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

Welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today will tell us why the economic future of North Carolina, particularly central North Carolina is incredibly bright.

He's the CEO and president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership and chairman of the board of trustees at North Carolina State University, his alma mater.

Today, we'll talk about big projects and what's on the economic horizon for North Carolina, with Stan Kelly.

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Stan Kelly, your record of leadership in our Tar Heel State is incredibly powerful.

You were with Wachovia for many years.

In fact, you were the president of the Carolina's region for Wachovia.

Then you went on to Wells Fargo as mergers happened, and you again became the president of the Carolina's region, and the whole banking operation.

And of course the head of wealth management for Wells Fargo in this area as well.

But now you are the big honcho at the Piedmont Triad Partnership, where you've had some remarkable ideas and wonderful initiatives, to not only help Central North Carolina, but by osmosis, all of North Carolina.

And then you came up with this concept initiative plan, strategy called the Carolina Core.

You see it on highways on signs, Carolina, what is Carolina Core.

- Well Nido first of all, thank you very much for having me.

And it's a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak to our audience, and talk about North Carolina and the Carolina Core.

And people ask me, well, why am I so passionate about this place?

And North Carolina has given me so much, an education, gave me my wife, and therefore gave me my children and gave me my career.

And so it's so much fun to be given back to North Carolina and to our region, the Piedmont Triad region, which we call the Carolina Core, from an economic development standpoint.

So yeah, as I transitioned from banking into giving back and serving, I had a wonderful opportunity to lead the regional economic development effort here.

And as I got into that, one of the things that we quickly discovered was, we had an opportunity to think differently about economic development in this part of the state.

Economic development is no longer defined by counties or cities, it's by regions.

And we have an awesome region in the central part of the state.

And so we did some work.

- Where does that go from, from where to where?

- So think about out on one hand, the region you have Charlotte to our west.

- Yes.

- And the triangle to our east and kind of in between that.

And so Fayetteville was the Southern part of our region.

Think about Winston-Salem being kind of the Western part of our region, certainly Greensboro, Burlington, et cetera.

So it's a big chunk of the central part of North Carolina.

- It's an expansive part of the.

- Absolutely.

- The state there.

I mean, Winston-Salem to Fayetteville by car is what?

Two and a half hours?

- Not quite that much, but it's a two hours, give or take, so.

- How do you get a region like that to collaborate, work together, amalgamate the strengths to better the whole state.

- One of the things that we discovered is, regions are defined by where people work, not so much by what city they're in anymore, they travel across different county lines.

And so when you think about competing globally and nationally, people think about the workforce and the population of this region, which is 2 million people.

It's a big part of North Carolina.

And they don't think so much about thinking about one city in this region, they think about their workforce coming from across this entire region, and the sectors and supply chains, et cetera.

So it's about assets and other elements, versus the traditional ways of thinking about regions.

And so what we decided and what people have bought into a win for one is a win for all.

If you win an opportunity in Burlington, that's good for Greensboro, it's good for Asheville, It's good for Winston-Salem.

Frankly, it's good for Chapel Hill, 'cause people can travel those jobs, they do travel to those jobs.

And now as we all know, they only have to do, they only do that two or three times a week, the others they do from home.

And so people got that and they said, yeah, if we win in Guilford County, that's fantastic for Forsyth County.

- Stan, tell me about first of all the strengths of the Carolina Core in your way of thinking.

And tell me why North Carolina is such an attractive place, we're growing by leaps and pounds in the state.

What attracts people to this state, and specifically to Carolina Core?

- Well, on the state level, I mean, we're very, very fortunate to be in this fabulous state that we live in.

And from an economic development standpoint, what we've done with corporate taxes is second to none, we have the lowest corporate tax rate in the country and that's attractive to companies considering relocating here.

Our education system is second to none.

It's our kind of diamond in the rough.

When we compete on a national level, people are awed by the education system.

- The workforces, what they're looking for.

- Community colleges, privates, publics, et cetera, large, impressive, attractive, rating the workforce for the future.

Thirdly, we have infrastructure that's second to none, a little closer to home in the Central Park.

- As is in highways and airports.

- And rail and water and energy, et cetera.

We're very, very well equipped and infrastructure's there, and we invest in it and have continued to invest in it handsomely.

So it's a combination of workforce, education, tax rates, quality of life, certainly we all know about the wonderful quality of life, so.

- So you push in to the mountains, right?

- That's right.

You put it all in a mixing bowl.

And we come up on the short list of many, many companies.

