North Carolina's recipe for growth: regional profile.

Mix a booming banking industr, a biotech presence and an appetite for big-time sports with a legacy of black business, and you have the makings of the next hot mecca for business and career opportunities

TIRED OF TWO-HOUR COMMUTER TRAFFIC JAMS, high-priced housing and the stress of maneuvering in a big metropolitan city like Los Angeles, James H. Johnson Jr. jumped at the chance to relocate. A University of California geography professor, Johnson happily accepted a new post as endowed professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. It was an opportunity to slow the pace while continuing to thrive professionally. It was also a good move for his budding family. Most of all, after a 14-year professional odyssey, it was a chance to go home.

Johnson, like many African Americans, is finding North Carolina to be a place where you can earn a good living and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. With a booming economy, a relatively low cost-of-living and an unemployment rate below the national average, North Carolina is ripe with career and business opportunities.

Charlotte is the new financial capital of the South and the third largest banking center in the country. The Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area is a magnet for university and corporate research and development in cutting-edge technologies--and a bedrock of black entrepreneurial spirit. Meanwhile, the Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem area offers a diverse portfolio of manufacturing, finance and health care services. These areas, along with state-supported arts and culture, meld to make North Carolina a rich low-country stew, simmering with opportunities for those willing to offer their services.

PACK UP AND MOVE SOUTH

There are two groups of African Americans relocating to North Carolina, notes Johnson, the E. Maynard Adams Professor and senior research fellow at UNC's Carolina Population Studies Center. Young, professionals are coming to the area to take jobs at the Duke University Medical Center, Research Triangle Park [the research and development community in Raleigh/Durham/ Chapel Hill] or at the universities," explains this expert on African American migration patterns. "They are well-educated professionals and are coming to the South for the first time."

Other African Americans making North Carolina their new home range from returning natives to retirees. Some are young professionals returning home who need the institutional support of family and friends to raise their children," Johnson continues. "Others are retirees fed up with life in the inner city. They want to move back where their parents live or lived."

North Carolina, with 1.4 million African Americans, has the seventh largest black population in the United States. The largest number of blacks live in the three-city area called the "Triangle," composed of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. The other major metropolitan center is the "Triad," made up of Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point.

But the center of national attention and notoriety is Charlotte, the state's financial capital. It is home to the $170 billion glass-and-granite tower of NationsBank, the fourth largest bank in the country, and the $78 billion First Union Bank, the ninth largest bank in the U.S. And, there's also Wachovia Bank, a Winston-Salem-based bank with $45 million in assets.

Even with new industries and breakthrough technology, manufacturing is still king in the state, especially in the Triad region. Traditional mainstays of the economy, textiles and tobacco remain North Carolina's No. 1 and No. 2 most valuable products. Following textiles, furniture and apparel manufacturing are the second and third largest employers. However, North Carolina has seen a significant downturn in the number of textile workers as the industry has moved even farther south--below U.S. borders. Chemical and allied product manufacturing round out the state's most valued sources of revenue. But, the largest gross sales comes from the retail industry, followed by real estate and state and local government. Health care and business services produce the seventh and thirteenth largest sales, rounding out the new driving force industries.

If North Carolina offers opportunity for all, Durham has been historically promising for African American business. Black entrepreneurs in Durham have thrived. The No. 1 black-owned insurance company in the country and No. 1 on the BE INSURANCE list is Durham-based North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. The city is also home to Mechanics & Farmers Bank and Mutual Community Savings Bank (formerly Mutual Savings & Loan Co.), both BE 100s financial companies. A strong base for the political and economic clout of Durham's black middle class, these banks also provide services and loans for African Americans of all incomes.

North Carolina can also lay claim to having a BE 100s company, Dudley Products Inc., as well as three BE 100s auto dealers. The latter includes S&J Enterprises and Metrolina Dodge Inc., both in Charlotte, and Cumberland Chrysler-Plymouth in Fayetteville.

