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By Susan Shinn
When
he was a kid growing up in Granite Quarry, Paul Fisher could sense the rain
coming — says he could smell it. Today, Fisher is president and CEO of F&M
Bank, Rowan County’s largest bank. And he and other leaders here say they
sense good things ahead for the county.
It that belief comes true, it will only add to the long list of good things that
have happened in Rowan, which straddles Interstate 85 about half way between
Charlotte and the Triad. The county particularly has enjoyed a long run of
success in the business world. It’s the home of the Food Lion grocery store
chain and the region that gave birth to two of North Carolina’s most
recognizable products — Stanback headache powders and Cheerwine soda.
Other Rowan County companies have extended their reach globally. Power Curbers,
which manufactures specialized machines used to build sidewalks, curbs and
gutters, has customers in 80 countries. The company’s machines were used in
construction of the Chunnel tunnel linking England and France.
The belief that more good business news will arrive soon is felt the strongest
in Salisbury, the county seat, because of events set in motion two decades ago,
says Randy Hemann, executive director of Downtown Salisbury Inc. Back then
Salisbury was among the first cities to join the Main Street Program, a national
program aimed at revitalizing downtown areas through the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. “We are still reaping the benefits of the groundwork
that was laid 10 to 15 years ago,” he says.
The city also has just completed a two-year, $120,000 master plan encompassing
seven areas of strategy for growth downtown, making it a place for business; for
shopping and dining; for living; for gathering as a community; for creating and
learning; for experiencing history; and for lasting impressions.
“It brings all the pieces of the puzzle together,” Hemann says. “When you
do a plan like this and people see the vision, it tends to fall in place. People
will help you make it a reality.”
The downtown area employs more than 4,600 people and enjoys a 95 percent
first-floor occupancy rate, according to Hemann. There are 75 shops, 15
restaurants and more than 140 antique dealers. And there are more than 100
apartment units scattered in the downtown area, including 20 luxury units in The
Plaza, the seven-story building that stands guard on the Square. “When you
pull everything together, there is a lot to offer here in Rowan County, a lot of
things that are family friendly,” he says.
Fisher lends a more historical perspective. “From the end of the second World
War until 1990, Salisbury wasn’t going anywhere,” he says. Then came the
refurbishment of The Plaza, the renovation of the Salisbury Post newspaper
building, the Salisbury Station and the Meroney Theatre, and the revamping of
the courthouse and other city buildings — all of which took place downtown.
But there was a lapse and a lot of people got restless, including Fisher.
“What happened during the last 10 years — and what will happen the next five
years — will have surpassed all the growth before that,” he says.
Some exciting projects are taking place in the North Main Street area. One of
the largest projects is the development of Easy Street, a joint venture between
F&M bank and the city. Two buildings will become the new headquarters for
F&M. The Waterworks Art Visual Center will relocate to this area. There are
also business and commercial condos available. But it’s more than that. “The
whole idea of that area is to create a sense of place,” Fisher says. “There
is a beautiful Charleston garden. It will be a beautiful place.”
Right: Easy Street, a joint project between F&M Bank and the city of
Salisbury,
will be the site of an array of shops and a pedestrian friendly walking path
Everyone Pulls Together
The Rowan County Chamber of Commerce boasts a membership of 900
businesses. In its early years, the chamber was named for the city of Salisbury,
then adopted the Salisbury/Rowan combination, and today is known by its current
moniker. “Our name is representative of the whole county,” notes president
Bob Wright. “What we do benefits the whole county.”
In 2001, the chamber, the Rowan County Economic Development Commission and the
Rowan County Convention and Visitors Bureau moved into the Gateway Building on
Innes Street. The location serves to tie together the entire downtown area, and
creates a gateway into the city from Interstate 85. “It’s the front door of
the community,” Wright says. “We’ve got this one-stop shop for everybody
who comes into town.”
The chamber’s Business Resource Center fields calls daily from people
interested in starting their own business. “We’re helping grow businesses in
Rowan County right here in the chamber,” Wright says. There’s more to come.
He hails the reconfiguration of the I-85 exit at Salisbury as “the single
biggest economic development we’ve ever had in this county.”
Randy Harrell senses that economic development is on the upswing. “We’re
excited about the things that are happening with visitations and inquiries,”
says Harrell, the EDC’s executive director. Things have changed, he says, in
the way he works with prospective companies. Today, there are consultants who
represent these companies — he may not know even who the companies are and
what they do. “It’s a lot less personal and it presents a challenge,” he
says. Although he says that the
current number of projects in progress “aren’t quite where we want them,
we’re working our fair share.”
