Regional Business Reports
Winston-Salem
Wachovia Won't Move
Wealth-Management Division
Winston-Salem
received some good news following First Union Corp.’s acquisition of
Wachovia Corp when the new Wachovia announced that it would base its
wealth-management business in its former corporate headquarters here.
The decision to place more assets in Winston-Salem than initially
thought was well received.
“Since the merger with First Union was announced, we have said that
Winston-Salem would continue to be an important part of the new
Wachovia,” says Stanhope A. Kelly, a senior executive vice president
of Wachovia who will become head of the new bank’s wealth-management
business.
“We are reconfirming that commitment in a very tangible way,”
Kelly says.
His comments were supported by Ken Thompson, First Union’s chairman
and CEO and the new Wachovia’s chief executive. “Winston-Salem
will occupy a special place in the new company,” he says, “and
this is a clear demonstration of our commitment to the city.”
Wachovia, which had called Winston-Salem home since it was founded in
1879, has about 700 employees already working in its wealth-management
division in Winston-Salem. These employees will remain in the city,
and their numbers are expected to increase over time as this segment
of Wachovia’s business is expanded.
Equally important, bank officials say, is that Winston-Salem will be
home to some senior executives — the combined bank’s chief
operating officer for wealth management, Bob Kniejski, and the
managing executives of personal trust, charitable services, executive
services, insurance services and wealth-marketing services.
Kniejski was one of 35 Wachovia executives named in August as part of
the new Wachovia’s second-tier management lineup. Kelly, who is a
member of the combined company’s operating committee, is based in
Charlotte.
The new Wachovia will boast 4,500 employees throughout its
wealth-management division and more than 100,000 clients, all of whom
have assets to invest of at least $500,000. It will have $220 billion
in total client assets under management, of which $90 billion will be
in wealth management.
Other wealth-management support teams will be placed in Charlotte, the
new Wachovia’s headquarters, and Philadelphia, while the
division’s sales and service teams will be spread throughout the
East Coast and various sites across the country.
The combined bank, which has 19 million customers and 90,000
employees, operates 5,100 ATMs and 2,900 branches on the East Coast.
-- Kevin Brafford
Salisbury
Food Lion Earns
EPA Award For Energy Reduction Efforts
North
Carolina’s largest grocer, Salisbury-based Food Lion, has earned the
prestigious Energy Star label from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) for its success in reducing energy consumption at its
1,187 supermarkets that span 11 states.
“Food Lion has been instrumental in EPA’s effort to bring Energy
Star to the supermarket industry and has made great contributions to
developing and testing the Energy Star rating tool for
supermarkets,” says EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitmann.
“Now stores across the country can evaluate and compare their energy
performance and identify the best opportunities for improvement and
pollution prevention. We appreciate our partnership with Food Lion.”
“Supermarkets and grocery stores use enormous amounts of energy, so
Food Lion’s energy management practices will have enormous benefits,
both for the environment and the organization’s bottom line,” says
Jean Lupinacci, the director of Energy Star’s commercial and
industrial branch, who presented Food Lion with the award in Charlotte
on Aug. 22.
“Food Lion should be praised for what it has accomplished,” she
adds. “Preliminary results indicate that, as a whole, Food Lion’s
portfolio of stores perform above industry average and as many as 200
stores may qualify for the Energy Star label.”
Bill McCanless, Food Lion’s president and CEO, estimates that the
company recognizes approximately $2 million annually from energy
savings in its newly remodeled and newly constructed stores.
“The wise management of our energy resources has resulted in savings
to the bottom line that we pass along to our customers,” he says.
“In addition, this approach to energy management has helped Food
Lion take a leadership role in the grocery industry’s pollution
prevention efforts.” — Kevin Brafford
Greensboro
Shelco Opens a
Tech Division, Strengthens is Triad Presence
In
an economic environment where cutbacks and layoffs dominate, Shelco
Inc. is heading in the other direction. The general contracting
company is creating two new offices, including one in Greensboro,
adding staff and creating a technology division.
Shelco, which is based in Charlotte, was founded in Winston-Salem in
1978 and has been a top commercial builder in the Triad for years.
