(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is Carolina Business Review.

Major support provided by High Point University, the premier life skills university, focused on preparing students for the world as it is going to be.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

Sonoco, a global manufacturer of consumer and industrial packaging products and services with more than 300 operations in 35 countries.

- It sounds like word salad, just to say that the Carolinas are experiencing generally good economic growth.

They are, but there is a slowdown maybe in the offing.

And is it a recession?

Well, the good news is in contemporary history, the Carolina's recessions have normally fared much better than the rest of the country's economic slowdowns.

Welcoming into the most widely watched and the longest running dialogue on Carolina Business and Public Affairs.

I am Chris William.

We are still getting our footing in this new year and hopefully a new feel for some of our old challenges like the cost of housing, childcare, inflation, healthcare, et cetera, et cetera.

We will start this week's dialogue in just a moment and later on longtime CEO on top of one of the nation's largest construction supply firms and someone who has been key at high level Carolina leadership.

Ward Nye from Martin Marietta, stay with US.

- [Narrator] Major funding also by Foundation for the Carolinas, a catalyst for philanthropy and driver of civic engagement, helping individuals, nonprofits, and companies bring their charitable visions to life.

Truliant Federal Credit Union, proudly serving the Carolinas since 1952 by focusing on what truly matters our members' financial success.

Welcome to brighter banking.

And Martin Marietta, a leading provider of natural resource-based building materials, providing the foundation on which our communities improve and grow.

(upbeat music) On this edition of Carolina Business Review, L. Dean Fail of the York County Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Vicki Lee Parker High from the North Carolina Sustainable Business Council and special guest, Ward Nye, chair president, and CEO of Martin Marietta.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to our program.

Vicki, Dean I want to thank you both for driving in because we are actually taping this program on the day of the winter storm morning.

And you are nice enough... You know, getting on interstates in the Carolinas is already a challenge, but to do it when there's a winter storm, you have my eternal thanks.

So thanks to you both.

Vicki let me start with you.

The North Carolina Sustainable Business Council.

What happens to sustainable business in 2025 when we may have a tariff war or we may have challenges around jobs because of immigration?

How do you start talking about that?

- Well, the ongoing challenge for any business sustainable otherwise is gonna be finding those really skilled employees.

And also, yeah, you wanna be able to sell your products at a good rate, at a rate that you know consumers can't afford.

So yeah, those things are gonna be on top of mind for businesses is just another added layer of things that they have to focus on.

What we are hoping with businesses that do follow sustainable business practices, a big part of that is being engaged with your community.

You know, making certain that your employees are well trained, that you are taking care of them, paying them a living wage.

So you have a built-in support for sustainable businesses.

You have the community and consumers behind you.

You have your employees who understand, so you're gonna have to rely on that to kind of help communicate to them that these forces that might come at you, these are external forces.

And you know that, you know there's not a lot of things you can do if prices start to creep up more.

- Do you get any sense of any kind of anxiety level that's different now because there is a new administration in Washington with different policies?

- Honestly, I haven't heard a whole lot of that feedback as of yet.

A lot of people are hoping those who are supportive of this, that somehow that it will do what it's intended to do, supposedly, which is to bring things more local.

Now we have yet to see, of course, economists are not forecasting that ideally.

But I think some of the businesses are looking at the long haul or trying to look at it in the long haul to see if somehow there is a silver lining in this.

If you can bring back more local manufacturing and more local productions.

A number of our sustainable businesses have already moved in that direction.

So we're gonna have to see how it all plays out.

- Dean South Carolina's I think probably to say it's huge in manufacturing is an understatement.

But the same issue around tariffs and if there is a tariff war, what happens to manufacturing?

- Sure.

You know... (clears throat) Excuse me, it's twofold.

You know, as Vicki said, a lot of businesses see the long term benefit of tariffs and bringing... We saw particularly in South Carolina and North Carolina textiles fleeing the area years ago and the loss of jobs there.

So they see the advantage of tariffs as far as possibly bringing back more manufacturing into the country.

The biggest concern is short term is, you know, what does that do with imports, with cost structure.

South Carolina has a major port.

