Three South Carolina business leaders sat on a panel before a full house to discuss the topic, “Working Through the Recession”: Mike Brenan, State/Group president for BB&T since 2000 and current chair, Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce; Wayne Culbertson, executive vice president of Personnel and Chief Human Resources officer for Michelin North America; David Dunn, founder (1994), chairman and CEO of VC3, which recently occupied the entire 18th floor and parts of the ground floor and the 7th floor of the Wilbur Smith Building. The event was hosted by South Carolina Business Publications May 26 at Embassy Suites.
One of the first questions was, “How in the world did we get to where we are today?” which was followed by, “How’s your industry doing?” Brenan offered derivatives as an illustration of what went wrong in finance, beginning in 2007. Culbertson said tire sales can work well as a leading indicator of where the economy is headed, and tire sales are booming. Dunn said his VC3 hightech operation was somewhat divided into two halves: local government and small business. The demands from local government are almost recession proof, while small business customers are in the depths of the Great Recession like everybody else.
Culbertson shared his experience at Michelin where he had a choice a few years ago: lay off several hundred people or put 6,000 on a 32- hour work week. He chose the latter, and after tire sales recently picked up, all 6,000 of the participants in the 32- hour work week experience got small bonus checks totaling $4 million in “thank you notes.”
Dunn’s VC3 anticipated a rebound and invested in new products and services, spending on keeping employees on the payroll even though there was a falloff in their regular small business customer base. All this while Dunn expected a second dip in the economy, which still hasn’t happened.
Brenan was proud to report BB&T has never reported a quarterly loss. In the financial crisis of 2008, BB&T took the Obama administration’s TARP but was first to pay it back. With all its client workouts, BB&T actually grew employment to handle the work brought on by the financial crisis.
Culbertson’s Michelin has 22,000 employees in North America, including 7,000 in South Carolina. Since its 1981 start in Lexington County, Michelin has grown to 1,800 workers with another 270 on the way due to its just-announced $200 million investment there.
In hiring practices, all three panelists praised South Carolina’s higher education institutions, particularly its technical college system. Brenan’s BB&T recruits from all the SEC and ACC schools because they’re in the bank’s market domain, making BB&T one of America’s 10 largest.
Culbertson warned the crowd raw materials for tires were dramatically gaining in price, suggesting inflation for the near future. Dunn reminded everyone the second dip in the Great Recession hasn’t occurred, and maybe it never will. Dunn said he was cautiously optimistic. Brenan called the expansion of the Port of Charleston a home run for South Carolina manufacturing and other sectors of the economy. “ The future’s bright,” said Brenan in closing.
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