Filling in the gaps.

• Author: McColl, Hugh L.
• Position: Banking industry in North Carolina - Includes related article on the Business North Carolina periodical

The most influential executive of the last 15 years looks back and finds some unfinished business.

Light the candle!"

With those words, astronaut Alan Shepard gave the go-ahead for the launch of his Freedom 7 rocket and became the first American to enter space.

As we look back over the 15 years since this magazine was first published, I realize that my teammates and I at NCNB - along with the entire state of North Carolina - were in much the same position in 1981 as Shepard had been 20 years earlier.

Our company sat poised on a launch pad of its own. Before 1981 was over, NCNB had pioneered interstate banking with its entrance into Florida, the first of 10 states across the mid-Atlantic, South and Southwest where we would plant our flag.

But plenty of North Carolina companies and residents were sitting on that same launch pad in 1981. It's been quite a ride.

Employment has expanded 47% in North Carolina over that period, compared with 31% for the United States. North Carolinians' personal income is up 73%, compared with 47% for the nation. The gross state product has grown 57% vs. 35% for the gross domestic product. And North Carolina's unemployment rate has consistently run one to one-and-a-half percentage points lower than the nation's.

We all owe a great deal to those who worked through the decades to construct the launch pad for that kind of growth.

The materials they used were good roads, outstanding community-college and university systems, sound public elementary and secondary education, enlightened public policy, inexpensive electric power, abundant natural resources and government that acted as a partner to business.

It was not by accident that North Carolina banks became the leading banks in the Southeast. In addition to benefiting from progressive banking laws, they gained financial strength, economic momentum and confidence in a state marked by a business-friendly environment, progressive leadership and a belief in the concept that a rising tide lifts all boats.

As NationsBank has grown and I have worked with the leadership of other states, I have gained an even greater appreciation of the legacy of leadership in North Carolina. My broadened perspective has also clarified one more reality: North Carolina no longer enjoys a once widely perceived image as the South's most progressive state. Our Southern neighbors have made impressive strides in education, economic development and quality of life.

The state for the foreseeable...