I mean, we're very reliant on imports coming into the Port of Charleston.

Our economy and economic health is linked completely in that with our manufacturing sector.

So it's really a one-two punch.

It's a short-term fears, long-term hopes.

- Anxiety?

- For some, sure.

Some of our auto manufacturers are very reliant on imports from Mexico, for example, and other countries, which is in the topic of the day with tariffs.

- Vicki to something happened now almost four months ago and it's hard to believe, but eviscerated Western North Carolina.

I think that's probably an understatement and even South Carolina it to a lesser degree.

And that is Hurricane Helene and the impact of the hurricanes in general and the hurricane season.

How is that being assessed now as we watch, of course all the rebuilding, but it kind of fades into institutional and public memory?

- Well, it's certainly not fading away for the businesses there on the ground.

It's still very real.

It's a very real ongoing crisis still.

There are a number of businesses.

I recently opened an email just this week of a long-term business that had to send out that message, which is, we're not coming back.

We just don't have the means and the resources to come back.

- Sorry to interrupt you.

Is that a theme that's recurring more than maybe you'd want to hear?

- I've heard particularly for some of the more established businesses where you have people who were really looking at, really looking at retirement or looking at exit strategies and now they're having no business to exit with and the idea of rebuilding, which could take years at this point is something that a lot of them just are not up to.

So a lot of those mature businesses that have been around for some time, just getting a known loan and trying to start over, they're finding now that that isn't an option for some of those more, some established ones.

Now, there are those who are trying.

They're younger businesses or people literally who are younger running them, are trying to find ways.

But it's a long, it's a long-term game.

This isn't something that's gonna turn around in a couple of months or even a year or so.

So you have to be in it for the long haul.

- Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

And about two minutes, Dean.

- Sure.

- We're gonna meet our guest after that.

But the idea that now we have general assemblies back in session.

- Sure.

- South Carolina and North Carolina, and they're doing the work of making policy or managing that tax policy.

How important is it to South Carolina to get their tax policy competitive?

And do you feel like it is competitive?

- Oh, it's competitive but not as competitive as we need it to be.

Number one challenge property tax, business property tax.

Our businesses pay 68% of the tax burden in South Carolina, and it's all linked, goes back to Act 388.

It's a constitutional amendment, so we're not just gonna do away with that.

So we need comprehensive tax reform.

That tax policy impacts our affordable housing.

It impacts our childcare, affordability and accessibility.

I mentioned to you earlier when we were talking.

The same daycare located in York County compared to Mecklenburg County, it can be as much as a thousand dollars per student an additional cost because of our property tax rate.

- And that's just one business.

- That's just one business.

- Making the point about that.

Do you get the sense that there is a will in the State House to do comprehensive tax reform?

- More comprehensive than in the past.

You know it's very difficult to do complete comprehensive tax reform in South Carolina, but there is an appetite to continue to address the tax challenges in South Carolina to make us more competitive.

- Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

We're gonna bring our guest on.

Before we do that, who's coming up on this program?

Well, hopefully 2025 is gonna be equally as fun for us and more folks coming up.

Howard Coker is the CEO of Sonoco products outta Hartsville.

Howard will be our guest on this show.

And also we instituted something last year called Carolina Business Review Classic Conversations.

And it's a way to re-broadcast dialogues that we feel were key during the year.

And we take those and edit them slightly, but bring those back to you.

And our first one will include the superintendent of education in South Carolina.

Her name is Ellen Weaver, the first new superintendent in many years, Ellen Weaver.

And also Harry Sidaris is the president now of Duke Energy and may very well be on his way to the top job there.

But for now running Duke president and unpacked for us, not just what Duke has had to do in Western North Carolina, but how they remain competitive and how they answer the question about energy shortages in the Carolinas.

And that is coming up.

Our guest and his company now have been on a tear for good reasons.

It's decidedly low tech in general.

Their product is way upstream in the building process of residential and commercial construction.

Pricing on raw materials are important, the cost of transportation is important, and generally the appetite for more development and construction is key to their continued growth.

Joining us again is the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Martin Marietta Materials, Ward Nye.

Mr. Chairman, welcome to the program.