“We’ve got a lot to offer that some larger communities can’t offer,”
Harrell says. “This is a great place to live and that part can only get
better.” Harrell lauds elected officials for controlled growth and bringing
“good, clean industries” to the area. “Nothing but good can come from
that,” he says.
Likewise, nothing but good can come from the Summit Corporate Center, which
opened about five years ago. The center, located on Julian Road off I-85, has
numerous lots and buildings available immediately for businesses looking to
relocate.
EDC directors used to be known as “buffalo hunters,” Harrell notes, going
after big companies who would employ large numbers of people. Now, he says,
“we’re tickled to death to land a company that employs 10 to 15 people, with
a growth potential of 50 to 100 employees. We’re open to anything that will
pay good wages to our citizens and not affect the environment. Every job
counts.”
Like others, Harrell benefits greatly from the Gateway Building. The EDC’s
board room serves as his “war room” for potential prospects. It features
state-of-the-art equipment — DVD, VCR, Dolby stereo and an overhead projector.
 A
Boom in Tourism
One of Rowan County’s better-kept secrets is its appeal to tourists, according
to Judy Newman, the executive director of the CVB. “In one day, we had three
motorcoaches come in from the Cushman convention,” she says. “Then we had a
senior group that came in on the train. They walked to the Wrenn House, shopped
downtown and toured the Hall House. They took a city bus to the transportation
museum, then took the last bus back to Salisbury and then took the train to
Raleigh.”
The N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer (pictured, left) and the Lazy 5
Ranch near Salisbury each draw 100,000 visitors a year. And Dan Nicholas Park
draws 800,000 visitors annually, according to Jim Foltz, the county’s
executive director of parks and recreation. Many groups, Newman says, combine
visits to the ranch and to Dan Nicholas.
The historic district also draws its share of visitors. OctoberTour is hosted
each fall by the Historic Salisbury Foundation. Several thousand people attend
the two-day event, slated this year for Oct. 12-13. A self-guided, audio walking
tour covers such sites as the Hall House, the Utzmann-Chambers House, the Bell
Tower, the mural and the Wrenn House, a former school that’s now a restaurant.
“People love it,” Newman says of the tour. “It’s about 1 1/3 miles and
people can spend one to four hours on the tour and go at their own pace. You can
cut that machine off and go shopping downtown.”
Rowan County celebrates a number of festivals each year, all of which typically
pull visitors from about a 50-mile radius. Some of the most popular one-day
events are Farmer’s Day in China Grove, Heritage Day in Landis, the Fourth of
July celebration in Faith and Founders Day in Gold Hill.
An exciting event set for next year is the 250th anniversary of Rowan County and
Salisbury. Appropriately dubbed “250 Fest,” the celebration will include
special events throughout the year. Kay Brown Hirst, executive director of the
Rowan Museum, is chairman of the event’s steering committee, a deserving
appointment given that the museum was founded as a direct result of the
county’s bicentennial celebration in 1953.
The 250th anniversary festivities kick off Dec. 31 with a celebration at the
Salisbury Bell Tower. More than 300 churches throughout the county will ring
their bells 250 times. The Cheerwine “Parade of the Century” will take place
April 11, with participation from 250 units, including 25 bands and the reigning
Miss America. President Dwight Eisenhower spoke at the 200th anniversary of
Rowan County, and President George W. Bush has been invited to speak April 12 at
this celebration. A countywide school production also will take place in April,
along with other events through the year. “Our goals for the celebration are
to impact education, tourism and hopefully impact the economy,” Hirst says.
Fertile Soil for Banking
Three banks got their start in Rowan County and continue to operate here today.
Farmers & Merchants Bank started in Granite Quarry in 1909, and the father
of current bank president and CEO Paul Fisher began working for the bank in 1914
and continued until his death 50 years later. “We have been a local bank all
this time,” Fisher says. “We have eight locations in Rowan County.”
The bank boasts a 23.5 percent market share. With 150 employees and $350 million
in assets, it is the largest retail bank in the county and the county’s
largest real estate lender, according to Fisher. “We’re in the banking
business, we’re in the people business, we’re in the community building
business,” Fisher says. “If you don’t improve the community you live in,
you’re not going to have any business.”
Rowan Bank was founded in China Grove as the Rowan County Building and Loan
Association in 1905. Over the years, the bank was known as Rowan Federal Savings
and Loan and Rowan Savings Bank. It became a stock institution in 1993,
according to Bruce Jones, president and CEO. “That’s when the growth of our
bank really occurred,” he says.
