Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 7, 1993 TAG: 9301070255
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
DEPENDENCE REBUKED BY RAIL BOSS
A self-proclaimed "son of Roanoke" brought a stern message to Roanoke Valley leaders Wednesday:Grow up.
Look beyond the beloved Blue Ridge Mountains to the world, said Norfolk Southern Corp. Chairman David Goode, because to rely on the Roanoke Valley's past, beauty and longtime employers is to court economic oblivion.
"These mountains that define our region are fundamental to the character of Roanoke," he told the annual meeting of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce. "But the mountains also can limit our view. They shrink the horizon. They encourage limitation.
"Roanoke is the premier city of Western Virginia. But if that's all you think you are, that's all you'll ever be. If you think of Roanoke as being heavily dependent on the railroad, that's all it'll ever be," he said.
"If you need constant reassurances that the railroad loves you and will never leave you, that suggests to me that you haven't yet quite grasped Roanoke's real potential. I see too much worrying over minor details" like who works where and, "How many vice presidents does Roanoke get?"
The crowd sat stone-faced, Goode's words seeming to strike familiar chords in minds accustomed to thinking and talking about business, the economy and change. They'd heard it before.
Fifteen months ago - and just days after Goode was anointed successor to now-retired Chairman Arnold McKinnon - Chief Financial Officer John Turbyfill assured Downtown Roanoke Inc. members that the railroad was committed to Roanoke. He also reminded persistent critics how much the company has invested here over the decades.
That speech, vetted then at the highest levels of the Norfolk Southern hierarchy, proved - if anything - to be a prelude to Goode's plain-spoken admonishments cloaked as exhortation.
"I think it was the truth if I ever heard it," David Saunders, a valley real estate developer and state tourism official, said after hearing Goode's 30-minute talk. "Daddy's gone."
Mayor David Bowers, his tenure already marked by layoffs, the uphill effort to renovate Hotel Roanoke and the pending acquisition of Dominion Bankshares Corp., called Goode's remarks "a realistic assessment. The Roanoke Valley ought to stop thinking small."
And Goode, Norfolk Southern's chairman since September, spoke like a man who knows that many in the valley are waiting for him and his colleagues to make some crucial decisions:
How much will Norfolk Southern donate to the campaign to help renovate Hotel Roanoke, the downtown landmark the railroad donated to Virginia Tech in 1989?
Goode wouldn't say. "The Hotel Roanoke . . . is not a decision for Norfolk Southern. We created the framework for the Hotel Roanoke [project] by donating a valuable piece of property - and an important piece of Roanoke history - to [Tech] so that it could be preserved and developed. But the development is very much the responsibility of Roanoke and its citizens."
That said, Goode assured valley leaders Norfolk Southern will help, "but only when and if it's clear that a sound structure is in place to make the project work. We'll step up to the plate for you on this, as we have before. Exactly how and how much is premature."
Applause interrupted him.
Goode still has not met with hotel planners and Renew Roanoke campaign organizers to discuss a possible donation to the $42 million hotel and conference center project. But he did confirm, if jokingly, already having had informal discussions with the campaign chairman, Carilion Health System President Thomas Robertson.
Hotel planners are scheduled to meet next week with Norfolk Southern's board and key senior executives, Goode said, even as planners try to close a yawning funding gap still millions of dollars wide.
Will Norfolk Southern locate its new national customer service center in Roanoke, bringing 400 new jobs?
"As much as I love the Roanoke Valley and value its people, the location of any important Norfolk Southern facility will be determined by hard business facts. This one is no exception."
Valley economic development officials have lobbied railroad officials hard, hoping to best their Atlanta counterparts also pushing for the center to be located there, Norfolk Southern's other regional headquarters.
Then there was the lesson on what Norfolk Southern is not:
"We are not the old-fashioned Norfolk and Western whose focus is running coal downhill to the sea," he said. "We are not the two orange buildings on the hill across the valley. And we are not - and this may seem a trivial point, but there's significance to it - we are not Norfolk and Southern."
Norfolk Southern, he reminded the audience, is a "seamless," global transportation company with interests in trucking, worldwide commodity markets and other ventures. But it still draws nearly one-third of its revenues from coal, the lifeblood of Western Virginia and points west.
Goode, encouraging valley leaders to think globally, described Roanoke as already the center of a "billion-dollar" coal business. "Roanoke is the key point in a river of black prosperity that runs from the coalfields to Norfolk and beyond to the world."
Yet he sees ominous clouds gathering that could darken Norfolk Southern's fortunes - and those of the Roanoke Valley. Fears of global warming and fouled air are spawning environmental movements aimed at restricting the burning of fossil fuels; and factions of the incoming Clinton administration are talking about levying a carbon tax on those fuels.
"That's why we are urging a rational exploration and debate of all the factors that play into any decision to regulate or tax carbon fuels," Goode said. "Reduced coal consumption would hit especially hard in Western Virginia. It would directly affect Roanoke.
"To the extent coal is diminished, Roanoke will be diminished - and, I suspect, much more significantly in the long run than bank mergers," he said, making a pointed reference to First Union Corp.'s pending acquisition of hometown Dominion.
From Goode's perspective, the Roanoke Valley can think and act globally - the tools are here: "Team up. Bring together [Tech], Hollins and Roanoke colleges - add that enormous asset to the industrial base. Capitalize on the fiber optics and other high-tech industries here. Go for big-time industrial development.
"Why not?" he wondered. "I'd like to see Norfolk Southern diminish in relative importance to the region's economy. I'd like to see that even while we maintain a strong and strengthening presence here."