[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Join me on the next "Side By Side," as we hear how a lifetime of public service and philanthropy has transformed the life of a North Carolinian who once pumped gas for a living.

Today, we'll talk with Mr. Greensboro, Jim Melvin.

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[bright music] ♪ - Jim Melvin, everybody knows you as Mr. Greensboro.

And they know you that way because you have dedicated your life to your home city.

You were born in Greensboro, you became the Mayor of Greensboro, you were a banker in Greensboro, now you are the Chairman and CEO of the Joseph M Bryan Foundation.

Your whole life has been about service, and where did that come from?

Did your daddy teach you that?

Did your mommy teach you that?

- Well as a matter of fact, Nido, my dad did.

My dad ran a little one-horse service station in south of Greensboro.

And unfortunately he was killed in a holdup in that later on.

But he kept trying to- - How young were you?

How old were you when that happened?

- I had just become mayor.

It was in 1972.

But my dad always wanted to try to make the community better and especially South Greensboro where we grew up.

And I watched he and my mother do things for other people and give for other people.

But where I learned it with the Greensboro, or the Jaycees.

The Jaycees formerly were a great organization, a leadership, and I had the privilege of going all over the world because of the Jaycees.

And it taught me that if you do something for somebody else, you keep it forever.

Whatever you do for yourself, it's gone quickly.

And then I, you know, know when I got into the public office, and Rich Preyer was sort of my mentor, he was our congressman, wonderful fellow.

He taught me that, if you can get your young people educated and then have them a good job, you've done your job.

And so that's what I've been trying to do.

Now as you know, our region got killed in the late '90s and 2000s.

We lost 10,000 jobs.

When you lose companies like Burlington Industries, the largest textile mill in the world, we had to do something.

And the Piedmont Triad Partnership was a group of about 30 people, business leaders.

And they came up with the idea that, let's get back in the game.

- Yeah, let me ask you, what is it that, first of all, I wanna know, what is it that keeps you going?

You've done this for so long.

Why at this stage in your life you are still pumping?

You're still attending meetings, you're still doing work, you're still full-time at the Joseph M Bryan Foundation.

Give us a little hint of what is it that keeps Jim Melvin so active, excited, and enthusiastic?

- Well, one, I learned later on that common sense and enthusiasm, and who do you like to be around?

You like to be around people who are enthusiastic, who are excited about what they're doing and are trying to do something for somebody else.

So when I, and a lot of my friends have retired and a lot of them have passed away.

I'm not against retirement, but I still think you need to stay vital.

You need to stay doing something for somebody else.

And I still get up every morning pretty excited about going to work and doing something.

For instance, right now, I just mentioned to your friend, Kelly King, we're working on trying to build another huge soccer lacrosse complex.

Well think about, you know, that keeps you going.

You're not worried about- - It gives you a purpose for the tomorrows of one's life.

- And you're not worried about yourself.

- Yeah.

- Now as you know, [chuckling] I'm getting to a mature age, and every once in a while you got a new pain, but you just can't let that take you down.

- Yeah, and that's been your secret all along.

And we all watch you from near and afar with admiration, Jim.

How did you and Joseph, Joe Bryan became friends?

How did you guys meet?

How did you become friends?

- Well, that's an interesting story and we just documented it.

Rich Preyer and I went to see Mr. And Mrs. Bryan at their home.

We were trying to get them to increase their United Way contribution from $5,000 a year to 30.

And that was a long time ago when that was a lot of money.

And so we created the Bryan Venture Capital Fund.

And it still goes today.

The Foundation puts in $300,000 a year to that fund for the United Way.

And we let the United, the purpose of that was to explore new problems.

See, the United Way, back in those days had 32 agencies and so all that money was allocated to those 32 agencies.

- I see, I see.

- So, Mr. Bryan loved the idea of having some flex money that you could go look at drug action problems or things like that- - Find a new need and fill it.

- New need.

And they had the resources to do it.

And so at that point, we became good friends.

And he told me, this is a beautiful story, I know we've got short time but, he told me, when we left that day, Rich and I, he said, "I bet you're gonna be just like everybody else that comes in here."

And I said, I had just met him, I said, "Mr. Bryan, why would you say that?"

And he said, "Well."