Matter of fact, right now the prospect list for opportunities, North Carolina and in the Carolina Core is as strong as it's ever been, 'cause we're very attractive.

- Well, the Carolina Core is just, just announced Supersonic at the PTI, the Piedmont Triad International Airport, Toyota Plant in the Megasite, these are big things.

- Yeah, it's been a plan that we've worked in this part of the state for the last 10 years.

I give so much credit to the leadership that has come together to craft a plan, work with our partners in every community to make it happen.

And yeah, what's been interesting is we've had many, many singles and doubles, and maybe be a triple over the last 10 years here or there, but we just hit two home runs, two home runs.

And to put that in perspective for you in this part in the Carolina Core, we'd hoped in 2018, when we launched this, that we might win 50,000 jobs and new jobs, in about a 20 year period.

Well we've won 25,000 jobs in the last four years, net new jobs for this region.

And so that credit goes to so many people, so many cooks in that kitchen from Raleigh.

- Public and private.

- From Raleigh to public, private across this state.

I can't tell you how many people have been kind of in the bleachers, cheering us on, helping us, investing in us.

So we're in a really good place right now.

We got Mo, I call it momentum, and there's nothing like having success.

- And growth mindset.

- Growth mindset, and we're just getting started.

I think the next 10, 15 years, as I look over in the horizon.

- But still Stan, I mean also this region has been hit hard.

Some 90,000 jobs were lost post NAFTA, textiles have been practically killed, but some good companies, still alive and well, like Ellingson Company, for example, and there others.

But it's we need this, we need this for our people, for jobs, for future generations.

You are the chairman of the board of trustees of North Carolina state.

One of the leading universities in this nation, one of the best engineering schools anywhere, certainly experts in the textiles field and beyond.

That's a pretty nice honor, to have been elected the chairman of the board of trustees, of your alma mater.

- Well, it's a privilege, I'm honored to have the opportunity to do so.

I pinch myself, I think about this kid, 40 some years ago and never, I would just want a job.

I just wanted to go to work, and to have had this wonderful career that the State of North Carolina has offered me, and now had the opportunity to give back again to my alma mater, it's fun.

It's been highly engaged, love to see what's going on, not only at NC State, but it also gives me perspective into the university system in a different way.

And we're so fortunate to not only have what we have, but to see the legislature in the state of North Carolina, our tax payers, they're investing in this system.

And it is what is enabling us to win.

So the, these two things are highly connected, economic development, and our university and education system.

Publics and privates and our community college systems.

We would not be having the success that we're having without that key anchor.

And that's even more important as we look forward with all the workforce challenges that we're all well aware.

- So Stan when they elected as chairman of the Board of Trustees at NC State, did they know what your wife knows?

And that it is you were not a straight A student?

- I don't know.

You know what I've always said, please, don't go back and look at my transcript, please.

[Nido laughs] I did graduate.

I promise I graduated, I have that, but the best thing.

- On merit and by design yes.

But the best thing that university gave me was my wife.

She was in school with me.

- Oh you married?

- That's how we met.

And so we're double Wolfpackers if you would.

- Yeah, Wolfpack through and through.

- So we're, it's all good.

- Stan, you talk about universities.

Companies look for where their employees want to work because they don't always simply create jobs where they relocate, they also bring leadership with them, which is a good thing for North Carolina.

It helps our, home sales, it helps all kinds of peripheral services that these people want.

That's why North Carolina is growing.

The climate is beautiful.

Reputation is outstanding and so on.

And so, you mentioned universities and community colleges.

I don't even know how many, I think we've got 17 in the university system, 35 or 36 private, 55 or so community, this is a significant body.

- Absolutely.

- A significant resource.

What has been your experience in terms of bringing all of this powerhouse together?

And what are some examples where they truly collaborated with strengths and it comes with significant stellar faculty, who do research and who create companies and therefore help our economy.

What has been your experience in terms of pulling all these universities together?

Visa V, the PTP, Carolina Core, but also observationally.

I mean, you've been connected to Charlotte Mecklenburg a long way, in a long way, in a big way.

You also have been in the Carolina as the president of the bank.

So you really do know people, companies, industries, universities, and so on.

By sure fact that you are lending on money and depositing their money and all of that.

- Well, as you've suggest, and as I mentioned earlier, I do believe our higher education system and is second to none in this country.

And it's one that we've invested significantly.

It's a strategic advantage, but I think it's opportunity is still in front of it, really to speak to leveraging this system for the greater good of North Carolina, greater good of the country in the world, quite frankly.

So what I see as a member of the NC State Trustee Board is a university with 35,000 students, graduate students, undergrad, doing research second to none, and areas that are so important to humanity.

