[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to, "Side By Side."

My guest today grew up on a farm in North Wilkesboro.

Now, he's one of the most impactful mayors in the country.

Today, we'll meet Allen Joines, the mayor of Winston-Salem.

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[light contemporary music] - Mayor Joines, welcome to, "Side by Side."

- Thank you, Mr. President, glad to be here.

- Thank you, sir.

You know, one thing that I know about you, you have been the Mayor of Winston-Salem for 24 consecutive years.

- [Allen] Yes, sir.

- How many elections is that?

- Seven, I just finished one in last month basically.

So it's been seven terms.

When I was asked to run the first time back in 2001, I told the folks, I said, "I'll do it for one term."

[laughs] That was- - And here you are.

- Seven terms later.

[laughs] - Yeah, what is it about you that makes you such a, an effective mayor?

- Oh, I don't know, I think it's, I'm a anal person.

I work hard.

I'm very organized, I think, and I go to everything in Winston-Salem.

I think I had 1,100 events and meetings last year.

So, we're everywhere.

- Wow, and you grew up in North Wilkesboro.

- Yes, sir.

- Not too far from Winston-Salem.

- Right.

And at what point in your life did you decide, "I think I'm gonna run for mayor of Winston-Salem"?

- It's really interesting.

I had worked for the city of Winston-Salem for 30 years and retired as deputy city manager, and then began work with the Winston-Salem Alliance, a group that's headed by the CEOs of our companies and universities there, and began that in September of 2000.

And I guess it was the following winter, I was sitting around a table with some of my board members, and they said, "We gotta get somebody to run for mayor, you know, how about you?"

And I said, I've never run for anything in my life," but I complained, why can't we get people to run who maybe have a genuine concern about the city?

So I said, "Well, I'll give it a shot, and I'll do it."

As I said, one term.

- And you've had many achievements, and I'm sure along the way you've had some, you know, some unfortunate situations.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Especially when you have a corporate headquarters that chooses to move- - Yes.

- From Winston to Charlotte.

That'd be BB&T.

- Mm-hmm.

- And others, I think.

Reynolds may have.

- Reynolds at one time moved their headquarters out, and- - Yeah.

- Although we kept most of their tobacco operations here.

- What is the effect on a city, when a corporate headquarters moves out of a city, at a time that I know you're working very hard, to attract companies, to- - [Allen] Yeah.

- Create jobs, to enhance the economic situation of a community?

- Well, you're right, Mr. President.

It's, I think it creates this negative kind of vibe in your community.

It sets you back in that regard as you're recruiting other companies to the city.

You know, economically, it does have an economic impact as well, not only to jobs, but also the participation in your non-profits, you know, the Arts Council, United Way.

- Sure, because you lose executives who- - Yeah.

- Give at the highest levels.

- Give big dollars to the community there.

So you have to work even harder to replace that.

- Mm-hmm.

- And we just did a deal with HanesBrands.

You may have seen that, where, you know, Hanes sold their Champion operation division in the company and that cut down their head count, so they didn't need the huge building they have north of town.

And their board was asking them to consider maybe, "Should we be relocating?

We gotta move anyway, so why not move to New York or someplace."

So we put together a small incentive package that encouraged them to stay, and they moved downtown, are moving downtown.

And will create that Fortune 500 brand for us in downtown.

- Mm-hmm, I've been watching Winston-Salem for a long time.

- Yes, sir.

- And admiringly so, because Winston has done some remarkable things.

For example, I know that you have cut down the homelessness in the city by a large number.

- Yes, sir.

- You have practically ended veteran homelessness.

- [Allen] Right.

- You have created tens of thousands of jobs at the same time, you know, losing some of these corporate headquarters.

Talk to us about how you did that.

How does a community bring down its homelessness by what percent?

- 92.

- [Nido] 92%, and how do you count that?

How do you arrive at the 92%?

- Well, it's fairly, we do a, twice a year, we do a point in place count of those individuals who are unhoused, as we call it nowadays.

But we, I put together a kind of a task force to work on creating a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness, using business community, folks who had been homeless, folks who are out of it.

And we came up with a plan.

So I got the plan, said, "Okay, what am I gonna do with it now?"

[laughs] So I called a good friend of mine- - What was the plan?

- Well, it was the 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness.

- Yes, but what did it include?

- Oh, I'm sorry.

- What are the steps?

- It didn't have really a lot of nuts and bolts to it.

It was some generalized objectives and plans.

So we had to put together an implementation plan.

So I called a good friend of mine, Manny Diaz, who was mayor of Miami, and he had done a great job in doing that.

