What do cemeteries, pirates, and workforce housing have in common? They’re all part of the journey that brought Maureen McGuinness to lead the Triangle East Chamber of Commerce. From managing six cemeteries in New York to helping Johnston County tackle childcare deserts, housing shortages, and job growth, her story is anything but ordinary. Why did she choose North Carolina? What’s really keeping businesses up at night? And how is JoCo Works changing the way our kids see their future? This conversation made me rethink what a Chamber of Commerce can do.

We talked to Maureen about growing up in New York and how she used to work as the manager of a cemetery is part of working for the Catholic Church, how she got into chamber work in New York and why she came to North Carolina to take over the Triangle East Chamber of Commerce. We talked to her a little bit about how Triangle East changed their name from the Smithfield Selma Chamber of Commerce to Triangle East right before she joined, and the development of the JoCo Works program, including the World of Work and a new program they just started to help with job recruitment and job housing, particularly for our public service employees. So listen in, I think you'll find it interesting and enlightening. She shared a lot of great things about what's to come in Johnston County.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast.

We've got a lot of great guests small business owners, Tim Sims, local dentist, Donald O'Meara, local realtor. So go back and listen to those. If you love Johnston County, as much as I love Johnston County, this is the podcast for you. Welcome Maureen.

Maureen McGuinness: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jonathan Breeden: Hey, no problem. I'm glad we've been talking about trying to get this set up for a few months now, and I'm glad I was able to talk you into it. So state your name and what you do. We'll start with the basics.

Maureen McGuinness: All right. My name's Maureen McGuinness and I'm president and CEO of the Triangle East Chamber of Commerce.

Jonathan Breeden: Alright. And you've been in that role for how long?

Maureen McGuinness: Three years.

Jonathan Breeden: Three years. Golly. Top flies.

Maureen McGuinness: It does.

Well, that's cool. So, tell us a little bit about I guess we'll start with, we'll get to how you got to Johnston County, but I mean, where'd you grow up and that kind of stuff.

Maureen McGuinness: So, I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio. I'm sitting here in Cleveland area of Johnston County, but I'm from Cleveland, Ohio.

Then I lived in outside of New Haven, Connecticut, but most of my time was spent in upstate New York in an area called Schenectady. And that's where I raised my kids. I worked in various positions for the Catholic church. The last position that I had was managing six cemeteries, and I really did enjoy that.

I think you'd be a good fit. And everything just aligned. And I went to become the business development person at that chamber. Eventually became their economic development director. And after that I became president of another chamber. And then from there I came on down here.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh my goodness. So did you know what a Chamber of Commerce did when they said you would be good at chamber work?

My former husband did a lot of networking to get work through the chamber, so I knew what a chamber did.

Jonathan Breeden: That's cool. Yeah I, I mean, I'm from Laurinburg, North Carolina and my dad was a small, was a CPA small business there, and he was a member of the Scotland County chamber, the Laurinburg or Scotland County Chamber of Commerce down there.

And, And they would give you the stickers and they would, you know, back then people put the stickers on the doors and he would put all the years, you know, and he is been in the same office for 40 something years. He's been a member of the Chamber for

Maureen McGuinness: right,

Jonathan Breeden: 40 something years. But the best part was that Chamber did the Christmas parade,

Maureen McGuinness: Uhhuh.

If you've met Sally, she was not she left the Clayton Chamber many years ago, but she's still in the community. She's, she was, she was great. And of course we had the greater Cleveland Chamber of Commerce out here. And I was one of the very first members of that with Deidre Jersey and Don Wells.

And unfortunately with COVID, that ended up not working out. But it was nice enough that the Triangle East Chamber sort of took us in just before you got there, and honored those memberships and started to do stuff out here, which I've always appreciated Mike for doing that. You replaced? So anyway, so, well, we did have a Cleveland Chamber for a long time, and I really enjoyed it was on the board and all that stuff.

