County Courthouse, and Gaston County Sheriff’s Department and Jail.

However, the architects at Stewart-CooperNewell seem somewhat bemused by the attention their work has received. They seldom seek out the awards and recognition.

“It takes time to submit projects for awards,” explains Stewart. “While it’s great to be recognized, our primary goal is not to win awards, but to meet our clients’ needs by designing maintenance-free and durable buildings.”

Despite all the attention their design work on fire facilities and law enforcement buildings has received, Stewart-Cooper-Newell plans to keep on doing what it started out to do thirtysome years ago: provide excellence in planning, design, and construction to their clients, while keeping in mind the client’s budget and schedule. biz

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Marketing Just Got a Whole Lot Easier.

Marketing Smart Business America™

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photo: Wayne Morris

Catherine P. (Cathy) Bessant Global Marketing Executive Bank of America

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by ellison clary

[bizprofile]

Lofty Goals in Action

Bank of America’s Global Reach Begins at Home

C

athy Bessant, Bank of America’s global marketing executive, sets higher standards for herself as well as the bank, as she talks about her job reinforcing the global reach of the bank’s marketing activities and the “Higher Standards” branding theme. Those activities involve more than the just the bank and its customers. They range from local to national to international civic responsibilities – involvement in everything from the local Chamber to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to NASCAR to baseball to the Olympics. That’s global! A youthful 45, Bessant has filled various executive roles for Bank of America since 1982, and has been in her current position since 2001. She oversees customer analysis and research, brand, advertising, electronic marketing, international marketing, sponsorships and event marketing.

“One of the reasons I love working for Bank of America is I believe what we do everyday is an enabler of a better world,” Bessant says with conviction in her neatas-a-pin office on the 53rd floor of the Bank of America Corporate Center.

“I don’t think about a mortgage loan,” says the quick-smiling executive who has presided over the bank’s mortgage corporation. “I think about putting people in a house. I think the work we do, if we do it well, is at the heart of mattering. In a way, it advances the American dream.”

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Asked why business owners should consider Bank of America, she quickly says the reasons go beyond products and services. “It’s human capital,” she says, “and the ability we have to help our clients stay on the cutting edge and focus on what they know, which is how to run their business.”

Bank of America offers what she calls “world-class capital, whether it’s financial or intellectual,” in helping advance a business. “The best way for me to think about our relationship with businesses is as a partnership,” she says. “At our very

best, that’s what we offer.”

Partnerships have been important for Bessant personally. She’s nearing the end of a year in which she’s served as chair of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. One of her responsibilities was to work with a 12-member search committee that picked a successor for long-time Chamber president Carroll Gray upon his retirement. She has also been a driving force in the quest to win the NASCAR Hall of Fame for Charlotte.

Additionally, she has helped lead a task force studying the Charlotte-Mecklenburg !

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Schools. Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, who co-chairs the task force, calls Bessant genuine, honest and straightforward.

“Cathy is absolutely an outstanding civic leader,” Gantt says. “She has a focus and a passion for the issues we are dealing with in the schools.”

Bessant has lived and worked in big cities such as Dallas, Tampa and Washington, D.C., but this year she’s gotten to know Charlotte. She likes what she’s learned.

“I’ve been awed at what a special place Charlotte is,” she says with conviction, then adds, “I’m a really tough customer.

I’ve lived in a lot of places. This is a pretty incredible community. I buy into the fact that we have something special here that other communities would love to model.”

Bessant sees that something as

Stoking Phenomenal Growth

vibrancy. She praises the region’s strong workforce and can-do attitude. But she adds that Charlotte can’t get complacent.

“I get really worried when I hear people say we don’t need to offer any economic development incentives,” Bessant says. “I promise you there are 20 cities across the country that 15 years ago thought they didn’t have to work on growth and those cities haven’t seen growth.”

Certainly, Bank of America has grown phenomenally. For the third quarter of 2005, the bank reported net income rose 10 percent to $4.13 billion from $3.786 billion a year earlier. For the first nine months of 2005, the bank earned $13.12 billion compared to $10.29 billion for the comparable period of 2004.

With the bank’s double-digit growth across all business segments. Bessant’s responsibility largely is to stoke that growth through marketing and branding.

Bessant acknowledges she previously has been in line positions where she thought nearly exclusively about financial accountability. “This job has given me an opportunity to develop a whole new skill

“I’ve been awed at what a special place Charlotte is,” she says with conviction, then adds, “I’m a really tough customer. I’ve lived in a lot of places. This is a pretty incredible community. I buy into the fact that we have something special here that other communities would love to model.” set around the technical skills of marketing,” she says.

She touts new products and services such as the recently introduced “Keep the Change” program. The bank automatically rounds up the amount of each debit card purchase to the nearest dollar and transfers the difference into the customer’s saving account. There’s a bank matching element, as well.

“That account does several things at once,” Bessant smiles. “It encourages saving, gives people a reason to buy from us, and rewards customer loyalty.”

Technology will be huge in devising

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and delivering products and services, she says, and the capabilities of automatic teller machines will continue to expand.

“I don’t know that I can predict what product development actually looks like,” she says, adding, “I know that the pace of it and competitive agility is very important.”

She’s leading a study of the bank’s brand and how it’s perceived worldwide.

Early indicators show the name Bank of America resonates well but the red-whiteand-blue logo can carry connotations that may be politically charged.

As she talks, Bessant has just returned from speaking via video hookup with a large audience of bank associates around the country. Internal studies show most associates like the aspiration to “higher standards” the bank uses often with its name. But on this day, some asked why Bank of America spends so much money

on the Olympics and baseball.

Bank of America has been the official bank of the U.S. Olympic Committee since 1996 and became the official bank of baseball in 2004. A good estimate, she says, is that the bank spends $50 million annually on these sports branding initiatives, which also include significant NASCAR activity.

