Tag Archives: Greensboro

YouTube: RF100 Greensboro Community Mapping Project on Climate Change

In the Peruvian Andes, June 2018. Photo by Nathan Allen, Wake Forest University student.

In early November, just after the midterm elections where the Democrats took back the House of Representatives, with many new members calling for a Green New Deal (action on climate change), a group of students in Greensboro, N.C., from UNC-Greensboro, Guilford College and N.C. A&T State, fanned out across the community to gather the thoughts and insights of a variety of people involved in some way in environmental protection, renewable energy and climate change. Kathe Latham, a local environmental activist asked if I would be interviewed on camera by two Guilford students — Christina Gaviria and Ian Gordan. I agreed; we talked on a rainy Friday in my den.

The result is here with this well shot and edited YouTube video. It’s part of RF100, a community mapping project to chronicle local leaders speaking out on this important issue. The following week, a big crowd filled every seat at Scuppernong Books in downtown Greensboro to view the various videos and talk about how they can urge local leaders to do more when it comes to sustainability efforts. The quick answer: local leaders can and should do more. A lot more.

Creative housing: ThinkHouseU aims to wring innovation out of entrepreneurial roommates

Bryan Toney, left, associate vice chancellor for economic development and corporate engagement at UNCG, and Justin Streuli, director of the N.C. Entrepreneurship Center at UNCG, stand in front of the house on Silver Avenue in Greensboro that will be renovated for ThinkHouseU. Photo for TBJ by Julie Knight

Bryan Toney, left, associate vice chancellor for economic development at UNCG, and Justin Streuli, director of the N.C. Entrepreneurship Center at UNCG, stand in front of the house  that will be renovated for ThinkHouseU. Photo by Julie Knight

Entrepreneurial support is poised to expand once again in Greensboro while taking a step closer to a nationally recognized entrepreneurial haven – the Triangle.

Starting in August 2015, UNC Greensboro will serve as a national pilot for a residential concept called ThinkHouseU. In a renovated house in the Glenwood neighborhood near campus, eight imaginative and determined undergrads with viable visions of new business startups will live together for nine months. They will not only share kitchen space and bathrooms, but swap ideas and encouragement as well.

Chris Gergen,  a leader in the Triangle in entrepreneurial support, is behind the effort in Greensboro.

My monthly Triad Next column is here at Medium.com and describes the program. My radio story with Keri Brown at WFDD is at this link.

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Triad Next: Triad builds framework that suits creative class

Joey Adams, 33, a Greensboro software developer, is co-founder of The Forge, a makerspace in downtown Greensboro.

Joey Adams, 33, a Greensboro software developer, is co-founder of The Forge, a makerspace in downtown Greensboro.

When I was executive editor of the Triad Business Journal from 1998 to 2011, I wrote a weekly front-page column titled Triad Talk. After a three-year hiatus, Editor Mark Sutter agreed to my idea to return as a monthly columnist with a new name, Triad Next. The first column on the Triad’s growing support for young, creative professionals ran on Aug. 29, 2014. It’s behind a paywall for 30 days. But you can see it on Medium.com before then.

Excerpt:  Take downtown apartments and ballparks, coffee shops, microbreweries, art hops,food trucks, live theater and bike paths. Add in idea slams, accelerator labs, collaborative office space, entrepreneurial meetups and business incubators. That’s when the perception shifts. That’s when you hear something like this: “I see no reason why I can’t build my company here,” says Chris Padgett, 26, founder of Fusion 3 Design, a 6-month-old 3D-printer manufacturer in east Greensboro. “It’s places like this that make me optimistic.”

Photo by Justin Catanoso

Triad building infrastructure for creative class

The Forge

In this business report on WFDD, I talk about the ongoing battle to attract and retain  young professionals in the Triad, based on my August 2014  column in the Triad Business Journal. “The Triad has made a lot of progress over the last several years to the point of supporting the growth of the creative class, including those in design, technology, communication and the arts,” I told WFDD’s Keri Brown.

Click here to listen to the radio report

“If not me, who?” At 80, Jim Melvin still building a legacy

Jim Melvin

My first interview with Jim Melvin was in 1988 when I was a young reporter in Winston-Salem for the News & Record of Greensboro. I’ve interviewed him scores of times since. In this most recent interview, he discusses the biggest economic development project he’s ever chased, and — to the delight of advocates and the dismay of critics — makes it clear he has no intention of retiring any time soon.

Excerpt:  Eighty years old. A bronze statue. His name long affixed to City Hall. A list of accomplishments, as well as legions of admirers and critics, that could fill his beloved ballpark. All this might suggest that the end of the road for Melvin as a community leader is in sight.

It’s not. He says he can’t imagine anything worse than getting up in the morning and not having something important to do. He says there is no succession plan at the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation. He says he has no immediate plans to retire.

“Like Mr. Bryan (who retired at 97), I’ll know when it’s time,” he says . Click here for the story.

Photo by Julie Knight

Entrepreneur Andy Zimmerman through the years

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Since first meeting Andy Zimmerman in 1999, I have chronicled his career as an inveterate entrepreneur, innovator and leading force within the paddlesports industry. Those columns and the dates they ran are listed here.

Photo by Justin Catanoso