Today in North Carolina


Granite Falls
Forlines Retiring After 50 Years as CEO
John Forlines, CEO of what has been called the “Best Little Bank in America,” surprised shareholders recently when he announced that after 50 years he will step down as the head of Bank of Granite Corp. at year’s end.

After leading the bank from an institution with one office in the foothills of Western North Carolina, five employees and $1 million in assets to one with 19 offices, $1 billion in assets and about 250 employees, the 86-year-old Forlines says its time to take life a little easier. He will hand over the reigns to his longtime righthand man, Charles Snipes, but will remain chair of the board at least through 2005.

“I don’t have any great plans,” says Forlines. “I’ll still be around and I’ll stay involved in community affairs. I do hope to have more time to spend with my family and my eight grandchildren — that’s time I don’t have now.”

After working with Forlines for 22 years, Snipes, 70, CEO of the corporation’s banking subsidiary, will take the top position.

R. Scott Anderson, most recently with RBC Centura in Rocky Mount, was named Bank of Granite COO. (See story page 51.)

 Noted investor Warren Buffet, chair of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has long recognized Bank of Granite as one of the best banks of any size in America. In 2003, it was listed in “The Super 50 Team” of Bill Staton’s America’s Finest Companies, which is given to companies who achieve 50 years of higher earnings and dividends per share.

Seven years earlier, in 1996, a Forbes magazine headline asked, “Is this the best little bank in America?” One year later, U.S. Banker ranked it as the best bank among institutions its size in the country and recognized it for its efficiency.

“The guru of thrift,” as a national magazine once called Forlines, is a member of the N.C. Business Hall of Fame and the N.C. Bankers Association Hall of Fame. He is a past chair of the N.C. Bankers Association and the N.C. School of Banking at UNC-Chapel Hill. Known for his generosity and community service, Forlines has served on numerous boards and committees, including NCCBI’s, where he remains an active member.

A Durham native, Forlines came to the bank as CEO on May 1, 1954, after graduating from Duke University and rising to the rank of major in the Army’s finance unit. The bank tapped him as CEO while he was working in his family’s hardware business in Durham. Forlines has maintained ties to his alma mater, serving on the Duke Board of Trustees and as chair of the finance committee. He received Duke’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 1994. He also served 20 years as chair of the board of directors at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute and for six years as chair of the state Board of Community Colleges.

On May 3, Forlines was surprised with a gala reception in Hudson to celebrate his 50th year as the CEO of the bank. NCCBI President Phil Kirk was master of ceremonies and others appearing on the program were Snipes; Kim Hutchens, former bank employee; Jim Culberson of Asheboro, former president of the American Bankers Association; Thad Woodard, president of the N.C. Bankers Association; Jack Moore, long-time bank director at Bank of Granite; John Forlines III, one of John’s four children; and Barbara Freiman, bank director who presented a video about John and the bank.   -- Charlene H. Nelson



Charlotte
Duke Agrees to Sell Merchant Power Plants
Duke Energy promised that 2004 would bring a more streamlined focus to its core business, and the company continues to prove that it wasn’t just giving lip service with last month’s announced sale of its entire southeastern merchant generation assets for $475 million.

The Charlotte-based company has reached agreement with KGen Partners LLC, owned by MatlinPatterson Global Opportunities Partners II, in a sale that’s expected to close during this year’s third quarter. Total proceeds from the transaction, including the sales price and approximately $500 million in tax benefits, will be approximately $1 billion.

The assets include eight natural gas-fired power plants in the Southeast with a total of 5,325 megawatts of capacity: Hot Spring (Arkansas); Murray and Sandersville (Georgia); Marshall (Kentucky); Hinds, Southaven, Enterprise and New Albany (Mississippi); and other power and gas contracts.

The majority of the value is in the three combined-cycle plants, located in Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia, which boast a total capacity of 2,380 MW. Those plants are highly efficient and designed to operate 24 hours a day, according to Paul Anderson, Duke’s chair and CEO.

All told this year, Duke Energy has announced or closed asset sales that will provide the company with approximately $2.5 billion. “In January, we announced our strategy for a smaller, more focused merchant energy business,” says Anderson. “With the sale of the southeast merchant fleet, we’re delivering on our plan.”

