Eastern North Carolina – [April 1, 2025] – STEM East is proud to announce its inaugural Industry in Schools Week, a weeklong celebration of STEM education and workforce development, scheduled for April 5-12. This first-of-its-kind regional initiative will feature over 40 events, hosted in partnership with regional community colleges and industry leaders, designed to expose students to the exciting career opportunities available in eastern North Carolina.

“Industry in Schools Week is about connecting students to real career paths right here in their own communities,” said Bruce Middleton, Executive Director, STEM East. “By partnering with our regional businesses and community colleges, we’re providing students with hands-on experiences that can shape their future career choices and strengthen our local workforce.”

To ensure that all students have the opportunity to participate, STEM East is offering transportation funding to school districts. Funding amounts range from $500 to $1,500, depending on student enrollment, to help offset transportation costs associated with attending Industry in Schools Week events. Schools are encouraged to register for events and submit their participation details to STEM East to qualify for reimbursement.

This initiative aligns with STEM East’s mission to bridge education and workforce development, ensuring that students are aware of the high-demand careers available in industries such as biopharma, aerospace, energy, advanced manufacturing, and more. Industry in Schools Week is a vital step toward preparing students for successful, growing careers in eastern North Carolina.

To learn more about Industry in Schools Week, explore participating events, or register, please contact Ethan Lenker, Director of Industry Partnerships, STEM East at lenker@nceast.org.

Thank you to 400+ attendees who were able to join us at Vision 2025 to celebrate Eastern North Carolina. We look forward to partnering and working with each and every one of you to work towards economic prosperity throughout the region. Please see the linked presentations and videos below.

Laura’s Vision 2025 Slides

Vision 2025 NC East Slides

Vision 2024 Recap Video

East Rising Interview with Nucor Steel

STEM East Industry In Schools Recap Video

Vision 2025 Agenda

NC East Alliance Initiatives

STEM East Community College Partners

Thank you to our Vision 2025 Sponsors!

STEM East School District Partners

Eastern North Carolina — The NC East Alliance is proud to announce the appointment of Bianca Gentile Shoneman as Vice President of Community Development. Shoneman brings a wealth of experience in urban and rural economic development, community revitalization, and strategic planning to her new role with the Alliance, a leading organization dedicated to driving economic growth in eastern North Carolina.

“Bianca’s proven track record of fostering economic vitality through innovative initiatives and her passion for rural development make her an exceptional fit for our team,” said Todd Edwards, Chair of NC East Alliance. “Her leadership will be instrumental in furthering our mission to enhance the quality of life and economic opportunities across eastern North Carolina.”

As Vice President of Community Development, Shoneman will oversee the Alliance’s initiatives aimed at Community Development Planning and Impact, Leader and Talent Engagement, and Regional Systems outreach.

Shoneman joins NC East Alliance following her tenure as President and CEO of the Cool Spring Downtown District in Fayetteville, NC. Under her leadership, the organization experienced unprecedented growth, including a tripling of its budget, a 21% increase in the value of the Municipal Service District, the successful launch of the Safety and Engagement Ambassador Program and the Can-Do Coldwell Banker Trolley system. She and her team curated over 100 free community events and numerous placemaking initiatives including Prismatica, Old Street Oasis, and Arts Alley. Previously, she also led Uptown Greenville through significant revitalization efforts, attracting over 600,000 square feet of new residential and commercial development.

“I am honored to join NC East Alliance at such an exciting time,” said Shoneman. “Eastern North Carolina holds tremendous potential, and I am eager to collaborate with partners across the region to drive innovative solutions for economic development, workforce advancement, and community enrichment.”

Shoneman’s extensive background includes expertise in securing and managing federal, state, and local grants, implementing placemaking initiatives, and fostering public-private partnerships. She holds a Master of Arts in Geography with a concentration in Rural Economic Development and has been recognized for her leadership with awards such as East Carolina University’s Top Forty Under Forty and Woman of Distinction.