These sponsorships are important because the bank gained close to 100 percent brand recognition only recently. “The task at hand is: How do you convert the knowledge of our company to actual consideration and purchase of our capabilities and products?” she explains.

Using the Olympic rings in association with Bank of America can motivate potential customers. The same is true of baseball, she adds, where the bank is tied

in at the Major League, Minor League and Little League levels.

Bessant praises the entree Minor League Baseball offers to small businesses and regional companies. Then her eyes light up as she gets to Little League.

“People’s attitudes about purchases do change when they know you’re affiliated with something like Little League Baseball,” she says. “Little League gets at the heart of what people care about – neighborhoods. It’s such a popular, family-based sport.”

Broad considerations play into why the Bank of America name is on the Charlotte stadium where the Carolina Panthers play home games in the National Football League, and why there’s a newly minted Bank of America 500 race at nearby Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

The bank was instrumental in convincing the NFL to award an expansion !

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franchise in Charlotte and team ownership has been a customer, Bessant says.

“We’re a part of the history and heritage of the team,” she adds. “It’s part of the soul of who we are.”

It’s a similar situation at Lowe’s Motor Speedway where Bank of America made a construction loan for the track 30 years ago, Bessant says. “Naming a race gives us an opportunity for all kinds of consumer promotion and for client hospitality,” she says.

Branding continues to loom large, Bessant says, as Bank of America expands into New York and New England with its FleetBoston Financial Corporation merger and with its pending acquisition of credit card giant MBNA. Yet these acquisitions bring growing pains for associates. They are the individual components of family.

The bank must continually adjust its workforce, which numbers about 175,000, with around 13,000 in Charlotte.

“It’s really hard to downsize,” Bessant frowns, calling it the part of her job she likes least. “Efficiencies and economic

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environment and running a good business for shareholders sometimes demand it. The thing that’s hardest is when you affect people’s real lives.

You cannot be dispassionate about it, and I wouldn’t want to know anybody who was.”

Maybe that helps explain why Bessant is popular within the bank. “She has a knack for acting as a magnet, attracting bright people to her,” says Graham Denton, president of both the bank’s North Carolina presence and its Charlotte regional market. “Her style helps her get a lot accomplished in a methodical way.”

Valuable Lessons Learned

Bessant calls her mother, Ursula Pombier, her most important mentor.

Now retired in South Bend, Ind., her mother was executive director of three Girl Scout councils, one in Eastern North Carolina. Bessant also praises John Clay, her husband, a retired U.S. Navy

Commander and pilot: “He’s the lynch pin in keeping our household going.”

Daughter Meredith and son Hayden complete the family picture.

Bessant says she learned valuable lessons from both bank chairmen she’s worked for. Hugh McColl Jr., now retired, “taught me how to have a vision that can excite and ignite people,” she says, speaking of McColl’s quest to fashion a truly national bank. Current chairman Ken Lewis taught her “how to make that vision a reality and have it operationally flawless.”

Bessant professes to an enjoyment of evaluating people. She did that in the community as she helped the Chamber committee determine that Bob Morgan, formerly of the Charlotte Chamber and most recently president of the Gaston County Chamber, is right to take over from the veteran Gray.

That brings her back to the betterment of the Greater Charlotte community, something she admits she didn’t give much thought before this year of enormous civic involvement. Her Chamber chair responsibilities, the schools task force duties and the NASCAR Hall of Fame recruitment all are winding down.

Will she remain involved going forward?

“I would hate to imagine Charlotte without Cathy Bessant,” declares Tim Newman, chief executive of the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, who has worked with her extensively on the NASCAR effort. “She has a brilliant mind and an indefatigable spirit. I hope she’ll continue to be involved civically.”

In answering, Bessant sighs: “The pace is not sustainable.” But she quickly adds that she’s not done. “I’ll enjoy figuring out what is next,” she says. “There has to be something, but I’m not sure what it is yet.

And would she encourage bank associates she leads to get involved in the community? The short answer is yes, she says.

“I’ve learned a great lesson in how to motivate people who have both direct and indirect accountability to you,” she says.

Campaigning for the NASCAR Hall of Fame to locate in Charlotte has taught her much about selling. “The next business pitch I make will be immensely better for having the NASCAR experience.”

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So she’ll spread the word. “I’ve been thinking about even how my direct reports and management folks would benefit from a greater experience in the community,” she says, “to give them a breadth of exposure to things they wouldn’t see otherwise.” biz Ellison Clary is a Charlotte-based freelance writer.

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greater charlotte biz

december 2005

27

Rodney C. Pitts Chairman and CEO Southern Elevator Group, Inc.

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elevating

by susanne deitzel

the

ELEVATOR BUSINESS

[bizprofile]

RISING

to the challenge,

SOUTHERN ELEVATOR takes it to new

HEIGHTS

A

s the skyline of Charlotte becomes more mature, with both commercial buildings and uptown residences growing skyward, one axiom becomes more evident than ever: whatever goes up must come down, and vice versa. At least the elevators within them, that is.

And because every single commercial building over two stories is required to have an elevator, this translates into a slew of moving parts, which are responsible for getting people and equipment up and down quickly and safely.

Fortunately for Rodney Pitts, owner and chairman of Southern Elevator Group, the holding company of Southern Elevator Company, the trend is more than ever, onward and upward for Charlotte and for the surrounding region as well.

Getting In on the Ground Floor

Founded in Greensboro in1949 by a man named M.B. Toler, Southern Elevator Company began as an elevator manufacturer. Seated in the hotbed of the then healthy textile manufacturing industry, Southern Elevator grew and prospered in concert with the mills.

