Some of you may be wondering today what an educational leader can tell you business leaders, or in fact, you may even wonder what we have in common. In fact, as I have looked at it, I find that we have everything in common and that the histories and the futures of both our community college system, and your industry, not only share remarkable parallels, they are inextricably linked. They are so linked in fact, that some of you may even consider whether I should be made an honorary member of The Carolinas Textile Club.

    First, our histories. Of course the industrialization of North Carolina has its roots with the textile industry. Much of this shift to a manufacturing economy occurred during the late 1940s to 1970 when the percentage of agricultural jobs in North Carolina declined from 42% to 8%, while the number of manufacturing jobs increased from 28% to 40%. By 1970, 39% of North Carolina's manufacturing jobs were in textiles.

    To make the shift from a primarily agricultural state to an industrial state required trained manufacturing workers and North Carolina leaders, at the behest and with the support of the North Carolina textile industry, developed programs and institutions to address this issue. The first training institution in North Carolina we are very proud eventually became the 59^th community college institution, and of course I am referring to the Center for Applied Textile Technology in Belmont. The Textile Center pioneered in showing how industrial development and workforce development are linked, and set the tone for State sponsored customized training, not only in North Carolina but across the nation.

    Shortly after the creation of the Textile Center, Governor Luther Hodges recruited a young textile engineer, Wade Martin of Cannon Mills, to join his new staff in Raleigh and explore how the State could further promote industrialization. The answer was obviously training and education, and in 1957 the first Industrial Education Center was established in Burlington to provide vocational training to future and current employees of the textile and other industries. Governor Hodges was a real visionary leader, initiating and promoting such ideas at the time as Research Triangle Park, and he pushed the development of other Industrial Education Centers throughout the state. By 1962, there were 34,000 students enrolled in 20 state-sponsored Industrial Education Centers. A year later under the leadership of Governor Terry Sanford and State Education Chairman, Dallas Herring, the community college system was developed out of the roots of the Industrial Education Centers. We are extremely proud of these industry education roots and mission -- a mission that is somewhat unique for higher education -- and just last month we honored the late Governor Hodges for his contributions to the development of the Industrial Education Center Network, and the eventual community college system, by dedicating and naming the System Office lobby in his honor.

    The North Carolina textile industry has grown tremendously since the middle of the 20^th century, as has the community college system. With 2 million jobs, textiles are the largest manufacturing sector in the U.S. and contributes more to the Gross Domestic Product than metals automobiles, paper or petroleum production. We are very proud that North Carolina, with almost 150,000 jobs, is the leading textile state in the nation.

    We too have grown up from our earlier roots. The North Carolina Community College System is today the third largest system in the nation, and has been ranked the number one worker training program in the United States the past two years. Each year one in eight North Carolina adults enrolls in a community college program at one of our 59 institutions. Our growth and development as an educational institution, and your growth as an industry, have not just coincidentally paralleled one another, they have, I believe, also greatly contributed to one another.

    Today, as we look to the future, at the start of a new millennium, you as textile leaders clearly realize, as I do, that our past no way insures our future. Of the 12 largest Fortune 100 companies in America at the start of the 1900s, only one of those companies, General Electric, is in existence today.

    Looking into the next millennium and beyond, some people look at economic trends and wonder what your role will be 50 years out in the North Carolina economy? Similarly, there are some who look at education trends and wonder what our role will be 50 years from now.

    Obviously, no industry in our state has been hit harder by economic changes than the textile industry. Last year, North Carolina experienced a record number of announced layoffs -- over 30,000 -- of which 1/3 were in the textile and apparel industry. Last year we lost almost 9% of the total textile jobs here in our state. And also last year, total U.S. textile sales were 5% below 1998 and the lowest figure since 19991, and profits were down 63 percent. Some people openly wonder where the textile industry fits in North Carolina's high tech economy.

    Similarly, even though community colleges are a growing business and we expect 100,000 additional students in the next decade, some look at the technology landscape as it applies to training and education and wonder where we fit in. Internet-based training is here to stay and growing at a remarkable rate. The corporate e-learning market was 1.1 billion dollars last year and expected to grow 900% to $11 billion in just four years. In today's technology oriented economy, two years of higher education is not enough for many of the new jobs. Where do community colleges fit into this changing landscape?

    Textiles and community colleges have been so much about North Carolina's economic past, will they be a part of North Carolina's economic future? Clearly, I think the answer is a resounding yes, but the ways we both go about our business in the future are likely to be very different.

    One of the reasons I remain optimistic about the important role of textiles in our State's economy is that last year, our community colleges sponsored 197 new and expanding industry training projects throughout the State, and of the all the different industries we supported, textiles comprised the third highest number of projects behind only metals and plastics. In recent years, through the New and Expanding Industry Training Program, we are and have supported special training projects for North Carolina textile and apparel companies across the state including Burlington Industries, Arden-Benhur Mills, Unifi, National Spinning, Westpoint Stevens, Four Leaf Textiles, Woodland Mills, 3Tex, Great American Knitting, Glenoit, Glen Raven Mills, Royal Home Fashions, Jones Apparel, Cone Mills, Dan River, Four Leaf, Mastercraft Fabrics, Woodland Mills, Spectrum Dyed Yarns, Santonny Wear, Liberty Embroidery, Mayo Yarns, Springwood Fabrics, Ashley Products, Pro-Stitch, McDade Apparel, J. Schneider Fabrics and I'm sure I've left several out. (Incidentally, 2/3 of all the companies we supported through this very important program last year were expanding existing companies and 68% were located in the rural areas of North Carolina).