If North Carolina sounds like the land of Oz, its streets paved with gold, not all the precious metal, however, has reached into every African American neighborhood--or been sprinkled on those blacks who live in these neighborhoods. "Too many blacks are still living below the poverty line," says Bill Bell, a former Durham County commissioner. About 27% of the state's black residents live below the poverty line, particularly in rural pockets of the state. And despite having 16 public colleges and universities and 37 private ones, including 11 historically black colleges and universities, just under 8% of the state's black population have bachelor's degrees, according to the 1990 U.S. Census.

Employment, or the lack thereof, is usually a good measure of opportunity in an area. While the state has a low unemployment rate of 4.9% (as of January 1996), almost a full percent below the national rate of 5.8%, the unemployment rate for blacks is three times that number, according to the North Carolina Institute of Economic Development.

For African American families in North Carolina with both husband and wife working, the median family income in 1993 was $36,133, compared with $39,100 among all state residents. The median family income rises to $49,560 when both husband and wife work full-time year-round and are both college graduates. The income drops to $29,142 among black families with only one person working full-time year-round. But for almost three-quarters of the state's black population, North Carolina compares favorably with the U.S. median family income of $36,500.

CARVING OUT A CAREER PATH

Manufacturing is still North Carolina's largest employer of white- and blue-collar workers. The state's manufacturing workforce, with more than 870,000 employees, is the largest in the Southeast, according to the Commerce Department. Compared with other manufacturing-based states, North Carolina ranks near the bottom in average wages--a big plus if you're a business looking to relocate to a more wage-friendly climate.

Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp., with $15.5 billion in sales in 1994, is the second largest employer in the state. Its large manufacturing operation in Winston-Salem markets a variety of brand names, including Champion Products Sportswear and Hanes Hosiery apparel, Hillshire Farms and Sara Lee foods, and the diversified Playtex Apparel line of lingerie. Only a regional food retailer, the Food Lion stores, employs more people. Rounding out the top five are Duke University, IBM and Walmart.

It's this kind of steadfastness that has endeared Sara Lee to its employees and helped the corporation hold its ground despite a flat national economy. Holly Ewell Lewis, a marketing manager at Sara Lee Hosiery, calls the company "performance-based" and adds that it has been a good place to show off her skills. "We rely on human resources--people are the backbone of the organization," she says. "Employees are forced to rely on their professional expertise--you'll be assigned projects that show your ability to lead and manage." She admits that changes in technology are determining to a much greater extent the way her division is run compared with four or five years ago.

But unlike many corporate workplaces of its size, Sara Lee is run like a small, family-owned business, says Lewis. To ensure that young, black professionals are "groomed" to understand the corporate culture, senior black execs founded their own support network, which is called Esteem. "Higher-level black managers saw the need to facilitate interactions with younger employees coming out of business school. They 'hip' you to the work culture, who people are in the organization and forge mentoring relationships to help give you the training you need as a black manager," explains Lewis.

This kind of networking and team-building propelled Charlotte Farrior, in 12 years, from a marketing assistant at L'eggs Hosiery to Wharton's B school and now to the post of vice president of warehouse teams for the Sara Lee Personal Products division. Farrior points to the company's minority efficacy program as key to fostering black talent within the company. The program was designed to help African Americans understand their corporate role, clarify goals and discuss work issues.

"The seminar brings out a better understanding of what it means to be African American in a corporation," says Farrior of the informal but intense three-day support group. "The people in your work environment may not be familiar with working with a minority member, so there's a lot of learning going on, on both sides," she adds.

Edward Dolby, executive vice president for consumer banking for North Carolina at NationsBank, also extols the value of such corporate seminars in putting managerial employees on the right track. Dolby, who started in the company as a credit analyst in the corporate loans division, participated in such a program when he started at NationsBank 25 years ago. Geared for those interested in joining the bank's managerial ranks, it is called the "PQ," or promotions qualification, program.

While the bank has a system in place to pull talented African Americans through the ranks, Dolby also has his own plan. "If you have a vision, you have to be willing to work toward that vision and be proprietary," advises the 51-yearold Raleigh native.

