Global TransPark Region Profile

Frigidaire boasts more than 500 employees at its dishwasher manufacturing plant in Kinston

Local Touch, Global Vision
A greenhouse climate for growth has spawned a big crop
of new companies flourishing across the Global TransPark region

By Lawrence Bivens

Roadside barbecue parlors, lazy waterfront getaways, flat terrain seemingly carpeted by cotton, soybean and tobacco plants . . . these are indelible images of the 13 counties comprising North Carolina’s Global TransPark Region. But take a closer look and you’ll see communities poised to flourish in the industries of tomorrow — life sciences, logistics, marine trades, research and development and more.

Stretching from a point in Nash County that kisses the eastern Raleigh suburbs all the way to North Topsail Beach, there is much in the region that conjures up the past. The Colonial era is well preserved in towns like New Bern, Swansboro and Beaufort. Farmers here can trace the lineage of their land to the state’s earliest times. Along the region’s coast once lurked pirates like Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet. During the Civil War, the piers and warehouses at Morehead City became key to the Confederate war effort.

Today, like most of eastern North Carolina, the region remains largely rural — a hodge-podge of old and new. And recent times have not exactly been kind. The historic flooding accompanying Hurricane Floyd in 1999 remains disruptive to thousands. A textile industry rapidly heading offshore is eroding the region’s manufacturing base. Steep losses in tobacco and other agribusinesses have similarly made prosperity anything but commonplace. But through it all has been the steely determination of those proud to call the region home — and who would rather be nowhere else.

Almost without exception, there is confidence that sunnier times lay ahead. It comes with good reason: strong leadership, sound planning and unique vision have converged to place the Global TransPark Region — home to about 890,000 people — in an enviable position as the economy of the 21st Century unfolds.

Primed for Growth

Photo caption: Workers at S-B Power Tool in New Bern aren't far removed from the Carteret County beaches and the Cape Lookout lighthouse

“We certainly feel like we’re making a difference for the region,” says Tom Greenwood, executive director of the Global TransPark Commission, which promotes economic development by sponsoring projects aimed at improving the region’s attractiveness to business and industry. Much of the commission’s work involves administering loans and grants from a pool of funds that grew out of a $5 license tag fee levied on the region’s motorists from 1995-2000 and supplemented by the General Assembly. Funds are put toward providing land, buildings and infrastructure in each of the counties.

Most of the more than $22 million allocated to the commission’s program is loaned to the region’s counties at interest rates that are half the prime lending rate (but not below 3.5 percent). Cash from the revolving loan fund has been used by counties to acquire land for industrial parks, extend water and sewer lines, erect shell buildings and make other improvements.

“The Global TransPark’s revolving loan fund has been a great source of funding for us,” says Charlie Harrell, chairman of Edgecombe County’s Board of Commissioners. The county, one of the state’s least wealthy, leveraged funds from the TransPark Commission and other sources in landing a major distribution center for QVC, the Pennsylvania-based television and Internet shopping network that is a leader in electronic retailing.

The company, a division of Comcast Corp., announced its intention to come to the county in mid-1999 after looking at 26 sites along the East Coast. Of those, the company’s consultants, Deloitte & Touche, whittled the list down to seven. “QVC’s own No. 2 man came down and fell in love with our site,” recalls Oppie Jordan, vice president of the Carolina’s Gateway Partnership, which handles economic development in Edgecombe and neighboring Nash counties. The 293-acre location off U.S. Highway 64 between Tarboro and Rocky Mount soon became home to a 1.1 million square foot site for the fulfillment center, with additional space now in the works. With the $80 million QVC center has come 600 new full-time jobs, and one of the firm’s suppliers — Winston-Salem’s Uni-Source, a maker of Styrofoam packing peanuts — has established its own presence nearby, initially employing 45.

But the QVC win was far from effortless. An amendment to the William S. Lee Act was needed. Under the law, which extends tax incentives to arriving industry meeting certain criteria, Edgecombe is ranked a Tier 1 county, making firms settling there eligible for the most generous benefits. But as originally enacted, the law did not apply to jobs in the distribution industry. Thus Jordan, Harrell and others advocated for — and received — an amendment that made QVC eligible. And when the company later decided to build near the rear of the property, local officials had to scramble to satisfy new geo-technical requirements, returning to the Global TransPark Commission for a $16,500 product development grant.

Across the region, the commission has made nearly $300,000 in such grants. “Often in economic development, there is the need for relatively small amounts of cash on a quick turnaround basis, and several of our grant programs are designed to address that,” says Greenwood.

Edgecombe has leveraged other TransPark Commission resources, financial and otherwise, to position the county for more in the way of jobs and investment. “Now more than ever, economic development is all about partnering,” Harrell says, “and they’ve been a great partner.”

Elsewhere in the region, much the same story is told. In Duplin County, $20,000 in environmental grants from the commission has helped local officials develop new industrial sites without adversely impacting nearby wetlands, a major concern in a region known for its watery, low-lying terrain. “It’s a lengthy process that requires hiring soil technicians, engineers and surveyors to examine the property,” says Woody Brinson, director of economic development for the county. Commission funds also have been used to extend water and sewer lines, construct water towers and prepare the county’s 126-acre Business & Industry Center for consideration as a Certified Industrial Site (CIS).

Begun two years ago, the Global TransPark Commission’s CIS program bestows a stamp of readiness upon industrial parks and sites in the region. That means making sure that archaeological, environmental, geo-technical and other surveys are complete, that access roads meet state standards, relevant zoning and land-use issues are satisfied, pricing has been established and the property is otherwise primed for consideration by industrial prospects and site selection consultants. It’s the economic development equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

“The program was originally designed by AdvantageWest (the region’s Western North Carolina counterpart)” Greenwood says. “We realized it would also work well for us.” Now entering its third year, the Global TransPark’s CIS program has either already certified or is in the process of certifying more than 12,500 acres of property in the region. The commission’s financial support of the program has amounted to $862,000 in CIS grants to the counties. “The approach has worked so well that now the North Carolina Department of Commerce has adopted it for the entire state.”

The TransPark Takes Wing
Photo caption: The $80 million QVC plant between Tarboro and Rocky Mount covers 1.1 million square feet.

Why all the emphasis on product?

It’s all in preparation for the impact of Global TransPark, the ambitious development initiative after which the 13-county region was named. While fully complementary of each other, Greenwood’s commission and the TransPark itself are separate entities, with commission funds only allocated pursuant to requests by the counties themselves.

Based on a 15,700-acre site at the Kinston Jetport, the Global TransPark project calls for the construction of a futuristic, multi-modal business complex that will support all manner of manufacturing, distribution, agribusiness and transportation-related commerce through the 21st Century and beyond. The concept was launched in the early 1990s under the administration of Gov. Jim Martin.

“It’s hard to imagine what North Carolina would be like without the internal improvements of the mid-19th Century whigs,” says Martin, who’s now chairman of the Global TransPark Foundation Inc. “They built seaports, railroads, plank roads and schools that enabled our economy to grow.

“The Global TransPark represents that same kind of strategic infrastructure, without which eastern North Carolina would continue to lose its young people to other opportunities.”

Noted Kinston business leader Felix Harvey didn’t want that to happen and lobbied diligently to have the TransPark headquartered in his town rather than Laurinburg, the other top choice. “I told them that public money wasn’t going to be the sole money for this success, and that if they picked Kinston I would essentially volunteer my time — to work for $1 a year,” he says. Harvey generated $18 million for the foundation, and to date he’s been paid $7. “I believed in the project then and I still believe now,” says the 77-year-old.

The idea seeks to replicate the earlier success of the Research Triangle Park that transformed the once-sleepy lands around Raleigh and Durham into a burgeoning center of technology and medicine. Like its predecessor, the TransPark has not produced instant miracles.

“I don’t think anyone around in the early ’90s who was realistic expected there would be overnight transformation in such an infrastructure-deprived region,” says Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, a New Bern resident and vocal advocate for the project from the beginning. “We knew the development stage would take 10 to 20 years, just like the RTP did.”

The project, which is being funded with state, federal and private dollars, has thus far yielded an extension of the Jetport’s runway to 11,500 feet, making it the longest non-military runway in the state. Also new is a sparkling 33,000-square-foot training facility at the Jetport equipped with the latest instructional technologies. Through most of the 1990s, the park’s progress was slowed by a massive environmental impact study that closely scrutinized every aspect of the TransPark’s vision. The study, now complete, was the most extensive of its kind since the construction of Walt Disney World three decades ago.

Despite media criticism and naysaying from other parts of the state, supporters of the TransPark remain optimistic about the project’s future. “Similar projects around the country were also slow getting out of the chute,” says John Kasarda, director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and designer of the Global TransPark.

Kasarda cites the ultimate success of like-minded initiatives in Texas, Ohio, Brazil, Germany and Thailand as evidence of the concept’s appeal. Another TransPark-like complex at Subic Bay in the Philippines, for example, has stimulated the creation of 40,000 jobs in its surrounding community since 1993, boosting annual exports 20-fold, according to Kasarda.

