Archive for May, 2015
Mike Russell is new COO at MadVapes
Mike Russell, the chairman of the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce, has left Energy United and is now chief operating officer of MadVapes, a $40 million-plus company that was started in Huntersville in 2009. MadVape’s electronic cigarettes help people stop smoking. Mark Hoogendoorn is the founder. The fast-growing company essentially sells liquid nicotine online and […]
Naas, Widen I-77 on Monday night Town Board agenda
You might call it a sea change—a broad transformation—that is under way at the upper levels of Cornelius power: Kurt Naas and the Widen I-77 lawsuit against the toll lanes is now on the agenda for discussion at Monday night’s Town Board meeting. Naas will have 30 minutes to outline the suit which seeks to stop the […]
Tarte, Bradford backing plan to ditch tolls
May 28. By Dave Yochum. Speaking at the “Emergency Call to Action” for Lake Norman business owners, UNC-Charlotte Professor Emeritus David Hartgen said plans to widen I-77 with tolls will have dire effects on traffic both on and around 77. “Your local streets are going to be crammed full. The congestion on the feeder roads and […]
Professor predicts tolls will hurt Mooresville
May 28. David Hartgen, a professor emeritus at UNC-Charlotte, says tolls on I-77 will likely limit development and retail growth, most likely in Mooresville and to a lesser extent, in Statesville. “In transportation ‘theory’ it would reduce/limit it, because it reduces access (by charging a toll) and increasing congestion on parallel routes. But the actual […]
Travis awarded highest honor by National Architecture Assoc.
May 28. Cornelius Mayor Chuck Travis was inducted into the College of Fellows by the American Institute of Architects. The ceremony was held May 15 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site in Atlanta. Election to the College of Fellows is the highest honor bestowed upon an architect in […]
Lake Norman Chamber Chairman speaks out on I77 Toll Lanes
Letter to the editor As a resident of the Town of Huntersville for 16 years, I have spent enough time in I-77 traffic that I could have learned a foreign language or two! Since 2011, I have served on the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and currently serve as Board Chair. During […]
‘Emergency Call to Action’ on tolls comes from business leaders, not LKN Chamber
ANALYSIS. May 26. An “I-77 Business Transportation Summit” will be held at Michael Waltrip Racing at 4 pm Thursday. The hosts are power brokers in the Lake Norman business, tourism and economic scene: Larry Johns, chief financial officer of Michael Waltrip Racing in Cornelius, and Richard Zulman, CEO of BestCo, formerly BestSweet, a major employer in Mooresville.The business leaders are stirring […]
Hastened NCDOT-Cintra deal an ‘incredible’ insult to voters, Gilroy says
May 21. Amidst the background of the Exit 28 Ridiculousness Facebook page whose profile picture is “Cintra Sucks Money Out Of The Local Economy,” more local business leaders are starting to speak out on their own, independent of any chamber of commerce. Indeed, a petition calling for an independent review of the now-signed 50-year deal […]
Are your referrals a sure bet?
You may have heard the cold call statistic that it could take as many as 100 phone calls to get one meeting. That statistic has been around since cold calling was in its heyday. But at a one percent return on your time investment, are those odds really working in your favor? After all, wouldn’t […]
Unpopular Cintra deal rolls through public opinion, financial close
May 20. The NCDOT has completed the financial close with I-77 Mobility Partners in spite of widespread opposition to the toll lane project. Construction is slated to begin this summer. An online poll conducted by Cornelius Today and Business Today revealed that 98 percent of respondents do not believe the NCDOT operates “with transparency, integrity […]