However, when manufacturing began to enter its decline, it became more and more difficult to justify the expense of regional elevator manufacturing, and Southern Elevator succumbed in a similar decline until, as current owner Rodney Pitts says, “It looked to most people like a hunk of junk, or a pile of old elevator parts.”

But Pitts saw a genuine opportunity to turn famine into feast.

Carrying degrees from Duke University and the University of Chicago Business School and armed with a wealth of experience from the New York private equity firm AEA Investors, Pitts was trained to look past appearances to discover the growth potential of companies for investors.

greater charlotte biz

Pitts had had some knowledge of elevator companies, so when he was approached to invest in Southern Elevator in 1991 after he had left AEA, he embraced the opportunity and, in fact, bought the company.

Pitts immediately promoted Bryant Aydelette, grandson of Southern Elevator’s founder, to executive vice president and later to president. The partners began a major paradigm shift to heal the ailing company.

Explains Pitts, “Elevators may not be ‘sexy,’ per se, but Southern Elevator has a client list that reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of business and industry of the Carolinas. Coupled with top shelf mechanics and an effective, streamlined administrative core, we knew we could bring the company back to a position of strength.”

To do this, Pitts and his partner put their fingers on the pulse of the industry. “What we were seeing from the four major international competitors was a slowing down in manufacturing. Since we are a regional company, it made sense for us to

get out of it altogether.”

However, the genius was not simply cutting out the costs involved in manufacturing, but rather building the face-to-face contact with customers by providing service, repair and modernization. “It became our mission to become the best provider of service in the region and have the broadest coverage of towns and communities throughout North and South Carolina, as well as southern Virginia,” explains Pitts.

While it might sound simple in today’s business climate, Pitts says that the change in focus was a radical departure for the industry. By building upon its hallmark, broad coverage of the region and of the brands of equipment it would service, the company took its first major step toward recovery. Yet as Pitts explains, Southern Elevator would make an even more dramatic departure.

“The most radical shift we took was the decision not to be a major installer of elevators for commercial construction. The old industry

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!

practice was to install elevators in order to solidify the five-year service contracts after warrantied service, and we were saying, ‘Let’s get out of that altogether.’”

Looking back, this seems like a giant leap of faith. By reducing face time with new customers, how could the business sustain its service focus?

Pitts replies, “At the time we made this decision, there were a few other trends emerging in the industry: growth in modernization and new ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) implementation and modification, as well as a growth in the residential market.”

Taking It to Another Level

By addressing these seemingly more ‘niche’ demands, Southern Elevator platformed its strategy, and then took it to the next level: acquisition.

“Consolidation has been the name of the game in this industry for a while, and Southern Elevator has been an active participant in that process,” says Pitts. “As the regional elevator businesses and the owners in the industry have gotten older, many seek retirement, or are interested less in the business aspect and more in the technical aspects of the job. When that happens, we are happy to assume new locations and expand our reach.”

Southern Elevator has grown from two to six branches since Pitts purchased the company and acquired Mountain Elevator in Asheville, N.C.; Washington Elevator in Little Washington, N.C.; Piedmont Elevator in Danville, Va.; Quality Elevators in Wilson, N.C.; and Atlantic Elevator in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Comments Pitts, “The most intriguing part of acquisition is the strategy involved. We have been

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able to grow in areas where we were previously weak, and as a result the whole has become much more than just the sum of its parts.”

Pitts also credits his partner, Bryant Aydelette, with bringing the new companies into the fold and molding the former businesses into Southern Elevator’s culture. “There is no question that independent elevator companies have a wholly different culture than our four major international competitors. To me it appears that regional companies focus on getting closer to the customer, by educating, empowering and choosing talented and trustful technicians to represent the company. Conversely, it seems the big players move further and further away from the customer.”

He adds, “While expanding has complicated our business somewhat, centralizing our administrative functions makes it easy to keep all our balls in the air, and having such a breadth of coverage, we can easily and quickly provide the best service for our customers. In this way, we have the heart of a family-owned business, while also implementing the organization of corporate management.”

This formula has made Southern Elevator a force to be reckoned with. Now the largest regional elevator service and repair company in the Carolinas, it boasts clients like Duke University, UNC Charlotte, CPCC, and Duke Energy, as well as several property management companies like the Keith Corporation and Trinity Partners. Recently, Southern Elevator was awarded

the first elevator service contract for Duke Medical Center since it opened in 1930.

“By being able to service a huge variety of elevator brands and models, we have been able to accommodate major clients like universities, hospitals, and federal, state, and municipal government buildings. That previously wasn’t our focus.”

“Fortunately, he adds, “Our current focus seems to be working.”

Pushing Buttons

But, where there is a winner, there are also losers trying to regain their yardage. Therein lies the shaft (ahem) from the competition. In the elevator biz, this takes the shape of proprietary versus nonproprietary controls.

To wit: when a regional company is called in to replace obsolete or worn parts, modernize cabs or update ADA compliance, it is usually pursuant to the customer’s three to five-year service contract. Service contracts are the bread and butter of the industry.

To counter the ability of the “little guy” to win over service contracts, some players in the industry began the practice of installing proprietary controls, i.e. control units which require a special tool for access from the company which manufactured it. This prevents independent service companies, like Southern Elevator, from servicing the equipment.

The product is not better. It just requires proprietary software to service it, available only from its manufacturer. Pitts explains: “This enables the manufacturer to charge more for service since there is no competition for the service contract.

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The owners of the buildings end up having to pay top dollar.

In a city like Charlotte, this can really become a hot button (ahem) issue. Several new high-rise condos in particular are in the works and making sure everything operates safely, smoothly and quickly is a critical concern.

Pitts continues, “Like I said, as a rule, we don’t do new installation. That is not in our dominion.