I think it's, I think it's great. You know, it, it gave us a sense of community here.

Maureen McGuinness: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: You know what I mean? And I know you've tried to do that. I know they changed the name to Smithfield from Smithfield Triangle to Triangle. Well, it was for Smithfield wasn't,

Maureen McGuinness: it was Smithfield Selma.

Maureen McGuinness: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: Now that was before you got there. Do you know why that happened?

Maureen McGuinness: So there was a long process before that happened and we served nine communities. So, they felt that the name didn't really reflect the communities that were being served.

One of the interesting stories that I learned once the name was changed the Chamber got a call from the Wall Street Journal wanting to do a story on the chamber in Johnston County. That wouldn't have happened if it was still Smithfield Selma and some of the businesses that are part of the chamber.

Once they started saying, well, we're part of Triangle East some of the work that they were trying to do they were able to utilize that marketing outside of North Carolina and people were like, oh, now I know where you are. You're East of the Triangle because saying Johnston County didn't mean anything if you're trying to do business outside of North Carolina.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And what are those communities? Because I know you, you, you're doing Cleveland. I think Princeton. Like, like, I don't know all of 'em. I mean, I may be putting you on the spot.

Maureen McGuinness: Yeah. Andy's the one who's really great at doing all of them.

Jonathan Breeden: I got you.

Maureen McGuinness: I need a cheat sheet to do them.

Jonathan Breeden: Yes.

Maureen McGuinness: So we have Princeton, Wilsons Mill, Selma, Kenley, Smithfield Micro, Cleveland, Archer Lodge, Pine Level Flowers.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. That is a lot.

Maureen McGuinness: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: That's pretty good. I'm impressed. That's, I mean, I wouldn't have come up with nine, right? The oldest spot so well in several of the chambers, including they, some of those places had chambers and with COVID and everything happening they weren't gonna be able to continue to be financially viable.

We had yet they had more staff. Kelly Wallace had been there for like 23 years. Now, I mean, you know, so, you know, I think that I, you know, I didn't like it at first, but then the more I thought about it. I saw everything that, that they did for Cleveland when our chamber didn't make it, I thought it actually turned out to be a good idea.

Like initially I was like, I don't know about this but it really was the right thing. So it was people that were maybe a little visionaries, I guess would be the term.

Maureen McGuinness: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: Came up with that and well that's cool. So, so how long did you chamber work before you came to Johnston County?

Maureen McGuinness: 10 years.

Jonathan Breeden: 10 years. Okay.

Maureen McGuinness: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Alright, and so what attracted you to apply for this job with Triangle East?

And we studied each state along the way. The, you know, what do they plant? What's the weather? You know, what happens in those states? And North Carolina was like the one for me. I was like, eh, why does this family have to go to Florida? They should just stay. Then in high school, UNC basketball was really rocking it.

North Carolina benefited when New York State put into place some of their laws and we saw a lot of pharmaceutical manufacturing come down to North Carolina. So. All of those things came into play. So when my youngest graduated from high school, I started to actively pursue chamber work in North Carolina.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, how about that? Okay, well, that's, that's cool. That's cool. So, when you got here. Was it what you expected? I mean, you were coming into a chamber that had just absorbed several other chambers that had just changed its name. This leader left somewhat abruptly. So what did you find and what did you decide you needed to do first?

Like we changed the name. And that was hard on a lot of people. I have pointed out that individually, we all have a lot of names. Like you have your name and other people call you dad. Right. And I'm sure you had nicknames growing up like me personally I've been called. Maureen, rainy mom. My kids also call me Lola, you know?

So I have all of those names, but the name change was really hard on a lot of members, so I went on a listening tour to hear what are the things that are keeping business owners up at at night?

