The North Carolina World Trade Association will be coming to the greater Wilmington, Fayetteville and Greenville areas with the formation of a new Southeast Chapter.
Their mission is to encourage growth of trade between North Carolina and the world by providing opportunities for networking, education, and advocacy.
The president of the newly formed chapter is Tom Guthrie from the NC State Ports Authority. “This is a perfect time, post-Covid to engage the international businesses in our region. By providing education and networking opportunities we hope to understand and build local capabilities, share global best practices and increase international opportunities for our community,” said Guthrie in a press release.
International Business Development Counselor Paige O’Neill shared the reason for starting this new chapter: “There wasn’t enough collaboration between international business people across the area. We felt that there would be good networking opportunities to share best practices in Fayetteville, Wilmington and Greenville.”
The inaugural Board of Directors is composed of individuals from the local business community, the Small Business Technology Development Center and UNCW. Members include:
“We want to be able to do some matchmaking between people who have international loan opportunities, bankers and accountants, and legal staff that they may not be aware of now as well as grants from North Carolina and the US government,” added O’Neill.
The Chapter will be launching their first event in September. It will be a meet and greet centered around gaining feedback from members as to what types of educational opportunities they would like to explore in the first year.
The membership drive is now open. To join, visit https://ncworldtrade.org/chapters/southeast-chapter/
To wrap up the first day, attendees were able to meet up for a social event at the Brad Halling American Whiskey Ko. in Southern Pines where a $10,000 check was presented to the Joint Special Operations Foundation for their scholarship fund. Photo pr
The three-story, 200,000 square-foot business incubator space is located at 420 Maiden Lane. The building features an elevator, construction has begun on handicap bathrooms for the first floor and the second and third floors feature window walls offering views of Segra Stadium.
Image provided by FTCCFocused on building the local workforce and streamlining the education process through real world learning, the Hope, Opportunity, Prosperity through Education Program at Fayetteville Technical Community College (FTCC), also kno
