'In a desperate situation'
No obvious candidates have emerged to fill the void left in Henry County by the textile giants.
By Mike Allen
The Roanoke Times
Aug. 19, 2002
MARTINSVILLE -- On a hot summer morning, Robin Gilbert prints out her resume at the Martinsville employment office and heads to the mall to interview for a job.
This time last year, she ran a sewing machine for the county's largest employer, VF Imagewear. Now, the 35-year-old mother of two is out of a job, unable to afford health insurance, and more and more frustrated as doctor bills mount and employers turn her away.
She wonders, angrily, when the community's leaders will generate more jobs. "They're always hollering, 'Things'll get better, things'll get better, things'll get better.' When?"
A century ago, when the tobacco industry withered in Henry County, homegrown heroes such as Hezekiah "Heck" Ford stepped forward to return prosperity to the region. Known as the "One-Man Chamber of Commerce," Ford recruited the industrial leaders who would transform the county into a textile manufacturing giant that employed 11,000 factory workers.
But most of the area's textile mills closed in the last decade.
The killing blow came in November when VF Imagewear announced it would shut down all its manufacturing operations. Rows upon rows of industrial sewing and knitting machines at Henry County's largest employer were silenced, and 2,300 people lost their livelihoods.
As the region advances toward an uncertain economic future, there are no obvious candidates to fill the void left by the textile giants, and no Heck Fords in place who can single-handedly rebuild the county's industrial fortune.
Many residents hope that Wayne Sterling, the county's $200,000-per-year economic development guru, will evolve into such a leader. During his first seven months on the job, Sterling was responsible for landing a small microelectronics company, Cerxon Microtechnologies. Yet he's also been forced to defend himself against repeated attacks on his professional character.
The man who hired Sterling, former County Administrator Sid Clower, had a reputation for taking risks and getting results when it came to bringing in business. Yet after Clower was found in woods near his office five months ago, threatening suicide with a loaded pistol, a stunned community watched his career collapse into a quagmire of adultery, deceit and theft.
With unemployment rates in the double digits -- Martinsville's, at nearly 18 percent, is the highest in Virginia -- ex-textile workers go back to school to learn new skills and try their luck in the sparse job market.
While not all the recent business news in Martinsville and Henry County has been bad, there are far more unemployed workers than job openings. Many older VF workers, people who have performed the same task in the same factories for decades, wonder if any employers will even give them a chance.
Gambling on retraining
In the wake of more than 9,300 layoffs since 1993, "retraining" has become one of the biggest business buzzwords in Martinsville and Henry County. More than 1,100 students are enrolled in federally funded retraining programs.
The 1974 Trade Act provides money for workers who have lost their jobs due to offshore competition. The government will pay for up to 18 months of education; if a worker maintains good grades, the law also provides for a weekly check to help with living expenses. So-called "Trade Act" students have filled classrooms at Patrick Henry Community College and some area technical schools as textile workers try to learn new skills.
A year ago, Trade Act students tended to choose long-term programs, such as information technology or computer-related skills, in hopes of acquiring high-paying, high-tech jobs. Yet those jobs aren't available in large numbers in Henry County.
In the wake of VF's closing, most eligible workers have signed up to learn how to become truck drivers, air conditioner repairmen or certified nursing assistants — skills they hope will land a job immediately. Given a choice, said Virginia Employment Commission director Joyce Snead, most Trade Act students would rather just go back to work.
The VEC has encouraged many to go into the medical field based on projections that the demand for health care will grow as the baby boomer generation ages. But officials in charge of retraining worry about flooding the job market.
"We're not doing anybody any favors if we're turning out 100 nurse's aides," said Jeff Porter, director of student development services at Patrick Henry Community College.
Yet for some, it's worked.
Deborah Fulcher, 48, lost her packing job at VF's Bassett knitting plant in December. She trained as a nursing assistant, finished in June, and landed a job in July working at a Martinsville assisted-living center, earning only a little less than her $8.90 hourly wage at VF. She misses her co-workers, but overall, "It's turned out pretty good for me, and I'm thankful."
"This was something that I've wanted to do for years," said Tyroshia Martin, 49, a former VF office worker who's enrolled in the nursing assistant program at the community college. Her children are grown, she's covered by her husband's health insurance, and the government is paying for her schooling. She's certain she'll find a job when she's through, because there's a huge demand for certified nursing assistants.
'Back to where we started'
Yet for every success story like Fulcher or optimist such as Martin, there are plenty of others who are skeptical, bitter or full of despair.
One of them is former VF worker Sam Blankenship, 55.
