Here are summaries of the ideas proposed in the 51 letters of intent submitted for the city of Greensboro’s Strong Cities Strong Communities program.
• Alfred Worley, Community economic development technical consultant, Bronx, N.Y.
Intent: Using “place- and people-based approaches” to enhance commercial, retail and housing markets; align workforce delivery systems; leverage community wealth-building plans; improve residents’ ability to own assets and anchor jobs; and improve housing.
• The Merrick Group , Higher education professionals with expertise in business and leadership, Greensboro.
Intent: Create a nonprofit that helps students create unique academic programs that meet the needs of local employers by combining courses from the seven area colleges and universities.
• Arden Thoburn, Greensboro.
Intent: Turn War Memorial Stadium into a baseball and football museum for baseball and a home for the N.C. Tennis Hall of Fame, with a tennis stadium and 21 hard-surface tennis courts as a possible host site for the Atlantic Coast Conference tennis tournament.
• Barbara Peck, Greensboro.
Intent: Build a glass-blowing studio as a draw for tourists and a resource for local schools, supplemented with a large commercial kitchen for use by producers of small-batch gourmet food; a craft distillery for making spirits; and small manufacturing site to make high-end custom clothing.
• Bryan Toney, project team leader, director, N.C. Entrepreneurship Center at UNCG.
Intent: Create a downtown Global Opportunities Center to stimulate global entrepreneurship in the region, working with local colleges, corporations and others.
• Carol Pedigo, Winston-Salem.
Intent: Start a retail business that sells only “Made in the USA” products.
• Tia C. Cromartie , location not given.
Intent: Create a team with one lawyer and five others to assist in marketing a plan for a business mentoring program.
• Dan McIver , Greensboro.
Intent: Establish a behavioral merit incentive rewards program in schools, working with police officers, to increase academic values and decrease discipline issues.
• David Aderholdt, lead participant, Greensboro.
Intent: Create a sustainable wine “Tasting Trail” in downtown Greensboro to showcase and promote the emerging North Carolina wine industry.
• Derrick Giles, Greensboro.
Intent: Activities to create local economic impacts that support the growth of small businesses.
• Shachi Pandey, Urban Matrix, an architecture and urban design firm, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Intent: Research and analyze Greensboro’s urban environment, including transportation, connectivity, land use and zoning, and historic development to position the city competitively in the local and regional economy.
• Don Kirkman, principal, Kirkman Economic Development Consulting, Greensboro. Kirkman is former president and CEO of the Piedmont Triad Partnership.
Intent: Create a national advertising and marketing campaign to promote available buildings and sites in Greensboro to companies in advanced manufacturing, distribution and logistics to attract new companies.
• Rhonda White, lead participant, Greensboro.
Intent: Through the Intelligent FUNdamental Foundation and Destiny Christian Center, help Triad youth be trained by members of “our knowledge community” in career, personal and skill development skills, while encouraging good citizenship.
• Dottie Cooke, lead participant, Greensboro.
Intent: Identify business areas within neighborhoods and revitalize them through landscaping, streetscaping and business consulting with area universities; revitalize long-neglected areas of the city by involving small businesses and residents; and engage churches, schools, garden clubs and other nonprofit organizations to help.
• Sylvester Caraway Jr., Greensboro.
Intent: Establish an educational, media development, broadcasting and employment center that provides hands-on experience as well as connects to local, state, national, military and international media to further the center’s students.
• Dustin Lester, Fairfax, Ohio.
Intent: Work to create a nanoGreensboro brand to establish a strong and marketable identity for the city, building off the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, with goal of recruiting, retaining and expanding business in aviation, life sciences and innovative manufacturing.
• Helen K. Rogers, APD Urban Planning and Management, lead participating business, Atlanta.
Intent: Develop a strategy, working with partner firms, to promote job growth and business expansion, enhance quality of life and provide a vision for future growth.
• Imani N. Johnson, clinical social worker, Sanford.
Intent: Rehabilitate vulnerable populations, including disconnected youth, and the surrounding community holistically, empowering participants to become and remain productive, self-sufficient leaders of society through caring for the spirit, mind and body, vocational training and culturally sensitive education.
