Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley’s fourth-floor office overlooks North Carolina’s legislative complex, which in an era of divided government seems fitting given how he sees his job and his department’s.
The 41-year-old started his career in Democratic politics, but a six-year stint with McGuireWoods Consulting went a long way toward establishing the ethos he brings to Gov. Josh Stein’s cabinet.
Clients, he says, don’t like hearing the word no.
The challenge is “how to be a government or entity that gets to yes on questions that come to us, the complex problems that ultimately reach our level,” Lilley says.
The Department of Commerce’s mission, he says, is to help create the conditions for prosperity in the state. That can’t be done alone, so a big part of the job is making it easier for the public and private sectors to join hands and pitch in.
“We’ve got to think about how we serve as a convener, a supporter of partner agencies, local governments and others who are doing most of the work that goes on out there,” Lilley says.
Lilley grew up in Williamston, a town of about 5,200 people in Martin County, one of North Carolina’s poorest with median household income of about $47,000. His family has owned a farm machinery business there since the 1950s.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in cultural studies at UNC Chapel Hill, he joined U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield’s staff in 2007, then became the Democratic congressman’s Washington-based legislative director before leaving in 2012 to join McGuireWoods. The Richmond, Virginia-based enterprise has about 1,000 lawyers in 14 states. He worked in the nation’s capital on federal issues.
Lilley came back to North Carolina in 2017 to join Gov. Roy Cooper’s staff as director of legislative affairs.
CRISIS EXPERIENCE
That’s not the typical track for an N.C. commerce secretary, who in recent decades tended to have backgrounds as backgrounds as corporate executives, attorneys or both.
But prior state-government service didn’t hurt. Only one of Lilley’s four most recent predecessors, Sharon Decker, came to the job without having worked for the state.
“At some point, anyone who is nominated to be the secretary of any agency, there is a political connection of some sort,” says Senate leader Phil Berger. “Some more than others.”
What counts, Berger adds, is having “somebody that’s going to do a good job, somebody that the governor has confidence in, somebody that’s going to represent the state well.” He thinks Lilley will “do all those things.”
At the governor’s office, Lilley eventually headed its pandemic-recovery team after Cooper decided, in Lilley’s words, that he needed an in-house “throat to choke” in charge of the effort.
That experience should come in handy as the top priority of Gov. Stein and legislators is helping western North Carolina bounce back from Hurricane Helene.
The recovery effort is “what we talk about first” in every cabinet meeting and phone call, Lilley says. Stein has tasked Commerce with handling one of the most critical chunks of federal aid coming North Carolina’s way.
This is the $1.4 billion coming from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It will be funding of last resort, most notably for housing repair and reconstruction.
Stein assigned that job to Commerce because the agency is already the state’s main point of contact, and because the Cooper-era N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency, by many assessments, botched the work following Hurricanes Matthew and Florence in the 2010s.
“I hope that Lee learned some things about what not to do from the Cooper administration, at least as it comes to storm relief, and that he’ll take those lessons and help us fix the issue moving forward,” House Speaker Destin Hall says.
Lilley says those lessons include making sure it’s not the cause of delays in HUD’s release of the money. Commerce also needs to manage expectations and show transparency with the public and legislators, and rely more on vendors instead of in-house staff, providing the third-parties with the right incentives, he says.
When building homes, “we’re going to batch-assign projects” instead of bidding them out one-by-one, so contractors will “know how much they get paid every time.” Their success will determine “how many more projects they get to do, and thus how much money they get to make.”
CATCHING VIRGINIA
As for Commerce’s mission, Lilley says Cooper’s secretaries, Tony Copeland and Machelle Baker Sanders, focused on improving the state’s business-recruiting “deal flow” and on workforce development, respectively.
Both concerns remain front and center, though industry recruitment is the key focus of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, which split off from Commerce during Gov. Pat McCrory’s tenure.
Commerce and the state also have to focus on improving infrastructure and encouraging innovation, Lilley says.
Infrastructure issues enabled Virginia to edge North Carolina for the coveted No. 1 ranking in CNBC’s “Top States for Business” rankings last year. Cities and counties need “marketable real estate” to attract corporate investment, and one way to ensure they have it is to “break down walls” between state agencies, Lilley says. ■