Duke Energy’s intent, Anderson says, is to cut back on its high-risk, potentially high-reward businesses, including wholesale power plants around the world, and instead concentrate more on its reliable, regulated businesses of Duke Power in the Carolinas and its North American natural-gas pipeline unit. -- Kevin Brafford


Durham
Cluster Strategy Pays Off With Merck Investment
Theory is nice, but nothing beats real-world results. In officially announcing plans for a massive vaccine plant in Durham County, New Jersey-based Merck & Co. Inc., is creating 200 high-wage jobs and sinking $300 million into the Research Triangle Region.

But the company’s announcement is also evidence that the region’s “cluster” strategy for economic development has a practical side. “From the beginning, Merck was interested in how its business plans fit into our existing life sciences cluster,” explains Charles Hayes, president of Research Triangle Regional Partnership (RTRP).

Working quietly and anonymously through its site selection consultants, Merck began exploring potential destinations in February 2003, communicating with RTRP staff on data-collection and touring appropriate industrial sites with Vivian Powell, a regional development representative with the N.C. Department of Commerce. Along the way, Powell arranged private meetings between Merck’s location hunters and local executives at Novo Nordisk, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and other biotech names in the region. “Our existing industries are always eager to help us with clients,” Powell says. “They believe in the value of our biotechnology cluster and want us to keep it strong.”

By December, after considering sites in 16 states, Merck signaled its choice of a 256-acre location at Durham’s Treyburn Corporate Park, a move helped along by legislative approval of a landmark $39.4 million incentive package. But proximity to an existing critical mass of life science activity also worked in the Triangle’s favor.

“They were impressed with the state’s visible commitment to biotechnology through programs put in place at our community colleges and universities that support biotech R&D and manufacturing,” says Ted Conner, vice president for economic development at the Durham Chamber of Commerce.

The Research Triangle Region’s clusters strategy is based on the theory that Knowledge Age firms seek locations near suppliers, customers and even competitors in order to reap vertical and horizontal synergies. Surveys of the region in 2001 identified biotechnology among several clusters offering the highest job-growth potential.   — Lawrence Bivins



Raleigh
Bill Friday's Dream Realized in Institute
N.C. State University’s College of Education has broken ground on the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation on the university’s Centennial Campus.

The mission of the 33,000-square-foot, $9 million privately funded institute is to create innovative teaching and learning solutions that address critical educational needs of learners across North Carolina. The institute is designed as a place that will speed the dissemination of best practices and assist in the professional development of educators, particularly for rural and underserved areas of the state. The facility is scheduled to open in 2005.

The building is named in honor of former UNC System president Bill Friday and his wife Ida’s unwavering commitment to educational excellence and equity. Throughout their lives, the Fridays have devoted themselves to public service and support for North Carolina’s children and its educational system. Bill Friday, called “one of the most significant North Carolinians of the 20th century,” served as president of the UNC System from 1956 until his retirement in 1986. He is a 1941 graduate of N.C. State.

NCCBI President Phil Kirk is a member of the national advisory board of the Friday Institute.

The Friday Institute will organize its work in “collaboratories” — customized physical and electronic environments that bring together students, teachers, education professionals and research scientists — to focus on five critical need areas: mathematics and science education; educational leadership; middle grades education; cultural connections in education; and instructional technologies to enhance teaching and learning.

The institute has been awarded more than $3.5 million in research grants over the past year. The North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation announced a $1 million grant at the groundbreaking ceremony to establish a mathematics and science “collaboratory.” The “collabora-tory” will transform the teaching of scientific concepts by exploring the visual-spatial thinking of students.

This new method uses models, pictorial representations, and 2-D and 3-D computer imaging to help students better understand complex scientific concepts, including DNA structure, photosynthesis and gene therapy. -- Anna Turnage




Greensboro
Foundation Gift Advances Downtown Revitalization
The continued downtown revitalization of the Gate City has received another infusion with the announcement that a local foundation plans to contribute $2 million to the Center City Park project.

The gift from the Greensboro-based Cemala Foundation brings the fund-raising tota to $9.8 million, according to Action Greensboro, the nonprofit that’s taken charge of gathering money to build the two-acre green space. City officials and Action Greensboro  have set a fund-raising goal of $12 million.