• John Hannon Martin, lead participant, location not given. Submitted on behalf of Triad Electric Vehicle Association.
Intent: Develop an electric drive campus and develop prizes for green challenges.
• James P. Wilson, lead participant, Strategonomics Global Network, Santa Barbara, Calif.
Intent: Review strategies aimed at creating tech/biotechnology clusters in greater Greensboro that will attract people, businesses and investment downtown; and capitalize on universities and colleges.
• Jerome Valentine , Greensboro.
Intent: Recommend an economic progress solution for Greensboro that uses the transportation industry to draw more businesses to the area and methods to retain companies already here.
• Channelle D. James, entrepreneurship professor at UNCG, and Doug MacNair, technical director at Cardino ENTRIX in Raleigh.
Intent: Propose strategy that includes both traditional development approaches and socially focused. Example: Create a social venture lab where college students work alongside economists, entrepreneurs, community organizers and local politicians to implement solutions with potential to thrive in the marketplace.
• John Merrill, Gateway University Research Park, Greensboro.
Intent: Create a Gateway Aerospace Materials Testing Center, working with the Gateway University Research Park and the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering.
• John R. Dykers Jr., lead participant, Siler City.
Intent: Manufacture and sell a patented meat tenderness tester. Market “John’s Score” as the standard marker of meat quality, supplementing the USDA quality grade.
Intent: Manufacture and sell the Dykers Ring, a urological device for managing male urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction.
Intent: Make a device to accurately call balls and strikes without disrupting the flow and ambiance of baseball games.
• Justin Streuli and Zack Mohorn, Open Ledge, Greensboro.
Intent: Create a downtown “startup accelerator” to invest in local companies or attract promising startups; build a co-working space conducive to innovation and creativity; connect entrepreneurs with Greensboro’s largest companies to solve problems and fill voids at the companies.
• Justin Streuli, Open Ledge, Greensboro.
Intent: Create a “climate action plan” to turn Greensboro into a carbon-neutral city by 2050.
• Keith Bunch, lead participant, Greensboro.
Intent: Make the city healthier through incentives to reduce the body-mass-index score of its residents.
• Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro , United Way of Greater Greensboro.
Intent: Create a task force to work on increasing the number of adults with college degrees to create a funding collaborative to invest in employer-driven career advancement for workers and to connect resources to improve job opportunities.
• Kimberly Brown, president and CEO, KimBees, Greensboro.
Intent: With the Carolina Coffee Roasting Co., open a manufacturing facility to make tea, coffee and packaged baked goods.
• Richard Canady Baxter, former Davidson County health director, and Elizabeth H. Stephens, retired public health administrative consultant, state of North Carolina.
Intent: Promote Greensboro through an “if you build it, they will come” theme by uncovering and enhancing the city’s artistic and historic identity through citizen involvement and public pride.
• Patricia Green, consultant, Smyth Co.
Intent: Market and brand Greensboro through numerous activities, including creating a downtown factory outlet mall; buy businesses such as Twinkies and move them to Greensboro; create a reality TV show set in Greensboro; attract a major league sports team or a casino; improve services to help the poor and homeless; and open more charter schools.
• Marlando D. Pridgen, lead participant, Greensboro.
Intent: Created an International Center for Educational Advancement with additional economic growth ideas and strategies.
• Michael Stumpf, principal, Place Dynamics, Milwaukee.
Intent: Promote the growth of small businesses and sole proprietorships. Example: develop a culture and support system for entrepreneurship and microbusiness growth.
• Michelle Dennard, navigational thinker and general counsel, Thinkspot, lead participating company, Tallahassee, Fla.
Intent: Emphasize collaboration and commitment from business, independent and government stakeholders to advance meaningful change, through stakeholder alignment, shaping a plan based on specific goals and developing an integrated marketing communication plan.
• Kori Ann Edwards, senior vice president of operations, LSI Business Development, Layton, Utah
Intent: Create partnerships between the universities and colleges in greater Greensboro and the private sector.