North Carolina, with 3 million-plus workers, has one of the 10 largest workforces in the nation. And, if its textiles and tobacco industries are stagnating, the state is staking its future growth on medical and automotive products and manufacturing telecommunications, according to Watts Carr, president of the North Carolina Partnership for Economic Development in Raleigh.

Through Research Triangle Park, known locally as RTP, manufacturing is linking arms with universities and research and development organizations to forge exciting new industries for the future. RTP is a self-contained economic and research community spread out over 6,800 acres of wooded tract. It is home to 94 research and development organizations, including corporations, federal agencies and private institutes, and 38 service industries and professional buildings, including law offices, banks and hotels. An aerial view of RTP has an eerie Pentagon-esque resemblance--and a comparable level of security.

RTP was the collective brainchild of a former governor working with a small group of influential local businesspeople and academics. Its success has spurred the local economy into becoming one of the hottest nationally, if not internationally. A significant number of the state's international and ethnically diverse community of scholars and corporate execs can also be found here.

AstroTurf was developed and AZT Formulated at RTP. It is also at RTP that IBM, North Carolina's fifth largest employer, has located its offices. The greatest number of well-paying jobs in the Triangle, Triad and Charlotte regions are in the biotechnology, telemarketing, real estate and finance industries.

During his 22-year tenure as a county commissioner, Bill Bell saw Durham transform itself from a land of textiles and tobacco to pharmaceutical and hightech companies. That transformation has given Durham the tax base it needed to build new schools and improve its infrastructure. The Triangle has also become an intellectual capital with one of the highest per capita concentration of Ph.D.s in the country. Surprisingly to outsiders, there are more endowed professorships held by African Americans in the University of North Carolina system than at any other college or university. And, to address the growing need for technically trained employees, many of North Carolina's community colleges now offer technical degrees. These degrees, in turn, can quickly prove useful in landing a job in the state's growing medical and scientific research community.

But many of the 20,000 African Americans who have moved to the state find that one job is not enough, personally or financially. "We have a lot of underemployment," admits Howard Lee, the first African American to be elected mayor of a predominantly white North Carolina town in 1969. "People are often holding positions beneath their skill levels. So, to make ends meet and to challenge themselves, they organize their own ventures," he says. [Many African Americans] often work a regular job and run their own businesses on the side," adds Lee.

DURHAM: THE BLACK WALL SWEET

"Black entrepreneurs here have learned to come up with an idea, go out and sell it, put themselves in the marketplace and then network with those who find their idea most valuable," says Lee, who now owns a pair of franchise concessions at the Midway terminal in the Raleigh-Durham Airport.

Not many other North Carolinians would know better than Lee. Besides his political career, he started a plastic injection molding company in the mid-'70s to produce filter rods for cigarettes for then R.J. Reynolds, now RJR/Nabisco. Lee sold the business in 1977 after making "a little profit."

Black North Carolinians have long since carved a proud tradition of entrepreneurialism. From the turn of the century through the '50s, Durham was known as the "Black Wall Street" because of its flourishing black business community. Three of those institutions-N.C. Mutual Insurance, Mechanics be Farmers Bank and Mutual Community Savings--continue to stand as examples of bedrock black businesses, surviving through depressions segregation an integration and now marketplace banstions.

Then an now, most , black-owned businesses are started from scratch. In 1992, 84.6% started that way, according to the N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development in Durham. And then as now, most black-owned businesses are started without borrowing start-up capital (63.7%). Today, most of these firms are in professional services (21.6%), followed by construction (17.6%), personal services (15.4%) and financial services (10.1%). Less than 5% of these businesses are in manufacturing, the bread and butter of the state's economy. Another 4% are staking out their niche in the new growth area of hightech services.

"There's a representative sample around the state of black businesses," says Maceo K. Sloan, chairman of NCM Capital Management Group Inc., a Durham-based money management firm and head of PCS Development Corp. "We've not only shown we can form a business but that that business can grow to some size," adds Sloan. PCS was recently awarded a license by the Federal Communications Commission to offer wireless communications.

NCM is one of the largest minority owned money management companies in the nation with $ 1.7 billion in its asset management portfolio. Sloan has also given birth to a relatively new fund, New Africa Advisers, which invests in African stocks, primarily in South Africa.

