Category Archives: Piedmont-Triad

Kirkman Lands in Florida

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Don Kirkman, former director of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, has landed in Florida and has been named the president of Florida's Great Northwest, an economic development group for the northwest region of Florida. From the release:

Florida’s Great Northwest, the 16-county, regional economic development organization of Northwest Florida, is pleased to announce the appointment of a new president, Don Kirkman. At the organization’s board meeting in December, the Board of Directors voted unanimously to hire Kirkman following a nationwide search. Kirkman will take the helm on Jan. 1 and operate out of the organization’s Destin corporate office.

A seasoned economic developer, Kirkman most recently served as president and CEO of the Piedmont Triad Partnership in North Carolina, a 12-county economic development organization. He was chosen because of his extensive background in regional economic development including marketing, business recruitment, government relations and fundraising.

Kirkman left the Piedmont Triad Partnership earlier this year after a leadership change on its board led to the hiring of a new CEO.  After David Powell, the new CEO, arrived on the scene Kirkman stuck around as head of operations, but it didn't last long and he left the organization. 

I had the chance to meet Mr. Kirkman a couple of times and was impressed with his passion for promoting the Piedmont Triad, and I found myself nodding in agreement whenever he gave his presentation about building regionalism. It's nice to see him land another gig that seems like a good fit for his regional economic development outlook.

 

IRS Looking for a Few Lewisvillians – And They’ll Want to Be Found

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The IRS has released a list of people they're looking for to send unclaimed refund checks to, and the Triad Business Journal has a handy-dandy database you can use to search to if you're one of them.  In Lewisville, NC the people the IRS is looking for are:

R. Fulton
Z. Hartman
D. Kipp
B. Lindsay
B. Ward
D. & P. Weatherman 

West Forsyth High School Announcement on Cyberbullying

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Just received the announcement below via email from the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School system. I haven't watched the video yet, but I plan to:

November 1, 2010

Parents and Guardians,

Starting on November 3rd through November 10th, your student will view a video clip titled, "Cyberbullying: You Can't Take it Back" by Netsmartz through their 4th period class. Netsmartz is a site created to educate teens, parents, and educators concerning the use of technology and the Internet. In a continued effort to provide all students a safe and caring environment that enables them to work to their optimum potential, students will watch the video and teachers will hold a class discussion on the topic. The Guidance Department believes in order to be effective in addressing the issue of bullying everyone must be involved – faculty, students, and parents.

We encourage you to watch, "Cyberbullying: You Can't Take it Back." The link is provided below. If you have any questions or concerns, please call the Guidance Department at 336-712-4403.

http://www.netsmartz.org/resources/reallife.htm#realcanttake.
"Cyberbullying: You Can't Take It Back" (Part 2 of 3) A teen regrets his participation on a web site created to rate others at his school.

West Forsyth Guidance Department

Triad Moms on Main

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Last week I wrote about local mommy-blog Triad Smarty Pants biting the dust.  Some commenters pointed out that the local writers for Triad Smarty Pants and flown the coop and were building their own site.  Not long after writing that post I heard from Katie Moosbrugger, one of the folks behind the new site Triad Moms on Main, who wanted me to know about their new site. Now that I've survived my daughter's BirthdayPalooza (she turned 17 on Saturday) I decided to check it out.  Obviously I'm not really part of their core demographic, as evidenced by an article titled "Got a Ladystache?" that I found during my highly random search of the site, but I will offer a limited opinion anyway: the site is very well designed and informative.  In simpler terms, if I were a mommy in the Triad this would be my main online destination.

Best of luck to Katie and the rest of the folks over at T-MOM. Now I'm gonna see what I can do about that 'stache.

Local Mommy Blog Bites the Dust

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The Triad Smarty Pants blog is going dark.  The announcement today:

Hi Smarties,

I'm sad to say that today is our official last post in the Triad. We've really enjoyed delivering all the Smarty Scoop for you for two years and appreciate the support each and every one of you has given us every single day! However, due to some recent changes in the direction of our brand and business, we deemed it necessary to discontinue the TSP site for now. 

We wish you the best of luck with your journey through this crazy little thing called mommyhood and stay Smarty!

Come visit us in Charlotte any time - www.charlottesmartypants.com!

Sincerely,
Jen Plym
Chief Founding Mommy
http://www.charlottesmartypants.com
http://www.triadsmartypants.com

I wasn't exactly an avid follower since I'm neither a mom or particularly smart, but I kept an eye on the blog because I'm interested to see how "new media" fares locally.  For that reason I'm sorry to see them throw in the towel in the Triad, but hopefully they'll thrive in Charlotte.

Clapper’s New Position

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I found it fascinating that Rob Clapper, who recently left his position as president of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce for what he termed a great career opportunity, is landing at the Prince William Chamber of Commerce in Northern Virginia. It's fascinating to me because Prince William County is where I lived for close to 10 years before moving to the Piedmont Triad, and Clapper's move reinforces for me just how much has changed in Northern Virginia in the last 15 years.

Until very recently Prince William was a sleepy bedroom community for Washington, DC and the various chambers in the county reflected that stature. If you'd have told me in 1996 that someone was leaving the role of president of the chamber of one of the biggest cities in North Carolina to take over a chamber in Prince William, and that he'd see it as a step up on the career curve, I'd have asked you what you or he was smoking. 

