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Three years ago, a group of top CEOs and business leaders met informally to study ways to inject new leadership — and new jobs — into the Piedmont Triad’s economy.

Those informal bonds have now developed into something much more formal that could bring significant change to one of the region’s primary business development and recruitment agencies.

That loose affiliation of top business leaders, known as the Piedmont Triad Leadership Group, on Monday got a direct pipeline to power when its executive committee merged with the Piedmont Triad Partnership.

The Partnership is charged with fostering workforce development, job recruitment and marketing the 11 county region’s economic assets, from manufacturing to the international airport.

Some of the business leaders behind Monday’s action include Kelly King, chairman and CEO of BB&T, and David Congdon, president of Old Dominion Freight Lines.

“I think it’s been an interesting journey,” said Jim Morgan, a High Point lawyer, key member of the executive group and chairman of the partnership’s board. “We wanted to talk about how to come together as a region.”

The group, he said, initially wanted to run its own projects to help economic development with oversight from the Piedmont Triad Partnership.

“But it became pretty clear that we all wanted to come together,” he said. He and a committee that included Greensboro’s Jim Melvin, the president of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, and King presented the plan that was adopted Monday.

The executives are already evaluating staff roles at the partnership.

They aren’t yet saying whether changes would affect Don Kirkman, who has been the partnership’s president and CEO for 10 years. Kirkman is credited with getting a five year federal workforce grant for the partnership and other major achievements. He brought a level of consistency to the partnership’s management that was lacking during its formative years in the 1980s and '90s.

Morgan said another committee is studying how to create new “job descriptions” for the partnership and could release its report next week.

Members of that committee are Nido Qubein, president of High Point University, Keith Vaughan of the Womble Carlyle law firm, Arthur Samet, president and CEO of Samet Corp. and King.

“What they’re trying to do is establish a job description for different positions with the partnership,” Morgan said. “We know that we’re going to have a lot more on our plate.”
 

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com