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COURSES OF ACTION
From large-scale agriculture to advanced manufacturing, a lot of good is happening in eastern North Carolina. Keeping that going, along with addressing current challenges, is the point of several initiatives that span from workforce development to quality of life.
North Carolina agriculture has a $111.1 billion economic impact, according to state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. And a large portion of the crops and animals that contribute to that amount are raised in eastern North Carolina. The three counties with the most harvested acres in 2022 — Robeson, Sampson and Duplin — are in the region, according to the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management. It’s home to some of the state’s richest soil, the Blacklands of the Tidewater region along the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, where streams and rivers empty into the Atlantic Ocean.
Agriculture is one piece of a patchwork of industries at work in the East. The region is home to one of the state’s largest universities. Manufacturing and energy are thriving, too. California-based battery-maker Natron Energy, for example, recently pledged a $1.4 billion investment at Kingsboro CSX Select Megasite, which will create more than 1,000 jobs that pay an average of $64,071 annually, more than Edgecombe County’s $43,183 average, according to the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. And there’s tourism, which includes historic sites, conferences and conventions, coastal activities, and professional and amateur sports that attract visitors year-round.
Even with all the good that’s happening in the East, some of its economic pieces are frayed. It’s home to some of the state’s poorest counties: Many residents live where poverty rates exceed 20%, according to financial news company 24/7 Wall St. Heat and drought are sapping agricultural yields this year, leaving farmers to struggle with fuel and seed bills. And they face other concerns, including losing farmland to housing developments, developing new markets for their products and finding skilled workers for the ever-increasing presence of technology.
Some residents have chosen to move. The total population of the 29 counties represented by NC East Alliance, an economic development organization with offices in Greenville and Edenton, is about 1.4 million. That’s nearly 30,000 fewer people than a decade ago. Twenty-two counties have seen a decrease in population, says Todd Edwards, who is chair of the Alliance’s board of directors. “These issues also affect the labor sheds of our growing areas and businesses,” he says.
Wesley Beddard, part of the Alliance’s STEM East leadership team, says the population of many counties in the region has been in decline over the past couple decades. “We didn’t get here overnight,” he says. “And we will not reverse things overnight. But we believe our proactive approach over the next 20 years involving education and industry partners, along with community development efforts, will help reshape and develop all of eastern North Carolina.”
Tying solutions to problems requires a stitch by stitch approach. “It is a real tightrope to walk with regards to identifying real problems and possible solutions and at the same time promoting eastern North Carolina as a land of opportunity and possibilities,”
Edwards says.
TEACH THEM WELL
Travel is a requirement of many eastern North Carolina jobs. “Our major employers often have a labor shed of 20-plus counties,” Beddard says. “For these companies to continue to expand, we need all of our counties to have trained workers who want to continue to live in their home counties and commute one or two counties to work and bring those paychecks back home.” While giving residents a lift to work isn’t an option, regional leaders are ensuring workers are prepared once they arrive.
Workforce development efforts are varied. One of the most recent begins with bolstering the number of National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education grants awarded locally. They fund partnerships between academic institutions and industries that focus on science and engineering. “To the best of our knowledge, only one community college in our 29-county region has received an NSF ATE grant during the last decade,” Beddard says. “We hope to change that.” An NSF-ATE workshop this fall will prepare for grant application submissions in fall 2025.
STEM East, an Alliance initiative that organizes collaborative efforts between businesses and schools to give students real-world STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — learning opportunities, kicked off its Industry in Schools Initiative at NC East’s Vision 2024 conference in January. “This program is being invented and implemented for the purpose of stopping the export of our most valuable resource — our homegrown workforce,” Edwards said at the event, which was held at East Carolina University. “We plan to provide a great deal of content and programing in an effort to bring awareness to local teachers and students with regards to local industries, what they do and career opportunities that they provide and pathways to those local careers.”