Jonathan Breeden: Alright, well that's, that was pretty smart. And so what are some of the services that the Triangle East chamber and, and we have a lot of good chambers here in Johnston County. We got Clayton, we got forks, got Vincent. I think we're down to just four. We used to have like several, right? Kenley, Ken's uh,

Maureen McGuinness: Kenley still has a chamber.

Maureen McGuinness: Okay, so one thing I wanna say is if you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber. So you can't say like, oh, the things that Triangle East Chamber is doing are the things that every Chamber should be doing.

You know, each chamber has to do something that works for their particular members. Some of the cool things we have a tool called Size Up. It's available to anyone. You don't have to be a member. It's on our website. And it provides data to businesses or somebody who has an idea for a business to see if that business is viable.

And so we were the first community in the state of North Carolina to provide that. We also have host a Johnston County specific job board. And what's cool about this particular job board is people who are looking for jobs in Johnston County can upload their resume.

And if you are hiring, even before you even post for that job, you could look at those resumes and say, Hey, I wanna interview these people without even having to post the job. The larger companies that use various HR platforms, the that website meshes with our jobs in Johnston County website so they can speak to each other so they don't have to post multiple times.

Jonathan Breeden: And what website is that?

Maureen McGuinness: It is, let me make sure I give it the right one. It's JohnstonCountyNCJobs.com.

Maureen McGuinness: Correct.

Jonathan Breeden: I mean, we just had Stacy Beard on the podcast. We had two episodes of her with Novo Nordisk, and all she said through both episodes are, we're hiring, we're hiring, we're hiring. You know, Grifols is hiring right? Like, we have jobs here. You don't have to drive to Raleigh. We have great jobs right here in Johnston County and I'm glad what you and your board are doing to try to promote that.

Maureen McGuinness: Right.

Have family law questions? Need guidance to navigate legal challenges? The compassionate team at Breeden Law Office is here to help. Visit us at www. breedenfirm. com for practical advice, resources, or to book a consultation. Remember, when life gets messy, you don't have to face it alone.

Jonathan Breeden: But something else you're doing is this new and I don't understand it thing where you're gonna raise money and create some positions to help do some recruiting and maybe some housing for teachers or police officers.

So Triangle East Prospers is a five year strategic initiative and we have three goals. The first goal is develop, retain, and attract talent. The second is to break down talent barriers, and the third is to grow business, jobs and investment. The reason is I mentioned when I first got here, I went on a listening tour.

And so every time I was talking to business owners, they kept talking about talent that, you know, I have these positions not finding the qualified talent. Chris Johnson's office has a workforce alliance that did a strategic plan about two years ago with that, there was an intensive study, so 63% of businesses in Johnston County identify talent as of their number one issue.

They are going to go through the US Chamber has a talent pipeline management program and they're gonna focus on the manufacturing and construction trades. And then they're gonna do that whole like recruiting the businesses to see what are the benefits to them of hosting those high school interns?

Our district does a great job with CTE classes and students can earn school credit for doing those internships. There's some, there's a lot of value to other work-based learning opportunities. We just need the businesses to understand there's not a lot of risk for them. And so we need a person boots on the ground doing that.

One is the cost. Two COVID did a number on the people working in the childcare industry. So a lot of them left. They got jobs in other fields. So we need to build up our childcare workforce. What we would like to do in our plan is assist 50 people a year in opening and operating home-based childcare.

What we will do with that is we will also give them those business skills. So the number one reason home-based childcare fails is they're great with the kids and caring for the kids. It's the billing, it's the policies it's the running it like a business. So what we will be doing is training them to do this like a business.

So it's not people who are saying yeah, I just don't wanna work. It's people who wanna work. We just don't have people to take care of their children. So that will make a significant impact on our workforce. Another talent barrier is workforce housing. In Johnston County you need to be making at least $65,000 a year in order to rent a moderately priced two bedroom dwelling.

That's not what the chamber's gonna do. Our proposal is to we're gonna bring on another staff person. That person is going to convene the business community, and we're gonna look at some, what are some creative solutions? So this past April we had a a breakfast. We had a great slate of panelists who talked about what are some of the solutions happening in other parts of the state and the country.