However, we want to be sure that our valued clients know the difference between proprietary and non-proprietary controllers, and what that means to them in the long run.”

The debate is necessarily contentious, yet Pitts simplifies the equation to dollars and sense. “As Charlotte matures and the initial service contracts for high-rises come up for renewal, there will be

Southern Elevator Group, Inc. 227 W. Fourth St., Ste. 201 Charlotte, N.C. 28202 Phone: 704-358-4510 Principal: Rodney C. Pitts, Chairman and CEO (of holding company; also Secretary of subsidiary Southern Elevator Company, Inc.) Founded: 1949, M.B.Toler; owned by Rodney Pitts and Bryant Aydelette since 1991 Employees: 95 Customers: Over 1,200 commercial, manufacturing and residential customers throughout Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina; totaling over 4,000 units in geographic area Headquarters: Charlotte, N.C. Regional Offices: Charlotte, N.C., Greensboro, N.C., Greenville, N.C., Columbia, S.C., Myrtle Beach, S.C., Roanoke,Va. Business: One of the largest independently owned elevator companies in the Southeast providing trained elevator technicians for regularly scheduled preventive maintenance, prompt response to emergency repairs, upgrades to existing equipment and complete elevator modernizations.The company has grown from two to six branches since the acquisition of Mountain Elevator in Asheville, N.C.;Washington Elevator in Little Washington, N.C.; Piedmont Elevator in Danville,Va.; Quality Elevators in Wilson, N.C.; and Atlantic Elevator in Myrtle Beach, S.C. www.southernelevator.com

plenty of opportunity for Southern Elevator to service new customers. But I think it is necessary to say that beyond our own interest concerning proprietary and non-proprietary controls, it is an important decision that will determine whether or not the owners can seek a competitive contract for future service.”

trust + strategy + integrity planning + insight + experience

Taking It to New Heights

New construction and its incumbent issues aside, there are more than enough vertical avenues to keep Southern Elevator occupied. Apart from routine maintenance and repair throughout the region, the company keeps busy up-fitting units to comply with the constant evolution of the elevator code and access, changing aesthetic ideals of older buildings and compatible elevator décor, as well as increased traffic capacity and speed between floors. Pitts makes sure that his company stays flexible, positive, and well trained to answer any need that arises.

Plus, new trends have emerged in the industry, such as advertising and entertainment in elevator cabs themselves. The standard Muzak is being eclipsed by flat screen TVs, and some of the jazzier cities like Las Vegas promise to take this concept to new heights. For its part, Southern Elevator has embarked on a relationship with The Elevator Channel, offering it as an option in client modernization packages.

Other innovations that have been driven by the public in this post 9-11 culture include central monitoring to improve security and monitor access and egress, particularly in government buildings. Also being requested is limited access to certain floors.

Comments Pitts, “We try to anticipate the industry innovations and completely embrace new developments and new technology, and strive to make sure we can accommodate them. Not only are our mechanics trained to the highest of standards, but we provide ample opportunity for them to grow, and for our business to grow.”

He adds, “It is our goal to provide the best service and the greatest assurance for safety and security for our employees and the public.”

In the meantime, Pitts scans the industry for those new opportunities. Not bashful to make a pun, he smiles, “Charlotte is becoming a major city on the rise – for that matter, so is the entire region – and we’d like to see our business rise with it – or at least our people take it to new heights!” biz

“I have used them both professionally and personally for over 15 years. Their advice and counsel have played an integral part in the success of our business!”

– Verl Purdy

co-owner of Agdata, a database marketing company

www.danielratliff.com 301 S. McDowell Street Suite 502 Charlotte, NC 28204 704.371.5000

125 E Plaza Drive Suite 101 Mooresville, NC 28115 704.663.0193

it all Adds up.

Susanne Deitzel is a Charlotte-based freelance writer.

greater charlotte biz

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31

Robert T. Boyd President and CEO Agility Recovery Solutions Inc.

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by heather head

[bizprofile]

On October 26, the wall is covered with the names of victims of Hurricane Wilma, the third major hurricane to cause catastrophic damage in the U.S. this season.

They are the names of ordinary people, small business owners, with families and pets, and careers not too different from yours. A few days ago, they were not expecting to be among the names on this wall.

But this is no sad memorial etched in stone. This is an active, ever-changing database, and it is a tool of hope for those whose lives have been altered by the course of this latest catastrophe. The wall is the white board in Bob Boyd’s office at Agility Recovery Solutions, and it is the hub of a great deal of activity today.

Boyd has an exciting job: he gets to be a hero. No cape or special powers – unless you count the ability to work happily with his own father – but nonetheless his latest endeavor has resulted in a sort of salvation for dozens of businesses and their owners in recent months.

Simple Complexity

Since becoming president and CEO of Agility Recovery Solutions in February 2004, Boyd has changed an entire industry to deliver disaster recovery capabilities to small businesses – a service formerly available only to very large, very high-revenue companies.

Besides Agility, only a few major players dominate the industry of disaster recovery. All of them focus on Fortune 5000 companies – companies large enough to pay the tens if not hundreds of thousands dollars a month it costs to have a company like IBM on call to help pick up the pieces in the event of a disaster.

But when Generation Partners, the venture capital firm that owns Agility, brought this former Muzak executive on board, Boyd did a crazy thing. He started selling the service to small businesses starting at $200 a month. Yes, that’s only two zeros!

Small businesses like Gillis, Ellis & Baker, whose office was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans mere months after signing up with Agility, and whose office was back up and running – and processing claims for fellow victims – within four days of the disaster that rocked the nation.

How? Agility.