- Chris good to be here.

Good to see you again.

- Thank you.

And it's important to say at the top of this program, the interest of full disclosure, Martin Marietta has been a supporter of this program and continues to be.

So thank you for that.

But we're not gonna make it easy for you Mr. Chairman.

- That's fine.

- Ward, let's start with, gosh.

I mean, if you look at your stock price, if you look at total revenue, earnings are under pressure, but you seem like you've got a lot of momentum.

How long do you think not just the industrial momentum continues, but your company momentum continues like that?

What are you seeing for the next year?

- I think the company momentum maintains itself very nicely.

I think for several reasons.

You talked about some of the things that drive our business.

Our business has a coast-to-coast footprint, but our markets are really micro markets, Chris.

And we've been very selective about the where.

And to your point, when you started the program, you said even if the country is feeling degrees of economic pressure, usually the Carolinas doesn't feel it in that same degree.

We've got a big presence in the Carolinas.

We have a big presence in Texas.

We have a big presence in Florida.

We have a big presence in Colorado.

So if I'm looking at Martin Marietta through something that's not just Martin Marietta colored lenses, I look at it clinically and feel like it's future is incredibly bright.

It's done extraordinarily well.

We're a good operator, but we're also a good acquirer of businesses and we're likely to see that persist for a while.

- Oh, I'm gonna unpack the acquirer.

I'm gonna give our folks a chance to weigh it in here.

But before we do that, you have a purview.

You grew up in the Carolinas.

- I did.

- As you said, the company is national in scope, but hyper localized.

When you look at the competitive nature of the US and how it is a standout economy at this point.

But you also did business in Europe for a long time, so you know a little bit about that.

- I do.

- How important is it for America and for the Carolinas to continue their leadership economically?

- I think it's pivotal and I think we're doing that.

I think companies in Europe too see that that's underway.

I mean, if we're looking at a number of companies in our space right now that have been long European-based businesses that are now opening headquarters in the United States looking to be traded here on our public exchanges, it's a pretty notable shift.

And again, if you're looking at what's going on relative to the economy in Europe, if you're looking in Asia, if you're looking in parts of North Africa and elsewhere, the United States is really where most people want to be.

It's been uniquely our focus really for 30 years since we've been a public company.

And it's almost incomprehensible to imagine that our view on that would change.

- [Chris] Yeah.

Okay.

Vicki Lee, question?

- Yes.

And it's good to see you again.

- [Ward] You too Vicki Lee.

- One of the things I know you have, you really have had somewhat a stellar, like you said last few years, but one of the things I noticed that you did recently of this in 2024 is when you went out to look at different colleges to onboard, I guess to recruit.

And I noticed that you also included some of the historical underutilized, the HBCUs, the historically unutilized colleges and universities.

And I was curious, number one, why did you choose to do that at this time and how has it been, how has been the result of reaching out to that community?

- First of all, thank you for the question.

I think that's so important.

And our industry generally, the nation specifically is in a war for labor today.

And what's striking to me, Vicki Lee, is there are not a lot of people who are coming outta college who are thinking at that day and that hour, I'm really looking forward to a career in the heavy side building materials.

(all laughing) And the fact is they should, it's a great industry, but people don't recognize that.

So it's on us to go out and make sure that we're conveying to people what a great place this is for a career.

Because that's the fundamental difference.

When people come to work at Martin Marietta, our aim is to have them there not for a job, but to have them there for a career.

We still offer competitive salaries, so 401k and a fully funded pension plan.

So when people come in add it's a bit sticky.

But in that war for talent, casting that net as far and wide as we can and making sure we're doing that in the HBCUs has been important to us.

And when we're looking here in North Carolina, obviously some of the leading HBCUs in the nation are right here in our backyard.

And we thought that that was important for the state.

We thought it was important to those schools, and we know it's important for Martin Marietta.

- [Chris] Dean.

- Ward the number of acquisitions and expansions in the Carolinas over the last year.

How does the regulatory challenges play into those decisions, and particularly in South Carolina where we're advocating for more friendly business practices?

And is there anything the business community can do, that can we do that we can support you in kind of breaking down some of those regulatory barriers?

