John B. Marek

Yesterday evening, I spoke to a group of community volunteers at the Holla Center in Morven about launching a community garden. In addition to serving as the county’s economic developer, I am a certified gardening instructor and volunteer manager of the New Beginnings Moravian Garden in Huntersville. I will be helping the Morven volunteers get their project off the ground, starting with a load of compost next week.

It is common to see semi-trailers emblazoned with "Atlantic Packaging" chugging down U.S. 74 through Wadesboro. But I was under a misconception about these trucks until just last week.  In 1994, as my wife and I were beginning to seriously consider moving to North Carolina, I acquired a list of Charlotte-area businesses from the Chamber of Commerce and sent out a couple of dozen letters along with my resume to gauge potential employment opportunities. The companies I solicited were large and involved in industries I thought would be interesting. It's important to remember that the internet was in its infancy in the mid-'90s. There was no Indeed or Zip Recruiter, or even LinkedIn. The generally accepted way to get your name out there in a city far from home was to send a nice resume package to companies, more or less at random.  One of the companies on my interest list was Atlantic Envelope. Most people probably wonder why an envelope company would interest me; it'...