NEER announces finalists for annual award

Contributed to the Telegram

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

B. Mayo Boddie Sr., chairman of the NorthEastern Entrepreneur Roundtable, has announced the names of the four finalists for the 2009 NEER Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

"We received over 15 qualified nominations for this year’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award competition," Boddie said. "Our selection committee had a difficult time narrowing our finalist list for this honor, but we believe we have selected four outstanding candidates.”

The four entrepreneur nominees and their companies are Beth Chappell, George’s Sauces, Nashville; Pete Roy, Pelican Packaging, Halifax; Doug & Cary Tennis, Crow’s Nest Trading Company, Wilson; and Brooks West, Sweet Concepts, Momeyer.

The winner will be announced at the 15th Annual Entrepreneur of the Year Banquet sponsored by NEER on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at the Rose Hill Conference Center in Nashville. Dr. Joseph Kalinowski and Dr. Andrew Stuart, both associated with the Department of Communications & Disorders with the College of Applied Health Sciences at East Carolina University, will be the banquet keynote speakers.

Drs. Kalinowski and Stuart along with Dr. Michael Rastatter and other colleagues in their department spent the past 15 years researching the effects of delayed auditory feedback and frequency auditory feedback on stuttering. Their findings led to the development of the SpeechEasy, anti-stuttering fluency device.

• Beth Chappell, Georges Sauces, Nashville

Since 1992, Beth Chappell has turned her backyard enterprise into one of North Carolina’s most unique grocery lines. George’s BBQ Sauces are today found in many supermarkets and restaurants across the state. Under Chappell’s ownership and vision, 3500 16-ounce bottles of George’s BBQ Sauces are cooked and bottled each working day.

George’s Sauces product line has grown over the years. The company has a small and self-contained staff of six who are all cross trained to fill many roles from cooking, bottling and boxing the sauces to loading the cartons on the trucks for delivery. To keep up with consumer demand, customers can purchase the original George’s BBQ Sauce created in 1975 by George and Ed Stallings in 1975 or they can buy the newer George’s Hot BBQ Sauce and George’s Special BBQ Sauce created by Beth’s staff members.

George’s Sauces have now also found a market outside of North Carolina.

The internet has started providing an extended market reach for the company and after Everyday with Rachel Ray featured George’s BBQ Sauce as the “Best of the Carolinas” in its “Big Bite” section in the April 2008 issue, the orders via internet have increased significantly and from all over the United States.

• Peter Roy, Pelican Packaging, Halifax

Pete Roy comes from a family of entrepreneurs in Louisiana. After graduating from LSU with a degree in Petroleum Engineering, Roy worked on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. When Mobil Oil launched a plastics recycling program, he joined the company working with its Hefty Bags division.

Later, after joining Carlisle Plastics in its recycling program, he moved to Rocky Mount to work from the company’s Battleboro plant. Then in 1996 Roy went out on his own and launched Pelican Packaging, a company specializing in the recycling and distribution of industrial plastics.

Because of the continuous growth of the company during its first 10 years of operation, Pelican Packaging built its own 100,000 square foot facility just off of I-95 in Halifax NC in 2007. Here the company grinds plastic scraps and other manufactured plastic products into pellets that are then containerized and re-sold to plastic manufacturers across the county.

Roy’s company focuses on being a full service recycler for the plastic industry. The company also handles post consumer product recycling on a limited basis. Then Pelican Packaging uses a sophisticated and multi-step recycling process to make the material usable again.

• Doug & Cary Tennis, Crow’s Nest Trading Company, Wilson

Doug and Cary Tennis met in Winston-Salem. Both were working for large corporations at the time. Later they moved to Atlanta to other corporate positions. In 1994, the couple decided to go out on their own and launch a Sportsman’s Gift Catalog targeting fishermen and hunters and they decided to begin operations in Wilson.

During its first year of operation, Crow’s Nest Trading Co. mailed 25,000 catalogs. 15 years later, Crow’s Nest Trading Co. mails millions of catalogs four times per year to prospects all over the United States. And now the company has evolved into a mail order catalog that features products with a southwest theme.

The company offers high quality home décor, furniture, gifts and ladies fashions all with a southwestern flair. And even though the company has 19 employees on its staff, Doug and Cary still make all of the decisions regarding the merchandise to be featured in each catalog.

The products featured in the catalogs are eclectic, unique and have a southwestern style. The women’s fashions featured have only been offered for the past few years, but already this category represents a significant percentage of total sales per catalog. Because of their commitment to buy American made merchandise, the company has been able to encourage many small craft companies to manufacture unique items for their catalog sales.

• Brooks West, Sweet Concepts, Momeyer

In one form or another, the candy company Brooks West owns today has been in operation since 1924. It has moved from Winston-Salem to Greensboro to Wilson and finally to Momeyer in 1994. West took over the company’s operations in 1998 and he became its sole owner in 2002. He has created a special type of made-from-scratch, gourmet hard candy featuring unique fruit flavors and, at the same time, he recreated himself as J.W Butterfield, the persona of the brand who serves as the spokesperson for Butterfields candies.

Today West’s company is housed in the Momeyer area where workers make the candy in batches by hand just as it was made in 1924. Using its just-in-time production system, the plant can produce us to 5,000 pounds of candy per day. During the holiday shopping period, the staff increases and the pace of the plant’s production accelerates.

West notes that the handmade approach to developing his quality Butterfields brand is never sacrificed. The Butterfields brand has twice been a finalist for Outstanding Confection of the Year and it has won 20 regional and national confection awards.

In April 2008 Rachel Ray promoted Butterfields hard candy as her “Snack of the Day” on her Food Network program causing broad based interest in the Butterfields candies. To keep to its heritage, West also uses a Disappearing From Candy Jars Since 1924 positioning line in all of his marketing materials. Today the product is available in all 50 states and Canada.

Those interested in attending the 15th Annual NEER Entrepreneur of the Year Banquet beginning at 5:30 p.m. on April 28 at the Rose Hill Conference Center in Nashville can contact the Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce. Tickets are available at $45.00 per person and tables of eight can also be reserved. There is limited seating so all ticket orders must be received by April 24. To order tickets, contact Linda Mann at lmann@rockymountchamber.org.