A smoker in the early stages of emphysema, Blankenship woke one morning in June with breathing problems that forced him to go to a doctor -- even though he knew that, unemployed and without insurance, he couldn't afford the bill.
Blankenship joined VF in 1996 after he was laid off at textile company Sara Lee. Because he worked at VF only six years, his severance pay lasted only three weeks. He, his wife and their two granddaughters live off his unemployment checks, which will eventually run out. Worse, he's lost his health insurance because, like many VF workers, he can't afford the cost of continuing it.
He puts in applications for jobs every week, but wonders who will hire a 55-year-old in poor health. He sees no point in going back to school. As he talks about his plight, he coughs almost constantly.
"I don't have the strength to do what I used to do," he said. "It's like trying to sell an old car to someone who's wanting a new one."
Then there's James Donavant, who gave retraining a chance. In May, the 33-year-old former VF forklift driver earned certification as a heavy equipment operator and began applying for jobs.
"I started at Martinsville," he said. He also put in applications in Greensboro and Burlington, N.C., in Axton, South Hill and South Boston. "I ain't heard from nobody." In July, Donavant finally found a job operating a forklift in a warehouse, but he's earning $2 per hour less than he did on a VF forklift. And he's not making use of his new skills.
More than a month after finishing a class in computer software, Robin Gilbert still can't find work. "It's terrible. I went through this training, long hours every day. And then, you know, you can't find squat," she said.
Tara Hairston, 29, a former Tultex worker, decided to train to become a licensed practical nurse. She went through a year of the classes at Patrick Henry Community College, but found herself lost in a maze of complicated paperwork to keep her Trade Act benefits. So she quit school and found a job in quality control at the Sara Lee distribution center, making a little more than she did as a Tultex knitter.
"We're back to where we started," she said.
Working with challenges
The same week Gilbert had her mall interview, Wayne Sterling visited the Martinsville factory of CPFilms, an England-based mylar filmmaker that's one of the region's most successful businesses, for a closed meeting with the company president. Sterling comes off in person as a soft-spoken, genteel professor -- not as the fierce, winner-take-all competitor he's reputed to be.
Sterling has led state-level economic development efforts three times, once for Virginia and twice for South Carolina. In 1992 he lured a BMW plant to South Carolina that was called the year's "No. 1 economic prize."
In November, just a week after Sterling and his second-in-command, Beth Braswell, came to Henry County from the South Carolina Department of Commerce, the department released a scathing report accusing them of improper spending -- allegations the two denied. Despite the controversy, a majority of county residents and business leaders were grateful to have them on board.
"They've got experience and a level of energy," said Nautica Enterprises senior vice president Steve Wilson. "They are bringing a new face to things. I think they're a good resource."
Yet with unemployment soaring in the county and city and only a few new jobs announced since November, the honeymoon appears to be over. An editorial in the ordinarily cautious Martinsville Bulletin demanded that Sterling do more to keep citizens informed of his progress, and citizens themselves have begun grumbling about his salary -- which is more than six times the median household income for Henry County.
"They're paying a man $200,000 a year and what's he brought in here, 50 jobs?" said Gilbert. "He hasn't brought anything here."
In January and February, the county made four job expansion announcements adding up to about 500 potential new jobs over the next three years. The most surprising of these developments, the arrival of a small, high-tech manufacturing company called Cerxon Microtechnologies, was credited to Sterling's South Carolina connections.
The county hopes that Sterling can use Cerxon's presence to build a technology park at the abandoned DuPont nylon factory, which after World War II became the largest employer in Martinsville/Henry County. Sterling took a heavily publicized trip to California in February for exactly that purpose. There have been no new arrivals announced since, although members of the Henry County/Martinsville Chamber of Commerce have spoken with great excitement about an unidentified prospect from California that has visited the county several times since Sterling's trip.
Sterling has two objectives: to bring jobs that put the county's residents back to work, and to recruit diverse types of industries that will grow in the future. Given the nation's current shaky economy, and the ferocious nationwide competition for any new economic development project, neither goal will be easy to achieve.
"There is not a huge volume of projects in the marketplace, but there are projects that we can compete for," Sterling said.
One of the key selling points for Henry County and Martinsville is the available work force. "We have a lot of skilled people here that are prepared to go to work," he said. But there also are significant impediments.
The county needs flatter industrial sites, he said. The lack of a nearby interstate highway means some companies won't even give the region a close look.
