Executive Profile
Two-Way
Street
David
Hoyle, business' best friend in the state Senate,
learned a lot about education in politics, and vice versa
By Phil Kirk
Lessons
learned as a boy growing up in the mill village of Dallas have
guided Gaston County native David Hoyle from a humble beginning to the
halls of the General Assembly, where he is called by many as the
state’s No. 1 advocate for business and industry.
Hoyle’s support for a
strong economic development policy and a pro-business, pro-jobs
climate has won him many friends in the state’s business community.
At the same time, his demeanor and candor have not alienated the
legislators and advocacy groups on the other side of the political
spectrum.
He credits his mother, the
late Ethel Brown Hoyle, with shaping his philosophy and the manner in
which he deals with people.
“My mother always told me
do not let the sun set with anyone having hard feelings against me,”
he says. “She said even if you’re wrong, don’t go to sleep
without at least trying to mend fences. Life is too short and there is
nothing wrong with saying you’re sorry.”
Hoyle’s rapid rise in the
power structure of the state Senate has landed him the co-chairmanship
of the powerful Finance Committee. Again, he attributes his
development in that area of interest to his parents. “They taught me
the importance of financial integrity and paying your bills on time,
and also to be fair in all your financial dealings,” he says.
Although he lived in the
Ranlo mill village at birth, the Hoyles moved to Dallas when David was
four or five. His father, W. Atkin Hoyle, operated a roller shop,
while his mother worked in a mill in Smyre.
Hoyle developed a strong
work ethic, which he still displays today. He had no choice as he
began working in his father’s shop cleaning rollers with hot,
scalding water. From there, he moved to washing cars and pumping gas
at a neighborhood gas station.
From those beginning jobs,
he moved on to working the loading docks at Carolina Freight in
Cherryville. “I couldn’t wait until January to file my tax returns
so I could get my refund,” he recalls.
It was at Dallas High School
where he discovered that he couldn’t keep his eyes off of Linda
Summey. “We were first just friends, but we started dating in the
10th grade,” he says. “She was a grade ahead of me and went to
Lenoir-Rhyne.”
After graduation, Hoyle
attended The Citadel for a year, but didn’t cater to the military
life at the Charleston, S.C., school. So he transferred to, you
guessed it, Lenoir-Rhyne. Both became graduates of the Hickory school
in just three years by going to summer school.
David calls himself “a
city boy” because he grew up in Dallas, but says he married “a
farm girl.” Linda’s father was the area John Deere farm equipment
dealer as well as a hardware and business supply dealer, and David
worked there during the summers.
Linda’s father split his
business and began to concentrate on the building supply end, which is
where David went to work after graduating from Lenoir-Rhyne.
“We got into building
prefabricated roof trusses,” Hoyle says. “In fact, we were one of
the first companies to do that. We built thousands of apartments and
houses in Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head, Atlantic Beach, Austin, Texas,
and other places. We were the first company in the U.S. to get the
Underwriters Laboratories certification on total house structures.”
By 1969, the business had
grown so rapidly that Summey and Hoyle saw a big need for capital. Wix
bought the business and Dana later bought Wix and Hoyle’s services.
In addition to running his
own investments business, which involves real estate and development,
Hoyle now is an active member of two very visible boards.
He’s been on the Gaston
Federal Bank board for nearly 30 years and is the current chairman.
“We’ve grown from $25 million in assets to more than $500
million,” he says. “We just recently bought Citizens Bank in
Salisbury. I spend a fair amount of time on that board.”
He’s also an active board
member with the Shaw Group, a $2 billion a year manufacturer of piping
systems. The New York Stock Exchange listed-company employs 15,000 and
is headquartered in Baton Rouge, La. It also designs, manufactures and
constructs some nuclear power plants, as well as providing maintenance
for others.
Not one to let any grass
grow under his feet, Hoyle is actively involved in developments in
Dare County, as well as building some student housing near the N.C.
State University campus.
Getting
into politics and elective office seemed like the right thing
to do when he ran for mayor of Dallas at the ripe old age of 27.
“Since I grew up in
Dallas, I knew everybody in the town,” Hoyle says. “The town was
split into two groups, so we put together a ticket of candidates who
could pull the two factions together.”
Hoyle won and served two
terms before the demands of his business career pulled him out of the
mayor’s seat and back to his full-time job.
However, it is not Hoyle’s
nature to sit on the sidelines very long, so it was not surprising in
1977 when Gov. Jim Hunt, in his first term, rewarded Hoyle’s early
and active campaign support with a coveted seat on the powerful state
Board of Transportation. It was a spot he would occupy for eight
years.
He continued his high level
of activity as the Gaston County Democratic Party chairman. In 1992,
he decided to seek a seat in the state Senate but first he had to
defeat the popular Carl Stewart, the former Speaker of the House, in
the Democratic primary.
Campaigning the
old-fashioned way, with no consultants or pollsters and with a lot of
handshaking, organizing and speaking, Hoyle managed to win in a
landslide with 57 percent of the vote.
He candidly admits his
family ties to the education community helped his campaign
tremendously. His daughter, Lonnia Beam, teaches at Chavis Middle
School. She and husband Todd have a 12-year-old son, Matthew.
Daughter-in-law, Resa, a teacher at Brookside Elementary, is married
to David Jr., a real estate appraiser and partner with his dad. They
have two boys, Will, 12, and Blair, 9.
Unlike many families today
that are split up by hundreds of miles of geography, the Hoyles are
not. Lonnia and Todd live 10 miles away in Cherryville and the younger
Hoyles live near Dallas on the farm where Linda grew up.
When asked what he was
proudest of in his career, Hoyle quickly responded. “I’m proudest
of my family — my wife, my children and three grandchildren,” he
says. “They’re the reason I’m in Raleigh. My family gives me my
real political strength.”