- And the best looking library in North Carolina.

- The best looking library in north, coolest library.

- Yes, coolest library.

- And, but I also see them starting to partner more with Chapel Hill and Duke University, and Wake Forest University in medicine and the R one Research Institute.

And one thing I will mention there is a group of us from on the private side, working, sharing this with the public side of our economy, something called the Innovation State.

And we're working on a strategy to say, how can we better leverage the university system for the greater good, and to really gen up our research and innovation so that the future we are reporting and remaking the jobs for the next generation.

We have a very impressive group working on this.

The progress is inspiring, and I hope in the years to come, you'll see us really having opportunity to do even more with this incredible university system that we have.

- We had on the show some time ago, Bobby Long, who spoke about how he started a company, his second company, post insurance.

And he met all these professors in his case at Carolina.

And they started businesses, he invested in these businesses.

Some of them have gone public, some going to be private, but they're phenomenal businesses in technology and healthcare and, I mean it's so exciting to know that this state really is avant-garde in so many ways, because we have the brain power and the brain trust here.

Let me talk to you about something it's a little different, back to Carolina Core.

When we look at North Carolina, we see a very major airport in Charlotte.

I don't think there's any argument about that.

Charlotte's done a spectacular job building a phenomenal airport, which then attracted more businesses, became if not the first or second banking capital in the United States of America.

And then we have Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill airport, the whole area.

And they're doing very well at international flights, and so.

And then we have PTI, Piedmont Triad International, which has been squeezed by these two large airports, but nevertheless seems to do very well and has been very creative in attracting, it's a Megasite of its own now the airport.

- Yah absolutely.

- Tell me about the competitiveness from a travelers, company locating here perspective, and what are some of these good news that's coming out of the PTI zone?

- Well, the PT, Piedmont Triad International Airport is a real strategic asset for the State of North Carolina, and for this region.

As a consumer, I have options.

I can go an hour to Charlotte, to the airport.

I can go an hour to the Triangle Airport, or I can go to PTIA, depending on where I wanna go and what the flight schedules are, et cetera.

And so we are clear that we are not gonna compete for consumer travel if you would, with Charlotte and Triangle, and we shouldn't, quite frankly.

We can create another opportunity for the State of North Carolina.

And so what is being created, and we're so proud of it in this region is an airport that is aligned with the aviation and airspace industry, where we can leverage the airport and its wonderful runways and capabilities to attract business.

Some businesses have to be on an airport, others do not.

And so recent announcements with Boom and Haiku and FedEx.

These are big businesses that need to be on an airport.

PTIA is perfectly suited for them.

They're not many airports in the country that have a Megasite attached to it, some thousand acres, plus dual runways and the capability to host.

- That's a highway system.

- Yeah, we're tracking six interstates that run through this.

And so what's really evolving, and what, if Charlotte is FinTech and the Triangle is technology, one of the big sectors of the economy that is evolving here in this region, is TransTech, Transportation Technology, from aviation to trucking, to logistics, to distribution.

Think about it.

We're halfway between, Triangle and Charlotte, we're halfway between Washington, Atlanta, we're halfway between Miami and Boston.

We're very well located from many different perspectives and have this interstate network, that's second to none, and access to ports, great rail.

So our airport, while be we didn't win in the consumer business.

- We couldn't get Southwest on the one hand, but on the other hand, big companies - But I think long term, it's a major job creator for this region.

And we're gonna wake up, wake up now, but we're gonna wake up 10 years from now and say, wow, look at what, and what did that great for North Carolina, that we then have three fabulous airports, three international airports.

We have more than three, Wilmington, et cetera, that they're not all exactly the same, they do some different things.

- So what happens and you hear people who are not engaged in economic development as you are, so deeply and vertically involved.

And they have concerns, concerns about traffic.

You go down to Charlotte, you go down to Wilmington.

Wilmington has evolved in this, lovely place people wanna be, and they're dealing with traffic issues, right?

What is your view on that?

What is it that must a region do to ensure that there's also a fluid transportation system for the average person who needs to go from home to job, job to home?

- Well, let me answer that question, but give a couple precursors.

First of all, many of us have watched thousands of jobs leave, or atrophy just because of the change in the economy.

So you always need to be looking for the next generation of jobs, because you never know if the jobs we have today, won't be here.

So that's important.

Secondly, I've always believed, and one of the reasons I'm involved in economic development is a few good jobs, help to cure a lot of social ills, don't cure them all, but having a job really matters.

And so that's why.

