A Favorite “Can Do” Agurb®

I returned to one of my favorite agurbs® on Thursday. Mooresville, NC is a vibrant, can do community that realized that they had to reinvent themselves from being a one industry town, did so very successfully, and today is a booming town with tremendous potential. I sat down with five of the citizens who engineered this restructuring in the 80s and discussed how they accomplished so much.

In the early ‘80s Mooresville, with a population of 9,000, had 7 textile mills that employed 5,600 workers. The hospital was failing, losing $500,000/year and was down to only 7 doctors. Mayor Joe Knox and the other 4 local citizens decided that they needed to diversify their industrial base. They bought some farmland on contract to turn into an industrial park. They thought they would be lucky to get anyone to buy the failing hospital but found a for-profit hospital group that paid them $5 million. They used the funds from the hospital to pay for the industrial land and infrastructure. Today they have over 5,000 new industrial jobs even as the textile mills all closed with the last one closing its doors in 1999.

Meanwhile, a NASCAR race team moved to town along with a few auto racing suppliers. They branded their town “Race City USA” and actively recruited in race teams. Today 49 teams call Mooresville home and over 150 other racing related businesses have sprung up or moved to town. Racing related investments in Mooresville have totaled $40 million + over the past five years, creating over 600 new jobs in 2 million sf of space. Dale Earnhardt’s “Garagemahol” HQ alone employees 250 people and brings in 230,000 tourists/year. What a wonderful cluster for a town!

Last year Lowe’s did a nationwide search for a new HQ location for their company. They were no longer able to recruit in executives to their small town because of the poor school system. The final straw was when the community refused to pass a bond referendum to begin to fix the problems. “A world class company won’t stay in a community with a second class educational system” said Melanie O'Connell Underwood, Mooresville dynamic head of economic development. After their nationwide search, Lowe's choose Mooresville NC as their HQ hometown.
I loved what Steve S. Robinson, one of those original five said about their success, “Through care, planning, volunteer team spirit, energy, persistence, and great good fortune, we "pulled ourselves up with our own bootstraps. We were young, hungry, and had a sense that we could accomplish anything if we set our minds and will to it. Mostly we just wouldn't take no for an answer that was acceptable. We believed we could achieve, and did!”