AN INNOVATION WAVE: Entrepreneurs, officials and educators revive the eastern region with visionary businesses and public-private initiatives.

• Author: Cunnane, Julie
• Position: REGIONAL REPORT: EASTERN NC

Garrett Blackwelder was frustrated. He was not getting the response needed from the Texas manufacturer of the gaming-machine consoles he placed in local convenience stores and bars. It shouldn't be this hard to get good service, he thought. In that moment, Blackwelder saw an opportunity --and took it.

In 2013, he founded Graver Gaming in Greenville to make electronic games for all types of niche gaming markets. Blackwelder, the CEO, wanted to create a company that could do a better job than vendors he had previously worked with. Last year, his staff grew by 64% and is expected to reach 175 employees by next year.

"You have to be changing while maintaining effectiveness," Blackwelder says. "We constantly try to innovate our systems and games. "

Blackwelder is the kind of innovative entrepreneur driving the economy in eastern North Carolina.

Mad Mole Brewery of Wilmington is owned and operated by Martin de Jongh and Ole Pederson. Although the brewery will be only a year old in May, product development has been ongoing.

"We had been home brewing in our garage for about 10 years. We built our own brew rig ... and then our boss at our day job ended up acquiring a building. We said, 'It's definitely time to start a brewery!'" de Jongh says. The partners still try new small-batch recipes in the garage brewery before adding any to their current menu of 12 distinctive craft brews at the main facility, which is partially powered by solar panels.

De Jongh and Pederson have worked together for nearly 20 years, first at Worden Brothers Inc. as computer programmers and now as brewery co-owners.

Eighteen breweries now operate in the area along what is known as the Wilmington Ale Trail. A local business, Port City Brew Bus, offers tastings, tours and other special events. Pederson says that the community, mostly small entrepreneurs, is very supportive.

Towns throughout eastern North Carolina are experiencing similar trends, with a rise in startups and revitalization efforts.

Over the last six years, Uptown Greenville, a nonprofit economic development organization, has been adding businesses to the 10-by-6-block area in the heart of the city, says Bianca Shoneman, president and CEO of the organization. In 2018, downtown welcomed 17 new businesses. In that time, Shoneman reports that 600 full- and part-time jobs were added.

"[In my last job] I commuted every week because I didn't want to raise my kids in a city," says Ryan Butcher, a Greenville entrepreneur.

Butcher says there were many advantages to staying in Greenville versus moving to a bigger tech startup city when he began eAudit in 2013. One was having a close-knit community of tech talent who had the option of working in a startup atmosphere while maintaining the sense of balance a smaller town offers.

The entrepreneurial support in Greenville was very helpful, Butcher says. Through the city of Greenville's Small Business Planning Grant contest, he won $15,000, allowing him to set up a small office for his new software-development product. eAudit helps shippers control costs. "It helped us create a very modern space that was Silicon Valley-esque," Butcher says of the startup grant.

Greenville's Small Business Planning Grant comes from the state and is for center city and west Greenville business opportunities.

"We have a 'rising tides float all ships' mentality in the community," Shoneman says.

...