First in Future: Where Emerging Ideas Take Flight

We revisit an inspiring conversation we had with Rev. Richard Joyner, to start our new year of First in Future. Growing up in Pitt County, Rev. Richard Joyner hated the land of eastern North Carolina, because that’s where he and his 12 brothers and sisters had to spend their summers, working alongside their sharecropping parents. Through the Conetoe Family Life Center, he has brought together Baptist, Muslims, and Unitarians. The Conetoe Center has gone from one congregation in one small town to 21 places in four counties, helping people eat better, provide for their families, learn and understand the math of agriculture (how much they can save for themselves and how much they need to sell.) He also teaches and preaches resilience and optimism to those within the program.

In 2016, the Institute for Emerging Issues looked at the future economy and tried to figure out the kinds and numbers of jobs that were likely to go away over the next 20 years in the state and it appears to be 25% overall. That is one in every four jobs in North Carolina that is likely to disappear by 2040, as technology and artificial intelligence replaces the jobs humans used to be able to do. That is why we are talking to this week’s First in Future guest, Dan Gonzalez, the co-founder of District C. It is a new education-focused startup that focuses on helping high school students, our future workforce, discover how to work together on diverse teams to solve complex problems.

North Carolina's tech industry is booming, with more than 250,000 workers at 20,000 firms and a growth of 21 percent over the past five years. As President and CEO of NC TECH Association, our guest this week, Brooks Raiford, is always looking for ways to improve the industry. We hear his thoughts on the challenge of getting broadband for everyone in the state and the critical role of middle school teachers in raising up future techies.

At our upcoming forum in February, IEI will explore strategies to ensure that people across North Carolina can take full advantage of broadband, the digital economy and new technology. This week's First in Future guest is one of the 50 most powerful women in technology, as recognized by the National Diversity Council. Oita Coleman, a vice president with SAS Institute in Cary, shares with us her optimistic perspective on the future of tech.

A recent study says that 62% of business are having trouble filling skilled trades positions; and 74% expect to have trouble in the future. The problem is not pay, the pay is good. It is aging and lack of interest. 53% of those in the skilled trades in the US are 45 or older, and in some areas close to 40% of workers are over 55. This week’s First in Future guest is Michael Mitchell, the Sr. Director of Trade Skills and Learning Innovation at Lowe's Companies, who is heading up a national effort called “Generation T.” It is an effort to inspire a generation, and let tens of thousands of young people know that building, welding, wiring and machining keep America going, and pay pretty well too.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, for this week’s First in Future we are talking about turkeys. North Carolina is #2 in the nation for turkey production, to the tune of 33 million turkeys a year, yielding about 1.2 billion pounds of meat. It adds up to about a $1 billion a year industry in the state. That is why we are talking to Sandra Garner of Rainbow Meadow Farms in Greene County near Snow Hill. She is a small-scale turkey farmer who comes from a family that’s been farming for 273 years.

NC State strives to think about how students, faculty, and staff can do more to work with the communities that surround us. Early on, NC State had extension offices across the state where people could walk in and get advice on problems—originally agriculture problems. Over time, the university added extension faculty in the different colleges, and then centers and institutes like the Institute for Emerging Issues that look for ways to share knowledge with people well beyond the campus borders. This week’s First in Future guest is Dr. Kwesi Brookins, an Associate Professor of community psychology at NC State. He talks about how universities can work with communities, the projects he has worked on both locally and across the state, and how a kid from Chicago realized he could be a university scholar.

Being a mayor is hard. How do you deal with a bypass that diverts traffic around your city? Will improvements to a struggling part of town affect property values and nudge out low-income people? Small town mayors have to deal with these challenges, so when you want to talk about a pothole, start with a thank you for their time. This week's First in Future guest is Mayor Sherri Allgood, who is the newest mayor for Troy, NC, after replacing a 19-term mayor of 38 years. Listen in as she gives her advice on being a voice for something you care about and believe in. If more of us start to be a voice for what we care about and believe in, then North Carolina will be first in future.

