Business North Carolina articles from February 2007

Business North Carolina archives from February 2007

Making a name for yourself.
February 1, 2007... As much as I distrust the federal government's efforts to pry into our affairs, I don't lose a lot of sleep over it. That's due not only to my lack of confidence in our leaders' competence at most things, whether it's running a war or getting...

Trend.(employment, taxable retail sales, air passenger boardings, construction)(Graph)(Statistical data)
February 1, 2007... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Latest Previous Previous % change from month month year last year ...

Shift work: Jim Fain became commerce secretary as forces mobbed up to rob jobs from the state. Here's how it replaced them.(Interview)
February 1, 2007... Jim Fain, a former banker, became the state's secretary of commerce in 2001--just as the economy was heading south. After nine years of gains, the state's private sector lost jobs and continued losing them until 2004. Last November, North...

Making a difference: as the number they employ continues its long decline, Tar Heel manufacturers manage to do more with less.(LARGEST EMPLOYERS)
February 1, 2007... Broyhill Furniture Industries, the Lenoir-based manufacturer that once was a Tar Heel icon, ended last year the way it ended 2005: announcing that it was shutting a plant in its hometown. But this one, scheduled for this month, closes a chapter...

Where there's smoke, there's fare for farms.(AGRICULTURE)
February 1, 2007... Don't tell Faylene and Richard Whitaker that tobacco farming is fading in North Carolina. Despite a federal buyout of quotas that has reduced production in recent years, they grow about 140 acres of it on their Climax farm--double what they...

N.C. companies hoist sales for inner and outer banks.(BANKING)
February 1, 2007... North Carolina's two largest banks went shopping last year, but their sexiest deals weren't for full-service banks like themselves. In October, Charlotte-based Wachovia paid $25.5 billion for Oakland, Calif.-based Golden West, a savings bank...

Commerical builders do not expect to hit the wall in '07.(CONSTRUCTION)
February 1, 2007... Even in good times, life in the construction industry can seem like a nerve-racking creep along an I-beam several stories high. When work is easy to find, prices for building supplies go up and labor gets harder to find and keep. But having too...

Tar Heel techies try to get boom to echo.(Motricity)(Company overview)
February 1, 2007... In the world of high-tech electronics, sometimes there's no such thing as a straight line. Take Motricity, the fast-growing Durham-based provider of technology that lets people get games, graphics and tunes on cell phones. Over the last year,...

To stay patients, state will need more doctors.(HEALTH CARE)
February 1, 2007... For most of 2006, Tar Heel health care appeared to be on the mend: Malpractice angst eased, physicians dodged a cut in government payments, and hospitals were building. Then as the year closed, a fresh wound opened. A study concluded North...

Rate payers might benefit from healthy competition.(INSURANCE)
February 1, 2007... During the past decade, with medical costs often rising double-digit percentages annually, some health insurers left the state rather than try to compete with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. In 1995, the Chapel Hill-based company...

Investments inject new life into sector.(LIFE SCIENCES)
February 1, 2007... When Intersouth Partners sought investors early last year, the Durham venture-capital firm didn't have to look hard. Intersouth closed its fund in May with $275 million, the most it has ever raised. "Venture fundraising has been on a tear,"...

Factories find future is what you make it.(MANUFACTURING)
February 1, 2007... Barry Matherly lives in the future. As executive director of the Lincoln Economic Development Association, he scouts the globe for prospects. The result of his efforts is a mosaic of what manufacturing might become in North Carolina. An...

Shoppers might start furling stores' sales.(retail trade trends)
February 1, 2007... Economists don't always see eye to eye. And even when they do--most, for example, believe retail spending won't grow much in North Carolina this year--they often don't concur on the reason. Jim Smith, a professor at Western Carolina...

Foreign trade keeps companies on the go.(TRANSPORTATION)
February 1, 2007... Foreign trade is making waves at state ports in Wilmington and Morehead City. In fiscal 2006, it helped boost the N.C. State Ports Authority to record revenue of $46.9 million, up 32% from the year before and the authority's biggest profit in...

Coming attractions boost industry's going concerns.(TRAVEL/TOURISM)(Industry overview)
February 1, 2007... Good weather meant good times for Tar Heel tourist attractions last year. From the coast to the mountains, a winter that was cold but not too cold, a summer that was hot but not too hot and a hurricane season that brought little wind or rain...

Companies fret about generations to come.(electric utilities)(Industry overview)
February 1, 2007... The state's biggest power companies spent the last few years tightening focus on electricity generation and distribution. Now they need to figure out how to keep the juice flowing to a growing population. "A lot of the companies like us are...

Piecing it together; Here's how everything fits: a look at North Carolina's regions, counties and largest cities by the numbers.(BY THE NUMBERS)
February 1, 2007... All I want to do is make some money," the Kinks sang in their ode to unemployment, Get Back in Line. By most measures, Tar Heel workers are doing a lot better than that. Per capita income is up, and the jobless rate dropped from 5.3% in October...

Divided by a hundred: counting by county, here's how the state stacks up statistically.(North Carolina)(Statistical data)
February 1, 2007... POPULATION CIVILIAN Avg. LABOR annual Density per Change from FORCE 2005 change...