Beddard says Industry in Schools focuses on six industries, each of which has a robust presence in the region, offers well-paying positions and is expected to continue adding jobs. They include: aviation, blue economy, green energy, smart agriculture, health sciences and biopharma. The Biopharma Crescent, for example, is a swath of Johnston, Pitt and Wilson counties where manufacturers making therapeutics, vaccines, insulin and other life-saving medicines, employ almost 10,000 workers and recently have made more than $4 billion in investments. “We are making great, incredible gains in the East in boat building, aviation manufacturing and aviation MRO, biopharma manufacturing, travel and tourism, and agriculture, among many others,” Edwards says. “First and foremost, we seek to help the companies that are already here to flourish and grow to their utmost potential. We want to help them all to continue to add more and more high-paying jobs, for a capable and ready workforce.”
Under the Industry in Schools Initiative, employers in these STEM industries work with community college presidents and school district superintendents across the region to help teachers — the goal is to involve 13,000 — prepare students for careers in them. “We provided nine industry-focused workshops this summer for public school teachers to make them aware of the opportunities for their students to find great high-paying careers within our region and of the training opportunities available through our community colleges,” Beddard says. “If our teachers are more aware of the opportunities in our area, they can be the conduit that connects students to those careers.”
The green energy workshop, which included a tour of Dominion Energy’s hydroelectric dam on the Roanoke River, was hosted by the Center for Energy Education and Halifax Community College in Roanoke Rapids in July. The aviation cluster met for two days in Elizabeth City that same month. Its lead, former Wayne County Schools Superintendent David Lewis, say elementary, middle and high school teachers from nine school districts took part. They toured the U.S. Coast Guard’s Aviation Logistics Center in Elizabeth City. “[It] employs engineers, metal workers, maintenance technicians, painters, machinists and many others in their efforts to keep … aircraft in top condition,” he says.
Lewis says teachers also visited the College of the Albemarle-Currituck campus in Barco, which is home to its Aviation Technology program. “Participating teachers worked to develop connections between STEM and aviation concepts and their own curriculum standards,” he says. “Our participating teachers represented a wide range of subject areas across all grade levels, so the emphasis was on helping them understand how STEM, and more specifically aviation, could be used to make their lessons more engaging for their students.”
Smart agriculture workshops were held at Martin and James Sprunt community colleges. “The purpose of it, as we bring the teachers into it, is they learn how to integrate into their daily lessons what is available,” says Cluster Lead Ben Thigpen, who retired as Jones County Schools superintendent in January. “The workshops expose teachers to what’s there and how to put it into their standard course of study and share with the students.”
Thigpen says agriculture is more than plants and animals. “The industry is so deep and vast,” he says. “You have to have welders and truck drivers and mechanics to keep those John Deeres and Massey Fergusons running. There are electrical systems, monitoring systems, seeds and watering. Even the banking industry works with farmers in a different way, because their work is seasonal.”
The blue economy industry workshop, which was hosted by Carteret Community College, focused on aquaculture and marine construction. Teachers toured Jarrett Bay Boatworks in Beaufort. Career paths include offshore wind; Sea Grant program, which works to maintain a healthy coastal environment and economy; and Center for Marine Sciences and Technology. Further south, UNC Wilmington’s Blue Economy program partners with Cape Fear and Carteret community colleges and the Coastal Studies Institute at ECU’s Outer Banks campus. UNCW’s All Blue is a local multidisciplinary initiative to establish Wilmington and southeast North Carolina as a national and global leader in blue economy, according to its website. “Of course as we move forward, we hope to add many more businesses and workforce connections that will benefit from the work that we’re doing,” says Cluster Lead Lisa Jackson, who retired as Pamlico County Schools superintendent last year. “As we succeed in our region, this model could be applied to other regions throughout the state and the country.”