There's some unique financing that can happen when you have like. Like, for example, crystal Window and doors coming in, or VDI Rice. If they're coming into a community and they say to an apartment complex, like, we're coming in and we know 200 of our workers are gonna live there, and that apartment complex.

So there's four communities in North Carolina where they were having a hard time recruiting teachers, and the reason being was there was no housing for the teachers to live in once they got the job. So they had to turn them down. So in those communities they built housing specifically for teachers.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, no, I mean, you're, and I think it's a great idea. I first read about it, it didn't make any sense, and I finally was, we were at the ribbon cutting for the home due suites hotel there in Smithfield right off of I 95 at exit 95. And you were starting to explain it to me and I left that conversation going I think I get it, but this makes a lot more sense the way you just explained it there. Now I completely understand what you're going to do 'cause I didn't realize that the money you're raising is going to fund positions to do it. I thought you were raising money and you were just going to like grant money, give grant the money away and there may be some of that, but it is gonna be used to fund positions within the chamber.

To do some of this work.

Maureen McGuinness: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: That makes sense.

Maureen McGuinness: The other workforce barrier we have here in Johnston County is we don't have public transportation.

Jonathan Breeden: That's true.

And so we do have Quick Rides, which is great, but Quick Rides is only working in certain parts of our communities. With that additional staff person working on these workforce issues they can partner with Quick Rides. And when we first started talking about this, there were some federal funds we could go after.

There's not those federal funds right now. There may be some creative ways we can expand it and also potentially lower the price point of Quick Rides 'cause right now the price point of Quick Rides is $6 each way.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, one of the things you mentioned when you were answering the question, you talked about JoCo Works, which is a. an event for eighth graders. All the eighth graders in Johnston County get to go to Johnston Community College over two days. It's usually at the beginning of November, and a lot of the businesses in our area set up booths and tents to get these eighth graders to start thinking about doing, working here in Johnston County.

I took my son a couple of years ago. I think I had more fun than he did. I was playing with the robots. I was trying to put on the clean suits for Novo and get my gloves on and all of that. I, I tried to drive a truck. I really was being a kid, but anyway, and I know the Triangle East Chamber came up with that.

That was something that we worked on right before you got here.

Maureen McGuinness: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: But that has been tremendous. I think, and I appreciate you and your board continue to do it, and Kelly Wallace's vision for helping bring that to fruition. You know, we're gonna do that. That's gonna be this year too. Right?

Jonathan Breeden: oh, I didn't know that

Maureen McGuinness: programs.

Jonathan Breeden: I didn't. Okay.

Maureen McGuinness: Yes. And so the, yes, that's in November. And yeah, it's tremendous. I couldn't drive the trucks either. I, I like that thing.

Jonathan Breeden: No, I kept, I did not do well,

Maureen McGuinness: and I wish it existed when I was a kid. I probably would've been like a town planner. I love like the concept of like rules and design and all that, but you know, we didn't have that opportunity to explore it. And one of the interesting things is I had learned about that West Alabama works, which is what Kelly had seen.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Maureen McGuinness: And I was at my previous chamber and I try, I was, I went to my board and I'm like, oh, we gotta do this.

They weren't really interested. And when I came and I interviewed down here and I found out. You know, we were doing it. I was like, this is the place for me.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh,

Jonathan Breeden: That's true.

Maureen McGuinness: Exploration.

Jonathan Breeden: It is really true.

Maureen McGuinness: Then we have JoCo Works Pro. JoCo Works Pro happens in February. It's a career conference for sophomores. And so, sophomores get to come. We again have it at JCC. They're a fabulous partner on all of these programs, we have a keynote speaker and then we have these breakout sessions.

