Top state business group meets at ASU
By Frank Ruggiero

 The North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry joined Appalachian State University’s Walker College of Business for lunch Wednesday.

Though always a good time for friends and business acquaintances to catch up, the lunch served a dual purpose. On one hand, it was an NCCBI membership meeting. On the other, it was the Walker College of Business’s CEO Executive Luncheon.

The keynote speaker was Stephen P. Miller, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Biltmore Company and chairman of NCCBI. As tradition at the executive luncheons dictates, the audience heard an NCCBI testimonial before Miller took the podium.

Dr. Phyllis Crain, executive director of Crossnore School, spoke first, attesting to the significant impact NCCBI can have on the lives of all North Carolina citizens.

Crain told how, when she was growing up in South Carolina, her family was just able to make ends meet, with both parents working jobs of long hours and low pay.

Firestone Steel company, however, moved to Spartanburg, S.C., and her father applied and received a job there. Crain said her family was able to move out of their small house and into her mother’s dream house on a hillside, and that her brother was able to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She said this is “what happens when we have strong businesses and industries in the rural parts of our state,” attesting to the positive impact business and industry can have on families.

Industry, she said, is good for families, which, in turn, are the backbone of this country.

“It creates strong families, which create strong communities,” Crain said. “Strong communities are what make North Carolina the best place to live.”

After Crain concluded her testimonial, Miller was introduced by Randy Edwards, interim dean of the Walker College of Business. Edwards told how Miller serves on the Biltmore Company’s executive committee, managing the company’s various business divisions, including the Biltmore House and Gardens, Biltmore Estate Wine Company and the Inn on Biltmore Estate.

Edwards mentioned Miller’s civic achievements, including service as past chair of the board of Mission Hospitals. He also serves on the board of Asheville Savings Bank is past chair of the Asheville Chamber of Commerce and the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority.

Miller also served as chair of the N.C. Travel and Tourism Board and the Travel Council of North Carolina, Edwards noted.

Once behind the podium, Miller first acknowledged thanks to his friends and colleagues, and then told how he’s been impressed with the numerous Appalachian State graduates that have found jobs at the Biltmore Estate.

He then gave an explanation of what NCCBI is and the goals the organization seeks to accomplish. Essentially, NCCBI is the state’s chamber of commerce, a nonpartisan organization that has been representing North Carolina’s business community for 63 years, Miller explained.

In the process, the organization has aided community development with its approximately 2,000 members, which employ 1.2 million people in North Carolina.

As such, NCCBI “creates a positive quality of life for all the people in the state of North Carolina,” Miller said.

As an example, he told how the organization has seven key committees that focus on critical state issues. The committees act on subjects like economic development, education, environmental concerns, health care, legal issues and workplace policies, taxation and fiscal affairs and transportation.

Miller said that NCCBI staff works hard to enforce the 81 policies its seven committees have developed. The organization has pinpointed four key priorities, he said, the first being economic development.

Now more than ever, it is important to employ effective and innovative economic development, Miller said, adding he’s seen many different industries emerge from North Carolina, as opposed to the traditional textile mainstay.

He mentioned technology, biotechnology, service, and recreation and hospitality as budding industries. Despite negative headlines about the national and state economy, Miller said North Carolina’s economy is on the rise.

Employment growth in the state over the past seven years has been better than that of the United States, he said, due the diversity of industry. Education, health care, finance, hospitality and transportation have played a prominent role in this development, Miller said, adding there is only one constant in economic development — change.

“If we’re to continue staying ahead of the curve, we have to be very innovative...about the kind of jobs we create,” he said, mentioning how incentive programs are crucial to being succeeding in a competitive market.

The NCCBI, Miller continued, also focuses on efforts to improve and build the state’s educational system, saying that a “well-educated and prepared workforce is essential to our success.”

Miller said he was pleased to see the construction underway on the ASU campus, much of it the result of the $3.1 billion bond referendum championed by University of North Carolina system president Molly Broad. The referendum was passed by the General Assembly, yielding 318 individual construction projects on the system’s 16 campuses, as well as 40,000 jobs for North Carolinians.

NCCBI worked hard to support the UNC system in getting the bond issue passed, Miller said, adding, “That’s the kind of commitment NCCBI has to education.”

The second priority is taxes, particularly a reduction in the corporate and personal income tax rates. Miller said the 6.9 percent corporate income tax rate is the third highest in the southeast, and that the 8.25 percent personal rate is the seventh highest in the nation.

The personal tax rate for many small businesses, Miller continued, is essentially their corporate tax rate, making it difficult for many ends to be met. Reducing both taxes, he said, would result in more jobs and even higher tax revenue for the state.

He specified, though, that NCCBI is neither anti-tax or anti-government, and that the organization has supported tax increases in the past when members felt increases were necessary.

The third priority is government efficiency, and Miller said that if there is a call for tax cuts, there will still need to be a way to deliver services in the best manner possible.

The fourth and most recently added priority is health care, and Miller said this is both a key social and business issue, as health care has become one of the major drivers of economic growth in the state.

The entity known as health care involves many players, Miller said, ranging from employers to providers to insurers. As such, cost-shifting in health care from player to player is much like a tax on a business, he said, suggesting that everyone involved “work together to grow aggregate cost to help all the players.”

And the NCCBI is the perfect organization to gather those players together, he said, to talk about real solutions, such as identifying best practices and supporting a wise public policy to manage health care.

In closing, Miller said, “We only deserve and will only get state government that’s as good as our willingness to get involved.”