Expansion plans for the initiative are being discussed. “We are currently working with the North Carolina Bar Association, Mock Trial and the N.C. Supreme Court to develop a legal cluster,” says Trey Goodson, the Alliance’s chief information officer. “Eastern North Carolina has been identified as a ‘legal desert’ with a lack of attorneys and legal professionals. Our first project, which is still in the works, is expanding the mock trial program to schools. We have identified needs for an education cluster, an advanced-manufacturing cluster, and a hospitality and tourism cluster. There aren’t any concrete plans to develop these clusters, but the need is there.”
PITT’S GROWTH
The N.C. Department of Commerce annually ranks the state’s 100 counties by economic wellbeing. The 20 least distressed counties are labeled Tier 3, and the 40 most distressed are Tier 1. The balance fall in between. The ranking is used to direct state programs, encouraging economic development where it’s needed most.
While Pitt County was designated Tier 1 this year, it also is raking in business commitments. “Pitt County is fortunate to have a growing list of assets and amenities,” says Pitt County Economic Development Director Kelly Andrews. “ECU, ECU Health, and new and expanding industries have been catalysts for growth in Pitt County. These big three draw people into Pitt County every day, particularly from eastern North Carolina counties, but also from all over the world.”
ECU has almost 27,000 students, making it North Carolina’s fourth-largest university by enrollment. Next door to its downtown Greenville campus is 19-acre Intersect East, which is being privately developed by Elliott Sidewalk Communities. “[It] is envisioned as a hub of innovation that promotes collaboration opportunities for businesses and industry with ECU,” says Merrill Flood, ECU’s director of research and innovation campus development. “Through these partnerships, early-stage innovation and discovery can be brought to bear on the opportunities to build new products, create jobs and lead to economic prosperity in Greenville and eastern North Carolina.”
Flood says ECU received the UNC Board of Governors’ permission to develop Interest East as a millennial campus in 2015, opening the door to public-private partnerships to spur economic growth. “The Intersect East area was in strategies the city of Greenville envisioned including through the 2006 Horizons Long Range Comprehensive Plan, the Center City / West Greenville Redevelopment plan and 2014 Dickinson Avenue Corridor plan,” he says.
Intersect East welcomed its first tenant in March, when Hyster-Yale Group — an international designer, maker and marketer of lift-truck solutions — leased 53,400 square feet for a technology center that will consolidate its global emerging and technology division. And while the mixed-use development’s residential units aren’t ready for lease yet, other companies have arrived. Computer software company Appogee, for example, moved into 13,400 square feet. “Additional tenants are being recruited to bring more jobs and innovative businesses to downtown Greenville,”
Flood says.
ELSEWHERE IN GREENVILLE
Vietnamese manufacturer Boviet Solar announced a $294 million investment for a factory in April. Chemical company UNX-Christeyns announced in July that it’s expanding its location, investing more than $10 million to build a 70,000-square-foot factory that will create 21 jobs. And Attindas Hygiene Partners, a manufacturer of disposable adult incontinence and baby care products, will add 25 jobs and expand operations with a $25.2 million investment.
In July, medical device manufacturer Nipro Medical Corp. announced it was establishing a factory in Greenville, investing $398 million and creating 232 jobs over the next five years. Andrews says its executives visited 10 times, vetting the site and the local quality of life for its employees and their families. “Would they be able to find the kind of food that they like to eat?” she says. “Would they be comfortable sending children to our schools? Would they be able to find a great place to live and find things to do? All of that was considered. Each person that comes here for a visit, whether that is for a job interview, a school tour, a sporting event or a business meeting, is a potential new citizen, and we want everyone to feel welcome.”