They learn about like why your digital footprint is important. They learn, oh, how to dress for an interview, how to do a handshake, why eye contact is important. And then the most interesting thing is the mock interviews. So the first year the kids were like, yeah, we don't wanna do those. And then it turned out that was their favorite part.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's great. That's great. I did not know it had grown into the sweet thing. I, I just thought when Kelly brought Kelly Wells, brought that video of what they were doing in West Alabama to the Economic Development Board when I was on it. I thought, man, are we really gonna do this here?

Maureen McGuinness: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Like, it was so cool. And then to actually get to go and see it and, you know, play with all the stuff. I was having a blast. Like I really I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to go every year, even though I'm not a kid, but and, and it's open anyway. I mean, the eighth graders go but any parent, homeschool, whatever, if you don't take your kids out there, you, I mean, there's firefighters, there's EMS, there's EMT, Novo Grifols, the sheriff's department. Couple police departments, truck driver, training school. I mean this was just ones I remember from two years ago when I was there. There was

Maureen McGuinness: the hospital

Maureen McGuinness: well we have 40 different businesses present. Things that have changed since the beginning. We now have this passport that the students have, and if they have a full passport at the end of the day, they get entered for prizes. In order to get their passport stamped, they have to ask a good question of the business and I can't be like, Hey, what do you make? And like as far as salary goes, it has to be, you know, something about the work or what they're doing.

We had our fiber companies last year having the kids splice. We had some of our construction companies, this was really cool. They built. Dog houses. And then those dog houses were raffled off to benefit Habitat for Humanity. We had a painting company had the kids painting.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh man, that's great.

Maureen McGuinness: so it was really, really cool stuff.

We're trying to let people know that you do not have to drive to Raleigh. We have jobs, we are getting more jobs. Our employers need the talent that we have we're gonna keep growing, but you know, we're only gonna, these businesses are only gonna grow as far as the talent will allow them to grow. And we're all, I'm no different than any of these other businesses. I need more talent here at my law firm. And so it is it is really neat. So I guess the last question, well, I guess first we get to the last question, which is what you love most about Johnston County. What are way people could reach out to you in the Triangle East Chamber?

Maureen McGuinness: Well, they can come to our website triangleeastchamber.com.

Jonathan Breeden: I know I tried to put it in.

Maureen McGuinness: It's MCGUINNESS@ triangleeastchamber.com.

Jonathan Breeden: Alright, well that's great. That's great. And the last question we ask, ask everybody on this podcast, you've been here three years. What we love most about Johnston County?

Maureen McGuinness: You know, I love small towns and each small town in Johnston County is very unique and like, just like a parent. I can't say, oh, that one's my favorite. I just really enjoy visiting each of the small towns the coffee shops. And the thing that is so unique that I tell my sisters about all the time, I'm like, we have boutiques like to buy clothes.

You tell them, this is what I've got going on, like, can you help me find, you know, that? But, you know, exploring the different small towns, eating in the restaurants going to the coffee shop, just kind of like relaxing. All of that is very, very unique. It's a very relaxed pace of life.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's great.

That's great. That's a right, the, it is relaxed, right? You're, You're, you could have the hustle and bustle of Raleigh or you can have the country, small town feel of Johnston County. And so it's sort of the best of both worlds. Just gotta drive a little bit. And the people are great too, right?

I mean, these are the best Johnston County has the best people, no doubt about it. Well, we would like to thank Maureen McGuinness, the President of the Triangle East Chamber of Commerce for being our guest on this week's episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. We'll probably have to have her come back.

The Best of Johnston County Podcast comes out every single Monday and has now for over 20 months. So please go back and list some of the previous episodes and if you'd also be so kind to share this podcast on your social media channels and tag us on your Instagram stories Best of Johnston County, and give us a five star review down below.

And tell us what you like about The Best Johnston County Podcast and maybe any suggestions of future guests you'd like to see us invite onto this podcast. Until next time, I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden.

That's the end of today's episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.