Business North Carolina articles from February 2004

Business North Carolina archives from February 2004

At least a chance.(Column)
February 1, 2004... On New Year's Eve, a Concord couple won $110.8 million in the Powerball lottery, the second time in seven months that Tar Heels have won with tickets they bought in South Carolina. I wrote this column more than 10 years ago, before South...

A story with depth.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2004... Your December cover story by Peter Galuszka and Edward Martin was the best I've read in 30 years of keeping abreast of the Oregon Inlet controversy. I was involved for 20 years in the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association's fight against the...

Too busy to brawl.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2004... "The Education of Molly Broad" (Capital, December) implied that I avoided talking with reporter Ned Cline. My schedule did not permit me to meet his deadline. That in no way should have led the writer to draw conclusions about my relationship...

Darkness at noon.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2004... As a writer, I can only wish I had written such a marvelous, succinct piece about the agony of plants closing and worker displacement (Up Front, December). Even though I am a Yankee transplant and the wife of a Guilford Mills plant manager...

Trend.
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Latest Previous Previous month...

General delivery: a native son who chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff discusses the military's impact on North Carolina.(Interview)
February 1, 2004... From 1997 to 2001, Edgecombe County native Hugh Shelton, 62, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's top military post. Now president of international operations for a Reston, Va., manufacturer of metal buildings, he is...

War is hale: so is the business it spawns. Except for bases, N.C. doesn't get its due.
February 1, 2004... Like the ancient granite cliffs of Crowders Mountain, which lies between its plants in Shelby and Gastonia, Curtiss-Wright Controls is linked to the past. Its name is an amalgam of those of the brothers who pioneered powered flight and their...

War fare: as a force for creating jobs amid the ranks of the state's top employers, military might is minuscule.(Largest Employers)
February 1, 2004... There's no question that the military occupies an important place in the Tar Heel economy. Camp Lejeune is the main reason Onslow County leads the state in the percentage of income from government work--58%. More people--about 46,000 soldiers...

Rain, politics and scandal kept cropping up last year.(Agriculture)
February 1, 2004... Sensational headlines dominated state agriculture news in 2003, and a soggy spring and Hurricane Isabel damaged crops. But the three biggest contributors to the agriculture economy created barely a ripple, proving that no news is indeed good...

Big banks seek best bang for their bucks.(Banking)
February 1, 2004... It's not always true that bigger is better. But North Carolina's two biggest banks certainly have had it better than their competitors during the past few years. "These guys are making tons and tons of money," says Tony Plath, banking professor...

Public works provide structure for builders.(Construction)
February 1, 2004... For the second straight year, government projects carried North Carolina's construction industry while the shaky economy kept higher-margin commercial ventures on the shelf. Most of the public projects came courtesy of the school bonds voters...

Manufacturers cannot get comfortable at home.(Furniture)
February 1, 2004... Most Tar Heel furniture makers would just as soon forget last year. Recession and war jitters have kept many consumers out of showrooms in the past two years, and imports, particularly from China, forced manufacturers to trim costs and shut...

Crisis causes some malignant growth.(Health Care)
February 1, 2004... Everyone knows the head bone is connected to the neck bone--and so on. What's harder to comprehend is how trends within the healthcare industry are connected. Last year, as hospital administrators and physicians moaned about rising...

Techies hope recovery can reboot the industry.(High-Tech)
February 1, 2004... Leaders of the once high-flying high-tech sector thought its free-fall might end in 2003 with a soft landing. Wrong. As of June, about 1,900--45%--of the state's high-tech companies had shut down or moved away during the previous two years,...

Blue Cross wasn't only one singing the blues.(Insurance)
February 1, 2004... State Insurance Commissioner Jim Long has made a career of battling insurance companies. In mid-2003, he was gearing up for one of his biggest tests. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the state's largest health insurer, wanted to...

Makers wait for folks to take their medicine.(Pharmaceuticals)
February 1, 2004... Wait 'til next year. It's a way of life for Chicago Cubs fans, and in 2003, it applied to a couple of fledgling Tar Heel drug companies that were supposed to start cashing in big. Durham-based Trimeris won U.S. Food and Drug Administration...