Bert Collins, president and CEO of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., says that as his company moves into the 21st century, it plans to offer group insurance for municipalities with elected black officials.

Currently, the company provides some group insurance for Fortune 500 companies, but the bulk of its business comes from the insurance policies of individual African Americans. "We've had excellent results within our community," says Collins.

According to the N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development, one third of the black-owned businesses in the state have existed for less than five years. In fact, one-half of the 29,221 firms are under 10 years old, but almost 10%, like 96-year-old N.C. Mutual Life, have been around 25-plus years.

"We're growing in numbers like firms in other states," says the institute's president, Andrea Harris. "But our sales and receipts are not growing," she continues. According to the most recent economic census, black-owned businesses account for about 10% of total state sales receipts, or $89.3 million out of $76.1 billion.

Joe Dudley Sr., chief executive of Dudley Products Inc., says that his company is expanding its business and sales. "There's nothing high-tech about it; most women use hair products and cosmetics," says Dudley matter-of-factly. To increase sales, Dudley is paying greater attention to the international marketplace as a revenue source. Hairdressers from as far away as Brazil and South Africa come to his cosmetology school to learn how to use his line of shampoos, conditioners, makeup and lipliners. Dudley also exports his products to salons in the Caribbean.

But for most African American businesses, lack of access to capital, whether for start-up costs, expansion or just to meet operating expenses is the major problem. To direct minority participation at both the entrepreneurial and career levels, the state assembly has passed a number of measures under current Gov. Jim Hunt to target business and career development in the technology and biotech areas.

In February 1994, a statewide conference on economic opportunities for black- and other minority-owned companies was held. Sponsored by NCIMED and Paragon Technologies Inc., a Raleigh-based metal fabrication company, the conference examined opportunities for African American firms on the information superhighway.

"We wanted to demystify the information highway," explains Paragon President Wallace Green, a former assistant secretary of the interior during the Carter administration. "Many firms have excluded themselves because they don't understand what it's about."

Unfortunately, the two-day conference suggested that the best way for black-owned business to get on the information road was to take the service entrance. Admittedly, corporations will be outsourcing many of their general maintenance and upkeep requirements, but they still won't foster black business participation in high-growth and high revenue areas.

Better educational and work opportunities have boosted the number of middle-class blacks in North Carolina. But the lack of net wealth makes it difficult to meet the start-up costs for capital intensive businesses in such growth industries as high technology. To improve those odds, Green says he is looking to create a small business investment program that can make equity investments to small, minority-owned businesses.

Others, like the N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development's Andrea Harris, point to the importance of building networks as key to business and economic survival. "If there was no language in federal and state laws that encouraged firms to do business with minority companies, it probably wouldn't happen," she says. "People do business with people they know."

BUILDING NETWORKS IS KEY

"I think we've seen some gains in the political arena but not the kind we should have seen in economic areas," says Kenneth Lewis, a corporate attorney at Burford & Lewis. He left a partnership at a white-shoe, Charlotte law firm to help African American business owners.

North Carolina now has two African American Congressional representatives, 1st District's Eva Clayton and 12th District's Melvin Watt. Former state legislator Daniel T. Blue was the first African American speaker of the state house, until he was voted out of office in November 1994.

But Lewis says there's a new "bankable" cadre of black entrepreneurs now emerging They are African Americans who started working their way up the coate ladder in the '70s, and now have more than 20 years of management experience under their belts. "I have a number of clients with promising potential. They come from large, corporate environments and are now trying to build their own businesses." Their ideas range from spinoffs of pharmaceutical products to lowincome housing, Lewis explains.

But North Carolina has underutilized the vast potential at its disposal, he continues. "We have a large black middle class resulting from our many black universities, but we have not converted this political strength into economic development in our communities."

But at North Carolina Central University, Chancellor Julius Chambers is doing his part to bring about that kind of change. Chambers, a former head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has been pushing the school to a new level of academic excellence. Central is perhaps best known for its law school. It has produced the majority of black lawyers and judges in the state, including Chambers himself, who made his reputation as a civil rights attorney.