The missing link here, both critics and supporters would agree, has been adequate highway access. That issue is being addressed though a series of transportation upgrades that will ultimately link the TransPark to Interstate 95 via a limited-access corridor. A big piece of those improvements can now move forward now that the EPA has issued the TransPark’s environmental permits.

Most say bringing local transportation infrastructure up to date carries its own huge benefit for the region — the TransPark notwithstanding. “New roads and other infrastructure have gone in much faster than they otherwise would have,” says Edgecombe County’s Harrell. “We’ve already benefited enormously from the TransPark.”

A number of firms have settled in the project’s immediate vicinity. Businesses operating at the TransPark include Lenox China, which employs 320; DuPont, which maintains a sizable warehouse; and Marconi Commerce Systems, a multinational manufacturer of gas pumps and other products. There have also been benefits that weren’t anticipated. The TransPark’s runway, for example, was key to relief efforts in the dicey weeks following Hurricane Floyd. Other airports in the region were either below water or inadequate to handle the heavy cargo planes ferrying in food, medicine, drinking water and emergency gear.

“While we couldn’t anticipate the effects of Hurricane Floyd,” says former governor Martin, “we have anticipated similar value for supporting military operations from Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune. In the future, a lot of the military’s resupplying will come from the bases in North Carolina and we’ll be able to handle that.”

The TransPark’s Education and Training Center also has added value to the region. Opened just last year, the site has already accommodated some 10,000 trainees, and an associate’s degree program in Global Logistics Technology, the nation’s first, is now being designed.

“I believe one of the region’s greatest assets is its workforce,” says Perdue, who represented much of Carteret, Craven and Pamlico counties in the General Assembly for 14 years. On top of that the region boasts 11 community colleges that work closely with firms in cultivating the skills they need. “They can custom tailor training programs to fit any need,” she says.

Longtime business leaders also have praise for the region’s workers. “We have a great group of employees here,” says Bill Bryan, president of Mount Olive Pickle Co. in Wayne County. The company, now in its 75th year, employs a year-round workforce of 500 that swells to 850 at peak harvest. “We have very low turnover and a high degree of employee loyalty. It’s very important to us to have experienced employees.”

Bryan also notes that a business-friendly environment is also a hallmark of the Global TransPark Region. “We’ve found that local government leaders are always very willing to help us find solutions to problems that arise,” he says.

Others view the region’s relatively high unemployment rate — in March it was more than a percentage point higher than the state average of 4.5 percent — as the glass being half-full. “Unemployment is actually an asset for us,” Edgecombe County’s Harrell says. Firms considering relocating to the area know they will have access to a large pool of eager and available workers. An added bonus for the region’s human resources are the thousands of well-trained men and women mustering out of the military via one of the sprawling bases near Jacksonville, Goldsboro and Havelock. The Global TransPark Commission estimates that 8,000 to 10,000 personnel are discharged annually through the bases.

“One of the best-kept secrets I know of is the depth and breadth of this region’s labor resources stemming from the military’s presence,” says Anne Shaw, director of economic development programs at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville. These assets, Shaw says, run deeper than the spit-and-polish Marines exiting nearby Camp LeJeune and Cherry Point. “There is a vast untapped resource in the military spouses here who are well-educated, have lived all over the world and really want to work.”

Some find venturing into the entrepreneurial world more appealing than entering a job market not long on professional-caliber positions. Coastal Carolina’s small business training programs routinely graduate former Marines eager to practice a familiar trade but inexperienced when it comes to launching a start-up. “They come to us with terrific experience, but often know little about marketing or management,” says Shaw, who has operated the college’s Small Business Center for the past 15 years. Unlike many interested in building a business, Marines, she notes, “want to do things right and go about the process in a professional, organized way.”

Education Abounds

Photo caption: Employees at Grady-White Boats in Greenville have thier choice of free company-specific technical training at Pitt Community College or continuing education degree programs at East Carolina University.

Educationally, the Global TransPark has assets that extend well beyond its excellent community colleges. There is Barton College in Wilson, offering bachelor’s degrees in programs ranging from accounting to social work. Mount Olive College, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, maintains locations in New Bern and Goldsboro in addition to its main campus in Mount Olive. North Carolina Wesleyan College, based in Rocky Mount, serves a large population of adult learners through an array of weekend and evening programs.

Then there’s the region’s crown jewel: East Carolina University. “There are few regions more closely identified with a university, and vice-versa, than ECU is with the Global TransPark Region,” says Phil Dixon, a Greenville attorney and tireless advocate for both.