One hundred years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, President Woodrow Wilson announced the first observance of what has become known as Veteran’s Day, a celebration of the critical role those who have served in our military play in the life of our country. At the Institute for Emerging Issues, we give special thanks for their service and urge you to reach out to the veterans you know to thank them. Every year, about 30,000 military personnel stationed in North Carolina move out of the service and start looking for jobs. Across the US, the total is 200,000. These folks have a remarkable breadth of skills, including a common set of habits that can be helpful in improving the culture of an organization. This week’s First in Future guest is Randy Nelson, a former Navy Lieutenant and an entrepreneur. We talked with him about how he decided to serve in the military, what skills it gave him for later life, the habits of mind an entrepreneur needs, how he is coping with a strange kind of addiction he has, and what it might take for North Carolina to be first in future in convincing more transitioning military personnel to stay or move here.

If you’re any kind of business or policy enthusiast and live in the Carolinas, chances are you’ve watched the Carolina Business Review. It’s been on the air since 1991 and is getting close to 1,500 shows. Each week on the show, there are guests from North and South Carolina talking business, education, or public policy with its host Chris William. Over the past 29 years from his perch at the host’s desk for the Carolina Business Review and his day job with Wells Fargo, Chris has seen explosive growth in the Carolinas. On this week’s episode, we talk to him about getting ready for continued growth, the coming recession, what he’s learned from talking to thousands of successful people and how to improve the quality of our public dialogue.

In 2017 and 2018, the Institute for Emerging Issues spent a lot of time focusing on the economics of early childhood development in North Carolina. The emerging theme of all that work was probably no surprise: it really did seem like, now more than ever, it takes a village to raise a healthy child with providers, politicians, parents, employers, planners, professional development and lots of people all working together.  This week’s guests are members of the Inspired Randolph initiative, an effort led by the Randolph Partnership for Children. Their particular focus: rallying more support for infant and toddler care in their county.

In today’s job market, there’s a gap between the number of available jobs and the number of employees with skills for those jobs. It’s what employers call a “skills gap” – and there’s an organization in North Carolina working on bridging that gap. The Capital Area Workforce Development Board helps connect people to training and education so they can get jobs that become careers. Pat Sturdivant is not only the head of this board—she’s also president of the state association of workforce boards. In this week’s episode of First in Future, Pat talks about how workforce boards create a pool of qualified candidates for North Carolina’s growing industries.

The best estimate of the My Future NC Commission for the number of people in North Carolina who started college but then dropped out is 905,000. In many ways, they have the worst of both worlds: they’ve spent money on college and often had to take out loans, but they don’t have the benefit that comes with a degree. Finding those folks and convincing them to come back to school again is a challenge that a lot of people are working on. You’ll hear about efforts at community colleges and public universities, but you might not have heard about the work of Charlotte’s Johnson C. Smith University. Our First in Future guest this week is Dr. Laura Colson McLean, Dean of JCSU Metropolitan College. She works very intentionally with working age adults to get them the skills and education they need to move to the next level in their careers.

The next Emerging Issues Forum, ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity, is coming up on October 15 in Charlotte. It’s going to be a day focused on the people at the core of our economy—adult workers and their future. We will talk with people who have good ideas for helping them move up and forward. Before we look forward, we think it’s useful to examine our history. This week on First in Future, our guest is Dr. Karl Campbell of Appalachian State University’s History department. He talks to us about our state’s history in segregation, Governor Hodges and Senator Ervin during that time period, and how to look to what our past can tell us about our future. Lastly, he tells us the interesting origin of our state’s many nicknames.

At IEI, we’re getting ready for our next Emerging Issues Forum, ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity, coming up on October 15 in Charlotte. It’s going to be a day focused on the people at the core of our economy—adult workers. Once they begin their working careers, we tend to turn our attention away. But many of those workers are struggling to advance. On October 15, we’ll talk with people who have good ideas for helping them move up. This week on First in Future, our guest is our very own Policy and Programs Manager Alicia James. As the lead planner for the forum, she’s been thinking about this issue for the past year. She tells us about why it’s important to our state’s future, what Charlotte and other communities are doing to help, and what you’ll learn if you register to attend the forum in October.