And I said, "I promise you that when we do what we're gonna do this year with your money, we will take you there."

And so we did.

And it was a stage thing down in South Greensboro and the kids put on these little shows.

And just as we were leaving, a little 10 year old kid, African American chap, cute as he could be, ran out of the crowd and grabbed Mr. Bryan by the hand.

And he said, "I want to sing you a song."

Completely unrehearsed.

[Nido laughs] And so he sang the most beautiful rendition of "Jesus Loves Me" that you've ever heard.

There wasn't a dry eye in that group.

And we didn't have to worry about selling Mr. Bryan the value of that program.

And so that's how I got to know him.

Now he created the Bryan Foundation in 1984.

He died in 1995.

People don't believe this, but I knew he had a lot of money 'cause he gave a lot of money away, granted it away, but I had never seen any of his finances, any, any.

But when he passed away, we found out that he had left his entire state to this community.

Think of that.

- To the community in Greensboro.

- Well, greater Greensboro.

- Greater Greensboro.

- And so we got serious.

And then in '97 we opened the Bryan Foundation.

- I see, I see.

And you've done a lot of good work ever since then.

All right, so you began talking about economic advancement in our region, that we've lost a lot of jobs in this triad region of North Carolina.

And then you have put an enormous amount of time, as long as I can remember for the last 10 years, Jim Melvin always was talking about a megasite.

What is a megasite?

And I know today there's been a great success story that comes out of it.

Tell us what a megasite is.

How does one form megasite and what's happening today?

- Well, if you look at the southeast, all the states in the southeast, they were booming, especially with automobile manufacturing.

And North Carolina was the only state that didn't have one.

- We have it in like Spartanburg, Greenville area down in South Carolina.

- Right.

That was my role model, our role model.

And Mr. Milliken down there who was in the textile business but he saw what was coming- - Roger Milliken, yes.

- And so he went out and got the BMW.

But a megasite is just not a big piece of land.

And I've said this many a time.

- You mean it's more than that?

- You got to have everything together.

And what I say- - Like, roads, utilities, like what?

- Water, sewer, utilities, electricity.

You gotta have the zoning.

You gotta have the transportation.

You gotta have the rail- - Access to highways, access to highways.

- Rail and highways, and you gotta have it all.

And so 10 years ago we started out to create a megasite.

And I've said this many a time, if you've got the prettiest daughter in town, you don't have to worry about people calling on you, young lads calling on you.

Well, we put together the most beautiful site in the country.

And- - How did you do that, Jim?

- Well, we were lucky, and I say this many times, it's about my golf game, I'd rather be lucky than good 'cause you don't have to practice luck.

But the first thing that we did, and see, nobody had ever done this in the state.

And the state is now trying to duplicate what we did.

And so we put together a group of about 20 people.

And every one of those people had a reason to be there, like Duke energy, water, sewer, transportation- - People who brought influence and resources to the project.

- The people who had a reason to put something on this megasite.

And we worked together for 10 years, and we'd meet every other month.

We didn't have to worry about attendance.

People were dying to be there, 'cause we had, what we were looking for is to create about 20,000 jobs and think about what that would do to the region.

Well the other thing, I've said this many a time, it takes a community to raise a child.

It takes a region to do a megasite.

The city of Greensboro deserves a great deal of, in a 30 minute work session, they approved $21 million worth of water sewer to our site.

It went from Guilford, Greensboro, Guilford, to Randolph County, and they asked nothing in return.

- Where's the megasite located?

- It's right at the county line of Guilford and Randolph County.

- And today- - It's close to Liberty.

- And today a big company announced that they're gonna build there and start there, correct?

- Not only that, they are, it's wide open.

We have 1,825 acres.

There are 1,700 earth moving equipment on that site.

It has been deemed the largest construction project east of the Mississippi in the United States of America in the year 2022.

- Wow, wow.

- And now going back to luck, we have been fortunate in attracting one of the best corporations in the world.

Toyota, whatever they do, they do right.

And they are very employee-oriented.

And when, you know, and I had a picnic down at a little church of all the people who worked on it.

And I said, "When you go to bed tonight, and I want you to think about something.

10 years from now, there'll probably be 30, 40,000 people working here.

They won't know who we are, won't won't care who we are.