It’s clear the institution’s role in the region is far more than academic. Its leafy campus routinely hosts internationally acclaimed performing artists from Ray Charles to Itzhak Perlman, and recently more than 10,000 people filled Williams Arena-Minges Coliseum to listen to an address from President George Bush; it is home to a top-notch teaching hospital; its wealth of community outreach programs stretch throughout eastern North Carolina; and its men’s football and baseball teams are among the best in the country. “We’re really the cultural, medical, business and recreational hub of the region,” says Dixon, who chairs the university’s board of trustees.

Founded in 1907 as a small, state-supported provider of teacher training, ECU has blossomed into one of the state’s premiere institutions of higher education, now ranked as a “Carnegie Doctoral II” campus of national acclaim in any number of disciplines. Its student body currently numbers 18,000, hailing from every corner of America and 35 other nations. The figure is set to increase to 27,000 over the coming decade, Dixon says. The projection has led to a building boom, though ECU is also stepping forward as a leader in “virtual” learning.

The campus boasts a brand-new $14 million fiber optic backbone linking nearly every office and dormitory room to a central network and the Internet. Such sophistication landed ECU on Yahoo! Magazine’s list of the “Top 100 Most Wired Campuses” in the nation in 1999. Coming in at No. 24, it was the only one among the state’s 16 public universities to make the cut.

“For years, we were so far behind most other campuses in terms of technology that it was actually a blessing,” explains Dixon, a member of ECU’s Class of 1971. “We didn’t even have obsolete equipment to replace.”

Dixon recalls an earlier era for instructional technology at ECU. “When I arrived here as a freshman in 1967, we had TV courses, and that was considered high-tech. Today, we’re moving increasingly toward wireless technologies and handheld computers.”

The university now grants fully accredited web-based degrees, and its School of Industry and Technology has begun an online master’s degree program. ECU’s Brody School of Medicine, whose primary care program was recently ranked No. 17 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, is recognized as a pioneer in burgeoning realm of telemedicine. “The work going on here in robotics and computer-based distance medicine has exciting applications in rural health care, prisons, the military, even space travel,” says Dixon.

It is ECU’s leadership in medicine and health sciences that is proving pivotal to the region’s appeal as a destination for business and industry. Around Greenville, dozens of large and small bio-tech firms are sprouting like mushrooms in a damp field. Some are clustered around immaculate Indigreen Corporate Park, one of the first Certified Industrial Sites.

Others are nestled nearby at the Technology Enterprise Center of Eastern Carolina, a 59,900-square-foot business incubator with close ties to ECU and the Pitt County Development Commission. One promising young company there is Encelle Inc., a Raleigh-based firm with research operations that consume 12,000 square feet of space at the center. Earlier this year, the firm received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin clinical trials for a revolutionary new treatment for diabetic foot ulcers. The product facilitates tissue regeneration in wounds that either heals slowly or not at all. It is considered a breakthrough for the thousands who suffer from the ailment, which is responsible for an estimated 80,000 amputations in the United States alone, according to the American Diabetes Association. Shortly after the approval, the firm received $7 million in new venture funding from investors.

Encelle came to Greenville from Cleveland, Ohio, when Dr. Anton Usala, its founder, accepted a position on the faculty at ECU. “The support network here is very unique,” explains Usala, whose operations in Greenville employ 35, with additional hiring on the way. “The Pitt County Development Commission is really a hands-on place with a very personal touch.”

Usala, who has left ECU to devote his undivided attention to the company, also cites the community’s livability at the top of the lit of reasons he’s not eager to leave. “There’s a very attractive standard-of-living here, and the community really appreciates new ideas and new people,” he says. Those assets simplify recruiting skilled workers to the firm. Contrary to the concerns of some of his early financial backers, “we’ve had absolutely no problem attracting high-quality people here from all over the world.”

But it was the region’s agricultural resources that initially attracted Usala to Greenville. The pediatric endocrin-ologist’s research interests involved transplanting porcine pancreases into diabetic children, and with its extensive hog industry, eastern North Carolina seemed the logical place to set up shop. Others also see the link between the region’s agricultural roots and its potential as a new biotech haven. “‘Agri-bio’ represents a world of opportunities for the region,” according to Jim Nichols, director of electronics and information technologies development at the N.C. Department of Commerce, “and there is a combination of entrepreneurial potential as well as an attraction by larger, more established life sciences firms.”