Stores start to feel wind in their sales.(Retail)
February 1, 2004... Layoffs, war and the lack of a significant economic recovery gave North Carolina shoppers plenty of reasons to keep their cash stashed during the fiscal year ended June. Still, merchants managed a 4.3% gain in retail sales to $132.7 billion....

By the old mill run, jobs and companies go under.(Textiles/Apparel)
February 1, 2004... July 30, 2003. A date in state textile history that will live in infamy. That's the day Kannapolis-based Pillowtex Corp. closed, putting more than 5,000 out of work in Kannapolis, Concord, China Grove, Eden and Rockwell. That act--though...

Movers and shakers help and hurt sector.(Transportation)
February 1, 2004... What a start. The January 2003 crash of a US Airways Express commuter plane in Charlotte, killing all 21 aboard, set a gloomy tone for airports in a year when war and terrorism spooked fliers. It fell to the ports, railroads and trucking...

Most hosts discover travel didn't unravel.(Travel/Tourism)
February 1, 2004... First came ice and snow, then rain and Hurricane Isabel. Nature dumped on North Carolina tourism last year, and its worst blow was a soggy spring, which included the second-wettest May on record. How bad was it? Attendance at the top 25...

For one, year was about the power and the gory.(Utilities)
February 1, 2004... In early 2003, Fortune magazine called Duke Energy the nation's most-admired energy company. But there seemed to be plenty of people who felt something other than admiration for the Charlotte-based company. Duke customers, especially in...

A moving target: regions with military bases didn't take as big a hit as they did during the first war with Iraq.(Regions)
February 1, 2004... In early 1991, the first time the United States went to war with Iraq, the state's military towns grew quiet. As troops deployed, their families left, too, often to stay with relatives. It was different last year, when U.S. troops went back...

AdvantageWest.(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] POPULATION (000s) COUNTY 1982 1992 2002 Alleghany 9.8 9.9 10.9 Ashe 22.5 22.5 24.7 Avery 14.6 15.1 17.9 Buncombe...

Charlotte Regional Partnership.(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] POPULATION (000s) COUNTY 1982 1992 2002 Alexander 25.6 28.4 34.2 Anson 25.3 23.8 25.4 Cabarrus 89.1 104.5 140.2 Catawba ...

Piedmont Triad Partnership.(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] POPULATION (000s) COUNTY 1982 1992 2002 Alamance 101.0 112.0 136.1 Caswell 21.4 21.0 23.7 Davidson 116.0 131.9 150.8 Davie ...

Research Triangle Regional Partnership.(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] POPULATION (000s) COUNTY 1982 1992 2002 Chatham 34.4 41.0 52.6 Durham 156.3 191.8 233.5 Franklin 30.8 38.7 50.3...

Southeast.(North Carolina)(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] POPULATION (000s) COUNTY 1982 1992 2002 Bladen 30.2 29.1 32.7 Brunswick 38.7 54.7 79.1 Columbus 50.9 50.6 54.9...

Eastern Region.(North Carolina)(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] POPULATION (000s) COUNTY 1982 1992 2002 Carteret 43.8 54.8 60.1 Craven 73.8 84.5 91.9 Duplin 40.6 41.8 50.6 Edgecombe ...

Northeast Partnership.(North Carolina)(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] POPULATION (000s) COUNTY 1982 1992 2002 Beaufort 41.6 42.9 45.7 Bertie 21.0 20.4 19.8 Camden 5.7 6.1 7.3 Chowan ...

Counting by counties: measuring the vital statistics of North Carolina's 100 counties.(By the Numbers)(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... POPULATION Net migration Avg. annual Density per 1990-2002 (000s) change square mile vs. 1990 2002 1992-2002 2002 ...

North Carolina's largest cities.(Illustration)
February 1, 2004... CHANGE INTERNAL 2002 1990 SINCE GAIN SINCE CITY POPULATION POPULATION 1990 1990 1 Charlotte 581,676 395,934 ...