After more than a year of transition, North Carolina’s Southeast Commission has now been replaced by a public-private economic development organization called the Southeastern Partnership, according to a news release Tuesday.

Effective the beginning of this month, the Southeastern Partnership has assumed all regional marketing and economic development activities formerly conducted by the Southeast Commission, the release stated, adding that the region, which stretches across 13 counties, will continue marketing itself under the brand “North Carolina’s Southeast.”

The Southeastern Partnership’s mission, stated in the release, is to “provide strong economic development leadership in southeastern North Carolina through innovative marketing and collaborative regional initiatives that will support the creation of new jobs, generate capital investment and secure new business locations.” 

Rather than receiving most of its operating money from the state, as the commission did, the Southeastern Partnership – and other similar organizations across the state – will pull its funding and leadership from businesses and county governments in its region.

“It’s more reflective of the model most of the nation’s leading regional economic development organizations operate under,” Jeff Etheridge, the partnership’s chairman, said in the release. Etheridge is a retired executive with BB&T.

“We always raised private funds even when we were primarily funded by the state,” said Southeastern Partnership president Steve Yost. “Two years ago when we started seeing budget cuts from the state, we started a major fundraiser to increase the level of engagement by private sector leaders. A little over a year ago, we were in a really good position with North Carolina’s Southeast to move to [a new] organizational model. We took our leadership from private fundraisers.”

Yost attributed the smooth transition to “a lot of foresight and planning by public and private leaders.”

That foresight proved pivotal. In mid-2013, the General Assembly voted to get rid of the economic development commissions it had created in 1994 and eliminate financial support to the seven economic regions altogether.

“Regional economic development is the way to go,” Bob Warwick, a Wilmington-based manager at McGladrey LLP, said in the release. “It’s a much more competitive field than it was 50 years ago. Just about every county in the country operates a credible economic development program.”

Warwick, who served on the Southeast Commission’s board, was highly involved in the commission’s transition to the partnership, a 501(c)6 corporation, Yost said.

McGladrey will likely soon be among the partnership’s investors, the release quotes Warwick as saying. Other investors, according to the release, include banks, utilities, agribusiness firms, transportation companies and health care providers.

Currently, Southeastern Partnership’s board is made up of business leaders, including Sandra Spiers, Wilmington city president for SunTrust Bank, and Ben Woodruff, Wilmington area vice president for First Citizens Bank. Soon, however, each of the partnership’s 13 counties will appoint a representative to the board as well, Yost said.

Each of the counties will also contribute $20,000 per year to the partnership.

“They have worked this amount into their budgets,” Yost said.

Counties in the Southeastern Partnership region are: Anson, Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Cumberland, Duplin, Hoke, Montgomery, New Hanover, Richmond, Robeson, Sampson and Scotland. Anson, Duplin and Montgomery were formerly in other regional groupings but asked to be part of the southeastern region, Yost explained. Pender County, one of the counties included in the Southeast Commission region, has not committed to participate in the new partnership, nor is there any mandate that a county do so, he added.

With its organizational changes complete, the Southeastern Partnership will focus on its three-year strategic marketing plan, because marketing is its main mission, Yost said.

“We want to do more of micro- or sub-regional marketing, customized marketing,” he said. “What we do for our eastern counties is not going to be the same as what we do for our western counties.”