Other than his ties to the
education community through his immediate family, Hoyle’s three
sisters were all teachers and two of his brothers-in-law were teachers
and coaches, along with many first and second cousins. Even Linda
taught for two years before “we needed her in the family
business.”
Not only did his
education/family network provide him with the organization and the
votes necessary to be re-elected four more times, but it has also
helped Hoyle to shape education policy in the Senate.
“I hear it all — the
good, the bad, the problems and the challenges in education,” the
senator says. “Teaching is an honorable profession, and I’m going
to support it every way I can.”
Again, Hoyle has proven
he’s not just a “talker” for public education. In the community,
he has served as president of the Gaston County PTA Council, board
member and president of the Piedmont Education Foundation, former
chairman and member of the board of trustees at Lenoir-Rhyne College,
and former member of the board of advisors for the Liberal Arts and
Science Division of Gaston College.
As a conservative Democrat,
Hoyle is swimming against the political tide in Republican-dominated
Gaston County. In fact, Hoyle represents the strongest Republican
district in the state that is not represented by the GOP.
Textile executive Duke
Kimbrell credits Hoyle with “representing his district better than
anybody I have ever known.” Kimbrell recalls there being more
Republicans than Democrats at one of the earlier fund-raisers for
Hoyle. “Although he is a staunch Democrat, he doesn’t like
partisan politics,” Kimbrell says.
He also pointed out that
Hoyle’s avid pro-business stand does not turn off his constituents
because of the manner in which Hoyle pursues his philosophical goals.
“That is a real gift David Hoyle has. He loves what he’s doing. He
does a superb job. I just wish we had more like him in the
legislature. He looks at the logical and practical side of things and
that’s unusual.”
Hoyle laughingly points out
that he has been accused of being too pro-business. “Good. I plead
guilty,” he responds.
Without a healthy business
climate, he is fond of reminding his colleagues and constituents that
there would be fewer jobs and that the quality of life would suffer.
Again, from his parents,
Hoyle learned that public service is a public responsibility. “You
don’t have to be in office to be in public service,” he says.
“You can be an active volunteer in your community. If we all gave a
little bit of our talents, the country would be a better place to
live.”
Hoyle has put that belief
into action in his own community, serving on the boards of Gaston
Memorial Hospital, Gaston County Heart Association, Gaston Chamber of
Commerce, Schiele Museum, United Way of Gaston County, Gaston County
Arts Council, Garrison Community Foundation, Gaston-Lincoln Area
Mental Health, and others.
He hopes to pass that
philosophy on to his grandchildren as well as to all young people.
“Be good citizens,” he says. “Be involved. Give back to your
community and be willing to express yourselves on the issues. …
I’ll be honored if my grandchildren went into politics.
“I believe I have made a
difference by bringing a pro-business, pro-education, pro-people
agenda to the General Assembly,” he continues. There would be little
disagreement from his constituents, who have re-elected him with
little or no opposition.
Hoyle does often show a
frustration at the slow pace of change in Raleigh as well as when some
of his colleagues don’t seem to grasp the impact of their decisions
on the business climate. However, he is not known to be shy in
expressing his views in public or in private Senate Democratic
caucuses where a wide range of strongly-held views are often debated.
“My biggest frustration is
knowing the bureaucracy needs to be changed, tweaked, fined tuned and
made more efficient,” he says. “Knowing a problem exists and not
getting it fixed is frustrating, but we’re chipping away at it.”
Another disappointment to
Hoyle is the failure of the House to pass a constitutional amendment
to limit the length of legislative sessions. Recognized as the
legislative leader on this subject, Hoyle had led the Senate to pass
the amendment five times.
“We need to bring some
sense of certainty to the process,” he argues. “If we want to
maintain a citizen legislature, we have to pass session limits or we
will wind up with a legislature of great affluence and retired people.
“Our only hope is through
the effort by NCCBI to get this amendment passed by the House and to
get it on the ballot. If we can force a recorded vote, it will pass
the House.” (NCCBI’s board of directors has made this issue its
top priority for the short session, which begins later this month).
Hoyle
seems content to remain in the Senate for many more years.
Having given up on running for governor after a lot of soul searching,
he is comfortable in his current leadership role.
“David is very dedicated
to the citizens of his district and our entire state,” longtime
friend Ken Younger says. “His business experience has caused him to
realize that business and industry must grow and prosper so that jobs
and appointments will too.”
Younger doesn’t mince
words in describing Hoyle’s effectiveness. “I strongly believe
that he is the most capable, most conscientious person in the
legislature,” he says. “He is a great asset to our state.”
NC FREE, the business
community’s political advocate, consistently ranks Hoyle as the No.
1 pro-business senator. Few would disagree.
Rooming with powerhouse
legislator Marc Basnight in Raleigh has obviously not hurt Hoyle’s
rise in the power structure. Their friendship began 25 years ago when
they served on the DOT board together, and it was further solidified
when Hoyle committed early to vote for the Dare County legislator for
the top Senate leadership position.
When Hoyle’s not
legislating in Raleigh, developing property in Gaston and Dare
counties, attending board meetings in Louisiana, or spending time with
his family, Hoyle likes to venture to the mountains and play golf at
Elk River or Linville, a couple of North Carolina’s finest layouts.
There he shows off a 12 or 13 handicap — it has been as high 18 and
as low as eight, he says. He also enjoys hunting and fishing.
With the unprecedented
financial and budgeting issues facing this legislature, don’t expect
Hoyle’s handicap to drop in the near future or for him to catch a
lot of fish. It will take all the political muscle and insight the
63-year-old senator has to protect North Carolina’s pro-business
climate — a commitment that shapes his agenda and schedule daily.
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