The core of Agility’s service is deceptively simple: They help businesses get back on their feet by providing recovery planning assistance in advance, and then mobile offices, satellite voice and internet capability, power generation, IT hardware, and consulting as necessary during a crisis.

The concept is simple, the logistics complicated. Agility maintains warehouses in Atlanta and Toronto filled floor to ceiling with IT equipment of all descriptions, makes, models, and capabilities. They have state-of-the-art mobile units in both single- and double-wide sizes stationed in locations throughout !

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the U.S. Then there are the generators, the satellites, the bandwidth, the partnerships with shipping, construction, IT, and many other companies to assist with delivery and set-up.

And all orchestrated so beautifully that they have not once failed in their commitment to get a client back on its feet quickly. Not even when 19 companies simultaneously declared a disaster immediately after Katrina; not even when 21 declared following Wilma.

Salvation Boyd seems pretty pleased with what his company has done so far. He describes his trip to New Orleans, two days after Katrina struck: “You look at these people, ordinary people whom you could be friends with – they had lost everything, and you think, how can they get up and keep going?” He shakes his head.

“But then they can go into work and have some semblance of normalcy, and you realize you really have helped them.”

One client, he remembers, received a special permit to go back into their damaged office building to recover some equipment. While there, he selected one photo from the desk of each employee. When the employees showed

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up for work at the mobile unit the next day, that photo – in some cases the only

(top) Inside an Agility mobile unit. (bottom) Mobile unit and power generator. family picture they had left after the flooding – was sitting on their new desk. Some broke down in tears.

But it’s not just the big disasters like Katrina that call for heroes. Software failure, electrical outages, wind storms, gas leaks, fire, chemical spills, data corruption – the list is long and scary, and includes many disasters that are localized to a single building or even a single small company’s data.

According to Boyd, industry statistics indi-

cate that in the next five years at least 20 percent of small companies will suffer an event that causes an interruption to their business. Of those that do, fully 60 percent of them will not survive another two years.

“It’s not for the reasons you might think,” explains Boyd. “Think of Katrina – most of those businesses may be able to open their doors in a month, but meanwhile their customers will have gone some place else.”

Additionally, he adds, they may not be able to collect outstanding receivables due to loss of data: “They won’t know who owes them money or how much.”

“That’s what kills them,” he says, shaking his head again. “They can never get back to where they were.”

And that’s what makes Boyd and Agility into heroes. After Katrina, two local insurance agencies affected by the storm were able to quickly open their doors to begin processing claims: they were both Agility customers. Needless to say, they’re not likely to be in the 60 percent of failures in two years.

Math Thing Insurance companies are among Agility’s target clientele, in part because insurance companies also make great sales agents for Agility.

First of all, they quickly grasp the concept of Agility’s monthly premium to ensure coverage in case of a catastrophic event, and so it’s a product that makes sense to them.

Secondly, it’s a product that actually saves them money by saving their clients money in the event of a loss. Business insurance usually covers actual losses from a covered event.

Companies that purchase Agility suffer less loss and therefore make smaller insurance claims.

So Agility is a strong complement to an insurance company’s existing offerings.

Finally, it makes them look like heroes too when something like Katrina hits.

Gillis, Ellis & Baker, for instance, signed up for Agility themselves and also sold it to several of their client weeks before Katrina struck. One of those clients was awarded a $5,000,000 contract the day after Agility returned their business to function – a contract that they would have lost if they had not been available to answer their phones.

Of course, it’s good business for Agility to have their clients selling their products to their clients. “It’s partly a math thing,” smiles Boyd ruefully. But the “math thing” means geometric

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growth for the company, which Boyd expects to become a half-a-billion dollar company in five to ten years.

The math thing works like this: Each of Boyd’s twenty salespeople expects to sell $1,000 a month this year. In the first month of the year, that’s $20,000 revenue for the company. Because clients pay a monthly premium, in the second month the company will receive that same $20,000 in revenue from the accounts that were sold in the previous month, plus they will receive another $20,000 from new accounts: so in the second month the revenue is $40,000. In the third month, they receive the same $40,000 plus another $20,000 from new accounts. And so on.

At the end of the year, they have grossed $1,560,000 from accounts sold that year. In the second year, they will bill $2,880,000 from the previous year’s sales, plus another $1,560,000 from the new year’s sales.

Then you add in that, for every $200 sale to an insurance company or CPA firm or attorney, that client likely becomes an additional “salesperson” for the company, directing another two, three, or twenty clients a month to the company.

And, unlike true insurance companies, a covered event on the part of a client does not represent an expense to Agility. Rather, Agility tallies the bill for the use of resources – shipping and set-up costs, rentals, etc. – adds 8 percent to cover their expenses in organizing and handling the recovery process, and hands the bill to the client. Extra clients represent almost pure extra profit.

“People think I’m crazy when I say this,” says Boyd. “But it’s almost inconceivable that in five to ten years Agility wouldn’t be worth half a billion dollars. I just don’t see how that could happen.”

Crazy

Of course, he’s been called crazy before. It seemed insanity, for instance, to pursue a market that could afford only $200 a month when Fortune 5000 companies were willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. But, he points out, the trouble with the Fortune 5000 is that there are only 5000 of them. That can make the competition for their business pretty fierce.

Besides, it was exactly Boyd’s brand of insanity that the owners of Agility were looking for when they hired him. They had purchased the company from GE in 2001 – right after 9-11 not !

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coincidentally – and had been disappointed with its sluggish growth.

Boyd had Custom made cases used to already “QuickShip” technology to proven himyour site within 48 hours self quite handy at perking up sagging companies. He had gotten his start working with his father, Bill Boyd, at Bill’s Muzak franchise here in Charlotte.

Using the skills he learned through his father’s very successful franchise, he went to work at the Muzak headquarters, revitalizing and helping update the company’s image – and sales. When he arrived at Muzak headquarters, it had 5,000 clients in its Marketing on Hold division called Voice. When he left it had 80,000 clients.

The principals at Generation Partners were impressed. When Generation asked him to come talk to them about Agility, Boyd said, “I didn’t know anything about the business. I didn’t know anything about disaster recovery plans. I didn’t even know they existed!” But he was so enthralled by the idea that he began work

immediately, building out a team and, among other things, bringing his father on as chairman of the board.

“There aren’t very many times people get the chance or want to work with their father,” says Boyd. “But this is now the third time I’ve worked with him. He is by far the best visionary, communicator, motivator, and salesman that I’ve ever run across in my life. Those are all skills we need and I don’t have any of them.”

Boyd’s skill runs along the lines of taking crazy ideas and making them work.

Like this business of bringing disaster recovery resources to small companies. Unlike the Fortune 5000 companies whose sheer size means great complexity and ensures that they will experience disasters of various scales during the course of their business, and that at least some of those disasters will require significant resources to rectify, most small companies will not experience business interruptions and even those that do require far fewer resources in order to recover.

Additionally, their recovery plan can be quite simple and easy to organize. So it occurred to Boyd that since they already had the equipment and infrastructure to service those companies, they could afford to offer them for a very small fee.

So far, it has worked out handsomely.

The company is ahead of its sales and revenue goals for the year, and their small business clients are incredibly happy. And the timing couldn’t have been better for those affected by the busy storm season.

The names on Boyd’s white board on October 26 are the lucky ones. These are the company owners and managers whose businesses will be up and running again within hours, thanks to Agility. Their employees will have a place to come to work within the week. These are the companies that will probably still be businesses in two years.

Boyd makes a note above a name on the board, erases something next to another.

The result of the frequent scribbling and erasing reminds one of the strategic notations of a general preparing for battle. But while Boyd’s unornamented office might look like a war room, to their clients Agility looks like a miracle. biz Heather Head is a Charlotte-based freelance writer.

Agility Recovery Solutions 7621 Little Ave., Ste. 218 Charlotte, N.C. 28226 Phone: 877-364-9393 Principal: Robert T. Boyd, President and CEO Inception: 1989 Headquarters: Charlotte; additional offices in Atlanta and Toronto Employees: 60 Formerly: GE Capital IT Solutions Disaster Recovery Services Owned by: Generation Partners, a private investment firm managing $325 million of capital, focused on providing equity capital to growth companies, targeting investments focused primarily on business devices/outsourcing, information services/ media/communications, and other businesses that use technology as a key element of strategy.

Business: Agility is the premier provider of ‘end user’ on-site recovery solutions across the United States and Canada providing quick ship technology, mobile recovery, satellite communications and consulting services to all size organizations. www.agilityrecovery.com

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pictured (l to r): Chuck Hood President Hood, Hargett & Associates, Inc. Jennifer Snyder Marketing Manager Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America

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by casey jacobus

[bizprofile]

Breakfast asa Business Perk Breakfast Club America gives

“Wake up and smell the coffee”

Full-bodied meaning

Is your business percolating?

Eight times a year business owners in Charlotte gather for what might be characterized as a large coffee klatsch, part pep rally and part business meeting, providing a wake up call to networking new business opportunities.

The Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America produces the event for its business members to invite their customers, employees and guests to network with other invitees, while having breakfast and being entertained by an educational or motivational speaker. The point? Have fun, and develop new business leads, relationships and business resources.

“Breakfast Club America is the best marketing/networking event we’ve ever been involved with,” says William Braddy of First Citizens Bank. “Everyone there expects to talk about doing business with you.”

David L. (Chuck) Hood Jr., president of Hood, Hargett & Associates, Inc., has participated in Breakfast Club America since it originated in Charlotte in 1995. As a matter of fact, Hood Hargett has been the title sponsor for the past five years. So when Breakfast Club America decided to franchise its Charlotte business this summer, Hood bought it.

“A lot of people thought we owned it already,” says Hood. “It has provided us with excellent name recognition, as well as providing a successful venue to bring our customers to and to build new relationships.”

greater charlotte biz

Changing the pot

Chuck Hood, now 57, grew up in Charlotte in the Chantilly neighborhood, subsequently moving to Cotswold at a time when Cotswald was so far out of the city that Hood says they moved “to the country.” After graduating from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Phi Beta Kappa key and an economics degree, Hood returned to Charlotte to work with First Union Bank, then with a local insurance agency, and, in 1975, joined Dan Hargett in an independent insurance agency. In 1988, Hargett retired, leaving Hood as president of Hood, Hargett & Associates. The company presently employs 21 people in its brick office building at the corner of North McDowell and Fifth Street.

Hood, an outgoing and articulate speaker himself, enjoys his personal participation in

Breakfast Club America events. He recalls Dawn Staley, the former Sting basketball player, that brought him to tears when she spoke, inspiring him to sponsor her summer camps. He jokes about making one very tall high school athlete stand two stairs beneath him when he presented him with the Athlete of the Month award. Hood likes the occasional sports connection of the breakfast club, highlighting Pat Williams, general manager of the Orlando Magic, and Lee Corso of ESPN Sports as speakers he has particularly enjoyed.

But, above all else, Hood recognizes the value of bringing top business owners together, providing them with food, good presentations, the opportunity to play a great golf course, and encouraging them to do business with each other.

As the new owner of the Hood Hargett Breakfast !

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Club America, he plans to initiate some changes in the club.

“We don’t want to be a Chamber of Commerce-type event where everyone comes and exchanges business cards,” says Hood. “We want to produce an event where business leaders have the opportunity to meet a targeted audience.”