Since Chambers took over the reins at Central three years ago, the average SAT scores for incoming freshmen are up and the school is getting more money for capital improvements. It has received more than $8 million in new research money. Chambers is also pushing to get funding for a $12 million biotech/biomedical initiative that will link Central and four other historically black state universities along with Native American Pembroke State and Research Triangle Park.

A NEW DAWN, A NEW STATE

Despite North Carolina's segregationist past and a prejudiced present, "we have typically had a moderate-toprogressive image," says Rep. Watt, the Charlotte Democrat whose constituency includes a part of Durham. But then Watt points to the state's most famous--if not infamous-political face, Republican Sen. Jesse Helms. Though known for his conservative views on just about everything- including his opposition to programs that would create business opportunities for African Americans-some North Carolina blacks believe that Helms stands by his constituents-no matter their color. "His base of support comes from people who see him standing for little people, but I don't think he stands for black little people," Rep. Watts disagrees.

A CAROLINA MORNING

Over the past few years, a number of business magazines have heralded the Triangle area the best place to live and work. The area's ethnic mix--81% white and 12% black, with a sprinkling of Asians and Hispanics--has been cited as one of the factors contributing to its cultural richness and diversity. Others point to Charlotte's glittering financial hub as the place to relocate.

Housing costs have also added to the desirability of the state. In 1994, the average cost of a home in the state was $118,500, according to the Greensborobased North Carolina Association of Realtors. To build a new 2,000-sq.-ft., three-bedroom home ranges from a modest $127,000 to a more priced $280,000 in the Triangle area, one of the state's more expensive sections.

But depending on where you're coming from, those rates may seem like a bargain. When UNC professor James Johnson moved to Chapel Hill from Los Angeles, he was able to build a four-bedroom house on a one-acre lot for half the price of the 40-year-old house he left on the West Coast.

For many busy business people, North Carolina's central location, and its access to two international hub airports plus several smaller regional ones, make travel relatively easy. Johnson says he's added "three days to his life" now that he can travel to New York and Washington and return home the same day if he wants. When he lived on the West Coast, it would take Johnson days to get from one place to another and recover from jet lag. Now that he's back, Johnson says he wouldn't trade the quietude or his tenure for anything.

The warm climate and reasonable cost of living can make up for having to juggle two jobs to make ends meet. A Carolina morning really can be awesome: whether you wake up on the western side of the state to the vistas of the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains, or start your day to the sounds of the lapping Atlantic Ocean on the eastern coastal shore. Wherever you live, just take a drive and get to either of these regions in a few hours. Meanwhile, the centrally located Triangle area is only a five-hour drive from Washington, D.C. and a seven-hour drive from Atlanta.

The black colleges and universities scattered throughout the state offer a host of cultural events, ranging from musicals to art shows. These institutions include: Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh; Shaw University in Raleigh; North Carolina A & T and Bennett College in Greensboro; Winston-Salem State University in Winston-Salem; Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City; North Carolina Central University in Durham; Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville; Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte; Barber-Scotia College in Concord; and Livingstone College in Salisbury.

Major events of interest for African Americans include the National Black Theater Festival held every two years in Winston-Salem and the annual Bull Durham Blues Festival in Durham. The city is also home to the African American Dance Ensemble.

Sports is big time in Piedmont country, whether you're talking about the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, or CIAA basketball tournament, held in Winston-Salem, or Division I powerhouse teams like UNC, North Carolina State and Duke. North Carolinians take their athletics seriously, and with it all the money and prestige that follows. State fans now have two pro start-up teams to root for--the more established NBA Charlotte Hornets and the novice NFL Carolina Panthers, whose permanent stadium is being custom built for the team.

Supported by corporate enthusiasm and dollars, the presence of professional sports franchises are a signal to the rest of the world of what many North Carolinians have known for a long time: North Carolina has arrived in the big time.

"People tend to move here and not want to leave," says NCM's Maceo Sloan. "I've known people who work at RTP who have turned down promotions because the quality of life outweighs the potential to make money."