Rowan Bank is now poised for more growth. It recently merged with First National
Bank of Asheboro. Stockholders could choose among receiving stock, cash or a
combination for the transaction. “It was structured to be a 45 percent
stock/55 percent cash transaction,” Jones explains. “It’s really one of
the better deals based on the value of the transaction.”
The new bank will have $700 million in assets. Rowan Bank will continue to
operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company. “Our name will not
change,” says Jones, who became an officer of the holding company. “It gives
us the ability to get products and services to the market more quickly than we
could ourselves.”
Such services include online banking, trust services and commercial lending.
Check processing has now become an in-house, back office function. “We think
it’s a win-win for our stock holders and customers,” Jones says. “We’re
still going to be Rowan Bank.”
Rowan Bank has become part of a network of 20 branches in Rowan, Randolph and
surrounding counties. Jones says that Rowan Bank will continue working at the
key to its success — providing a high level of service and knowing its
customers.
The same blueprint has helped make a success of the Bank of the Carolinas, which
was founded in 1913 as Home
Building & Loan Association. The bank was also known as Landis Savings Bank
and became Bank of the Carolinas when it went public in 1998.
Bank of the Carolinas was acquired by Bank of Davie on the last day of 2001.
With $170 million in assets, the new bank operates under the Bank of the
Carolinas name. It has five full-service branches and one mortgage loan office
in Rowan and Davie counties. A sixth full-service branch is slated to open in
Harrisburg in October.
Companies that were founded in Rowan County remain major players in the local
economy. Food Lion began as Food Town, founded in 1957 by brothers Brown Ketner
and Ralph Ketner and their friend, Wilson Smith, and is now one of the largest
grocery store chains in the Southeast. A total of 87 friends and acquaintances
in Rowan County who took a chance on the fledgling store as its original
shareholders have since become “Food Lion millionaires.”
Today, Food Lion boasts of 1,125
supermarkets in 11 states, and employs an estimated 86,000 people. Of that
number, some 2,370 work at the company’s Salisbury headquarters, making it the
county’s third largest employer (Freightliner, a truck manufacturing company
with 2,500 employees in Rowan, is No. 1). Food Lion’s parent company is
Delhaize America, the U.S. division of the Delhaize Group of Brussels, Belgium.
Improved Health Care
When Charles Elliott became the new CEO of Rowan Regional Medical Center earlier
this year, he found a long list of exciting projects awaiting his involvement.
The biggest project under way at the institution is an 18-month expansion and
renovation of the Emergency Department. The project is slated to be completed in
January. “We have grown from about 30,000 visits a year to about 48,000 visits
a year,” Elliott says. “We really need to expand that facility.”
Founded in 1936, the hospital is also expanding its cardiology services and
women’s services. “Advantages in cardiology have allowed us to provide a
much larger range of services than we have in the past,” Elliott says.
Likewise, advances in cancer care allow the medical center to provide a much
wider ranger of services locally. “Our population base has grown, and our
number of physicians has grown, too,” Elliott says. “You don’t have to
leave town to have advanced medical care.”
Other specialty units at Rowan Regional include a Joint Camp for patients who
are having hip and knee replacements; inpatient and outpatient psychiatric
services; advanced neurology services and a stroke program.
Rowan Regional, which employs about 1,200 with a staff of nearly 150 physicians,
is also looking to increase its number of endocrinologists and internists. Rowan
Diagnostic Practice will be adding pulmonologists to its staff, Elliott says,
noting that “these specialties will help tremendously.”
The new Kiser Building, located on the hospital campus, houses not only the
administrative offices, but a family practice, an OB-GYN practice, a cardiology
practice, a neurology practice, a urology practice and a diagnostic center —
with additional space available for new physicians.
“This hospital has a great medical staff,” says Elliott, who has spent time
in his new position getting out and meeting employees. “Every individual on
this staff is very committed to this organization. We have some longtime
employees who are dedicated to this place and what they do.”
The hospital is licensed for 300 inpatient beds, but Elliott says that more than
half of Rowan Regional’s income is through outpatient services. A new
outpatient surgery center is slated to open early next year on Julian Road. The
facility will also include a diagnostic center.
A Concentration of Colleges
Rowan County is home to three institutions of higher learning: Rowan-Cabarrus
Community College (which has dual campuses in Salisbury and Concord), Catawba
College and Livingstone College.
RCCC began its existence as Rowan Technical Institute in 1963. Dr. Richard
Brownell, who’s led the college the past 25 years, says that the biggest
challenge was changing the name a little more than a decade ago. “I could see
how fast the southern part of the county was growing around the metropolis of
Charlotte,” he says. “We had to face that. We had been serving Cabarrus
County for years, but not in a way that would meet the burgeoning needs of that
county.”