- And companies.

Companies will become philanthropic, good stewards of Society.

- Right, it matters a lot.

- Yes.

- And so yes, there are some challenges that can come with that.

And I think that over time each, that's different in different places.

Fortunately here in the Carolina Core, we don't have some of the challenges that some of the more urban cities have.

And in some ways, that will draw opportunities to this region, because it doesn't take as long to get from here to there.

It doesn't cost as much to live.

We have the education system, et cetera.

And so it actually is a way of bouncing out the portfolio across North Carolina over time.

Now in the Triangle, which I spend a big chunk of my life, and a big chunk of my life in Charlotte, hey, we gotta keep working on infrastructure.

We gotta, and they're doing that in those respective cities.

So it's not an either or it's a both, and, we gotta grow jobs and we gotta work on infrastructure.

- What is next for Stan Kelly?

I mean, you've been a distinguished banker.

You are, and now the chaired for a while, and grew Piedmont Triad Partnership, economic arm that works with lots of counties, lots of cities, but brought Carolina Core together.

You are the chair of your board of trustees at NC state, alma mater, in spite the fact you were not a Magna Cum Laude graduate, I checked you out.

Neither was I by the way, just for the record.

And you are a young man, Stan, you got a lot of years ahead of you, big runway.

What you gonna do?

You're gonna run for Senate, governor, president.

- I care a lot about North Carolina and I will continue to work at the North Carolina level on things where I can serve and make a difference, whether it's NC state, whether it's the innovation state strategy that a number of us are working on.

I chair the Wake Forest University Center for Private Business which is as a statewide organization that caters to existing companies.

So I like doing that.

I'll also continue to work regionally and locally.

I enjoy doing it.

I enjoy the people that I have an opportunity to work with.

And so the common denominator of the things that I'm involved with, tends to be job related, job creation.

That's kind of what I know, it's who I am.

There are a lot of other people that are involved in many other important facets in the community, that's where I kind of play.

That's my position on the team.

So we continue to be involved with the Piedmont Triad Partnership and the Carolina Core, involved with things in Winston-Salem the community that I live in.

So yeah, that's not, hey, and along the way, spend more time with my wife.

- Yes.

- And my grandkids and my children.

- And as we all know, that's the cherish part of my life.

- Absolutely.

Stan, you living in Winston-Salem as you said, you spoke about innovation initiative which is exciting.

What are your hobbies?

What do you, do?

You play golf, right?

- Yeah, I do.

I'm one of these people that I do a little bit of a lot and none of it really well, so a little bit of golf, a little bit of bounding.

Love to go to the coast.

I play a little pickleball, I play.

- That's for older people.

- Yeah I'm old - Pickleball.

[laughs] - Yeah, my knees, it's all good.

And I love to travel and with friends and yeah.

- Yes.

- Hey, I.

- You have good balance in your life, which makes it wonderful.

Stan, who were some of the heroes, models, or mentors in your life?

Who influenced you?

- Wow.

- Who impacted, not just your mind, but your heart, your soul.

- I tell, thanks for that question.

I was so lucky to get a job in the early days with Wachovia.

and I worked with a group of people, day in and day out that taught me everything, role models.

I was, OJT, I was on the job trainee.

And from my branch manager who she in the bank, they actually just taught me how to operate through a day, be efficient, don't get cluttered.

And so many practical, little things, to John Medlin who is the CEO of the company back then, who I admired and was a role model.

And so I would just, so in the early years, first decade of my professional life, the Wachovia culture really made me who I am today.

Now in this part of my life, these boards that I'm involved in, these organizations, I am so fortunate to be able to spend some time with people that are teaching me things all the time still.

And so I admire them, I pay attention, I'm trying to be all that I can be.

So I wouldn't single out role models that I, if I started with one, I'd have to send, say 10 right now, but it's different today, it's.

- You've been blessed.

- Yeah completely.

- You've been blessed, and you live in America.

And you've had purpose for work.

What else can a person ask for, family that loves you and service to humankind in every way, Stan, I've always admired you for who you are and what you do.

I thank you for being with me day on Side by Side, and I wish you the very best in the leadership at NC state and beyond.

- We got more to do.

Thank you, Nido, thanks for having me.

- [Announcer] Funding for a Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by.

- [Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces, doing more than their part.

And to those who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore, this is home.

- [Announcer] For over 60 years, the everyday leaders at the Budd Group have been committed to providing smart, customized facility solutions to our clients and caring for the communities we serve.

[soft music] - [Announcer] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola consolidated your local bottle.

[upbeat music]