Adding to the appeal, Nichols explains, is the ideal location — adjacent ECU’s top-notch health sciences resources, but also near enough to the extensive agriculture expertise at N.C. State University in Raleigh. This is anything but news to officials in Wilson County, which already has been discovered by a number of pharmaceutical firms. Merck, the mammoth New Jersey-based drug manufacturer, has had a growing presence in the county since 1982. “They’ve been in major expansion mode for the past four years,” says Jennifer Lantz, executive director for the Wilson County Economic Development Commission. The firm recently relocated its stability lab, which tests the durability of products amid various conditions, from New Jersey. Combined with other new operations at its Wilson County site, the company has doubled the size of its original facility.

With a household name like Merck already in the county and new additions to its inventory of industrial product in the works, Wilson County officials targeted the life sciences industry beginning in 1993. The approach has succeeded. Last summer, Purdue Pharmaceuticals L.P. opened a new $25 million plant that produces medications for pain relief and asthma. California-based Leiner Health Products Inc, the nation’s second-largest supplier of private label over-the-counter drugs, also maintains a significant presence in Wilson, as does Southern Testing Labs, which conducts clinical trials. And recently, Eon Labs — the New York-based subsidiary of Hexel Pharmaceuticals, Germany’s second-largest drug firm — invested $23 million on an existing site at Wilson Corporate Park. “Altogether, the industry employs about 1,000 people here and consumes a million square feet of space,” Lantz says. Easy access to I-95, along with the new U.S. Highway 264 corridor from eastern Wake County, are making Wilson County especially attractive.

Boatbuilding Goes High Tech

Closer to the sea, proximity to the water is what’s important. Boats of various styles, sizes and shapes are being built by dozens of small and large companies. “Boatbuilding in this part of the state is a ‘traditional’ industry,” according to Michael Bradley, program director for marine trades services at the Small Business & Technology Development Center in Beaufort. “There are boatbuilders here whose craftsmanship has been handed down through many generations.”

A late-1980s federal luxury tax delivered a blow to the entire industry, and many left the business. With the tax’s repeal in the mid-1990s, activity is returning in a big way for companies in Pitt, Craven, Pamlico, Onslow and Carteret counties.

The industry makes unique demands upon the local workforce. “There are a lot of different skills and talents involved in building a boat,” Bradley explains. In most cases, modern technologies are now being superimposed upon age-old techniques, and the region’s community colleges are stepping in to ease the transition. When Michigan-based Tiara Yachts set up operations in Swansboro three years ago, they turned to Anne Shaw and her colleagues at Coastal Carolina Community College for training assistance. “We designed curricula and delivered pre-hire and post-hire training for over 400 people who applied for jobs with the company,” Shaw says.

So important is boatbuilding in Carteret County, home to more marine-related firms than any county in the state, that educators at Carteret Community College are now developing a free-standing boatbuilder training center that is set to become a permanent fixture at the school. But Bradley, whose work involves advocating on behalf of these companies, says that instead of recruiting more boatbuilders to the region — and having them bid up the cost of existing labor — more attention should be devoted to attracting firms that supply the industry. “When you look at the hardware and components that go into the boats built here, most of it has to be brought in from outside North Carolina.”

Thus Bradley and local officials in Jones County were pleased with the announcement last year by Marine Industrial Plastics that it would locate in the county’s School Specialty building. The Virginia-based manufacturer of fiberglass boat parts, ranging from small pieces to complex instrumental panels, sells its products to MasterCraft Boat Co. in New Bern and Grady-White Boats, which has maintained its sizable manufacturing operations in Greenville since 1958.

The Marine Industrial Plastics announcement was just the latest in a run of good news hitting sparsely populated Jones County. A large chunk of the county will soon be the North American Homeport for CargoLifter, the German manufacturer and operator of huge freight-toting dirigibles. The facility, which will extend across parts of Craven and Jones counties on a 5,000-acre site, will involve an initial investment of up to $120 million. “They’re saying they will create 250-300 jobs at an average salary of $48,000,” says Roy Fogle, industrial developer for Jones County.

Assuming all goes well for the venture — the project isn’t set to break ground for another two years — CargoLifter would likely bring an added benefit to the county: flocks of tourists and curiosity-seekers coming to gaze upon the mammoth blimps. Company officials say that visitors are commonplace at their existing port in Europe. The U.S. facility could end up drawing from the thousands of visitors who routinely flock to better known communities in the region to golf, enjoy the beach or explore the area’s rich history. “I suspect there will be plenty who want to see it,” Fogle says. “The hangar alone will be the second largest building in the world.”

Return to magazine index