Ayden, about a dozen miles south of Greenville, has been the on-again, off-again site for the Eastern North Carolina Food Commercialization Center, which will offer food processing services for farmers, food manufacturers and entrepreneurs. Its construction and outfitting, along with three years of operations, was estimated to cost $8.9 million. The General Assembly funded $4 million in 2021 to cover the 12,000-square-foot building; $500,000 more came from the Agriculture and Consumer Services Agency of the State Budget Management Fund. Construction has been underway for a year, and it was expected to open in September, says Keith Purvis, vice president of value-added services for Foster-Caviness, a food supply chain solutions provider that purchased his Greenville Produce Company in March. “The center will provide infrastructure, expertise and connectivity for local farmers [and] consolidate and create value for local crops, and connect growers to markets for their crops,” he says. “The center will help larger growers with value-added services. The equipment provided by the center will further process raw crops produced in eastern North Carolina, which in turn generates more revenue per acre, and per pound, for local growers.”
Purvis says agriculture, whether tending fields, raising animals or working at a company that adds value to those products, is what puts food on the table, a roof overhead and clothes on the backs of many North Carolina families. “In eastern North Carolina, that impact is even greater as we account for most of the farmland and most of the Tier 1 counties,” he says. “The Commercialization Center aims to provide opportunities for eastern North Carolina families to grow and develop individually, through job creation and collectively through industry expansion. We want to help growers diversify crop mixture, create more value for products grown and return more revenue per acre of production back to local farmers.”
QUALITY OF LIFE
Giving residents the needed skills for the jobs of today and preparing them for the ones of tomorrow meets one challenge. But they need other reasons to stay, too.
Greenville hosted the Little League Softball World Series for the third time last summer and has a new Coastal Plains League baseball team, the Greenville Yard Gnomes. “Pitt County has created its first Recreation and Parks department, showing the commissioners’ and county leaderships’ focus on placemaking and health for our community and citizens,” Andrews says. “The city of Greenville has done quite a bit in this regard with Wildwood Park, and Pitt County is also in the midst of building two community centers.”
Nearby along the coast, TripAdvisor ranks Outer Banks wild horse tours, island-hopper boat tours in Wrightsville Beach, hang gliding lessons in Kitty Hawk and jet ski rentals in Duck in its top-20 activities for the state. The importance of tourism, as an industry and outlet for residents, isn’t lost on the state Commerce Department. It says outdoor recreation contributes almost $12 billion to the state’s economy and creates about 130,000 jobs, whose annual compensation totals more than $5.9 billion. CORE — Creating Outdoor Recreation Economies — is its 34-government program created to, “identify and develop outdoor recreation assets that present economic growth opportunities.”
Andrews says Emerge Gallery & Art Center Executive Director Holly Garriott has been named to the 2027 Arts North Carolina Board of Directors. It oversees the group’s efforts
to unify the state’s art communities while creating equity and access to the arts for all residents. An associate teaching professor at School of Art and Design at East Carolina University, she founded Emerge Gallery in Greenville in 2000. She has supervised more than 100 public art projects and received many grants throughout the years, including the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant and, most recently, a $250,000 NEA Local Arts Agencies grant to sub-grant to Pitt County arts organizations.
ALL FOR ONE
While eastern North Carolina leaders have defined needs and solutions, they also know how and when these efforts will be deemed a success. “The biggest win would be five years from now, for the people involved in aviation, blue economy, green energy and agriculture to look back and say we have all the employees we need and to see eastern North Carolina thriving business-wise and community-wise,” STEM East Cluster Leader Thigpen says. “And that we helped to get our kids in those positions that we need. I hope so. I hope it’s doable.”
Edwards agrees that employment is an important benchmark. But there are others. “You will see the population loss figures slowing or stopping in some of our poorer places,” he says. “It will not be headlining stuff. It will be very subtle.”
ECU’s Flood points to the cycle of success. Talented students and a skilled workforce will attract businesses. And in turn, they’ll attract more students and more companies. “We all win when those good things happen,” he says. And that rising tide lifts all ships approach is most important, Pitt County’s Andrews says. “Our goals, no matter the county we might represent, all focus in one way or another on uplifting our citizens and our communities,” she says. ■
— Kathy Blake is a writer from eastern North Carolina.