News from NCCBI's 61st Annual Meeting


View the Annual Meeting PowerPoint slide show
See pictures taken at the Chair's Reception held at the N.C. Museum of Art
See pictures taken at the Annual Meeting Membership Reception

Governor asks NCCBI leaders to head up effort
to implement government efficiency measures

Gov. Mike Easley came to NCCBI’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday to thank the association for its support for his budget reform and efficiency efforts and to announce that he is naming a permanent council of business leaders to study ways to reduce government spending. Easley said the Business Council for Fiscal Reform mainly will work to ensure the implementation of recommendations advanced by the Governor’s Efficiency Commission, which issued its final report in December.

Easley appointed several NCCBI figures to the Business Council for Fiscal Reform, including Jim Hyler of Raleigh, whose year as NCCBI chair ended at the Annual Meeting. He led the Efficiency Commission and has stressed the need for some mechanism for ensuring that the commission’s proposals are adopted. Easley also appointed Sue W. Cole of Greensboro, the U.S. Trust Company of North Carolina president and CEO who was installed as NCCBI’s new chair at the Annual Meeting. Others the governor appointed include Bill Coley, the former Duke Power president; Jim Hance, vice chairman and CFO of Bank of America; and Ken Thompson, president and CEO of Wachovia Bank. Easley said he would appoint additional members soon.

"This council will be comprised exclusively of business leaders, with the goal of ensuring that government operates as efficiently as possible," said Easley. "Only with a sustained effort toward reducing the costs of government can we lower taxes in the future."

The Governor's Commission to Promote Government Efficiency and Savings on State Spending in December issued its final report on how to make government more efficient. By mid-February, state agencies had reviewed the recommendations and were constructing plans or offering alternatives to implement the recommendations. The council will oversee progress toward action on these recommendations.

"You know, and I know, that too many of these reports sit on the shelf," the governor told the thousand or so people attending the NCCBI luncheon. "These commissions form in bad times, make their reports in time for the recommendations to be forgotten in good times. The cycle repeats itself, and the cycle must be broken. Efficiency cannot wait – and these business leaders will not let it wait until the next recession."


Cole takes NCCBI gavel pledging to focus on basic issues
Sue W. Cole of Greensboro, the president and CEO of U.S. Trust Co. of North Carolina, was installed Wednesday as 2003-04 chair of NCCBI during the association’s 61^st Annual Meeting in Raleigh. She told the Board of Directors that she would focus on such basics as membership services, lobbying for core business issues and enhancing the association’s financial structure. Cole becomes the first woman to lead the organization in its 61-year history. She succeeds Jim Hyler of Raleigh, the vice chairman and COO of First Citizens Bank.

In her remarks during the board’s annual business meeting, Cole said, ”My personal bias is to create new things, to create change. But what we need to do is to focus on the basics. We need to maintain and improve the financial basis of the organization. We need to focus on membership, and remember that retaining a member is as important as getting a new member. We need to listen to our constituencies, which includes lobbyists and legislators. We need to expand our influence with legislators and we need to focus on some basic business issues.”

U.S. Trust Company of North Carolina has offices in Greensboro, Charlotte and Raleigh and maintains about 750 client relationships in the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. The private banking firm has assets under administration exceeding $3.4 billion.

Cole downplays the importance of being the first woman to lead NCCBI, which serves as the state chamber of commerce and state manufacturers association. “You wear a tie, I wear high heels,” she is fond of saying. “I contend that both are pretty uncomfortable and inconvenient.”  In a cover story about her to be published in the April issue of the North Carolina Magazine, she says: “The image of North Carolina — and thus NCCBI — over the years has been that of a more conservative, white-male environment. NCCBI has, and should, reflect the business community at large. Today, the number of female lawyers, doctors, professionals, business owners, board members and management trainees — they’re all rising. NCCBI’s membership reflects that and will continue to do so, and thus the association’s leadership is following suit.”

Cole is a 1972 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she majored in business administration and economics. She earned her master’s of business administration from UNC-G in 1977. Before joining U.S. Trust in 1987, Cole served as a senior vice president at North Carolina National Bank, where she oversaw corporate banking services in the Greensboro area and managed the retail branch system.

Cole currently serves as a trustee of UNC-G and is a member of the CEO Advisory Council for Guilford Technical Community College. She was chairman of the Greensboro Area Chamber of Commerce in 1993. She also has served as chairman of the UNC-G Bryan School of Business & Economics Advisory Board, chairman of the Guilford College Board of Visitors, and president of the Greensboro Center City Corporation. Cole and her husband, Gordon, have two daughters.

Bob Ingram delivered a stirring keynote address at the Annual Meeting. The speech contained many surprising statistics on the role that pharmaceuticals play in the rising costs of health care. Read a copy of his speech. NCCBI will offer video streaming of portions of the speech at its web site next week.

Members praise decision to drop Annual Meeting’s sit-down dinner
Responding to suggestions from members voiced in last summer’s satisfaction survey, NCCBI dropped the sit-down dinner at its Annual Meeting this year and switched to a two-hour reception held amid a jammed-packed trade show. Judging by the comments of dozens of members, the switch was a total success. Many said they liked having the time to catch up with old friends from around the state and to make new business contacts while strolling the Expo and sampling food and beverages.

About 1,000 people attended the luncheon and roughly 700 returned for the reception. There were 84 exhibitors at the daylong Expo trade show, which was a complete sell-out.

