NEWSMAKERS: ROAD TO SUCCESS

They co-own and run the largest retail furniture store in the world, Furnitureland South in Jamestown, North Carolina. Jeff is the company's president and CEO. His younger brother Jason is not only very active in the business but also runs a part of the company that streams home design, fashion and lifestyle programming on the internet. The Design Network is now streaming on 17 major platforms. In this episode, the brothers tell Neill McNeill the compelling stories of their parents co-founding the company, how they grew up in the business and where they see the company's future.

Graham Bennett knows expansion. For more than 45 years (27 years as company president), he worked for his family's business, Quality Oil Company of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. During this time, Quality Oil became one of the largest Shell distributors in the United States. But it also diversified and grew in areas that included hospitality and real estate--ventures that continue to this day. Although retired from Quality Oil, Bennett's quite busy. He currently sits on the North Carolina State Board of Transportation and is Chairman of the Piedmont-Triad Regional Airport Authority, the board that runs the Piedmont-Triad International Airport in Greensboro, NC. and an airport experiencing unprecedented growth. In this episode, he talks about all of that as well as his growing up in Winston-Salem and, for a while, getting involved in politics right out of college.

Paul Lessard and Greg Commander live and work in High Point, North Carolina. Paul's a prominent liberal arts-educated community foundation president. Greg has two college degrees and runs a non-profit organization. He's also overcome a troubled past. That past includes 18 years in federal prison for crimes he committed while running "The Juice Crew," a group that-at one time-dominated the drug trade in the city. Paul and Greg love young people and share a desire to keep them out of trouble. Their close friendship and how one helped turn the other's life around is a story of struggle, friendship and redemption that includes countless young people helped and young lives saved. Both discuss with Neill McNeill their journey and their new book that describes that journey in this episode.

It would be hard to name a person who's had a greater influence on the hospitality industry in North Carolina's Piedmont-Triad than Dennis Quaintance. As Chief Executive Officer, Chief Design Officer and Chief Storytelling Officer of Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants and Hotels based in Greensboro, he and his team run a company that built and continues to operate 2 upscale hotels in Greensboro along with 3 restaurants and a companion restaurant in Cary. In this episode, Quaintance talks about the mission of each of these establishments as well as his back story. It includes--among many other things-- going to school in a one-room schoolhouse, entering the hospitality industry at age 15, and then meeting and working with someone who persuaded him to come to Greensboro in the late 1970s. His stories are interesting, compelling and worth nearly 57 minutes of your time.

Not many companies can claim they've grown 300% in the last 5 years. But Geoff Foster's company can! Foster runs the Core Technology Molding Corporation based in Greensboro, North Carolina. It's in the process of moving into a new $28 million manufacturing facility east of Greensboro. The company takes raw plastic pellets, melts them at high temperatures and injects that material into molds that form precision components for the world's large automotive and pharmaceutical companies. In this episode, Foster describes to Neill McNeill--among other things-- how one of his earliest inventions influenced his success.