NC East Alliance has announced the addition of Donna Phillips who will be the Vice President of Industry Engagement and Recruitment. Donna will lead efforts to better engage existing and new industries in the education, workforce, and economic development initiatives of NC East Alliance. This will include serving as a critical connection to industry for the STEM East Initiative which aims to bring public school districts, community colleges, and industry together to grow the future workforce of eastern NC.

Donna has extensive experience in economic development at the local, regional, and state level. Most recently, Donna was a Senior Economic Development Manager with Duke Energy where she managed the Duke Site Readiness Program within a 22-county region in addition to working with new and expanding industries in the region. Prior to Duke Energy, Donna worked for the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, The North Carolina Department of Commerce, Duplin County Economic Development, Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, and Wayne County Economic Development.

“I am excited to join an organization that is making a real difference in eastern NC. I look forward to making a positive impact and improving the lives of all people in the region. It is a great opportunity to give back to a region that has been so important to the success of my career,” says Phillips.

Donna is a native of Murfreesboro, North Carolina and is a graduate of Chowan University with an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration. She is also a two-time graduate of East Carolina University receiving both a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration-Marketing and a Master’s in Business Administration.

“I have known and worked with Donna Phillips for many years. She has Eastern North Carolina roots and a passion for growing our rural economy. We are lucky to have Donna join our NC East Team as we re-imagine new strategies for rural economic development, community development, education, and industry engagement,” says Vann Rogerson, CEO NC East Alliance.

By Dan Barkin, Business NC

The NC East Alliance economic development agency in Greenville has come up with a plan to keep youngsters in eastern North Carolina and working in local industry. They are enlisting teachers.

The stakes are high for the future of the region from Virginia south to Jacksonville. The General Assembly and private funders, notably the BelleJAR Foundation, are providing serious money. If it works, it will be tempting for other rural areas losing population to replicate it.

The idea is to train hundreds and maybe eventually thousands of teachers in two- and three-day workshops about career opportunities in the region. So, for example, it trains teachers about jobs in the health sciences by walking them through the ECU Health complex in Greenville. It takes teachers through the Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center East in Havelock. Then it helps the teachers design what they have seen into their lessons.

 

“For us, traditional economic development in rural eastern North Carolina was no longer effective,” says Todd Edwards, a Farmville general contractor who chairs the NC East group. “We were experiencing population loss in about two-thirds of our counties ­— or maybe a little more than two-thirds of our counties. Just that talent bleed.”

NC East, through its STEM East program, was helping schools with science and math, but that didn’t stop population losses. “We were training the workforce for other places. They were getting trained up and seeking opportunities elsewhere,” says Edwards.

And that was because many young people in the region had no idea what career options were available within a 15- or 30-minute drive. Their parents didn’t know. Crucially, many of their teachers didn’t.

“We have major pharmaceutical manufacturers here,” says Edwards. “We have marine systems—we have, I think, 60-something boat manufacturers in the region. We’re the epicenter in North Carolina down here of smart ag. And I could keep going. We’ve got all sorts of advanced manufacturing, but as these students and the general populace drive by these buildings daily, weekly, monthly, they have no idea what’s going on inside.”

So NC East created the new initiative, called Industry Cluster Education, with $15 million from the legislature to help cover the next three years.

THE NUMBERS
There are good jobs in eastern North Carolina if you know about them. Manufacturing pays well and, by my count, there are more than 1,000 manufacturing firms in the 29 counties with 60,000 jobs.

But it will be hard to sustain them in many counties — or attract new jobs — if folks keep leaving. The 29 counties have about
1.4 million residents. The region lost around 28,500 residents between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, which doesn’t sound bad, except that growth in a handful of coastal counties like Onslow and Currituck masked losses inland. Some 22 of the 29 counties lost population,
12 of them at double-digit rates.

This shows up in public school enrollment. At an NC East conference in January, senior regional economist Laura Ullrich of the Richmond Fed showed a slide of enrollment trends between 2000 and 2019.

Six school districts showed gains, like Onslow and Pitt, home to ECU. The rest had losses, five by more than 40%.

Folks have been leaving and taking their kids. This gives a lot of urgency to NC East’s project, to give parents hope for their children.