- I think so, and I really appreciate the question, Dean, because number one, if you look at the economy in the Carolinas, as we said early on, it should be better than most.

And by the way, we think nationally it's gonna be a pretty good economy this year.

We continue to see growth.

As we look at the Carolinas themselves, you do have regulation and regulation isn't necessarily itself bad.

We have to have regulation to certain degrees.

So I think what we need to do though is look at it, measure it, and really see how some of that is working.

When it can take years to get projects permitted.

And frankly, that's too long.

When you have too many irons in the fire, and you have to get too many different approvals when you could have a number of those running concurrently.

It's not so much getting rid of regulation, it's how it's structured, how much of it can be concurrent and how much of it can work with the view of this is going to be approved unless someone can come forward with some reasons that it shouldn't be.

We need to turn it on its ear a little bit from where it is right now.

The agility that we have in that space is gonna be hugely important, because you were talking about tax policy earlier.

That's an enormous issue.

And for North Carolina, when we're competing not just against foreign companies or countries, but we're competing against Florida and Texas and Tennessee and others who have very little state income taxes, for example.

- Correct.

- We're gonna have to find those compelling reasons for people to come here to create jobs that are really job generative.

And that's gonna be part of the great divide as we watch what's gonna happen with AI and what's happening with manufacturing, and how that rolls out in both North and South Carolina.

But from the regulatory perspective, if we can make turning those businesses from dirt into a facility that much quicker, it's going to give us an enormous benefit in the state.

Not just for years, but for decades.

- When you hear the Trump administration talk about immigration and as aggressive as they've been about it and they want to deport or whatever happens around immigration.

Does it cause you or any colleagues that you have concern about finding talent for not just some of your sites, but in general?

Do you think the immigration challenge will make it harder in hiring?

- I mean, let's put it this way, labor is an issue today in the United States.

There's no question about that.

So it is a challenge.

It's not going to be a challenge per se in our business.

I think it could be a challenge in some of the downstream businesses.

And what do I mean by that?

If we're looking at infrastructure construction, if we're looking primarily at residential construction.

We are strikingly underbuilt in portions of those in the United States today.

I mean, think about this Chris.

We're about 7 million homes shy of what we need in the United States right here today.

And obviously there are a number of reasons that are driving housing in that direction, higher interest rates being one of them.

But as we see interest rates moderate and we see the need that's already existing for that because as we went through the great financial crisis, plenty of multi-family building, not enough single family.

That single family pinch is something from a labor side that I think we can see and feel pretty notably.

- Vicki Lee.

- I mean, he's right when we look at our small-- - Yeah, question.

- Oh, yeah.

- Question please.

- Oh, well sure.

(laughing) The other thing that I did notice that you have done and I wanna congratulate you on is that I think one of your facilities just celebrated, I think 1 million hours of like no time off for injury.

And again some people will overlook that, but in the business world we know that it's so important to keep our employees safe and healthy and strong.

So again, you wanna talk a little bit about how did they achieve such as, I think it's almost seven years or something like.

- Our safety is a value at Martin Marietta and we've long viewed it that way.

And part of what I'm proud of, it's safer to work in a quarry in Martin Marietta than it is to work in retail.

If we're looking at incidents and we measure them two different ways.

A total case incident rate and a lost time rate.

And of course businesses generally are regulated by OSHA from a safety perspective.

We're actually regulated by MSHA, which is the Mind Safety Health Administration.

And an incident in our world looks like this.

If you get a fleck of dust in your eye and you have to get a prescription just to make sure it doesn't get infected, that's a reportable incident in our world.

To your point, Vicki, we have gone years, at times decades, not just without a lost time, without an incident.

And I think it's important to outline what those look like.

That's something that in my view is so important one to talk about and lead from the top and make sure people understand how serious you are about it.

Part of what we've long said, if you see anything at any of our 500 operations from coast to coast that you think is unsafe, you have the right and you have the duty to shut it down.

And not many businesses will give their employees that type of license to go and do what they need to do to make sure that they and their colleagues stay safe.

- [Chris] Do they feel safe enough to do that?

- They do and and they've done it and we talk about it.

