Tar Heel Bus Tour participants sported safety goggles Monday for their stop at Grady-White Boats.
The tour, which for five days immerses new faculty from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in state culture and
history, stopped at the boat production facility where the professors
toured the building and observed the inner workings of the company.
Jenni Farrow/The Daily Reflector |
Grady-White tour guide Justin Wallace, above, leads a group of UNC professors through the building.
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The bus tour program began in 1997 as a way for incoming faculty to
get acquainted with the state, inspiring them to develop projects and
research that address its challenges. After leaving Greenville, the
group made its way further east to Beaufort.
The day's tour guide, Grady-White customer relations supervisor
Eddie Rowe, emphasized the history of the company and the reputation it
has gained.
"This is truly a local success story," he said. "We are
family-fishing people and we have built our company off of those
values."
The facility tour impressed history professor Louise McReynolds, who
said she spoke with several workers while walking among boats in
various stages of construction.
"I am just so fascinated by the way they build these boats," she
said. "I talked to one worker who just really loved her job laminating.
This seems like a great place to be employed."
At the conclusion of the tourRowe showed the group into the company
cafeteria for a question-and-answer session led by Grady-White
President Kris Carroll. Carroll explained how personal relationships
shape the industry.
"I hope you can see the emphasis we place on people; that's what
building boats is about," she said. "What we build becomes a part of
people's lives, and we take that very seriously."
Mike Bradley, , spoke about the growing boat-building industry.
"As we continue to lose our textile industry, the boat-building
business is one of the few growing industries in the state," he said.
North Carolina continues to add new manufacturers and has the
fastest growing marine industry in the nation, employing 30,000 state
residents, Bradley said.
Ricardo Morse, an assistant professor in the School of Government,
said he planned to take the information he learned on the tour back
with him to campus
"I teach and work with management a lot in the public sphere, and
although this is different I was extremely impressed by the high
management strategies used here," he said "I just think this place is
thriving, and the entire industry has a ton of upside."