A Committee of 100 set the stage to create the state’s first multi-campus
college in 1991, and it’s been a great success — maybe even too much so,
because finding money to fund one campus, much less two, is extremely difficult,
Brownell says. Still, he adds, “We’re often a college of first choice for
people coming out of high school.”
RCCC is also a choice for those looking for more. “You’d be surprised how
many people come here to get an associate’s degree who already have four-year
degrees or master’s degrees,” Brownell says. That’s especially true in
slow economic times. Local residents have flocked to the college for additional
training or retraining. Enrollment has increased 70 percent over the past five
years, and had increased 13 percent in 2001 alone before a cap was placed on
enrollment. “Community colleges change lives,” Brownell says.
“Rowan-Cabarrus Community College is centered on workforce development.”
The college offers occupational programs, and short-track classes, with focused
training for specific skills. Brownell points out that all firefighters,
emergency personnel and police officers receive much of their training through
the community college. RCCC is well known for its nursing and other healthcare
programs. Continuing education courses take place at more than 150 locations
around the community.
Not surprisingly, two hot areas, according to Senior Vice President Jerry
Chandler, are information systems technology courses and automotive systems
technology courses. RCCC offers even more flexibility and accessibility for
students through its distance learning programs, which include online courses,
telecourses (courses broadcast on cable TV) and teleconferencing courses
(classes broadcast from campus to remote locations).
Catawba College was founded in 1851 as a private liberal arts college by the
Reformed Church, which later became the United Church of Christ. The college
still maintains its UCC affiliation. Its 19th president, Dr. Robert Knott, took
office on June 1 (see story, page 50).
Livingstone College was founded in 1879 as a liberal arts institution by a group
of AME Zion ministers. The college remains largely supported by the AME Zion
church. Its 11th president, Dr. Algeania W. Freeman, assumed office on Feb. 1,
2001. That same year, the college’s board of trustees approved a five-year
strategic plan. Its 10 goals include enhancing recruitment and retention,
becoming a customer-service driven campus and becoming a college of first choice
for students. Its freshman class this fall numbers 350.
Also included in the strategic plan is Freeman’s agenda of 10 goals, which
include increasing Livingstone’s ranking among historically black colleges and
universities, growing the student body to 1,200 to 1,500 students, building the
scholarship endowment and reminding everyone associated with Livingstone College
to remember that “We are Living Logos of Livingstone.”
Homecoming
Put all of the major components together — quality of life, economic
development, healthcare and education — and it’s easy to see why Rowan
County has been a lifelong home to so many.
Then there are those who do leave but eventually come back. Steven Fisher, the
executive vice president and general counsel of F&M Bank in Granite Quarry,
falls in that category. As a young attorney who worked and lived in the upscale
Buckhead section of Atlanta, he says, “I left for Atlanta not to return. I
absolutely loved it. It’s a great city. But getting married and having kids
changed things.”
He and his wife, Robin, also a Rowan County native, sat down and made a list of
what they wanted in a community. When the list was complete, they had narrowed
their choices between Salisbury and Marietta, Ga., an Atlanta suburb. “And
Salisbury trumps Marietta in my mind,” says Fisher. “We have more
accessibility here. Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Charlotte are equidistant. We
have preserved our historic buildings. Moving back here was just comfortable.
Salisbury is a great old shoe — you just slide it on and it’s comfortable. .
. . I needed to leave to appreciate
what I had.”
Dr. William W. Webb III is different from Fisher in that he always thought
he’d return to Salisbury. He opened his orthodontics practice in January 2001.
Dr. Bret Busby, another Rowan County native, joined him this past June. “For
me, it was a family decision,” Webb says. “My grandparents and parents are
still here. My brother is a dentist and he will start his practice in August.”
Webb’s wife is from the Durham-Chapel Hill area, and they considered that
area, as well as Wilmington. “Ultimately, we decided that Wilmington was a
little bit to far to be away from our parents,” Webb says. “And Salisbury
has that small, hometown feel.”
Webb will get a chance to see his family pretty often, the new Busby/Webb
Medical Building will house Salisbury Dermatology, his father’s practice;
Busby and Webb Orthodontics; and his brother’s general dentistry practice.
These decisions don’t surprise Judy Newman, the executive director of the CVB.
A Rowan County native, she moved away with her family at age 4, chose to return
to Salisbury in 1979 and hasn’t considered a move since. “Those who do leave
to go out and make their way in the world move back here to raise their
families,” she says. “This is a community oriented area that has everything
you could possibly want.”
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