And according to a work force study commissioned by Martinsville and Henry County, it's hard for the area to hold onto its best-educated workers. There are few workers with high-level technical or scientific degrees. Many workers with college degrees commute to jobs elsewhere. And two of every three high school graduates leave the region for better opportunities.
"What we have to do is find a way to work with the challenges that we're given," Sterling said.
Too soon to judge
While Sterling gives exhaustive reports to county officials on the prospects he's courting, a potential stumbling block lurks in the background. Sterling, former chief of staff for the South Carolina Department of Commerce, left that job under a cloud of controversy, and it's unclear whether his troubles there are over.
A report released in July by a South Carolina legislative audit committee criticized the commerce department under Sterling and Commerce Secretary Charlie Way for wasteful spending. An investigation into the department's finances is still in progress, but a spokesman for the South Carolina attorney general would not elaborate.
The latest shot fired at Sterling came from a surprising source: the man who hired him and who was once his biggest defender, former County Administrator Sid Clower.
At the disgraced administrator's July 30 sentencing for embezzlement, where a judge sent him to prison for 15 months, special prosecutor Donald Caldwell read aloud from a suicide note Clower wrote in March as police investigated his $800,000, nine-year-long embezzlement scheme.
"Wayne and Beth are probably mistakes," Clower wrote. "Make sure they don't abuse their positions."
Told about the letter, Sterling expressed consternation, saying Clower had always seemed positive and supportive. County officials dismissed the letter, saying it was written under stress by a man they now deemed untrustworthy.
Acting County Administrator Benny Summerlin said Sterling needs "time to get in position, to market the community." It's too soon to judge Sterling's job performance, Summerlin said.
Summerlin notes that just two years ago, business was booming everywhere except Martinsville and Henry County. Now, business is sluggish everywhere, meaning that expanding companies are harder to find.
Beyond that, the nature of manufacturing has changed dramatically since textile entrepreneurs like William Pannill and Sam Walker opened factories that provided work for thousands. With most functions automated, a typical modern factory employs at most about 300. Because of that, it would likely take at least 12 new factories to undo the damage left by VF's exit.
A poster child for NAFTA
Luring new factories is hard work because state and local governments all over the country have gotten into the economic development game. They compete with each other by offering companies lucrative "move-here" incentives such as cash, loan guarantees, real estate, or multiyear tax abatements that often are worth millions. One of the county's best finds, clothing distributor Nautica Enterprises, had 15 sites to choose from when it picked Martinsville.
But landing a company is no guarantee it will prosper.
Henry County learned that lesson in 1997, when it recruited 5 B's Embroidery, of Zanesville, Ohio, the nation's largest contract embroiderer. Under a deal negotiated by former administrator Clower, the county guaranteed $9 million in loans to help 5 B's expand; the company in return promised its new factory in a Henry industrial park would eventually employ 1,000 laid-off textile workers.
But 5 B's hired only 97 workers when it opened in 1997, and it soon began to cut its work force. In 1999 the company declared bankruptcy, shut down the factory and left the the cash-strapped county with a $9 million liability the board of supervisors didn't even know it had assumed.
The task of minimizing the damage fell to Summerlin, once deputy county administrator, who took over in April after Clower's arrest for embezzlement. The county's fate now rests largely in his hands.
In April, some fast footwork on Summerlin's part resulted in a big financial break for the county and for Martinsville. Thrown with little time to prepare into Clower's seat, Summerlin realized that the deadline for applying for a state industrial site development grant was about to go by. Within four days, the application was ready.
On the day of Clower's sentencing, Gov. Mark Warner announced that Henry County and Martinsville would receive $1.37 million for improvements in the county's Patriot Center Industrial Park. The money will be used to level land and add utilities to sites that Sterling frequently shows to prospects.
Though Warner appears eager to give Henry County and Martinsville all the help he can, the news from the nation's capital these days sounds much more ominous. On Aug. 1, Congress passed the "fast track" world trade package that will give President Bush power to negotiate deals and extend trading benefits to South American countries. Those tactics are likely to accelerate the migration of American manufacturing to foreign lands that the North American Free Trade Agreement started.
Of Henry County's top five remaining employers, one is a textile plant, and the others make furniture. Stateside furniture factories, too, have become an endangered species due to world trade policies. For the moment, those companies appear stable. But Summerlin and other officials have voiced concern that the job losses may not be over.
"The county's in a desperate situation," said sheriff's Capt. Kimmy Nester. "We could be a national example of what small America's faced with NAFTA."
Staff writer Matt Chittum and staff photographer Seth M. Gitner contributed to this report.
Former VF Imagwear forklift operator Sam Blankenship doesn't expect much from his future.