Stuart Nunn, a vice president in the Winston-Salem office, will head
the new Greensboro office.
“We want to get close to the community in Guilford County,” says
Bud Palmer, vice president for sales and marketing in the Triad.
“We’ve been involved in projects there, but if you’re not in the
community, you’re not felt to be part of it.”
Nunn, who lives in High Point, will help Shelco establish a physical
base in Greensboro, where the company completed a 120,000-square-foot
research and training facility for chip-maker RF Micro Devices.
Building such facilities is part of the company’s strategic plan in
the high-tech construction area and resulted in the new technology
division, Advanced Technologies Group, which will be led by Roger
Hendrick. It will seek work in areas such as microelectronics, chips,
pharmaceuticals, biotech and the like.
“That’s the focus of this group,” says Palmer. “This isn’t
dealing with dot-com companies. These kinds of companies will be the
future. They’re here to stay, and we want to be positioned when the
economy turns to be able to take advantage of these kinds of
opportunities. We’ve been involved in this area for the last two
years, and we’ve got a niche in it.”
In addition to the RF Micro facility in Greensboro, Shelco recently
completed work on a new headquarters and chip manufacturing facility
for Digital Optics Corp. in Charlotte. Other Shelco projects include
the 47-story Hearst Tower in Charlotte and Showplace, a furniture
exhibit facility, in High Point.
The company, which shifted its headquarters from Winston-Salem to
Charlotte in 1990, has a staff of 300 (including about 50 in the
Triad). Palmer says the new office in Greensboro is projected to open
in November. — Jim Buice
Gastonia
Charlie Zeigler
Retires from PSNC Energy
For
the first time in 64 years, a Zeigler is not at the head of PSNC
Energy. Charlie Zeigler, president and COO of PSNC Energy, retired
Sept. 28 from the company his grandfather founded in 1937. In his 15
years with the company, Zeigler took it from the NASDAQ to the New
York Stock Exchange and trimmed it from 1,100 to 875 employees. Its
attractiveness caught the eye of Columbia, S.C.-based energy holding
company SCANA, which acquired it last year. Prior to PSNC’s merger
with SCANA, Zeigler was chairman, president and COO of Public Service
Co. of North Carolina Inc.
“For most companies, after 15 years they need a leadership
change,” says Zeigler. “It will be good to bring in fresh ideas. I
came to the conclusion that now is the right time to leave.”
Still only 55 years old, Zeigler is planning a new career. He and an
as-yet-unnamed group of investors and management talents in Charlotte
and other Carolinas cities plan to purchase one or more companies and
run them. Zeigler, who holds an MBA from the Wharton School of
Business at the University of Pennsylvania and who worked for the
former NCNB Corp. and Citibank in corporate finance, says the mood of
the business climate is ripe for such an endeavor.
Zeigler, ever the financier, says of his accomplishments at PSNC that
he’s most proud of improving the customer service mindset of the
workforce while trimming the ranks by more than 350 workers.
But before reducing rank-and-file employees, Zeigler pared the
executive officers from 22 to three after the SCANA merger.
PSNC Energy serves 375,000 customers, mostly residential and small
commercial, with natural gas in the Raleigh-Durham area and
surrounding counties, Charlotte and surrounding counties west to
Asheville.
During his tenure at PSNC, Zeigler chaired the Southern Gas
Association and was chairman of NCCBI in 1996-97.
He says he leaves the company with high morale and in good leadership.
As for himself? “It’ll be exciting getting back into
entrepreneurship,” he says. -- Laura Williams-Tracy
Kannapolis
Racing Legend's
Hometown Plans to Construct a Memorial
When
stock-car racing legend and Kannapolis native Dale Earnhardt was
killed during the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 11, his hometown
became a pilgrimage site for thousands of grieving fans.
Fans came in droves to a memorial service held at Fieldcrest Cannon
Stadium, the home of the minor league Kannapolis Intimidators, a team
that Earnhardt co-owned, and they laid flowers at his racing business
headquarters, Dale Earnhardt Inc.
