THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240252
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
At a weekend retreat in Manteo, the N.E. North Carolina Economic Development Commission started the new year with major funding for two diverse Albemarle area pump-priming programs. They are:
The Harbor Town plan for community waterfront development proposed by the Tourist Division of the commission will receive $200,000 for start-up designs. Bunny Sanders, director of the tourist branch in Elizabeth City, said many waterfront communities should become major visitor attractions under the program.
In Ahoskie, the Roanoke-Chowan Community College will benefit from an $18,000 ``trigger fund'' that will result in Perdue Farms providing $200,000 annually to train factory mechanics at the college. The training program is being developed by the development commission and the Lewiston, N.C., branch of the chicken-processing company.
``We hope to have the first classes in place by June and we think eventually we'll have as many as 140 students enrolled,'' said Richard Baker, director of business and industrial training at Roanoke-Chowan Community College.
``Perdue Farms became involved when the Lewiston plant had difficulty finding skilled workers to operate and maintain processing machinery,'' Baker said.
James Keehner, an industrial manager at the Perdue plant, is defining the skilled worker slots he is interested in filling.
``If the training program goes well over the first year, Perdue plans to expand the idea to provide trained personnel for many other Perdue plants in other states,'' Baker added.
Skills that will be taught at Roanoke-Chowan Community College will include machinery maintenance, electronics, and hydraulics repair and operation, he said.
James Lancaster, director of the development commission, said the Perdue project was worked out by the commission and the North Carolina Department of Commerce, after Perdue ``unsuccessfully advertised for trained workers.''
The three-day retreat held by commission members over the weekend at Tranquil House on the Manteo waterfront was designed to restudy the role of the commission, Lancaster said.
The 15-member group is one of several created during the last session of the General Assembly to generate more economic development through ``regionalism.'' The legislators told the pump-primers to cross state lines, if necessary, to encourage commerce.
The commission spent most of last year trying to get organized after the legislators gave the group nearly $2 million in start-up funds through this year. Under considerable prodding by N.C. Secretary of Commerce Davis Phillips, the commission began funding likely industrial and tourist projects late in 1994.
``We're going to be able to get moving now,'' said Sanders, the tourist branch director, after the commission set aside $200,000 to help Sanders get the Harbortown project started.
For months, Sanders has urged the commission to support a plan to develop high-speed water transport between harbor communities on the Albemarle's sounds and rivers. by CNB