But you have given them an opportunity to work for one of the best companies in the world.

They'll have high salaries, they'll have wonderful fringe benefits, and think about what it's gonna do to our region."

- Economically, socially, familiarly, in every way.

Let me ask you this, how does one put together, what did you say, 18?

- 20 people.

- And how many- - 1,800.

Well that's something I wanna quickly say that I told the Governor, Pat McCrory, that if you'll get the incentives, we'll get the site.

Well, I'm a fire ready aim.

- Yes.

- I didn't know what I was talking about.

After the meeting, we found out there was 92 property owners on that property.

- I see.

- So we had- - And you bought 'em all in the end, you bought 'em all in the end.

- Well, ultimately, had bought 'em all, but we hired two great realtors, Sam Simpson and David Joseph.

They came up with a great idea.

They went down and met with, there was a lot of opposition, but they came up with the idea of let's offer two and a half times tax value, if you're willing to sell, and the phone started ringing.

And so about six months ago, we gifted, and oh, by the way, I gotta quickly tell you that there are two people, Mr. Bryan, of course, without his money we would not be playing, okay?

But then John Motley Morehead, who was the Governor of North Carolina, when the Southern Railroad was running the route from Washington to Atlanta, he insisted that it come through Greensboro.

And he also, now think of this as vision.

He required that they set aside 100 miles of the main line, and he created the North Carolina Railroad.

And that money is to be used for the economic betterment of the state of North Carolina.

And that was in 1849.

Think of that as vision.

And that without the North Carolina Railroad, Randolph County was huge in this, but without the North Carolina Railroad, we would have run outta money.

- I see.

- And we gifted about $50 million worth of real estate to Toyota.

One of the wonderful things about our project, it's a nonprofit.

We're not in there to make money, to sell it and so forth.

Now, the people who did make money were the ones who owned the property.

- Sold the property, yeah.

- That's right.

So it's a beautiful story.

- It's a great story.

Jim, I got so much I want to ask you.

First, is the Morehead Scholarship at UNC named for John Morehead?

- No, that's his son.

- That's his son.

Okay.

- His son was head of Union Carbide.

- Okay, you're such an historian and I'm trying to learn from you.

I gotta ask you another question.

What is it that the Bryan Foundation focus on today?

What are the two or three projects that, you've already told me about one through the United Way, what is your direction?

Is it, for example, education?

I know that University of North Carolina, Greensboro, the business school is named for Mr. Bryan.

What are two or three things that you focus on?

- Well, obviously it's, Mr. Bryan was concerned that our area would stay in the economic mainstream.

Well, look what happened.

I mean, he really realized what was gonna happen to us.

We lost all of our textile tobacco and furniture and so forth.

And so he, economic development was our main thrust.

We built the baseball stadium.

Think about this, we built and paid $22 and a half million to build a minor league baseball stadium in our community.

So how many foundations would do that?

And since I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Bryan so personally, when we consider a project, we think about him and would he want us to do that?

- [Nido] Yeah, it's a great angle.

- And it's not our pet interest now.

- I've always heard you, when someone compliments something that you've been a part of, you've always said, "Thank Mr. Bryan, thank Mr. Bryan.

- That's right.

- Let me ask a couple quick questions.

One, are you mad that ACC offices moved out of Greensboro?

- No.

Let them do what they want to do.

You know, since that's happened, we've announced Toyota, we've announced Boom.

- Supersonic.

- Supersonic, we're talking about thousands of high paying quality jobs.

The ACC's important, it is, and we hated to see it go, and Charlotte's always had it on its agenda to track them.

And so, it's over.

- When you think about Raleigh and the triangle, when you think about Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, in Greensboro, high point of Winston-Salem sits in the middle.

Now it's moving, vis-a-vis what you just talked about, new jobs, megasite, tremendous economic enhancement.

Did the airports hurt the Greensboro-High Point, Winston-Salem more vis-a-vis the Raleigh Airport, RDU became a big one, the Charlotte Airport became a big one.

And it was difficult for the Greensboro-High Point and Salem Airport to attract, let's say, big airlines frequently or maybe even something like a Southwest.

Where does that play into the evolution and growth of this area?

- Well, and Kevin Baker deserves a wonderful amount of credit.