HOW IT WORKS
Last summer there were three pilot workshops. The health sciences one was a good example. It  started at Pitt Community College with 22 teachers from throughout the region, and it was built around a scenario. “You just got bit by a shark. Let’s talk about what it takes to stabilize you,” says Bruce Middleton, executive director of the STEM East program. It was an immersion into the variety of jobs that support ECU Health’s treatment of a shark victim. Like who maintains the medivac helicopter. Or who purchases medical supplies.

“We had teachers there, listening with both their ears,” says Middleton. “One ear may be going, ‘Oh my gosh, I had no idea that there were so many individual, separate career pathways.’”

“We need all the doctors and nurses,” says Middleton. “But there
are also HVAC technicians, there are plumbers, there are electricians, there are computer technicians.”

The second day, the teachers went around Pitt to hear what’s involved in getting ready for the jobs they had seen, some with short certificate programs and some with associate degrees. That training is available at the 16 community colleges in the region, close to everyone.

“Then we came to the classroom, and we finished with that conversation about how do you then sit down with your standards? What are you actually having to teach at your grade level? How do you then take everything you’ve heard [and] have students have the same picture of what you’ve seen?”

When the teachers go back to school, they have access to folks in the industry clusters who have agreed to make themselves available to teachers, who can come to the schools and have the students come to them. “We use the term ‘human library,’” says Middleton.

A BIG JOB
This summer there will be as many as nine workshops, expanding to other industry clusters in the region, including maybe biopharma — a hot area — with as many as 30 teachers each. This is a heavy lift, happening right now. They have to get teachers signed up from around the region, and that means having superintendents get the word out. The community colleges, key partners in this, are handling a lot of logistics and lining up industry partners for the workshops. A lot of stuff has to get done in the next three months.

There are about 12,000 public school teachers in the region. Next summer’s workshops may include 300 of them. NC East is staffing up to bring in folks to coordinate each industry cluster, and it will be able to handle increasing numbers of workshops over the next few years. What is hoped is that teachers who go through this program will share what they have learned with colleagues in their schools.

Plans also call for a different approach to career and job fairs, which have typically been highly localized.

“When we talk to industry,” says NC East CEO Vann Rogerson, a veteran economic developer who grew up on a Martin County farm, “they are siloed within the county that they’re domiciled. The school system, the colleges, the employers have job fairs and interact with each other in that county.

“But when you really talk to the companies, they’re interested in other school systems, and other communities in their labor shed surrounding their domicile county. Companies say, ‘I want to be visible past here.’”

A VETERAN EDUCATOR
Middleton has been an educator for 40 years, in the classroom and administration, and wishes he could have done what he is training now. “I was a high school biology teacher. And when I think about my own teaching, I go wow, if I really thought hard about taking biology class and using, as the context for teaching, using something like this relevant to kids.  Using health science or using agriculture, and at the same time connecting that to our regional healthcare and our agriculture systems.

“Not only would I have had much better luck with my kids understanding the importance of what I was teaching, because they could see it in action, but it would also be connected to a career in the region. Where they would go, ‘I’m learning this and that’s where I want to go to work someday.’”

NC East Alliance has announced the addition of four new members to its team. Mark Hamblin will transition from Board Chair to Chief Operating Officer. Jennifer Annetta joins the STEM East Leadership team with extensive experience working with teacher training programs. Dr. Ethan Lenker, who has served as longtime Superintendent of Pitt County Schools, will join the STEM East Leadership Team as a consultant. Wesley Beddard, recently retired from Martin Community College, will join the STEM East Leadership team and will work primarily with our eastern NC Community College partners.

NC East Alliance has also made some changes to its Board of Directors. Todd Edwards will move into the Chairman role. Tony Khoury will move into the Vice Chairman role. Todd is a local developer and general contractor who has served the NC East Alliance Board for many years and has extensive experience working with numerous local economic development organizations including being a founding member of The Farmville Group which has led the revitalization of Farmville, NC. Tony is the Owner of Transworld Business Advisors of Eastern NC. He brings extensive experience in assisting in the acquisition and sale of businesses in the region. We would also like to thank longtime retiring board members Roland Vaughn and Ray McKeithan for their many years of service to eastern NC and the NC East Alliance Board of Directors.