• Pramod and Varsha Vyas, Greensboro.
Intent: Create a recycling program involving local waste disposal companies and various businesses.
• Rob Bencini, certified economic developer; Mark Kirstner, land-use and transportation planning professional; Meryl Mullane, Mullane Public Relations; Sam Funchess, president, Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship; Bob Powell, assistant professor at N.C. AT, Greensboro.
Intent: Increase the capacity of residents to “self-generate” income through up to a dozen different projects that help citizens re-engage with the workplace. Example: Provide training in 3-D printing.
• Robert Aldin Lee, Lilburn, Ga.
Proposal: Take concrete and persuasive steps to lure a division of an existing organization with up to 2,000 jobs to the city.
• Sam Casella , Belleair, Fla.
Intent: Undertake a coordinated effort to develop technically skilled workers for Greensboro’s target industries with emphasis on a well-balanced workforce and with emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
• Sam Funchess, president CEO, Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, Greensboro.
Intent: Expand the Entrepreneur Assistance Support and Education Program services at the Nussbaum Center. The program has staff or interns who provide hands-on assistance to entrepreneurs and their companies.
Intent: Create an entrepreneur capital fund to help growth companies when other sources of funding are not available, to fill the gap between bank and venture capital funding.
Intent: Expand business incubator services at the Nussbaum Center, to address reductions caused by the economic downturn.
• Orachut Leoviriyakit, president, SSC Engineering, Haddon Township, N.J.
Intent: Propose the economic development strategy that will transform Greensboro into a “sustainable compact city” and promote a vibrant and healthy lifestyle, based on strengthening collective efforts, leveraging the city’s history and cultural assets, and redefining it as the focal point of academic excellence.
• Sumner Fineberg, Jamestown.
Intent: Unite Triad cities by building a system used of limited-access roadways used only by buses for nonstop transport to terminals in each city. Later, add electric-powered buses.
• Teresa Lynch, lead participant , principal, Mass Economics, research and consulting firm, Cambridge, Mass.
Intent: Develop strategy for Greensboro in the global economy with focus on creating cluster specializations, assets and linkages to translate the city’s strong export base into near- and long-term employment and income growth.
• Tom Philion, president and CEO, ArtsGreensboro.
Intent: Promote arts-driven economic development through such additions as a glass-blowing studio and education center powered by landfill methane gas in east Greensboro; an updated Cultural Center Campus downtown; an environment for producing commercially viable theater, mixed media, art, music and national residency projects; and a community-sourced creative campus on South Elm Street.
• Veronica Foster, accredited bridal consultant, Behind The Scenes, Greensboro.
Intent: Use public locations and small businesses such as photographers, design companies and caterers to inform those getting married or having parties and corporate meetings about what Greensboro can offer. Proposal: Hold a grand reopening of Greensboro to generate revenue for small businesses.
• Victoria Kiechel, lead participant, School of International Service, American University, Washington.
Intent: With students from American University and New York University, develop a strategy to improve the environment, equity and economy of Greensboro. Projects will focus on infill development in urban and outlying areas and on the role of public space.
• Vision Tree Community Development Corp.
A collaboration of the Guilford County public health department, N.C. AT, Greensboro Housing Authority, Cooperative Extension, N.C. Center for Environmental Farming Systems, Farm Incubator Project, Community Transformation Project, Interactive Resource Center, Guilford County Sheriff’s Prison Farm and UNCG’s Communication Department.
Intent: Eliminate “food deserts” in Greensboro to increase access to healthy food, improve the health of the community and reduce chronic disease; and provide job training. Target audience is the 5,000 local households that receive help under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
• Wayne E. Sharpe, Greensboro.
Intent: Build a facility at the “under-used White Street Landfill” to create alternative fuel using organic methane byproducts to power city operations.
• William Graves, lead participant, associate professor economic geography, UNC-Charlotte.
Intent: Market Greensboro globally to firms and “human capital” as the hub of a commuter-rail transportation network connecting research clusters in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charlotte and the Triangle, while touting the low cost of doing business and living in the city.
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