Following long tradition, the April issue of the North
Carolina magazine
features a cover story on the new NCCBI chairman. As a special
service,
readers of the Legislative Bulletin will get to read the story
before anyone else.
It is reprinted below:
In his own words: the
chairman expounds on economic development
To
increase corporate profits, NCCBI’s new leader
recommends investing in worker training programs
Gordon Myers
believes that the people who have benefited the most from
NCCBI’s leadership in economic development policy are folks
who aren’t members and who probably have never heard of the
state’s largest business organization. And during his year
as NCCBI chairman that’s exactly who Myers wants to help
even more.
“I know that when people think of NCCBI they think of the
large businesses and industries in this state, but who I think
we have helped more than anyone over the years is the average
working person,” says Myers, who succeeded Mac Everett as
NCCBI chairman during the Annual Meeting last month. “These
are the people who have been able to raise their standard of
living by getting good-paying jobs in the new companies that
have moved to North Carolina and at our local companies that
have expanded so much. This is due, in no small measure, to
the positive business climate that NCCBI has worked so hard to
establish in North Carolina.
“Because of the economic growth we’ve had, the average
hourly wage is much higher now, the insurance and benefits are
much more substantial, and that’s made life better for tens
of thousands of North Carolinians.”
But times are changing, and Myers, the Asheville business
executive who is regarded by many as Western North
Carolina’s most influential advocate, believes NCCBI must
shift its strategies if it hopes to see standards of living
continue rising and corporate profits continue growing.
That’s a lesson he’s learned, he says, from a long and
varied experience volunteering with local, regional and
statewide economic development groups, including the seven
years he’s chaired the AdvantageWest regional partnership
that serves 23 western counties.
“It used to be that when industrial prospects came to a
region looking to establish a new plant, the first thing they
wanted to do was to see industrial sites and get information
about development costs, learn how much it would cost to get
operational,” Myers explains. “As far as the labor force
was concerned, what they wanted to know was how quickly could
they hire people.
“But now the first thing they ask is, ‘Do you have a
workforce that is trained or trainable.’ There’s a
critical difference in those two things. It’s the difference
between someone who is willing and able to work and a person
who has marketable skills and who can be productive from day
one.
“That’s why I firmly believe that what we need to do now
is to focus on workforce preparedness. I think that will be
critical in order to continue the economic progress we have
enjoyed in recent years.”
Myers said he knows that various federal, state and local
government agencies already offer a host of workforce training
programs. But he said many existing programs don’t offer
training that meets current needs, and almost all of them are
hampered by a lack of adequate funding and support.
One thing he knows for sure, Myers says, is that the demand
is there.
“I know in just our 23-county area in Western North
Carolina we have over 17,000 people who have registered with
the ESC looking for work,” Myers says. “Most of them are
currently employed but they are employed in relatively
low-paying jobs or at minimum wage jobs. They are looking to
improve their financial condition with better wages and better
benefits (so they can) take care of their families, send their
kids to college. How do we address that? How do we retrain our
workforce so they have the skills that industrial prospects
who look at our areas are demanding.”
Myers, 56, says enlightened self-interest as much as
civic-mindedness should drive the business community to focus
greater attention on workforce preparedness. “I think the
ability of our NCCBI member companies to expand their
businesses is directly tied to their ability to hire and
retain skilled workers.”
Myers says improving existing workforce preparedness programs
will require the cooperation of many entities. “It is an
issue that’s much bigger than just NCCBI,” he says.
“It’s a statewide problem that needs to be addressed by
many groups, including the community colleges and the public
school system, everybody from the governor on down.”
NCCBI President Phil Kirk, who doubles as chairman of the
State Board of Education, agrees. “No issue is of more
importance to the business community in North Carolina than
workforce preparedness,” Kirk says. “Chairman Myers’
priority on this issue will be welcomed in both the business
and education sectors of our state.”
Community Colleges President Martin Lancaster agrees. “We
have been talking with the governor and his staff and with
several legislators who have a similar interest. There is a
fragmentation now with 18 separate (workforce preparedness)
programs in different agencies. The statute says we are the
primary workforce development agency and we believe
efficiencies could be attained if there were no such
fragmentation.”
You could say
that Gordon Myers has been involved with economic development
and workforce issues ever since he was 14 delivering groceries
around Winston-Salem — illegally, it should be pointed out
— for his older brother in a 1948 Ford truck. “I had no
driver’s license so I sat on a case of Vienna sausages to
make me look taller,” he recalls with a laugh.
And that wasn’t Myers’ first brush with capitalism. At
the tender age of 10 he started helping in the construction
business his father, a 45-year veteran of R.J. Reynolds, ran
on the side. And his mother, who operated a beauty shop from
the home, provided a daily example of the entrepreneurial
spirit.
After graduating from Guilford College in Greensboro with a
bachelor’s degree in economics, Myers took a job with
Northwestern Bank in the home office in North Wilkesboro in
the credit department. Working at a small, rural bank taught
him a lot about human nature, he said in an Executive Profile
about him published in this magazine in April 1997. “We
didn’t have the computer sophistication back then. We made
loans to people who on paper didn’t look like they could pay
it back. But most did.”
He was transferred to Asheville in 1972 as a vice president
and branch manager of the Northwestern Bank there. He was
active in banking circles, including a three-year stint with
First Commercial Bank, until 1984 when he was recruited by
Asheville-based Ingles Markets to develop new properties for
the supermarket chain. He was named vice president of real
estate at Ingles in March 1993 and currently is in charge of
all real estate, real estate development and leasing
management.