I said, "Manny, how do you do it?"

He said, "You gotta get the corporate community involved."

I said, "Okay."

So I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

So about two days later, just serendipitously, Kelly King, the CEO of BB&T called me and said, "Allen, what can this bank do more for this community?"

I said, "Well, lemme tell ya."

[laughs] So long story short, he had one of his top lieutenants, Chris Henson, president of the bank itself, chair our homeless initiative.

And he brought this business acumen, his ideas.

And so we were successful in doing that.

- But did you build a building for them?

Did you put 'em on an airplane [Allen laughs] and send 'em to New York?

- Send 'em to High Point.

- Yeah.

[laughs] - No, actually, we kinda threw out the conventional wisdom, if you will.

Conventional wisdom was, you gotta get folks motivated, you gotta get 'em trained, you gotta do this or that.

We said, "No, we're gonna get 'em in housing first."

So we had housing first.

- Housing.

- Yeah, so we put 'em in housing units and then we came and- - And how did you do that?

Did you build new housing units?

Did you take existing housing and refurbish or- - Yeah, it was mostly using existing units, and some, a little bit of new construction.

We got our housing authority involved to provide some housing.

We got some extra vouchers, Section 8 vouchers that we could use.

And so, we were able to get folks into housing very quickly.

And as you mentioned, one of the things we're most proud of was the really, technically, ending chronic homelessness among veterans.

At that point, President Obama and Michelle Obama kinda challenged cities to do that.

And we were one of the first 27 cities in the country certified to do that.

And so we were recognized.

- What a noble, what a noble endeavor that is.

- Yes, yeah.

- Well, how sad it is that veterans who serve this country somehow become homeless.

- Exactly, I couldn't fathom that.

- Yeah, and and my understanding of homelessness, which is such an important focus for every community- - Yeah.

- And should be, we all should care about it and give resources towards it.

- [Allen] Yes, sir.

- My understanding is that it's not enough to just give them housing, that you have to deal with mental illness.

- [Allen] Right.

- That you have to equip them to become responsible citizens, doing a certain task, a certain job.

- Right.

- So they can have a sense of pride.

- Right.

- And most importantly, sustainability.

- That's right, yes, sir.

- Where am I wrong in that?

- No, you're exactly right.

As I said, we wanted housing first.

Get 'em in a house, but you can't just leave them because then they don't know how to maintain a home or apartment, where it might be.

So we came in beside it and wrapped around the training and the counseling in a lotta cases there.

And just having resources available to them if they hit a rough spot in there, moving forward.

But give 'em an opportunity to, using Forsyth Tech, our local community college, working with us there to give 'em some skill sets that they can, you know, produce income for themselves.

So it's a complex issue.

And then we got down, Nido, to the last 30, I would say, 35 homeless that we had.

And there were serious mental- - [Nido] Yeah.

- Situations with most of them.

- Difficult to deal with that.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, we talked about how some corporate headquarters left- - [Allen] Yes.

- Winston-Salem, but you've also attracted a lotta companies.

- We have.

- What is it you say to those companies about Winston-Salem, that wants them to move there?

- Well, you know, companies, as you know better than me, they're looking for a good solid workforce.

And institutions like High Point here and other schools are providing those folks.

They're wanting a stable government, I think.

And that's one of the reasons, one of the roles as a mayor, I have very little formal power, but I can, you know, talk about how stable we are as a local government, over the years, and- - Did you just say that a mayor does not have any formal power?

- Not very much, I can- - Really?

- I can declare states of- - You have one vote on the council, right?

- Right.

- And beyond that, you have a lot of power.

- I have to be able to cajole and to line up four votes to [laughs] get things done.

- But people want to do, they wanna follow a mayor who's been there for 24 years.

- Well, I hope so.

[laughs] - Yes.

- Right.

- So, workforce.

- [Allen] Yes.

- The big part of it.

- [Allen] Right.

- North Carolina is gonna be challenged by that, as we attract those mega companies- - [Allen] Yes.

- In these mega sites.

- [Allen] Yes, sir.

- And they're gonna create literally tens of thousands of jobs, so the plan says.

How do we come up with all the workforce, albeit we have a lot of people moving- - Yeah, I think, that's right.

- Which creates housing challenges.

- [Allen] Oh, yes.

- So while we're having great achievements in North Carolina, we gotta be very cognizant of the challenges that lie ahead.

- No question about that.

It is a challenge to us just to provide the bodies that are going to fuel all these companies, Toyota, et al.

Fortunately, we've got a strong university system and community college systems that are really cranking out a lot of the technicians.

