Sweet success unlocks memories of the bitter times, at least in Guilford County.
For nearly an hour last week, economic developers in Greensboro and High Point swapped stories recalling years of envious, petty and sneaky behavior that engulfed relations between the two cities.
The occasion marked the 10th anniversary of the Guilford County Economic Development Alliance. Former adversaries credited the organization for winning over skeptics and spreading the gospel of cooperation that helped the county secure major recruitment wins in recent years.
“What a difference a decade makes!” read a PowerPoint presentation by Jay Garner, an economic development consultant in Atlanta.
The gathering in High Point drew about 50 local economic recruiters and elected officials, who dined on a chicken and mashed potatoes buffet and heard behind-the-scenes tales of recruiting wars between Greensboro and High Point.
The rivalry goes back decades, with the battle over jobs intensifying during national economic slumps that exacerbated declines of traditional industries — textiles in Greensboro and furniture in High Point. Greensboro has an estimated 307,400 residents and High Point 118,600, the two biggest cities in Guilford County, with a population of 558,800.
Garner showed statistics indicating the Greensboro-High Point rivalry may have hurt economic development in the county. Certainly, the cooperation helped, according to speakers during last week’s meeting, dubbed “From Rivals to Partners — Building Trust Leads to a Decade of Impressive Progress.’’
In the first 10 months of 2025, the county fielded 148 requests for information compared with 96 in the first 10 months of 2015, Garner said. So far this year, companies have announced plans to invest $5.7 billion and create 16,231 jobs countywide. A decade ago, the investment totaled $72.8 million and 1,291 jobs.
In the state’s biggest jobs commitment, Long Beach, California-based aviation startup JetZero pledged in June to invest $4.7 billion and top 14,500 in hiring over the next decade in a factory at Greensboro’s Piedmont Triad International Airport.
“You flipped the switch on Greensboro and High Point to being a second- or third-place perennial finisher to a winner,’’ Garner said. “You’ve had a great run these past 10 years.’’
For many years, dysfunction soured relations between Guilford’s two largest cities. Economic developers in Greensboro and High Point didn’t show sites to prospects in each other’s cities. Instead, they handed off company representatives at the city limits, transferring them from car to car in what Greensboro Chamber President Brent Christensen described as “a hostage exchange.’’
Some leaders in Greensboro referred to High Point as “the redheaded stepchild,’’ recalled Ken Smith, former chair of the alliance and High Point Economic Development. He had a hard time convincing superiors at his employer, the BDO accounting firm, that the company needed offices in both cities.
“I said, ‘You don’t understand; there’s a 50-mile wall that goes straight up,’’’ he said.
Recruiters in the two cities tried to poach companies from each other. “My office was instructed to create a brag list of every single company that moved to High Point from the Greensboro city limits so we could rub it into their face, more or less’’ said Loren Hill, at that time president of High Point Economic Development. He now is director of Carolina Core Regional Economic Development, which promotes economic development across central North Carolina.
“I don’t know if I knew who the mayor was in High Point,’’ outgoing Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan told the group. Next month, she wraps up 12 years as mayor after not seeking re-election in the Nov. 4 election. “There just seemed to be a wall up, and we weren’t going over that wall.’’
Lee Lloyd, former chair of the county’s Economic Development Alliance, wasn’t certain at the outset that the alliance was going to work because of ingrained views of leaders who had “fought tooth and nail against High Point or against Greensboro for most of their business careers.’’
“We had to convince them that this model could work and that we needed to treat each other as equal partners and we needed to have a governance structure where everyone was at the table and treated equally,’’ Lloyd said.
In early meetings of the alliance, Greensboro’s mayor recalled her frustration because “it seemed like we were hearing all about High Point, High Point, High Point. Well, what about us?
“But we wanted to keep this organization together,’’ Vaughan said. “It couldn’t be torn apart by petty jealousies. Then the jobs started coming. I can’t imagine that we would go our separate ways in the future because this is working.’’
As the alliance gained traction, efforts to convince the Fresh Market grocery chain to keep its headquarters in the county in 2019 marked a turning point in relations between Greensboro and High Point. Leaders in the cities agreed to provide incentives regardless of which municipality the company selected. It wound up staying in Greensboro.
If the Fresh Market had chosen High Point for its offices, Vaughan said,
“We were going to suck it up and just be happy that they stayed here in Guilford County. If we had gone against each other or if we didn’t have that unprecedented commitment, there’s a very good chance that they would have gone somewhere else.’’
Over the past decade, Lloyd said, the alliance has proved itself by marshalling the resources of Greensboro and High Point’s economic development agencies while allowing each “to maintain its own culture and internal leadership. It’s like bringing together a virtual project team that uses the best of each organization to get things done.’’
Describing the alliance as “a scalable model,’’ Lloyd said he had `high hopes’’ that neighboring Forsyth County and Winston-Salem would eventually become part of a broader organization.
