East Carolina University’s Pharmaceutical Service Center, also called PSC@ECU, promised a positive economic and occupational impact on the local community and state. Among the project’s goals to ensure this positive impact: educating students and workers for the highly regulated pharmaceutical development and manufacturing environments; enabling workers to be immediately productive in complex jobs requiring multi-disciplinary skills.
A positive economic and occupational impact in North Carolina is possible through its growth in industries such as alternate energy. Such an impact is also perceived worldwide. Attesting to this domestic and international impact is insights from eight of the industry’s experts.
In 2016, Herbalife paid a $200 million to settle a lawsuit that claimed the company ran an illegal pyramid scheme. Manufactured in Winston-Salem, NC, Herbalife claims the maintain a legal multilevel marketing operation.
FLS Energy, a solar energy company, joined the ranks of other privately owned businesses with bright economic and occupational futures in North Carolina. Among the other 99 companies highlighted were Ennis-Flint, Rodgers Builders, Camco, Hissho Sushi, and Allen Industries. Factors these businesses often held in common included employees retaining majority ownership, being family owned, and starting with a single product.
The manufacturing industry provides over thirty percent of the gross state product and twenty-five percent of its jobs. Textiles rank first, followed by furniture, industrial machinery, electronics, food, apparel, and chemicals.
The year 1985 saw renewed strength in the manufacturing sector of Wilmington, North Carolina. Recent announcements of new and expanded manufacturing facilities in the area are indicative of this rebound, and predictions suggest that further growth in the area manufacturing activity can be expected over 1986.
Counties like Nash and Edgecombe, historically agrarian, have been developing a strong manufacturing base in the past few decades. Generating economic and job growth for towns like Rocky Mount and Tarboro are industrial recruiters like Carolinas Gateway Partnership, companies like Tyson Foods, Inc., and projects like the Carolina Connector intermodal rail terminal.
Surprisingly, some of the most interesting tourist attractions in North Carolina have become manufacturing and industrial plants. More than half a million people take tours of the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company cigarette factory in Durham or the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company plant in Winston-Salem. Other industries, such as paper, furniture, and mountain craft plants also offer tours.
The face of manufacture in Winston-Salem is changing, especially since most of the business in the city is based on the tobacco industry. This article discusses how businessmen helped the city’s growth potential by making improvements to the Super Block.