And it's the different types of jobs, as you know.

- Winston is the home for Wake Forest University.

- Yes, sir, it is.

- Very fine institution.

- [Allen] Right.

- And Forsyth Technical- - Technical Community College.

- Community College is also a very fine- - [Allen] Yes.

- Institution.

- Yeah, Dr. Spriggs is doing a great job, and we work hand in hand with, with particularly the community college and telling the type of jobs that's needed, and type of skillsets that are needed there.

So it's a continuing, not battle, but it's a continuing struggle to make sure we're meeting those needs.

- You're also home for healthcare, significant healthcare facilities- - [Allen] Yeah, two large medical facilities.

- Yeah, Novant is in Winston.

- [Allen] Mm-hmm.

- And of course Wake Forest is in Winston and Charlotte and nationally, now.

- Mm-hmm, and nationally.

Yeah, that's right.

- Yes, so these companies that come to Winston-Salem, are they part of this innovation corridor that Wake Forest and the city worked together- - [Allen] Mm-hmm.

- [Nido] To create?

It's a very impressive zone in Winston-Salem.

- It is, yeah.

- Give us an idea how that came to be.

What is it, and is it really a force in attracting companies to Winston-Salem?

- It is a force, there's no question.

I never will forget Dick Dean, who is the head of the medical center, and I went to see Andy Schindler, the CEO of Reynolds- - Yes.

- To ask him if we could get one of their vacant factory buildings donated to us.

We went to see him and he said, "You want all of 'em?"

[laughs] And we, taken aback a little bit and we said, "Yeah."

So we did.

So we've got right at, you know, 200 acres there, which I think is- - In Downtown Winston-Salem.

- In Downtown.

I think it's the largest, I say it's the largest, urban research center in the country.

And I haven't been challenged on it too much.

- How many years, how many years?

Give us some sense of history in terms of timeline.

- Yeah, we- - You started when?

- I would say in the early '90s, we started with the idea.

- Okay, it's a 30-year project.

- Yeah, a 30-year overnight success.

But it's been something over $900 million of investment that has occurred in there.

- Mostly by Wake Forest University or other?

- Wake Forest, the city's put dollars in there in terms of infrastructure, but it's, a lot of it's just private sector dollars, the companies that have come and created the models there.

Of course we all know Tony Atala- - Yes.

- And his Center for Regenerative Medicine, has been a real shining star for, not only the research that he's doing, but attracting other companies that are magnets to being worn around that regenerative medicine center.

- Mm-hmm, and Wake Forest also has some classes and academic programs downtown, does it not?

- Yes, sir, the medical school was there, and then they has its own biomedical engineering program that's located there as well, so it's- - One of the leaders in Winston-Salem that I know is a good friend of mine, and yours, is Don Flow.

- Yes, sir.

- Don has done some creative things.

- Amazing, [laughs] he is a continual thinker of coming up with new ideas and new programs and really putting energy behind these efforts right now.

So he's, he's actually was my chairman of the Winston-Salem Alliance for, I think 12, 13 years.

- Mm-hmm, and you're the president of the Winston-Salem Alliance.

- [Allen] Right.

- What is that, or what does it do?

- Well, it's a nonprofit, a 501c6 organization that we created to carry out an economic development plan that had been put together for the CEOs of Winston-Salem, by the McKinsey Group.

McKinsey probably spent, I think a year developing the plan.

Then we put the legs to it and carried it out from entrepreneurial development to site development to transportation, things of that nature.

- How did you, Mayor, tell us how you created a downtown for Winston-Salem.

Because I remember when Winston did not have a downtown.

- You're exactly right.

- I should say, a vibrant downtown.

- Right.

- But now there are apartments there, there are museums there, there's music facilities, there are hotels there.

How did you do all of that?

- Patience and working at it.

We used to jokingly say, at five o'clock you could shoot a cannon down 4th Street and not hit anybody.

But we started chipping away at it.

The first project that we did, I think, was sort of the catalyst, was the Nissen Building.

It was an 18-story all-office building.

Converted it into apartments, and didn't know how it was gonna work.

It was gonna come in on the market at about 110% of market rates.

We were nervous, but it came in, filled up.

And then that spawned additional ones.

So I think getting residential, getting people living downtown was one of the key pieces of it there.

We also continued to push our tourism with our convention center and the hotel, to kinda group around that.

- And you have the Arts.

- [Allen] The Arts Council, that's right.

- And you have the have the University of the Arts- - That's right.

- In your city as well.

- That's right, North Carolina School of the Arts.

And we have the Stevens Center downtown that provided opportunities.

And then the Arts Council themselves have three performance venues downtown.

So all that I think contributed to it.

I think it's sorta like pushing a snowball up the side of a mountain.

- Mm-hmm.

- Certain point it goes over, and then it kinda keeps its own momentum going.

- Yes.

- You can't keep up with it.

- Yeah.

- So- - But you know, I mean, I think of other cities like Charlotte, let's say.

- [Allen] Yeah.

- Which had three mega banks for many years.

And the leaders of those banks were courageous and- - Yes.

- Risk-takers and- - Yeah.

- And they put money where their mouth is- - Yes.

- And they created, you know, tremendous energy there.

- Yes, sir.

- You know, forgive me for saying this, but Winston didn't have those resources.

- That's correct.

- At least not at that level.

And in spite of it, you've created a very active community, albeit you don't really have professional sports except for baseball.

- Mm-hmm.

- Do you have soccer, no.

- No, no soccer, no.

- Just baseball.

- Just baseball, professionally, but- - But you have Wake Forest.

- Yeah Wake Forest with their athletics and it's a great excitement, certainly with the ACC and that sort of thing.

- As you look at other cities, if you were a consultant to other cities- - [Allen] Mm-hmm.

- What would you say the two or three things every community, small, especially small communities, what should they be doing to ensure that the future is going to be healthy for them?

- Well, I think I would just make sure I've got a trained workforce that's going to be able to meet the needs of these companies, particularly- - And how does a small community do that?

I mean, they don't have resources.

They may not have the tax base, therefore they don't have the facilities.

- Right, I would rely on the state, you know, the state workforce development board that works with them- - I see.

- As well as the community colleges with- - And you chaired the Economic Development Board in Raleigh for a number of years, did you not?

- I did, yeah, under Governor Perdue.

- Yes.

- She asked me to do that.

And there's some areas of the state that's gonna be very difficult, in Transylvania County, for instance- - Yeah.

- Places like that, it's difficult, so I think a lotta times, those smaller communities have to hitch their wagon to a large metropolitan area like a Winston-Salem or Charlotte or Greensboro, to kinda tie into the jobs that are being created by those areas, and hopefully can get some in their area.

And we're seeing that happening already, so- - We are so blessed in North Carolina.

We have 17 fine public institutions.

We have 36 private institutions.

We have what, 55 community colleges?

- [Allen] I think that's right, yes.

- [Nido] Something like that.

- Right.

- So we are a bastion of, of a zone filled with educational- - That's correct, yeah.

- You know, possibilities.

I'm not sure how well all of those institutions have worked together to create magic.

I know each of them, and sometimes more than one of them, there's some good things.

In Winston, you have Salem College, you have Winston-Salem, you have University of North Carolina for the Arts, you have Forsyth Technical Community College, and you have another institution now.

What is it called?

- Carolina University.

- Carolina University.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Do they work together?

Do you, for example, as mayor, trying to get those together for the benefit of the whole community?

- I personally haven't had to pull together because they did it on their own.

The chancellors and presidents decided they wanted to meet regularly and try to make sure they're cooperating and collaborating on issues that are facing the community.

So I'm very pleased with that.

You know, we've got the new leadership at just about all the institutions there, with Dr. Wente at Wake, and Dr. Cole at School of the Arts, and others there, so- - Yes.

- They work together very, very well.

- What role does tourism play in the progressive success of Winston-Salem?

- It plays a significant role, you know, with, Old Salem, of course, is there.

It's one of our leading areas.

A couple hundred thousand people visit that a year, of course.

But then our convention center as I mentioned earlier is a mega, it's an attraction coming in.

And then just the sports that we have coming in there is good.

And so we work hard.

- You have a tennis tournament every year.

- That's right, and then we have the bicycle race there.

We're tied into the national association to have the sanctioned races there.

It's kinda always a lotta fun there, so it's very important to us.

I tell, jokingly say people come in, spend their money, and they go home, and you don't have to provide schools [laughs] and things for 'em there.

- Yes, yeah.

That's a good thing sometimes.

- Yeah, that's right, yes sir.

- So, as you look forward, and backwards, what is it the one thing you had hoped you would accomplish, you did not, for whatever reason?

And what is the thing you would like to accomplish- - [Allen] Mm-hmm.

- Or you would like for Winston-Salem to accomplish looking forward?

- Good question.

You know, there are a number of things that we worked on that we didn't, didn't quite gel.

We want more technology jobs coming in.

We've gotta make sure that the Innovation Quarter continues to grow there.