Ingles operates 212 supermarkets in six Southeastern states.
The company owns more than 145 commercial real estate
properties, including shopping centers and freestanding Ingles
stores. The company is not only a supermarket chain but also a
major real estate holding company, owning more than 10 million
square feet of real estate and serving 360 commercial tenants.
Although his job keeps him on the road two or three days a
week, Myers has always been very active in community and civic
affairs in Asheville and Buncombe County. He has been involved
on a local level with the Asheville Rotary Club, the Asheville
Red Cross, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and the
Daniel Boone Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He served
on the Asheville City Council from 1981-85.
Myers is the father of two grown children, Adele Myers, a
1991 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill who is a public relations
industry executive in New York City; and Neil Myers, a 1993
graduate of N.C. State who works for a computer-related
company in Asheville. He and his wife of 20 years, Kaye Ayers
Myers, also have a daughter, Katie, who is a sophomore at
Carolina.
Kaye Myers serves on the board of Asheville Buncombe
Technical Community College
While he’s not a native of the mountains, Myers has emerged
as Western North Carolina’s most visible and perhaps its
most powerful voice in state affairs. He served on the Local
Government Commission from 1977-81, on the State Banking
Commission from 1980-82 and on the Global TransPark board from
1991-93. His most recent service to the state was as a member
of the Rural Prosperity Task Force.
But it’s in two other volunteer roles that Myers has come
to most visibly represent Western North Carolina — as a
longtime member of the State Board of Transportation and as
chairman of AdvantageWest, the regional economic development
organization serving 23 mountain counties.
Myers was first appointed to the DOT board by Gov. Jim Hunt
in 1993 to serve a four-year term. Hunt again appointed Myers
to represent the 13th Highway District on the DOT
board in 1996, a term he just completed earlier this year. He
is largely credited with securing $300 million in funding to
complete the “missing link” of Interstate 26 between North
Carolina and Tennessee and is closely associated with several
other highway projects, including improvements to the historic
Beaucatcher Tunnel and the special access road from the Blue
Ridge Parkway to the state Arboretum.
Myers has served as chairman of AdvantageWest since its
creation by the General Assembly in 1993. The organization has
emerged as among the best organized and most innovative of the
state’s seven regional economic development partnerships,
particularly in its use of the Internet to market the region
to industrial prospects and for its certified industrial site
program.
Although he
becomes the first NCCBI chairman from Western North Carolina
in a decade — since the late S.B. “Bo Bo” Tanner III of
Rutherfordton in 1991-92 — Myers wants members to know he
can see the interests of the state far beyond the mountain
peaks.
“I have many friends in the eastern part of the state and I
have learned over the years that there may be a great deal of
difference in the geography between western and eastern North
Carolina but our needs are very similar.”
R.V. Owens of Nags Head, who served with Myers on the DOT
board and on the Rural Prosperity Task Force, echoes that
point. “The biggest thing about Gordon is how much he cares
about rural North Carolina. And he understands that the
eastern and western parts of the state really are mirror
images of each other in terms of our economic development
needs.
“More than anyone else I know,” Owens continues, “
Gordon understands how important it is to our future that we
resolve the issue of having two North Carolinas — the rural
poor parts of the state and the rich urban areas. And I
can’t think of anyone who is better able to explain the
importance of that issue to the leaders in the urban areas.”
Erskine Bowles, who chaired the Rural Prosperity Task Force,
said Myers made substantial contributions to the effort.
“Gordon helped us reach a clear understanding of the
problems and opportunities facing rural North Carolina and the
importance of those issues to all North Carolinians. I am very
grateful to have had the chance to work with Gordon and to
learn from him. I am confident that the members of NCCBI will
benefit enormously from his leadership.”
Rep. Wilma Sherrill (R-Buncombe), who has worked with Myers
on many issues, says she is “pleased that Gordon will be at
the helm for NCCBI.” The Republican lawmaker adds that Myers
“has demonstrated to us in Western North Carolina that he is
committed to improving the lives of all citizens. He has
worked diligently for higher paying jobs in recruiting new
businesses and expansion for existing industry.”
The common need of the rural and urban parts of the state is
better workforce training, Myers says. Focused, targeted
training programs are most effective, he adds.
“In my area we started a training program through the
Training Alliance of Western North Carolina in the plastics
industry. We had 12 plastics companies come together and
donate machinery and employees to certify workers through the
community college system. The first class had 15 workers and
as soon as they graduated they immediately went into jobs that
were much better paying than they had previously. Some of
these workers have now gone to advanced level training.
“What we need to do is to look at what’s working in other
areas, like that program,” Myers continues. “Probably most
of what we need to do is already being done somewhere. We need
to identify where the successes are and try to build on
them.”
Myers says he will spend a lot of time talking about
workforce preparedness in the year ahead, and about the
positive influence he thinks NCCBI exerts.
“I see my role as chairman as one to advocate what is right
about NCCBI, what have we done to improve the plight of
business and industry and the citizens of North Carolina. The
lobbying efforts of NCCBI have made this a state that attracts
more than its share of new and expanding industries, and that
is benefiting everybody in this state. We need to talk about
the hundreds of thousands of people who have jobs because of
what NCCBI has done.
“It’s obviously a great honor for me to have this
prestigious position. What I want everyone to know is that if
we all can work together, east and west, north and south, then
I think we can accomplish a great deal as we move forward in
the coming year.”
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