And importantly, when we have an incident, we go back and recreate what happened.

So we'll go through that very, very carefully.

See what, where we missed and make sure that we talk very clearly with our colleagues across the United States and Canada and the Bahamas to make sure that we're taking good lessons away from that.

But I really appreciate that question, because it is core to who we are.

- Appreciate that example.

It's one that we try to encourage our business members to follow as well, because if you keep your employees safe, that also leads to great productivity.

- [Ward] It does.

- Expanding beyond that and certainly the passion and care that you have for your employees.

We also see it in the local communities with community engagement.

York County, we just passed a reauthorization of our $0.1 sales tax for the fifth time now 28 years.

How do you see Martin Marietta engaging more with communities, particularly in South Carolina that have reauthorized those penny sales tax or just general community engagement?

- Number one, those sales tax are so important.

And what's notable about that is nationwide, when that's on a ballot and it's going to local construction type projects, it passes almost to 80% of the time.

It tells us it's something that people really believe in and want to see.

From our perspective, it's pretty clear.

We've got 500 locations, but if we really think about our businesses, one, we're big, heavy outdoor industries.

And we're very impactful in a community and we want to make sure we're there to be impactful for good.

And we totally recognize that.

So our ability to continue to grow and improve communities is what we're focused on.

And what I like about that, Dean, is the people who work for us in those communities aren't parachuting and there from someplace else.

That's their home.

That's where their kids are going to school.

If they have to have healthcare, that's where it's going to be.

Our focus tends to be focused primarily on how can we help further education and what can we do for healthcare in that community.

Because those are two issues, whether it's a big community or a small community.

If we're looking for commonality, those are the two that we typically find.

It speaks to us, it speaks to our employees.

And at the end of the day, it makes a profound difference.

And that's what we wanna make sure that we're doing.

- In about two minutes left.

It's good to be in the infrastructure, in the build out business right, right now at least.

- [Ward] Yeah.

- How much if we correct for hurricane relief and infrastructure, building, construction, development, how much of that is being funded by federal stimulus money?

- It can vary.

Let's talk about Western North Carolina.

That's a good example.

So the numbers, this is excluding hospitals and all the other things that are so vital to that part of the state.

Infrastructure itself, a $5 billion undertaking.

As we look at that, we're probably looking at about 3.5 billion of that coming in from the federal government.

Now, timing of that can be a little bit elusive, but still it's gonna be about that.

About 1.5 billion dedicated to that coming from the state.

But we have to really give North Carolina some credit in that because we've got a rainy day fund that has about $5 billion in a day.

So DOT, for example, is saying, we can do this in Western North Carolina, we can have business as usual in the rest of the state.

And I think if you're looking overall at infrastructure, it varies from state to state, but it's almost a 50/50 proposition.

- And how much red do you think is left on that candy to build out?

- Oh, I think.

- Years.

- Years.

- Yeah.

Okay.

- Maybe a decade.

- I gotta ask you this question.

Bill Belichick's going to Carolina, I know you're a Dookie.

Do you think that's all fluff?

What do you think happens to Carolina?

Is he gonna be able to do what Nick Saban did?

- You know what, you're right.

I'm a Dookie, but I'm a North Carolinian too.

So look, I-- - And you got 30 seconds.

- I'm happy for the University of North Carolina.

I'm happy for coach Belichick.

Look, he'll do a great job there.

I'll be pulling for the dark blue when he shows up in Durham.

But that's the way we roll.

- You're always so eloquent in your statements and that was nice of you to say.

So thank you for being on a board.

- You bet.

Thank you.

- Nice to see you sir.

Dean Fail thanks for joining us.

Thanks for driving-- - Thank you.

- On a wintry day.

Vicki Lee, good to see you as well.

Thank you.

- Thank you, Chris.

- Until next week, I'm Chris William.

We hope your business is good.

We hope you stay warm and safe, kinda like the Martin Marietta model.

And thank you for watching this program.

I'm Chris William, until next week.

Goodnight.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Gratefully acknowledging support by Martin Marietta, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Foundation for the Carolinas, Sonoco, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, High Point University, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music)