By Amy Cockerham

Public Ed Works

RALEIGH (April 16, 2025) – North Carolina business leaders gathered for a webinar hosted by Public Ed Works Wednesday to discuss the vital connection between education and business.

Each panelist shared how education has contributed to the success of their business and how they want to support learning in our state going forward.

Tom Oxholm, retired Executive Vice President of Wake Stone Corporation, said about 80% of employees working for the stone quarry business are blue-collar workers. While they don’t need a college education to do the job, they do need basic schooling to succeed.

“That job is not like Fred Flintstone’s job anymore,” Oxholm said. “Even just filling out a job application, or reading the employee handbook, or understanding the health plan, or the 401K plan and the investment choices.”

That’s just one of many reasons Oxholm feels it’s important for business leaders to invest in public education. He believes not everyone is aware of the issues educators deal with today.

“In our teacher pay scale, after you finish 14 years as a teacher, you have no scheduled raises for the next 10 years,” Oxholm said. “Who in their right mind as an employer would say, ‘Hey, we want you to come to work at Wake Stone, and you’ll do fine for 14 years, but then, you’re not going to get any more raises.’”

Another panelist, former President of Merck Manufacturing Division Willie Deese, said business leaders want to attract the best talent, and the best way to do that is with great education.

“You’re not just competing against neighboring states, or states across the U.S.,” Deese said. “You’re competing against the globe.”

Participants expressed concern with the state of education currently.

“If you take the amount of money we spend on K-12 education–not community colleges or UNC system–if you take that amount of money, divide it by the gross domestic product, we’re 49th in the country,” said Doug Shackelford, the panel’s moderator and a Public Ed Works board member.

“This state shouldn’t be 49th in anything.”

Deese said the low ranking will inevitably affect businesses if there’s no change.

“We’re number one as a state in business, a welcoming state in that regard, but is that sustainable if you’re not making the investments you need to make in education?” Deese said. 

Questions from the audience prompted leaders to come up with an action plan.

“We lobby depending on what it is that we need from the state government all the time,” Deese said. “Maybe we need to think about how we lobby on behalf of education.”

Several panelists said they think advocacy starts with a trip to a school.

“The highlight of my week every week is spending two hours in a first-grade classroom,” Oxholm said. “You retired people out there? You got time. Let’s do it.”

Catherine Bessant, the CEO of the Foundation For The Carolinas, said spending time in a school will show anyone how more resources are needed right now.

“Have a personal experience,” Bessant said. “I promise you, if you have a personal experience, the motivation to fund, the motivation to lead, the motivation to support leaders will be unquestionable to you and others around you.”

She said finding collective will to change education is just the first step.

“Then it’s bucks, man,” Bessant said. “Nothing happens here without money.”

This webinar was the first of, hopefully, several conversations with North Carolina business leaders sharing their thoughts on the value of public education.

“Our future lies in public education, and I hope our business leaders are the ones who help lead us to even greater fortunes in the future,” Shackelford. “Education is critical to us getting there.”

To view the full webinar, click here.