State of the North Carolina Economy

North Carolina is still reeling from the impact of the economic downturn,but NC State is helping to soften the blow.

NC State University has led efforts to reboot the state’s economy through programs that provide education and training to businessmen and entrepreneurs.

The Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC), administered by NC State, has been singularly successful in helping small and mid-size businesses. Since 1984, the SBTDC has offered counseling and education in all phases of business development and management, and clients consistently outperform their peers in growth and revenue.

The SBTDC was called on to lead the Governor’s Jobs Now initiative BIZ BOOST. Focused on job retention in small to mid-sized businesses, BIZ BOOST was piloted in the Charlotte area – which was especially hard hit by white-collar layoffs in the recession – and has since gone statewide.

“The cost of job retention is far less than the cost of adding new people,” said
Scott Daugherty, SBTDC Executive Director. “The emphasis in this program is on higher-end job retention. These are the very people who can contribute the most to a company’s survival.”

In the first six months of 2010, the SBTDC served 820 businesses. Assisted firms reported creating nearly 1,300 jobs, retaining 800 jobs and securing nearly $33 million in capital and $74 million in government contracts. The SBTDC expects to serve 2,000 companies through BIZ BOOST by the year’s end.

In the 11-county Charlotte region, the SBTDC also offered “FastTrac,” an entrepreneurial training program offered in collaboration with the Kauffman Foundation, the Community College Small Business Center Network, SCORE and other agencies. The curriculum offers multiple-hour sessions, a resource guide and solid training to enable participants to prepare business plans.

Suzanne McVeigh of Charlotte started her company Avery Energy after participating in FastTrac. “Having that assistance building our business model, getting focused on the business plan, learning all the things that it takes to make money and get a corporation out the door—these were critical things for a start-up company like mine,” she said.

The Industrial Extension Service (IES) has been serving manufacturers statewide for 55 years with workshops that increase productivity and profitability. In recent years, IES has extended these services to the health care industry, state and local governments and schools. In 2009, IES managed a unique feat, meeting an ambitious goal it had set for itself—a year early! In 2006, IES launched its 1B4NC initiative to create $1 billion of measurable value by the end of 2010. By December 2009, IES had not only reached but exceeded the goal. Surveys by the National Institute of Standards and Technology revealed N.C. businesses valued IES services—workshops, courses, and training programs—at $1.06 billion and attributed the creation of more than 4,500 jobs to IES services.

New jobs and increased profits were recorded in 75 of the state’s 100 counties, and 33 companies had estimated that the IES services were worth $1 million or more—in some cases, much more.

Elastic Therapy Inc., a medical hosiery company in Asheboro, was one of these companies. It reported $2 million worth of productivity increases and reductions in inventory and lead time from services they received from IES.

“The biggest chunk of our savings came from the Lean classes we took,” said Gentry Hinson, product improvement engineer. Lean training reduces wasted time, movement and materials. “Before we took the classes, one group of machines were scattered all over the floor with separate people pulling boxes off the shelves and big backlogs of inventory. We created a cellular process in which product flowed to one location.”

“And through Six-Sigma process implementation, we were able to eliminate two steps out of our manufacturing process,” added product improvement engineer Bryan Trogdon. “We’re seeing right now a 30 percent gain in productivity, an 80 percent reduction in inventory and a 75 percent reduction in lead time.”

NC LIVE Statewide

Students fortunate enough to attend one of the state’s public universities can avail themselves of the latest computer and telecommunications technology while pursuing their course of study. But what if residents in rural communities could share the same research and reference materials and other electronic information available to university students? What if there were an Internet library accessible to anyone?

That was the vision in 1997 that inspired the formation of NC LIVE, a collaboration of
community colleges, universities, and libraries to provide online information sources that can stimulate the minds of North Carolinians and increase economic development. NC State’s D.H. Hill Library provides the physical space for NC Live and serves as its fiscal agent.

Through membership in a local library, anyone can gain computer access to 18,000 full-text scholarly journals, many magazines and newspapers, electronic books, videos, investment data and business information. The collection grows each year, and the library is open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The program is particularly valuable for job seekers.

“NC LIVE is an invaluable resource to our regional library system because it allows our citizens to access databases and information that would not be possible otherwise,” said Joan Sherif of the Northwestern Regional Library in Elkin. “It is bringing the 21st century to all of North Carolina. The potential is enormous. ... It is a resource that offers worlds of access and information no matter what the interest, education, or financial situation is.”