Horner’s Rural Route
Rural Route is a Business North Carolina column authored by veteran journalist Bill Horner. He will focus on key issues in less populated parts of the state.
In the early 1800s, a well-to-do landowner near Flat Rock awakened in the wee hours, gripped with a sudden paranoia of being robbed of cash he hoarded in his home.
Abraham Kuykendall owned about 6,000 acres in what’s now Henderson County. He shoved bills and coins into an iron washpot, then traipsed deep into the woods to bury it.
It’s never been found.
I don’t know how common home-grown economic development pros are in North Carolina. But whatever else Kuykendall cultivated in that mountainous land, it yielded a descendant who’s acknowledged as one of the state’s best.
Brittany Brady, Kuykendall’s great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, safeguards the county’s prosperity as president of the Henderson County Economic Development Partnership. “Ultimately, what we do is create and retain quality jobs that have strong investment,” she says. That is less literal than her famous forebear’s buried treasure junket. But the yield, in dollars and jobs, is counted in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s a pretty nice pot. Visiting there, I kept hearing about Brady’s preternatural capacity to blend the past with an eye on smart sustainability and growth. Her innate vision to retain the region’s character while expanding manufacturing jobs is best told through the partnership’s innovative “Made in Henderson” workforce development strategy.
It’s part of what she calls “placemaking.”
“When you can create a culture like Henderson County has,” she says, “you’re not just saying we have a good place to live, but you make it tangible. … Anybody can say they have a great park, or pretty views, but when you start building culture with your development, that’s what placemaking really is.”
Think Sierra Nevada Brewing. The $100 million brewing and distribution complex on 200 forested acres in Mills River opened in 2014. A glass-smooth road there winds past hemlocks and maples to a beautiful facility offering tastings, tours, food, and music on three stages.
“It’s mountain, family-friendly culture,” Brady says.
The county has been synonymous with retirement, but Brady says Sierra Nevada, along with high-tech manufacturers and medical-related industries, are attracting more early-to-mid-career workers.
Who cares if some have one foot in the weekend?
“They know our people can go kayaking in the morning and still get to the office at 8 and work a full day,” she says.
The stigma of manufacturing
Brady’s 14-year journey through the economic development sphere is replete with wins. Among the recent: a state-sanctioned “selectsites” designation for the Ferncliff Park manufacturing site; recovery from the loss of Continental’s car brakes facility in Fletcher (the redeveloped plant has a growing list of high-tech tenants); the 41-acre Garrison Industrial Park, and expansion among existing manufacturers. Christopher Chung, the CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, picked Brady to serve on his 16-member Economic Development Advisory Council. And later this year, she’ll become president of the N.C. Economic Development Association.
The buy-in Brady engenders is epitomized by the “Made in Henderson” work. Similar programs exist around the state, but Henderson’s was born out of necessity. John “Chip” Gould, an entrepreneur who helped create the county partnership in 1993, says its genesis was an informal labor study by a local plant manager around 2010. It showed 1,000 industrial workers in Henderson would reach retirement age in five years.
“A wake-up call,” Gould remembers.
The partnership shifted its workforce mindset from academics – “You go to school, you go to college.’ That’s it,” Gould says – to career and technical education. It morphed again with a new cradle-to-career model promoted in Henderson’s public schools to ensure well-paying jobs at the county’s 130-plus manufacturing companies. Brady and her colleagues Emily Martin and Jamie Justus work with manufacturers to open their doors, engaging students, educators and parents, “saying, ‘Here’s an option,’” Gould says.
The county has 8,000 technical and manufacturing jobs; wages average $66,000. Around 800 work in the $3 billion tourism industry, but those wages average $30,000. Still, stigma about manufacturing presented a challenge. Scott Moore, director of High Schools and Career and Technical Education at Henderson County schools, says at first it was a tough sell. Some families envisioned manufacturing as “dirty” work, less desirable than jobs requiring a college degree.
That’s dispelled during tours the partnership regularly arranges with manufacturers. Students pass through clean rooms en route to gleaming shop floors. Some students also notice new pickup trucks in parking lots owned by former students they know — grads who never left the county to find work.
“It’s starting to turn the needle here,” Moore says. “Kids are blown away on these tours …. Kids don’t always want to leave, and there’s a path here to a good career and a
good wage.”
Brady was the key to getting it all rolling.
“She’s magnetic … she’s just a great person — super, super-motivated, and very organized,” says Moore. “Any mention of an obstacle or a barrier, and she just says, ‘I’ll take care of it.’ She works to make things work.”
Will Buie, an engineer who chairs the partnership, says Brady’s innate familiarity with and insights into county needs keeps the organization’s DNA innovative. “Made in” shows locals who’d prefer to stay in those pristine natural environs that you don’t have to leave. It helps “build the bench” for manufacturers, and sends a message that the partnership is a problem-solver.
”When we get in a room with industry officials who are making decisions, they’re like, ‘Wow. This is a community that’s really trying to do something about workforce,’”
says Bule.
In promotional “Made in” videos, students on camera initially balk at manufacturing work. But the marketing shift has made it clear: If you’re from here, gainful employment opportunities awaits.
Brady’s original goal was a hospitality career. After a bachelor’s degree at East Tennessee State University and a master’s degree at the University of South Carolina, she had an internship at the Biltmore Estate. Finding the late hours didn’t suit her, she joined the three-person partnership office in a marketing post in 2010.
Gould, who taught Brady’s fourth grade Sunday school class, delighted in her return: “She did her thing, then came back,” he says.
Brady worked through business development and vice president positions under Andrew Tate, who had led the partnership since 2007. When Tate departed for the N.C. Railroad Company, the executive committee promoted Brady. (Tate is now a senior economic developer for Duke Energy in Raleigh.)
Making a difference
Recruiting companies is an art form, but Chung says “it’s not rocket science.” While this or that may tip the scale, when decision-makers take measure of a site, first impressions are critical. When the face of development has roots, too, it’s advantageous.
“When you as a community economic developer get to tell a prospect what your community is about, and why we want you here, why you should want to be here, that’s a strong part of the sales process,” he says. “Brittany’s always thinking about how to make the community better.”
Gould calls Brady “protective,” adding: “She makes sure that what we bring in is high-quality operations with good wages — good for Henderson County, good for the region, very mindful of our agricultural base,” he says. “That’s part of her heritage.”
Hurricane Helene killed 12 people in Henderson County; agriculture losses alone were more than $135 million. After calling every single manufacturer to check in, Brady answered a call from the county to procure supplies. “The water, the food, whatever we needed for Henderson County,” Gould says, despite no phone, internet or roads.
“I don’t know how she did it, but she did,” he says. “That just goes back to your passion for Henderson County. That’s just what you do, and she did it because she could.”
Now, Brady is helping lead the recovery plan. “This was not in my playbook a year ago,” she says. If anything, it’s created more ambition: “We’re digging into product development more aggressively and trying to make Henderson County better than it was before.”
The mystery of the cash hidden away by Kuykendall lingers. Brady hopes to stick
around, too.
“Henderson County is home for me,” she says. “I don’t know if I’ll be in this position forever, but I hope to continue to grow. I like to do work that I feel like is making a difference.”■