He's head of our airport.

- He's the Executive Director of our airport.

- Executive Director.

Well, we're not a hub.

And and if you look at the philosophy of their airlines, we're not gonna be a hub.

So what are they working on?

We're gonna be, we could be the manufacturing hub of making airplanes.

We've got Honda, Honda's been hugely successful.

- And Honda's making these smaller, - These private jets.

- private jets, yes.

And now we got Boom.

- As a supersonic- - Supersonic airliners.

- What are they gonna be building?

- They're gonna be building airliners, supersonic.

One of the quick things- - They're gonna be making parts here or building the actual plane?

- They're gonna build the airplane.

- Really?

- They're gonna, they are building the hangar.

I mean, they're building the manufacturing plant right now.

And the interesting thing, the lady who's the CEO, and by the way, she has two daughters, and one of 'em is at Eline and the other one's at Wake Forest, okay.

And so she loves our area.

But she said one of the reasons we chose the Piedmont Triad Airport was that you've got two 10,000 foot runways, but they're not crowded.

We needed to have runway space.

And the other thing is, and I never thought about this, you're close to the ocean and we need to do all of our testing over the ocean because they hit the sonic boom.

- I see.

- And that's why they got the name Boom, but they can't do their test flights over land because the damage it will do on the land.

- I see.

- So we ended up with that.

Kevin is gonna end up, there are already about 10,000 people working on that airport, high paying jobs.

- [Nido] Wow.

- And that now we're gonna attract even more.

- So Jim, as you, as you look at the past and you look at the future, what frustrates you?

Anything frustrates you or you just very happy with the development of what's going on?

- Well, no, it frustrates me.

It really just kills me that the corporate headquarters that we've lost, and some of 'em there was no reason to do that.

- The VF Corporation, BB&T.

- Yeah.

Jefferson Pilot.

- Jefferson Pilot.

- Now Lincoln.

And so we've got to refill up that hole.

And that's really what we're doing.

And I think by bringing Toyota here, it's just gonna, you know, there've been headlines now written all over, before it was Charlotte and Raleigh, now it's Charlotte, Piedmont Triad, and Raleigh.

And I just believe that the next 10 years, I won't be here, but the next 10 years- - Well, you don't know that, with your spirit, and attitude, and good health, you'll be here.

You'll be cutting another- - Whatever, whatever.

But I think we've turned the corner and I think the next 10 years are gonna be the best 10 years we've had in a long time.

- Yeah, that's a wonderful, wonderful outlook and wonderful prediction, Jim.

There's no question that when you get the title, Mr. Greensboro, you've earned it.

And along the way, sadly, when a leader is a leader, one gets a little criticism.

Give me a quick paragraph of how over the years you've dealt with criticism.

- Well, first of all, it's never wrong to be right and it's never right to be wrong.

And politicians think about the next election, leaders think about the next generation.

And not taking credit, and my city manager, Tom Osborne, who was just wonderful, actually, when I ran for the city council the first time, I ran an ad in Greensboro paper, it said, "Greensboro stinks."

And won a national award on that ad, but what it was, our sewer capacity was totally inadequate.

And Tom and I started out in '69, that's when I went on the council.

We broke ground in '81 and we built the Osborne Treatment Plant.

- And that has made a tremendous difference.

- But without that treatment plant, we would have no megasite.

- Exactly.

- So you gotta think about where you want to be 10 and 20 years from now.

- Yeah, that's a great statement.

Think about the next generation and where the future lies.

Well, Jim Melvin, you're respected widely by so many in so many quadrants of our society and for good reason, my friend.

Thank you for being with me on "Side by Side."

- Well, Nido, thank you.

God bless you.

- [Nido] God bless you.

- [Announcer] Funding for "Side by Side with Nido Qubein" is made possible by... - [Promoter] We started small, just 30 people in a small town in Wisconsin.

75 years later, we employ more Americans than any other furniture brand.

But none of that would have been possible without you.

Ashley, this is home.

- [Promoter] For 60 years, the Budd Group has been a company of excellence, providing facility services to customers, opportunities for employees, and support to our communities.

The Budd Group, great people, smart service.

- [Promoter] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally, thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola consolidated.

Your local bottler.

[upbeat music]