At present, the still unfinished park is an open space with a lawn, gravel pathways and a number of tables and chairs. It’s expected to become an even more popular destination this summer, as Time Warner Cable Business Services and IT Training & Solutions Inc. will make the park a “hot spot” for those with wireless-ready laptops and hand-held devices.

Over the next several years, the park is expected to undergo a major facelift.  Approval for the park’s final makeup could come in the fall, which would allow construction to start next spring.

That’s when the centerpiece of the downtown revitalization, a new ballpark for the minor-league baseball Greensboro Bats, is scheduled to open. The $20 million, 7,000-seat stadium will be paid for by a subsidiary of The Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, using half of its own money and half to be borrowed from Bank of America and Wachovia. The loan will be repaid from rent paid by the Bats. -- Kevin Brafford



Elon
Love School of Business Earns Coveted Designation
The Martha and Spencer Love School of Business at Elon University has achieved accreditation by AACSB International — the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. This accreditation is the highest possible in business education and caps a five-year initiative at Elon to make major investments and improvements in the quality of the business programs.

“Achieving AACSB accreditation fulfills one of the major objectives of our NewCentury@Elon strategic plan,” says Leo M. Lambert, Elon president. “Current business students as well as alumni can take pride in promoting the world-class quality of their business education. It is one of Elon’s finest distinctions.”

Of more than 3,000 collegiate business programs around the world, fewer than 20 percent have earned AACSB accreditation. Only 418 colleges and universities in the nation have achieved the AACSB hallmark of excellence. Elon joins Duke and Wake Forest as the only independent universities in North Carolina with AACSB accreditation.

Elon business programs include undergraduate majors in business administration, accounting and economics along with a master’s program in business administration. About 850 undergraduates and 80 graduate students study in programs focused on producing graduates who have the knowledge, skills and character essential for responsible business leadership in the 21st Century.

The Martha and Spencer Love School of Business includes 31 full-time faculty members. The school was created in 1984 with a gift from the family of pioneering textile magnate Spencer Love, the founder of Burlington Industries, and his wife, Martha.

Next spring, construction will begin on the Ernest A. Koury Sr. Business Center. The building will include a finance center/trading room with real-time data from Wall Street and other global financial markets, three computer labs, wireless network access and the latest business software packages.  — David Hibbard



Winston-Salem
Research Park Expansion Bolsters Biotech Facilities
Construction is under way on the planned expansion of Piedmont Triad Research Park. Biotechnology Research Facility 1 will be a 160,000-square-foot, five-story structure that will provide laboratory and office space for researchers from Wake Forest University Health Sciences and Winston-Salem State University. Additional space will be shelled in and held for biotechnology companies.

“We are grateful for the growing support of the public and private business sectors as well as the commitments at the state and federal level to see the park development become a reality,” says Dr. Richard H. Dean, president and CEO of Wake Forest University Health Sciences. “This is just the beginning.”

The project also will entail a 450-space, six-level parking deck that will be constructed on the site of the existing parking lot behind the Piedmont Triad Community Research Center. The research center houses the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Project Strengthen from Winston-Salem State University.

At a ceremony in early May, Assistant Secretary of Commerce Linda Weiner said the state has committed $4.5 million for road infrastructure and continued development of the park. Total cost of the project is estimated at $70 million, according to Douglas L. Edgeton, senior vice president for finance and administration and chief operating officer of Wake Forest University Health Sciences.

According to Rick Ericson, project manager for O’Brien/Atkins Associates of Research Triangle Park, the structure will rise more than 90 feet tall and be readily visible from Business I-40.

Recently the state’s first satellite office of the N.C. Biotechnology Center opened in the research park, and Guilford Tech and Forsyth Tech will jointly manage a new state pharmaceutical training center to be housed there — the BioNetwork Competitiveness Center.

Set to open in July, the center will receive up to $320,000 a year in grants for support staff, program development and services.  — Kevin Brafford


Charlotte
Time Warner Adds 400 Jobs With J-DIG Help
North Carolina’s Jobs Development Investment Grant (J-DIG) program has added another notch to its belt with the news that Time Warner Cable has begun site work for a four-story building to house about 350 employees in southwest Charlotte.

Time Warner expects to spend an estimated $29 million to $30 million on the building at Crescent Ridge, off Arrowood Road near Interstate 77. The cable TV and cable telephone provider will own the 116,000-square-foot structure, which is expected to be completed next March near another building it currently occupies at Crescent Ridge.

The new building was designed by Duda/Paine Architects of Durham. Rodgers Dooley, an alliance of general contractors Rodgers Builders and RT Dooley, will handle construction.

Time Warner officials say the expected new jobs will pay average annual salaries of $49,000.

An estimated 400 Time Warner employees now occupy a 125,000- square-foot shared services center inside a 157,000-square-foot building at Crescent Ridge.

If Time Warner meets all commitments of the JDIG agreement , it could collect as much as $4.2 million in cash over the next decade.    — Kevin Brafford



Concord
Community Generously Backs Nursing School Expansion
There is a growing shortage of nurses nationwide, and the Cabarrus College of Health Sciences hopes to do something about it with the opening of its new facility on the campus of NorthEast Medical Center. The 68,000-square-foot structure is being built by donations from the community; total project costs are $10.3 million.

The school began offering the first two-year hospital-based diploma program in North Carolina during 1974 with all graduating nurses receiving 100 percent pass rates on their licensure exams two years later.

Beginning in 1989, graduates were awarded associate in science degrees along with their diplomas in nursing. In 1992, the school marked its 50th anniversary by officially changing its name to become the Louise Harkey School of Nursing in honor of its founder.

The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges granted the nursing school regional accreditation for an associate degree of nursing in 1995, and the following year, the Harkey School of Nursing became the academic cornerstone of the newly named Cabarrus College of Health Sciences, which moved off the main hospital campus to a new location in nearby Concord. The N.C. General Assembly authorized the college to bestow baccalaureate degrees in 1998. Currently, 70 percent of graduates work within a 75-mile radius of the Concord campus.

By nearly doubling the classroom space of the former location, the new campus facilities and their access to a highly regarded medical center is a recruiting aid. “The new facility will enhance every aspect of the educational experience at Cabarrus College,” says Admissions Director Mark Ellison. “The college offers a student-centered learning environment with an average class size of 20 students, in addition to high-tech classrooms and state of the art labs. Located on the campus of one of the nation’s top 100 hospitals, our graduates have the knowledge and skills that are highly sought after by the healthcare providers in our region.”



Charlotte
Bike Race Hopes to Raise $1 Million for Tumor Research
Superstars in football as well as bicycle racing will kick off the inaugural Bank of America Invitational Criterium, which will draw professional riders from around the world to Charlotte this summer.

Roger Staubach, a Heisman Trophy winner at Navy and a star quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys who today owns a national real estate firm, will speak at the pre-race banquet, and Eddy Merckx, a five-time winner of the Tour de France, will officially start the 60-mile competition in uptown on Aug 7.

Organizers hope to raise more than $1 million for the newly created brain tumor Fund for the Carolinas (BTFC). Dr. Tony Asher, director of the brain tumor program at Carolinas Medical Center, leads the BTFC along with Jim Palermo, a former executive vice president at Bank of America, now executive vice president of community relations for Johnson & Wales University’s Charlotte campus.

Palermo’s son survived a brain tumor and is a doctor in Winston-Salem.

Most of the money raised will remain in Charlotte, Asher says, going to the Carolinas Medical Center Brain Tumor Program and to the Buddy Kemp Caring House, named for a former BofA executive who died of a brain tumor.

The race received a big boost when Bank of America signed on as corporate sponsor, Palermo notes, praising Chief Marketing Executive Cathy Bessant and Graham Denton, the bank’s Charlotte marketing executive.

Sanctioned by the U.S. Cycling Federation, the race has a purse of $125,000, making it the world’s richest criterium. Much of the 1.3-mile course stretches along Tryon Street, Charlotte’s main drag. Among teams committed are the U.S. Postal Service, Recycling.uk of Great Britain, SRM of Germany and Bodysol Belgium.

Staubach will launch 10 days of festivities when he speaks to a July 29 banquet sponsored by Presbyterian Health- care. Other events include an endurance ride July 30-31 in the Myers Park neighborhood and a cycling time trial Aug. 4 on the Lowe’s Motor Speedway track. -- Ellison Clary

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