Instead of sales and marketing people, Hood is aiming Breakfast Club America events at business owners and decision makers. The speaker list for 2006 has been carefully selected to appeal to business leaders. And, sponsorships are exclusive – only one bank, one lawyer, one car dealer, etc. are accepted.

Marty Conte, president of Diamond Springs Water, is looking forward to the changes Hood has planned. While Diamond Springs has been a member for three years and Conte has found that membership useful, he believes there is room for improvement.

“I’m looking forward to better monthly programs, better speakers and, particularly, a higher level of membership,” says Conte. “Everybody is going to be equal and there will be more members that help out other members.”

Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America events are not open to the general public. To attend, you must be invited as a guest of a Breakfast Club America member. These members include such businesses as the Charlotte Bobcats, Charlotte Copy Data, Diamond Springs Water, First Citizens Bank, Greater Charlotte Biz, Sprint, Queen City Audio Video & Appliance, and Scott Jaguar.

Brewing new leadership

Currently, the Club holds eight breakfast events a year, attended by approximately 250 to 300 people. The meetings are held at Carmel Country Club and they begin with a business expo of displays from member businesses. A high-profile celebrity speaker is featured at every event. After breakfast and the program, attendees may choose to play a round of golf.

An important part of the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America is the Student Athlete Program. This is a merit program that awards area high school seniors with a scholarship to the college of their choice. At each breakfast, Hood presents the recipient with a $1,000 scholarship and a plaque commemorating his or her selection. At the end of the year, one of the monthly award recipients is selected as “The Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America Student Athlete of the

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Year” and he or she receives an additional $5,000 in scholarship money.

“This is not a ‘jock’ scholarship,” clarifies Hood. “The criteria include being a member of a varsity team, but stress grade point average, leadership activities in school, and community activities. We’re looking for good students, with leadership potential, who happen to play a sport.”

Cody William Elder III, who won the 2004 Student Athlete of the Year award, used his scholarship to attend Davidson College where he plays football and does 28 hours a week of community service, in addition to his academic activities. At Harding University High School, he served as senior class president. His mother, Sydney Elder, appreciates both the financial award and the recognition Cody received.“I truly do thank Breakfast Club America at least once a week for what they did for Cody,” she says. “This kind of recognition for student athletes is rare.”

The 2005 Student Athlete of the Year winner, Jessica Dare Brown, is on a fast track to graduate from Gardner Webb University in three years. She is majoring in American Sign Language and minoring in Spanish and wants to use the combination to interpret for Spanish speaking deaf people in local churches and schools. In high school, she was on West Mecklenburg’s swimming team, as well as cross country and track teams. She also participated in a long list of school activities.

“We were just thrilled that Breakfast Club America rewarded Jessica affirming her hard work in high school,” says her mother, Sherri Brown.

New beans

When Chuck Hood bought the Breakfast Club America Charlotte franchise, one of the first things he did was to hire Jennifer Snyder to manage the new Hood Hargett club. Snyder had worked for the previous owner and is experienced at soliciting members and organizing club events. She is helping Hood give the club a “face lift” with the rewriting of club materials and the planning for the 2006 season.

“All of our corporate sponsorships are categorically exclusive,” she says. “We are definitely gearing this group towards business owners and decision makers.”

Snyder and Hood are reviewing the sponsorship levels, as well. The cost of membership for 2006 begins at the same dollar amount for all members. Members get a designated number of seats for each club event, although they can also purchase additional seats for any single event.

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While the majority of the Breakfast Club America members are men, women make up a good 30 percent of those attending.

In addition to the Breakfast Club America breakfasts, members are invited to a reception the evening before the event where they have the opportunity to personally chat with the celebrity speaker. The Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America also hosts two roundtable luncheons each month. These smaller events offer businesses the opportunity to host an event at their own location.

“The Roundtables are an opportunity for business owners to talk to a captive audience,” says Jim Scott of Scott Jaguar. “It’s a smaller network of people.”

Scott, who has been a Breakfast Club America member for two years, likes the direction Hood and Snyder are taking.

“They are really charging it up,” he says. “The list of speakers for 2006 is just incredible. They’re getting away from just sports figures and including some speakers who can really talk to business owners.”

The schedule of speakers does include some eminent business doers and thinkers. One of the most celebrated figures in the hospitality industry, Horst Schulze, former president and COO of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, will kick off the year’s events at the Breakfast Club America breakfast event in January.

Schulze will be followed in February by Dr. William C. Freund, chief economist emeritus of The New York Stock Exchange and a respected global economic forecaster, currently professor of economics and director of the William C. Freund Center for the Study of Securities Markets at Pace University.

ESPN NFL Analyst and former Washington Redskins star quarterback Joe Theismann will offer his personal game plan for success at the March Breakfast Club America event.

In May, Kyle Maynard, author of “No Excuses,” will demonstrate that given the right attitude you can succeed no matter what the circumstances. Born with a congenital defect that robbed him of his arms above the elbow and his legs above the knee, Maynard has transformed himself into a winning high school wrestler, weightlifter and gifted student.

In September Breakfast Club America members will hear from Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor-at-large for Fortune magazine. Colvin is renowned as a foremost thinker on leadership and management. He will speak on thriving in a

globalizing world, creating wealth, and other urgent business issues.

William Shipman, the foremost expert on social security and retirement, will finish out the 2006 season in November by explaining how the often-ignored realities of Social Security create the greatest social and financial challenge the world will face over the next three decades. Shipman is chairman of CarriageOaks Partners LLC, a consulting firm specializing in retirement finance.

“All of the speakers in the past were sports related figures,” says Snyder. “This year we’re planning on a more diverse group of speakers. Each of them brings something different to the table.”

As Hood and Snyder plan the future direction of the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America, their target audience is foremost in their minds.