“Everybody has their story about what Dale Earnhardt meant to
them,” says Jennifer Woodford, public information officer for the
city of Kannapolis. “We want a place where people can feel that
presence.”
To that end, the city plans to erect a permanent memorial to Earnhardt
in the form of a statue, a tribute wall and plaza at the city’s new
Village Park downtown. The effort is being led by the city council and
Mayor Ray Moss, but city leaders say the $700,000 that is estimated
for the project will be privately raised. Organizers plan to begin
fund-raising in earnest this fall, possibly kicking off with this
month’s Winston Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord.
A steering committee has begun work to design the memorial. In July
the group selected artist Clyde Ross Morgan from Sedona, Ariz., to
create the Earnhardt memorial design. Morgan plans to work on the
sculpture from an empty storefront or other public building in
Kannapolis so that residents and fans can be involved as the work is
in progress.
Donations are tax-deductible, and can be sent to Dale Earnhardt
Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 1199, Kannapolis, N.C. 28082-1199. —
Laura Williams-Tracy
Raleigh
State Plans Test
of its Defenses Against Hoof and Mouth Disease
Reports
about a potential outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in North
Carolina have simmered recently as the epidemic seemingly has been
under control in Europe.
But taking the stance of “rather to be safe than sorry,” State
Emergency Management Director Eric Tolbert has followed Agriculture
Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps’ initiative and made plans for a major
FMD response drill this month.
“We’re warehousing protective suits, captive bolt guns, gloves,
boots, goggles, decontamination equipment — anything we might
need,” says Tolbert. “We want to be ready to move quickly.”
FMD is a severe, highly communicable viral disease of cattle and
swine. It also affects sheep, goats, deer and other cloven-hooved
ruminants. Horses are resistant, and it’s not contagious to humans.
There is no known cure.
The disease broke out in Britain in February. The virus spread rapidly
in the country and then moved to Ireland, France and The Netherlands,
affecting more than 9,000 farms and forcing more than 3.7 million
animals to be destroyed. Because the FMD virus is spread so easily,
countries with the disease are banned from exporting animals, meat or
other animal products.
Experts agree that an outbreak of FMD in North Carolina could damage
the state’s economy for years and potentially incur losses more
significant than Hurricane Floyd. It could adversely affect meat
prices at grocery stores and potentially decimate North Carolina’s
billion-dollar hog business.
“The more we learn about it,” says David Marshall, the state
veterinarian, “the clearer it becomes how difficult it is to detect
and contain this disease before it gets out of hand. We have to stay
on a constant alert.
“It takes just one person or animal coming in from overseas to get
it started,” he adds.
If anyone observes animals showing symptoms of FMD — fever and
blister-like lesions followed by erosions on the tongue and lips, in
the mouth, on the teats, and between the hooves, they are asked to
contact Marshall’s office at 919-733-7601. — Kevin Brafford
Greensboro
Oakwood's New
CEO Sees Better Financial Times Ahead
For
the fourth time in two years, Oakwood Homes has a new chief executive
officer. Myles Standish is the latest to take over the reins of the
struggling Greensboro-based manufactured housing builder and retailer.
Standish was elevated to the top position of the company in late July,
replacing Duane Daggett, who had been in charge since September 2000.
Standish, 46, started with Oakwood in 1995 as the company’s top
lawyer.
“The transition has gone smoothly,” says Standish, who had been
promoted to executive vice president of housing operations last year.
“It was a transition that had been planned somewhat in advance.”
He worked with Daggett in making restructuring changes at the company,
which has struggled since 1998 with bad loans in the financial
services division. The division makes mortgage loans to individuals
buying Oakwood’s manufactured homes. Those problems were followed by
an industry-wide glut of manufactured homes and sagging sales.
“The industry continues to be in a downturn,” says Standish,
“and that will continue in the near term. Oakwood is going to have
to battle through it with everyone else. The good news is that our
liquidity situation is much, much improved.”
The company closed about 100 sales centers (including four in North
Carolina but none in the Triad), cut more than 2,000 jobs,
restructured layers of management utilizing a more-streamlined
regional concept and started to get a handle on its inventory. In June
1999, Oakwood had more than 26,000 floors (single-wide homes count as
one floor and double-wides count as two) in inventory. That number has
since been whittled to less than 12,000.