    Some in our state assume that all textile jobs are heading south and overseas. We know differently. While the textile industry is shedding many lower skill jobs, many of you are opening or expanding plants that require significant new workers and front-line managers with skills at a much higher level. Gone are the doffers of yesterday, today's thriving North Carolina textile companies require highly trained technicians and we are proud that our training programs are playing a key part in both training new workers and retraining existing workers for the North Carolina textile industry of the 21^st century.

    It is for this reason that community colleges hold an even more important role today and in the future in the new economy. The Internet is actually increasing demands on our training and not only erasing our service area borders, but also stretching our impact. We recently had an individual from Pakistan enroll in one of our Internet courses. The demand for higher level skills, and 4 years of college for many careers, is likewise making greater demands on community colleges. Through our college transfer programs, we are increasingly becoming the avenues through which North Carolinians are gaining their first two years of college; and even more interestingly are the reverse transfer phenomenon. More and more North Carolinians -- as much as 25% of the students at some colleges -- already have 4-year degrees and are coming back to community colleges for specific skills training.

    As another parallel, the keys to the competitiveness of both the North Carolina textile industry and the North Carolina Community College System, I believe, are the same: 1) effective utilization of new technologies; and 2) the flexibility and customization of our products and services. You know this about your own industry, because those of you who are planning a production future in North Carolina are making significant investments in technology -- if you're not, than you don't have a future. And you are developing and utilizing new, flexible production processes that can produce 10 or 10,000 products in the specific requirements to meet your customer's needs, at a quality standard they can count on.

    We two are utilizing new technologies for delivery of our product, education, whether it is over the North Carolina Information Highway, cable access and public television, and increasingly the Internet. Some of our colleges are national pioneers in distance learning, such as nearby Stanly Community College which is the national pilot college for on-line Cisco Academy Training. And all of our colleges are participating in the creation of the Virtual Learning Community, a common bank of quality Internet training programs which all of our colleges can provide to students located here in North Carolina and throughout the world. My hope would be that we will develop textile-specific courses in the future where not only your North Carolina employees can access them, but your international employees as well.

    To promote flexibility and customization of our training, we are actively involved in developing competency-based, short-term training programs that can be offered as stand-alone modules or as series of courses leading to industry recognized certifications. We are currently providing funds to the Textile Center to further develop their series of certificate programs in such areas as Textile Technology Introduction, Yarn Manufacturing, Wet Processing, Weaving Technology, and Knitting, and to develop computer-based training support materials in some of these areas.

    Speaking of weaving, the Textile Center has worked closely with my staff in Raleigh to weave their work on certification programs into our new North Carolina Manufacturing Certification Program, a program that has garnered the recommendation of the National Association of Manufacturers' Center for Workforce Success. Community colleges throughout the state are now able to provide a Level I Manufacturing Fundamentals program with courses in manufacturing concepts, teamwork and communications, math and measurement, problem solving, computers in manufacturing, statistical process control and the business of manufacturing, and those courses will seamlessly flow into the Textile Center certification offerings in the industry specific areas.

    While I am not an educator, I realize that I have been lecturing you here for a little while in my attempt to demonstrate to you not only the parallels in our circumstances, but the inextricable linkages between the textile industry and community colleges in our state. So I'm going to take a big chance and close by really being an educator and give you a quick quiz. I'm going to read you a statement from a North Carolina leader which I think captures the connection between industrial development and education in our state that I hope I have shed some light on today, and then I am going to ask you who said it. Here's the quote:

"You will hear some whisperings abroad saying that we have done enough, have moved well and far and rapidly, and so it is time now to slow down, rest, and catch our breath.

These whispers come from the fearful and those who have always opposed the accomplishments from which they now would rest. This cannot be and is not the spirit of North Carolina.

Much remains to be done, to provide better educational opportunities for the competition our children will surely face, to encourage broader economic development so everybody will have a better chance to make a better living. Now is the time to move forward. Now is no time to loaf along."

That’s the quote so here is the test. Who said the preceding quote and when? Was it?

1. Governor Jim Hunt arguing in a speech for his educational agenda before the recent General Assembly; or was it
2. Charlotte's Erskine Bowles presenting the recommendations of the recent North Carolina Rural Prosperity Task Force last year to Governor Hunt and legislative leaders; or was it
3. Governor Terry Sanford in 1963 putting forth his agenda to the North Carolina General Assembly which had as its centerpiece, the creation of the Community College System.

    Well, you can probably tell now that this is a rhetorical prop and that the correct answer is Governor Terry Sanford in his required legislative address in 1963. And one of the things to take from this quote, a quote that could easily have been said by a North Carolina leader today, almost 40 years later – here comes the lesson from the educator – is that difficult choices and challenges about investments in education have always been on the North Carolina landscape, and the willingness of our leaders to invest in higher education have had a tremendous impact on the development of the textile and other industries in our State.

    Last Tuesday, the leaders of our State put the future of higher education in North Carolina to you to decide. And many of you here today and others around our State made a tremendous commitment to North Carolina higher education by overwhelmingly voting for the largest bond package in North Carolina state history. On behalf of North Carolina, your vote said that we will move forward, we will not loaf alone, and will result in crucial facility renovations and development at ever university and community college campus in our State.

    On behalf of the entire North Carolina Community College System and our close colleagues at the University System, I want to thank you. For your commitment. You in turn have my commitment that as we do in fact move forward, we will never lose sight of our roots and our commitment to the North Carolina textile industry. Thank you very much.

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