They are working to bring business leaders and owners together in a stimulating environment where they can do business with one another.

They want to create a unique event, with which business owners can impress their customers, while at the same time, encouraging those owners to build relationships with each other.

“Whatever the business, whether it’s selling cars or holding mortgages, business owners are engaged with developing new business contacts. Every decision we make is based on whether the business owner will see value in the result,” avers Hood. biz Casey Jacobus is a Charlotte-based freelance writer.

HHBC, LLC d/b/a

Hood Hargett Breakfast Club America 132 N. McDowell Street P.O. Box 30127 Charlotte, NC 28230 Phone: 704-602-9529 Principal: David L (Chuck) Hood Jr., President, Hood, Hargett & Associates, Inc.; Jennifer Snyder, Market Manager Business: As an individually owned Charlotte franchise of Breakfast Club America, LLC; this business development group hosts a series of business-to-business development events, business entertainment events, and business training events throughout the year for members, and their customers, prospects, employees and guests. www.clt.breakfastclubamerica.com

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[publisher’spost] (continued from page 4)

The Kalamazoo Promise... How about one for Charlotte?

With families and students fleeing Charlotte and Mecklenburg County for suburban school districts, and wealthier families enrolling students in private schools, the student population in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) is no longer reflective of the community as a whole. At the same time, CMS is expecting nearly 5,500 new students each year over the next ten years.

CMS currently estimates that 12 to 15 percent of students attend private schools here, versus the statewide 8 to 9 percent, and the national figure of 9 to 10 percent. Chamber statistics for the 2004-2005 year approximate that 14 out of 100 students attend private schools. There has been similar discontent here about the resulting quality of a school system where so many who are financially able have chosen to move outside the system or opt out for private instruction.

Currently, CMS serves over 120,000 students in 17 high schools, 32 middle schools, 91 elementary schools and 11 special schools. Approximately 7,700 teachers and about 8,000 other employees work to meet the needs of students in the CMS district. CMS

graduates about 6,000 students per year. If ratios are any indication, a similar program in Charlotte would need about $36 million per year or close to $150 million during any four-year program years.* The impact of such an incentive would be substantial. Home prices would rise and the tax base would expand as students move back into the school district. Such investment would likely result in a better-educated work force and provide a powerful incentive for businesses to locate in this area. Parent, student and teacher expectations and performance would improve, creating an entirely different educational environment.

Finding the resources to provide a “Charlotte Promise” would be an ambitious goal.

Nevertheless, funding such a promise for CMS students might be just the catalyst for changing the direction and the performance of CMS schools so that parents, students and teachers value the public education that is provided by our tax dollars and more fully take advantage of it, making them more likely to ultimately become contributors to our community, our economy, and our work force.

“Charlotte Promise” could be the paradigm shift so badly needed in our public school system – the key to a new future for CMS students and for the school system itself. Schools which have been relegated to serving the most common denominator of the student population would instead be incentivized to reshape their programs and curriculum to build on the strengths and maximize the potential of each and every student. And, from an economic development point of view, it would provide immediate incentives for business relocation within Mecklenburg County and for development of our core resources – our future work force – in the region. biz *According to an article in the Kalamazoo Gazette, this year’s freshman tuition and mandatory fees totaled $6,478 at Western Michigan University, $7,652 at Michigan State University and $9,218 at the University of Michigan. Comparable tuition and fees at some of North Carolina’s state institutions are approximately as follows: $1,264 at Central Piedmont Community College, $3,553 at UNC-Charlotte, $4,338 at North Carolina State University, and $4,606 at UNC-Chapel Hill.

THE KALAMAZOO PROMISE

INTENT

ELIGIBILITY

The title of the program is: The Kalamazoo Promise … kept exclusively at the Kalamazoo Public Schools

To provide each Kalamazoo Public School graduate with the opportunity to attend post-secondary education with up to a 100% tuition scholarship.

All students who graduate from KPS, are residing in the district, and have been KPS students four years or more.

QUALIFICATIONS

TERMS OF SCHOLARSHIP

1. A graduate of a Kalamazoo Public Schools’ high school. (Kalamazoo Central High School, Loy Norrix High School or Phoenix High School)

a. Making regular progress toward a degree or certification.

2. Admitted to and enrolled at any public State of Michigan University or Community College.

b. Must maintain a 2.0 grade point average at the post-secondary institution.

Four years from graduating date unless interrupted for military service and successfully completing at least 12 hours each semester.

ELIGIBLE SCHOOLS Any public State of Michigan University or Community College.

EXTENT OF BENEFITS The tuition benefit will be graduated on the basis of length of attendance in the Kalamazoo Public School system.

Length of Attendance Benefit 4-12 ........................90% K-12 .......................100% 5-12 ........................85% 1-12 ........................95% 6-12 ........................80% 2-12 ........................95% 7-12 ........................75% 3-12 ........................95%

8-12 ........................70% 9-12 ........................65% 10-12 .....................None 11-12 .....................None 12-12 .....................None

FAQ

Why offer this program to the graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools?

For the following reasons: 1. Education is an important key to financial well being.

2. It allows KPS to differentiate itself from other public and private school systems.

3. It provides a real meaningful and tangible opportunity for all students.

4. The Kalamazoo Promise will create oppor-

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tunities for individuals who attend Kalamazoo Public Schools and their current and future families. It follows – and studies have shown – that there is a strong correlation between overall academic achievement and a community’s economic vitality and quality of life.

Why is the benefit graduated on a sliding scale?

The program is designed to provide maximum benefit to long-term attendees. A desired outcome of the program will be to encourage families to make early decisions to enroll their students in Kalamazoo Public Schools, and to maintain that enrollment through graduation.

More information at: www.kalamazoopublicschools.com

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