Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 12, 1994 TAG: 9401120265
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A year ago, a home-grown corporate executive exhorted the Roanoke Valley's business leaders to stop being provincial.
On Tuesday, NationsBank Chairman Hugh McColl of Charlotte, N.C., took up the cause.
Western Virginia's leaders should steer clear of the "forces of division," McColl said, and work together to tackle the valley's greatest problems. That, in turn, would help businesses grow.
"Understand that success depends on interdependence and has no room for infighting," McColl said Tuesday night at the annual meeting of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce. "Resources are scarce. Local governments must work together to leverage what resources there are.
"Establish a plan that requires you to cooperate, complement and work for the common good."
McColl's speech follows by a year what many interpreted to be a much-needed tongue-lashing by Norfolk Southern Corp. Chairman David Goode, a Roanoke Valley native.
Goode, whose speech was frequently cited last year by those trying to shape a vision for Western Virginia, admonished the region's leaders to stop "worrying over minor details." He said the region's municipalities should work cooperatively, think globally and shoot for "big-time industrial development."
But where Goode's vehicle for making his point was Roanoke's historic reliance on the railroad, McColl drew broad parallels between the valley and Charlotte, his hometown.
Like Roanoke and its surrounding jurisdictions, Charlotte and its outlying counties had already established their identities when they started a push toward regionalism in the 1980s, McColl said.
Charlotte accepts its role as a professional hub for the region - its tax rates are too high to attract heavy industry - while the outlying counties serve as the manufacturing base, he said.
Charlotte's banks, its power company and its industrial developers work together to help surrounding counties attract new industry, McColl said, because outlying growth benefits the whole region.
Industrial growth outside the city has helped turn Charlotte into the country's sixth-largest center for wholesale trade and transportation. It has also improved the quality of life in the region, he said, pointing to a new performing arts center, a National Basketball Association franchise and a new downtown stadium that will be home to the National Football League's Carolina Panthers.
McColl helped Charlotte land the Panthers, at one point pledging that NationsBank would guarantee $15 million in seat licenses at the then-unbuilt stadium.
He urged Roanoke Valley leaders to be bold, but clear, in drawing up a vision for the region, because residents need to be convinced of the value of the plan.
At least some Roanoke Valley residents will be hesitant to take advice from a man who has fostered Charlotte's boom. "We don't want to become the next Charlotte" is a refrain among no-growth advocates in Western Virginia, and McColl had a few words for them:
"All too frequently the naysayers pin local problems on growth. Well, I've got news. There's no turning back. As soon as you stop growing, you start dying."
Jay Turner, a Chamber of Commerce board member, said after McColl's speech that his call for consensus was just what regional leaders needed to hear. "He hit a lot of nails on the head," Turner said.
McColl said the proposed "smart road" linking Blacksburg to Interstate 81 fits the mold of Charlotte's pattern for thinking big; he called the idea "bold, out of the ordinary, even a bit courageous."
"If it attracts critics immediately, you know you're onto something," he said. "Dream big. Then be ready to put in a lot of long hours to make it come true."
McColl warned the New Century Council - a Roanoke and New River valley group trying to develop a unified vision for the region - to work not only to improve life for Western Virginia's fortunate people, but also its "have-nots."
Intolerance creates divisiveness, he said, which prevents a community from working toward important goals.
"It breaks down unity of purpose and blocks certain segments from contributing to the vision," he said. "Part of what I'm talking about is race. But more than that is a growing chasm between the haves and have-nots . . . the hopeful and the hopeless . . . that threatens American society."
by CNB