Oakwood, which now has 245 sales centers, reported retail sales for
its most recent quarter of $150.2 million, down from $209 million for
the same period last year. The company said it lost $49.5 million in
the quarter compared with $11.1 million during the same quarter a year
ago. The loss includes $25 million in charges related to closed and
pending sales of securities and store closings.
Still, Oakwood has come a long way since last year when many feared
the company’s doors might close. The company’s stock traded at $42
a share in 1998 before plunging to as low as 50 cents a share last
December. The company approved a 1-for-5 reverse split in June to
avoid being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. It could have
been delisted after falling below $1 for 30 consecutive days. The
post-split price has fluctuated between $7 and $8 a share.
“We’ve got to get results,” Standish says. “I’ve got the
confidence of the people who put me in the job. You just have to
perform.” — Jim Buice
Charlotte
Conference to
Focus on Merging Technology, Education
As
North Carolina continues to develop knowledge-based, “new economy”
jobs, the importance of integrating technology seamlessly in education
from the preschool level up has never been greater.
Addressing that challenge is the goal of the second annual “North
Carolina Knowledge Nova: Learning at the Speed of Light” conference,
hosted by the North Carolina Electronics and Information
Technologies Association on Oct. 10 at the Charlotte Hilton and Towers
Hotel.
The conference is being held in partnership with ExplorNet, the N.C.
Department of Commerce, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, the
N.C. Community College System and the University of North Carolina.
Speakers and presenters include Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue; Secretary of
Commerce Jim Fain; Krista Tillman, president of BellSouth North
Carolina; Marjorie Bynum, vice president of Workforce Development for
the Information Technology Association of America; Nancy Hayes, CEO of
the Starbright Foundation; and Carroll Gray, president of the
Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.
In addition, NCEITA will release the results of its second annual
workforce survey, which polls technology executives to determine the
successes and challenges of the education system in North Carolina.
For more information or to register for the conference, call
919-856-0393. — Nic Heinke
Hickory
City's Reported
Demise Seems a Bit Exaggerated
Reports
of Hickory’s economic demise are exaggerated, say city and county
officials. Despite a high unemployment rate and the loss of
significant manufacturing jobs, the city grew its gross retail sales
in May while most mid-to-large size cities in the Piedmont and western
reaches of the state experienced a decline, according to statistics
from the N.C. Department of Revenue.
And while the area has lost about 3,500 manufacturing jobs in the
four-county metropolitan area during the past year, the overall number
of jobs in the area is on the rise. From May to June, the number of
people employed in Catawba County jumped by almost 1,000.
Hickory began drawing national attention earlier this summer when the
Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton
metropolitan statistical area (MSA) having the largest increase in
unemployment among MSAs in the country — from 2.3 percent in June
2000 to 6.3 percent this June.
Citing the increase as an example of the country’s slowing economy,
national news media painted Hickory as a dying southern town. What the
stories did not say, however, is that while the loss of jobs in the
Hickory area has been significant, the area’s strong economy has
continued to grow.
Although the pain associated with layoffs is very real, the
unemployment rate increase is not as bad as it appears, say officials.
At 6.3 percent, the area’s unemployment rate is not nearly as high
as in some parts of the country — 10 areas in the nation reported
rates of 10 percent or more in June, according to statistics from the
U.S. Department of Labor. But because the Hickory MSA had such a low
unemployment rate at the same time last year, the increase is
dramatic.
“The rate was so low last year that it made it hard to recruit new
business and industry to the area because we had no labor force to
offer them,” says Scott Millar, president of Catawba County Economic
Development Corp. “We have been out of kilter for some time now, and
I have been saying that getting back to normal was going to hurt.”
What is happening in the Hickory area, officials agree, is that it is
in the midst of a change that had been expected.
