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Business Leader Magazine
By Joan Plotnick
Merge an excellent location, pro-business government, thriving arts community and progressive community college, and you get Lee County. Lee, the 12th-smallest county in the state, also is one of its fastest-growing, with a steady population increase of 2 to 3 percent each year. Yet Lee County is more than a bedroom community for its neighbors.
“Each day, more people enter Lee County for work than leave it,” says Bob Bridwell, director of the Sanford/Lee County Community Development Department. The county is boxed in by major manufacturers. On the northernmost corner lies the Lee County Industrial Park (LCIP), home to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, whose 1,400 employees produce pediatric-vaccine components.
Others in the industrial park include Caterpillar Industrial Machines, with 700 employees; GKN Driveline, maker of vehicle parts, with 630 employees; and a number of smaller industries. Four hundred acres still are available for industrial development. In the west, surrounding U.S. 421, is the Textile Corridor. This includes Frontier Spinning Mills, which opened as a small company in Sanford in 1996. According to Ray Epley, director of industrial relations for Central Carolina Community College, the mills spin enough yarn to wrap a string around the world every three minutes. National Textiles and Parkdale Yarns also are located in the LCIP.
The southern corner of Lee County houses the 1.2 million- square-foot, 28-building campus of Static Control and its 1,400 employees. Created in Lee County two decades ago, Static Control manufactures toner-cartridge components, electrical testing tools, and products to protect sensitive electrical parts from moisture and static. Its products are distributed to more than 163 countries.
The eastern portion of the county is anchored by the one-million-square-foot Coty plant, which produces fragrance and skin-care products; and Tyson Foods, which uses 1 million pounds of flour per day to make taco shells for all Taco Bell Restaurants east of the Mississippi. Other major manufacturers include Moen, Lee Brick and Tile, General Shale, and Magnetti Marelli.
While many parts of the U.S. are losing manufacturing jobs, they still account for 35 percent of Lee County’s employment base. Sanford, the county’s largest town, recently ranked No. 36 in Site Selection magazine’s list of America’s top small towns for business. “Look at the products you use. Lee County may have produced the faucets in your home, the cloth in the clothing you are wearing and the bricks in your house,” explains Bob Heuts, director of the Sanford Economic Development Corp.
Part of Lee County’s success is kismet. It is blessed with a location sandwiched between the 13-county Research Triangle Region (RTR) area to the north and the 11-county U.S. Army Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) area to the south. The BRAC plan calls for moving the purchasing arm of the U.S. Army to Ft. Bragg near Fayetteville, which is expected to bring up to 25,000 people to the area. But location is not enough. Bob Joyce, president of the Sanford Chamber of Commerce, gives much of the credit for the county’s success to its pro-growth attitude. He points to the local airport — which boasts a 6,500-square-foot runway and 80,000-pound capacity — as an example.
A decision was made in 1993 to move the airport from the southern part of the county to the north and expand and upgrade it. The new one opened in 1999. “The airport is a perfect example of the vision that distinguishes this community from other small communities,” Joyce says. “Initially, the airport was just a landing strip. The opposition said that private aviation is failing and no one is flying. In the short run, the opposition was right — fewer than 30 airplanes used the airport each year. But we built the airport anyway, and now there are close to 87 planes using it.” Heuts, however, stresses that economic development cannot come at the expense of quality of life.
“At the end of all questionnaires from relocating businesses are questions about quality of life,” he says. “In the process of expansion or relocation, businesses look closely at community. Invariably, the No. 1 thing they look for is labor, No. 2 is accessibility and Nos. 3, 4 and 5 have to do with quality-of-life issues.” In this regard, Sanford boasts a regional performing arts gem — the Temple Theater. The theater, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, attracts Screen Actors Guild performers from as far away as New York City. It is undergoing a major renovation, including replacing 25 year-old carpeting with hardwood floors and installing commercial-grade runners down the aisles, and new sound and lighting systems. Director Dave Matthew recently purchased the building next door to the theater to enhance its rehearsal space, create a second theater for smaller productions, provide a conservatory for master classes, and improve concession and restroom spaces.
“When the renovations are done, the theater will be beautiful to look at from the outside, and it’s going to be a place where actors are really campaigning to work,” Matthew explains. “We intend to be a presence in Southeast area theater.” The county treasures its artistic heritage and has a strong pottery tradition, anchored by the world-renowned Cole family, whose work is displayed in the Smithsonian Institute. Each year, Sanford holds an annual two-day pottery festival that brings between 7,000 and 10,000 people to the town. “There recently have been serious academic studies, one out of Harvard, that say, in essence, that where creative people live there is strong economic growth,” Joyce says. Of course, economic growth cannot exist without a well-trained workforce. That is where Central Carolina Community College (CCCC) comes in. “Pretty much every company in Lee County has used training provided by CCCC as it increased employment,” Heuts says. The college has three programs, each supported by the state. The New and Expanding Industries Program provides custom training for any new industry that creates at least 12 jobs.
The Focused Industrial Training Program serves companies that have to train a small number of people at a high cost per person, and the Customized Industrial Training Program provides free training to industries that — while not relocating or expanding — are making a sizable investment in the area. “When an industrial prospect shows up, we meet with them to discuss what the college can do for them, and then we design and implement a training program,” Epley says. “I can take you to any industry, and people will wave at me because they know I’m with CCCC and they graduated from it.”
The county’s younger population benefits from a quality public school system, in which 75 percent of schools meet federal No Child Left Behind standards. Last year, Lee County Public Schools opened two new high schools: Southern Lee High School and the Early College High School. Whereas Southern Lee is a traditional school, ECHS is an experimental school that gives highly motivated students an opportunity to earn a high-school diploma and associate’s degree in five years — without the cost of tuition or books. ECHS students can opt for industrial training, which further serves to provide local industries with a steady supply of skilled workers. This diversity of employment and quality of life has brought a diverse population boom to the area, which Bridwell describes as a combination of natural growth, active retirees, military personnel and a growing Hispanic population. “It is challenging in that there is a lot to keep your eye on, but it balances out,” he explains. “We have a lot of children who need schools, but also elderly people who don’t require those services. It also drives our retail segment, making it more dynamic than it has ever been.”
A prime location, pro-growth attitude and strong quality of life have come together in Lee County, ensuring a bright future for what’s locally called “The Southern Base of the Research Triangle Region.”
Joan Plotnick is editor of Opportunity World and Money ‘N Profits magazines. She can be reached at joan@businessleader.com.
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