I think in looking forward, I've tried to portray our city as a city of innovation and rapid change, 'cause I think successful cities of the future are gonna be those that can turn on a dime, take advantage of the opportunities, not that you're shooting after every little, you know, nuance that comes along.

But we're, we gotta be ready to take advantage of these opportunities that come to us.

- Is there something that, specific that you say, "My best dream is that Winston will do X, or will get X or will attract X" in the future?

- Well, I'm thinking and hoping that we'll have a nucleus of innovation companies, technology companies, that have created such a presence there that people will just be, companies will be flocking to it there.

We'll have to do such hard recruiting, I think, that there'll just be a national, natural magnet of companies that want to be associated with it.

- Mm-hmm, and let's talk about you for a minute.

- [Allen] Okay.

- You gonna run for mayor again?

- Well, you never say never.

I just got elected back in November for another four years, so that'll take me to '68, 1970, 2028.

- '28, yes.

- Yeah, excuse me.

So we'll just have to see how we feel, as we get into that place.

- Yeah, what keeps you excited about doing this?

- I just love getting things done.

I like having a project, having a initiative, and, you know, checking the box, so to speak, and looking back and seeing that.

And it's, I enjoy interacting with people, citizens, and feel like you're making a difference to the lives of the 254,000 people who live there.

- And how do you deal with the critics?

Surely you have some critics.

- [laughs] I got lots of critics, yeah.

- And how do you deal with that?

- I think you just have a little bit of a tough, thick skin, and realize that, you know, have confidence in yourself that you're doing the right things, and making those hard decisions sometimes.

But, and then sometimes I'm just totally honest, it does get under your skin a little bit, when people are saying things that are not really accurate, but.

- I heard a mayor say to me not too long ago that one of his biggest challenges is attracting workforce in, for example, the police department- - Yes, yes, we've had that.

- And other such significant foundational resources.

- Yes sir.

- Do you have some of that challenge and if so, why?

- Very much so, we do.

We have a force of about 570 positions, and we had a vacancies of 150 vacancies in the department.

- Is that normal, that's- - Yeah.

- 25% or so.

- Well, it's not normal for us.

I think across the country we're seeing a lot of police departments losing folks.

And I think there for a while, with the, you know, the whole negative things about police, you know, "defund the police" movements and stuff, some of our officers got kinda turned off by that and left.

We have since, knock on wood, trying to turn the corner on that.

And we also had to address salaries.

We got a little bit behind on that.

So we've made our salaries more competitive, and we've got a new police chief, William Penn, who is young, vibrant kind of a guy.

And he has been able to attract some of those folks back, and we're slowly chipping away with the vacancies there.

- Mm-hmm, how many people live in Winston-Salem?

- 254,000.

- How does that compare to, what would that be in the hierarchy of size in North Carolina?

- Fifth.

- [Nido] Number five.

- Right, yes.

- [Nido] And what would be number one?

- One would be Charlotte, of course.

Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, then us.

- [Nido] Okay, not Wilmington.

- Not Wilmington, no.

- Okay, which cities are the rising cities in population?

Wilmington has to be one of them.

- I would think so, yeah.

I mean, we all- - Asheville maybe?

- Yeah, Asheville's probably growing, but Charlotte continues to grow.

I talk to the Mayor, Vi, down there quite a bit.

And we've got a reasonable growth in West Salem, like 1% a year, which is manageable in terms of being able to continue to provide the infrastructure.

The mayor of Charlotte was saying that she's having difficulty just having to build the roads and streets to keep up with it.

- [Nido] Yeah, the infrastructure.

- The infrastructure to- - Yeah.

- [Allen] Keep it, right.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I'm delighted to talk with you about those issues.

I'm gonna talk to you all day about it, because you've been at this for 24 years.

You've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.

- [Allen] Yes.

- And you celebrate the good, and you struggle with that which you're not able to- - [Allen] Right.

- Completely bring to fruition.

- [Allen] Right.

- But the future of the city, you believe, is positive and optimistic?

- I do, Mr. President.

I believe we've got the foundation now.

We've got the mindset of our people to say, you know, we are a different kind of city than we used to be.

We can build ourselves on these skills and these areas, so I feel good about the future of Winston.

- Yeah, well, Mayor Allen Joines, mayor of Winston-Salem, I thank you for being with us- - Thank you.

- On "Side by Side."

I wish you great success in all that you do.

You don't have to worry about running again for three-and-a-half years, but- - [laughs] That's right.

- Whatever you do, blessings to you, my friend.

- Thank you, thank you very much.

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