“We have known for the past few years that our economy is undergoing
a transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service
economy,” says William R. McDonald III, the mayor of Hickory. “We
have been planning for this transition and we have a strong economic
base which will support it.” -- Charlene H. Nelson
Raleigh
Rail Travel to
Get a Little Bit Easier
Highways
and interstates aren’t the only routes of transportation being
improved. The Board of Directors of the North Carolina Railroad
Company has approved more than $3 million in funds to be used to
upgrade the 317-mile rail corridor that extends from Charlotte to
Morehead City.
The board also has given the go-ahead to spend $600,000 for the design
of replacement railroad bridges for the Highway 54 Bridge in Research
Triangle Park and the Neuse River Bridge outside Kinston.
That’s not all. The board also has approved a $2.7 million agreement
with the Norfolk Southern Railway Company and the North Carolina
Department of Transportation Rail Division to upgrade the corridor
between Selma and Raleigh.
The three projects, whose completion dates are still to be determined,
are expected to shorten travel time and increase safety. —
Kevin Brafford
Charlotte
Plans for
25-Story Hotel Raise City's Travel Appeal
The
largest hotel in the Southeast will open next fall at the doorstep of
Charlotte’s convention center, and its arrival is expected to boost
the city’s ability to attract out-of-town business guests.
When completed, the Charlotte Westin Hotel will be a 25-story,
full-service, four-star hotel offering 700 guest rooms and 46,050
square feet of meeting space. Developed by Atlanta-based Portman
Holdings and built by J.A. Jones Construction, the hotel will include
a health spa with indoor swimming pool and will link with
Charlotte’s growing arts district and fashionable SouthEnd with a
trolley stop.
The hotel’s size and location next door to the city’s six-year-old
convention center is expected to make Charlotte a more attractive
destination for meetings of businesses, organizations and trade
groups, because the groups will often be able to stay at one hotel
rather than being spread at a number of uptown hotels.
Charlotte hosted its largest-ever convention in June when an estimated
60,000 delegates of the National Baptist Convention USA descended on
uptown in a barrage of church buses and cars. By all accounts the
sheer number of visitors caught the city off guard and traffic snarls
brought uptown traffic to a halt. But police quickly wrestled control
of traffic and the rest of the weeklong conference proceeded smoothly.
But with a weakening economy and less business travel, the hospitality
industry’s pains are evident. Charlotte added hotel rooms at a
faster pace than any other city in the nation during 2000, according
to Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. With the slowing economy, vacancy
rates have risen.
Now the city is looking at how it approaches tourism and the Charlotte
City Council may take up the issue. Currently, the Charlotte
Convention and Visitors Bureau, a private entity hired by the city to
promote Charlotte as a destination, and the Greater Charlotte
Hospitality & Tourism Alliance, an industry lobby group, are vying
for control of how to promote the city. — Laura Williams-Tracy
Winston-Salem
RJR Will Plan
Another Round with the Vantage Tournament
The
cancellation of the final Vantage Championship golf tournament
following the bombings in New York and Washington has prompted sponsor
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to continue the Senior PGA Tour event one
more year.
This year’s $1.6 million tournament was scheduled to be held at
Tanglewood Park in Clemmons on Sept. 14-16. RJR officials had
announced in mid-August that it would not extend a three-year
contract. RJR is limited to one sports sponsorship a year because of
the Master Settlement Agreement signed in 1998.
RJR will provide the $1.6 million purse for next year’s tournament.
Because of the government regulations, the tournament can’t be
called the Vantage Championship, but will likely be called the R.J.
Reynolds Championship.
“We certainly didn’t want to end our sponsorship on a down note
like this,” says Rick Sanders, the president of the sports marketing
division of RJR. “We were faced with highly unusual circumstances
and we just didn’t feel right ending it like this.”
RJR officials say its decision to end its association with the
tournament, now following the 2002 event, is strictly a matter of
business. “We constantly evaluate the most effective use of our
resources and have made a business decision to focus on other
areas,” says Sanders.
Once RJR drops its sponsorship of the event, Sanders says the company
will donate an additional $1 million over the following three years to
organizations that have received donations from tournament proceeds.
More than $4.5 million has been raised for local charities through the
Vantage during its run. — Jim Buice
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