The Annual Meeting activities actually began Tuesday with an afternoon orientation session for new members of the Board of Directors, which was followed by reception for the full board. The meetings were held at the N.C. Museum of Art. The evening concluded with drawings for prizes to the directors who had recruited the most new members in the past year. Kelly King of BB&T brought in 15 new members and John Forlines of Bank of Granite was close behind at 13.


NCCBI ending its fiscal year slightly in the black
NCCBI took in roughly $2.7 million in revenue from all sources over the past 12 months and should end the year slightly in the black at the end of its fiscal year on March 31, Treasurer Horace Johnson of Raleigh, the Ernst & Young executive, reported to the Board of Directors during its annual business meeting. That’s a pretty good result, he said, considering that the budget anticipated that NCCBI would barely break even because of the stagnant economy.

Johnson pointed out, though, that the association actually had a deficit of about $25,000 over the year but the red ink was more than covered by profits from the North Carolina Magazine. For tax and other reasons, the magazine is treated as a separate profit center within the association’s overall budget. Johnson said magazine expenses were almost exactly on budget but much higher than expected advertising revenue allowed the magazine to post a year-end profit of around $142,000. Taken together, NCCBI as a whole likely will end the year in the black, but little of that is in actual cash, he said, and mostly results from strict accounting methods which nonprofits like NCCBI are required to follow. However, that compares very favorably with the less than $1,000 left on NCCBI’s books at the end of last fiscal year.

For the first 11 months of the fiscal year, membership dues revenues were $186,000 above budget, Johnson pointed out. However, the association had higher expenses for the year, particularly in steep increases in the cost of providing health insurance to the staff.

Johnson was repeatedly praised for his volunteer work over the past seven years as NCCBI’s treasurer. He relinquished the post to Steve Zaytoun of Cary, the insurance broker who heads Zaytoun and Associates. Johnson will continue serving as chair of the NCCBI Finance Committee, the group of board members that meets quarterly to review association finances and advise it on budgetary issues.


New officers, board members begin service
The new officers and board members who will serve in the year ahead were announced at the Annual Meeting. They are as follows:

First Vice Chair: Barry W. Eveland, IBM’s top executive in North Carolina, will replaces Bill Coley, the Duke Power Co. president who retired last month. A career IBM employee, Eveland is a native of Pennsylvania and a graduate of Lehigh University. He has managed IBM’s operations in North Carolina since 1993.

Second Vice Chair: Stephen Miller of Asheville, senior vice president of The Biltmore Company, will serve as NCCBI’s Second Vice Chair in the year ahead and will lead the association’s annual membership campaign. Miller has worked for The Biltmore Company since graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill. Miller, who oversees the new Inn on Biltmore, is active in civic affairs in the Asheville area, especially in the healthcare field as chair of the Memorial Mission-St. Joseph’s Hospital board.

Treasurer: Stephen K. Zaytoun of Cary, president of the Zaytoun & Associates Inc. insurance brokerage company, will serve as NCCBI treasurer in the year ahead. He succeeds Horace Johnson of Ernst & Young in Raleigh, who has given several years of beneficial service to the association in that important volunteer role. Zaytoun, a 1979 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, is active in civic affairs in Cary and is a former chair of the Cary Chamber of Commerce.

New and Re-elected Board Members: FOUR-YEAR TERM: David S. Brody, Brody Associates, Kinston; Michael R. Coltrane, CT Communications Inc., Concord; J. Keith Crisco, Asheboro Elastics Corporation, Asheboro; Sharon A. Decker, Doncaster, Rutherfordton; Michael Edwards, Weyerhaeuser, Fort Mill, SC; Marye Anne Fox, North Carolina State University, Raleigh; Julie A. Garella, McColl Garella LLC, Charlotte; Glenn R. Jernigan, Glenn R. Jernigan & Associates, Fayetteville; Chief Leon D. Jones, Eastern Band of Cherokee, Cherokee; Dr. Nannerl O. Keohane, Duke University, Durham; James R. Konneker, The Kelly-Springfield Tire Co., Fayetteville; Robert F. Lowe, Lexington State Bank, Lexington; Robert L. Mattocks II, Jenkins Gas & Oil, Inc., Pollocksville; Louise F. McColl, McColl & Associates, Wilmington; Henry A. Mitchell, Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett,,  Mitchell & Jernigan, Raleigh; Charles D. Owen III, Charles D. Owen Manufacturing Co. Inc., Swannanoa; C. Steve Parrott, Sprint, Wake Forest; J. Eric Pike, Pike Electric Inc., Mount Airy; Orage Quarles III, The News & Observer, Raleigh; Joseph E. Thomas, Stallings & Thomas Inc., New Bern; Dennis A. Wicker, Helms Mulliss & Wicker, Raleigh; John G. Winkenwerder, South Asheville Hotel/Hampton Inn Suites, Fletcher; Dr. Phail Wynn Jr., Durham Technical Community College, Durham; ONE-YEAR TERM; John L. Atkins III, O’Brien/Atkins Associates, Research Triangle Park; Mary Clara Capel, Capel Inc., Troy; Lynn M. Lail, Hickory Furniture Mart, Hickory; C. Michael Fulenwider, Fulenwider Enterprises Inc., Morganton; TWO-YEAR TERM; William F. Forsyth, Murphy Electric Power Board, Murphy; THREE-YEAR TERM; R. Horace Johnson, Ernst & Young LLP, Raleigh; Douglas L. Stafford, Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Concord.