Fifteen years later the population in Prince William has exploded and lots of companies have chosen to plant roots there; just from 2000-2009 the population and number of non-farm jobs each grew by about 35%. Add to that the merger of the smaller chambers to create one large chamber and you have a pretty attractive job for someone in Clapper's position. 

Of course one of the main reasons my wife and I moved our family out of Prince William County was that the growth was just too much for us. The growth was happening so quickly, and with such poor planning, that day-to-day life was becoming unbearable.  Because the road infrastructure didn't keep up with the residential and commercial development the traffic came to be a defining factor in how we lived, and according to my in-laws things have only gotten worse.  

So my congratulations to Mr. Clapper on the new gig, but also my best wishes in adjusting to the ever growing beast that is the DC metroplex.  As for the Greensboro gig, well I'd say to any candidate considering the position it's a pretty sweet opportunity.  The Piedmont Triad's a great place to live and I think there's a lot of opportunity to do great things here as we move beyond the recent economic apocalypse.

BTW, I received an email sent today to all Greensboro Chamber members letting us know that a search committee has been formed, and telling us that if we know anyone interested in the job to have them contact Ingrid Hopper at ihopper@greensboro.org. So there you go.

I Keep Telling Myself It’ll Grow Back

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DSC_0205
 Last night will go down as one of the more unique experiences of my life.  As I've written before (probably ad nauseum) the Triad Apartment Association holds a food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina each year and at the end of the drive we have an event to recognize the organizations that raised the most food.  Last night we held the event on the rooftop deck of the Nissen Building in Winston-Salem and, as promised, I had my head shaved as part of our fundraising efforts.  We threw in a last minute twist and allowed anyone who wanted to shave a stripe in my head to do so if they contributed $20 to Second Harvest.  That resulted in $140 in additional donations, which equates to about 980 meals or 1,680 cans of food.

I have to say that there's something surreal about having your head shaved in front of 50 people on a roof twenty floors up in downtown Winston-Salem.  It was definitely worth it, and for the record here's the final tally for TAA's efforts: 223,682 cans of food (or cash equivalent) donated to Second Harvest.

That's the good news, but here's the bad news: although donations are up over 50% since last year, need for assistance is up over 100%. We could have raised 500,000 cans and it wouldn't even put a dent in the need, which means it's never too late to help.  To find out how you can help visit Second Harvest's website; I guarantee you won't regret it. 

A ton of people and multiple companies made the food drive possible and if I tried to thank them all here I'd have the longest blog post in the history of blogging.  We'll be recognizing them all at the TAA website and I'll make sure to link to it when we do.

Special shout out to my barber David Sowers of Lewisville Barber Shop for making the trip downtown and making sure that my head came out unscathed.

Help Me Help the Hungry, or, About That Head Shaving Thing

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ShaveMyHead
 At the day job we're making a final push in our food drive.  We've collected food at apartment communities, we've hosted food collection drives at the Winston-Salem Dash and Greensboro Grasshoppers games and in general we've worked our rear ends off to raise food and cash for the hungry.  The drive ends August 24, and as some of you may remember I agreed a couple of months ago to shave my head if people would donate $1,000 for that purpose. Well we're still short (although my mother has made a valiant effort to see her oldest son's hair lopped off) so we've put together a little campaign to get us there.  If we make it I'll be getting my head shaved on the 24th at a little shindig we're hosting to recognize our largest food contributors.  Contributing is as easy as sending a text, so please take a moment to help feed the hungry.

And yes, our promotional concept was a total ripoff of the cute girl quitting via whiteboard hoax from earlier this week.

If It Ain’t Nailed Down…

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Man, you know times are tough when people steal crops:

Deputies in Yadkin County are investigating the theft of crops from two fields…

In that case, farmer Billy Dale Harris reported that about five buckets of green beans had been harvested from his land…

Four days later, a farmer on Simmons Patton Road in Jonesville reported that corn was missing from a field.

Benefit Second Harvest and Take In a Ballgame. Also, Is Winston Better Than Greensboro?

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The Triad Apartment Association (my employer) is hosting a food drive to benefit Second Harvest and one aspect of it is that we're having a competition between the Winston-Salem Dash and the Greensboro Grasshoppers to see which team/city can raise the most food for one game.  The Dash game is next Monday (July 12) and the Grasshopper game is next Wednesday (July 14).  We have slightly different arrangements for each game but the basics are that we're encouraging folks to bring food or financial donations and then stick around to enjoy the ballgame.  Here are the details:

Winston-Salem Dash, July 12

Bring food or financial donations to our table by the entrance and you'll get a voucher for a free Dash baseball cap.  Your donations will be counted towards the Winston-Salem total.

Greensboro Grasshoppers, July 14

You can bring food and financial donations to our table, and on top of that if you buy your ticket to the game from us $2 of the ticket will go to Second Harvest.  There will also be prize giveaways throughout the evening.  Your donations will be counted towards the Greensboro total.

Last year our Food Drive raised almost 210,000 cans of food and we're determined to beat that this year.  I hope to see many of you on either Monday or Wednesday!

Final note: I'd like to personally thank Mayor Joines, Mayor Knight, WXII, The Dash and The Grasshoppers for partnering with us and Second Harvest to help feed the hungry in the Triad.  Here's the commercial we all collaborated on the promote the event: