NCCBI News for May 2004

Eveland Names 4 to Executive Committee

Two prominent Charlotteans, the publisher of the Greenville newspaper and a Troy business woman have been appointed to the NCCBI Executive Committee by Chair Barry Eveland. H.W. McKay Belk, president and chief merchandising officer of the Belk’s department store chain; Ellen Ruff, a senior vice president of Duke Power Co.; Jordy Whichard, publisher of the Greenville Daily Reflector; and Mary Clara Capel, administrative director of the Capel Inc. rug concern, will serve two-year terms on the Executive Committee.

Ellen Ruff is senior vice president of power policy and planning for Duke Power, a position she assumed in May 2003. She is responsible for leading the company’s strategic planning, compliance, and environmental, health and safety strategy efforts. She is also responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with key regulators at the state and federal level.†

Ruff began her career with the company in 1978 as an attorney in the legal department. She was named vice president and general counsel of electric operations following the creation of Duke Energy in 1997. She was promoted to vice president of corporate, gas and electric operations in 1999; senior vice president and general counsel for Duke Energy in 2001; and senior vice president of asset management for Duke Power in 2001.

A native of Hartford, Conn., Ruff earned a bachelor of arts degree in business from Simmons College and a juris doctor degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of the Mecklenburg County Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the North Carolina State Bar. She is past president of the board of the Mental Health Association of Mecklenburg County.

McKay Belk, 46, the president of merchandising, marketing and merchandise planning and allocation of Belk Inc., was elected president and chief merchandising officer of the department store chain effective May 26 upon the retirement of his uncle, John Belk. McKay Belk joined the company in 1979 as a buyer and management trainee in the Matthews Belk group of stores in Gastonia, and subsequently served as men’s wear buyer, general merchandise manager and assistant store manager for the Belk store in Concord from 1983 to 1985. For the next two years he served as divisional merchandise manager for the Belk Brothers Co. group in Charlotte, followed by one year as store manager of the Belk store in Rock Hill. Charlotte-based Belk, Inc. is the nation’s largest privately owned department store company with 225 stores in 14 southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states.

In 1988, Belk was named vice president and general merchandise manager of the Belk Brothers Co. group, and in 1991 he joined Belk Stores Services Inc. as senior vice president of merchandising. He subsequently was named president of merchandising and sales promotion in 1995, and president of merchandising and marketing for Belk Inc. in 1998. In 2001, he assumed added responsibility for the company’s merchandise planning and allocation division.

The Charlotte native is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill with a bachelor of science degree in industrial relations, and subsequently received a master’s degree in business administration from Carolina. He is a director and chairman of the audit committee of Coca-Cola Consolidated Bottling Co. He is a member of the board of visitors of Charlotte Latin School and UNC Charlotte; the board of trustees of Crossnore School in Crossnore; and the Airport Advisory Committee for Charlotte Douglas International Airport. He also has served as chairman of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and is a former member of the board of directors of Advantage Carolina.

D. Jordan Whichard III is group publisher of Cox North Carolina Publications Inc. and publisher of The Daily Reflector in Greenville. In his dual roles, Whichard is responsible for the operations of The Daily Reflector, daily newspapers in Rocky Mount and Elizabeth City, and 10 non-daily newspapers located throughout eastern North Carolina.

A Greenville native, Whichard served as president and CEO of The Daily Reflector, Inc. and four affiliated companies from 1991 to 1996, and as vice president and general manager of The Daily Reflector Inc. from 1985 to 1991. Previously, he was general manager of the Staunton, Va., Daily News Leader and business manager of the Greenville (S.C.) News-Piedmont Co.  Prior to his newspaper career, Whichard served as an administrative aide on the staff of U.S. Sen. Robert B. Morgan (D-N.C.)

Whichard recently completed eight years as a member of the board of trustees of East Carolina University, where he served as chairman of the board’s Finance and Facilities Committee, Health Sciences Committee, Naming Committee, and was a member of the Executive Committee.

Active in civic affairs in his local community, Whichard is a member of the Pitt County Education Cabinet, a member of the board of the American Cancer Society, a director and past chair of the board of the Greenville-Pitt Chamber of Commerce, past president and former campaign chairman of the United Way of Pitt County, and a past president of the Boys and Girls Club of Pitt County. He is on the executive committee of the N.C. Economic Development Board. He is past chairman of the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research and a former trustee of the UNC Center for Public Television. A 1979 graduate of the UNC Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s degree in industrial relations and political science, Whichard completed the Young Executives Institute of the UNC-CH School of Business Administration in 1987.

Mary Clara Capel is director of administrative services of family-owned Capel Inc., overseeing human resources, employee benefits, customer service, traffic, compliance and philanthropy.  She is also president and chairman of the board for U.S. Rugs, a sister company to Capel.

She graduated from St. Mary’s High School and College in Raleigh, and majored in English at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has 16 years of Capel Rug sales experience from showroom manager in Atlanta for four years, then West Coast coordinator in San Francisco for five years and returning to Troy in 1990 as national showroom manager. She served on the San Francisco Mart’s Board of Governors for five years.

Her influence has led the administrative area of Capel, Inc. to a new level of quality and performance. She was instrumental in establishing the human resources department, 401(k) savings and retirement plan for employees and a world class customer service department.

Capel has been active on the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce board for four years, and served as its president in 2001. While on the chamber board, she instituted the first Montgomery County Gold Nugget Road Rally which was a huge success and is a highlight each year for the county.

NCCBI Joins Major Tax Case: The N.C. Court of Appeals has accepted NCCBI’s petition to file a friend of the court brief in the A&F Trademark Inc. v. Tolson case (No. COA03-1203), a major tax case now pending before the appellate court. The case centers on whether companies are doing business in the state and, accordingly, subject to North Carolina’s corporate income and franchise taxes even though they have no physical presence in North Carolina. In this case, the companies’ only connection to North Carolina is that they license intangible intellectual property such as trademarks or computer programs to in-state businesses.

The only tax year in question in the A&F case is 1994. The state Department of Revenue imposed state taxes for that year based on an administrative rule it issued in 1992. For decades, the state had sought only to tax companies with a physical presence in North Carolina. Revenue’s administrative rules takes a dramatically different taxing approach based solely on the so-called “economic nexus” between the out-of-state company and North Carolina. NCCBI believes there is no change in the General Statutes to trigger or justify DOR’s new taxing approach.

NCCBI joined the legal brief for several reasons, including the fact that in order to attract and retain businesses, the state needs predictable tax statutes. The Attorney General’s Office filed a motion asking the court to deny NCCBI standing in the case, which was denied by the Court of Appeals.

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