One description for Jerry Coleman is laid-back; another is that of an accomplished business owner with decades of experience. Combine them, and you have the ingredients for leading North Carolina’s top-ranked small business center for three years running.

“We meet people where they are and get them where they need to be,” said Coleman, director of Cape Fear Community College’s Small Business Center (SBC). “Our program helps give entrepreneurs the skills and confidence they need to be successful at many different levels in today’s business environment while contributing to the local economy.”

Open to the public, the program helps aspiring entrepreneurs start and grow small businesses by offering one-on-one business counseling, workshops, seminars and other resources at little or no cost. Recently, the center earned North Carolina’s top spot for overall performance for the third consecutive year, according to the state’s Small Business Center Performance Allocations.

Rankings, which involve the state’s 58 community college SBCs, are based on performance metrics, such as new business starts and job creation.

“We’ve been so fortunate to be in that No. 1 spot,” said Coleman. “It’s an honor and shows our continued commitment to our area entrepreneurs.” 

Coleman’s first brush with business came in many ways at home. After graduating from Hoggard High School, Coleman attended East Carolina University and majored in business administration. A master’s degree in business from the University of North Carolina Wilmington followed.

“I went to work in the utility industry right out of college back in the day when it was called Carolina Power & Light,” he said. “I was with them for about 10 years in a customer service role. My family had a manufacturing business here, so I had the opportunity to come back to Wilmington.”

The Coleman family trade was manufacturing tools and fasteners used in the installation of tongue-and-groove flooring – “a niche kind of business,” said Coleman, who rose through the ranks over a 20-year career to become company president.

“Family was really important,” said Coleman. To be patient and a good listener were skills he and his only sibling, a sister, learned early on, he said. And so were caring and empathy. These days his priority, along with his wife’s, is caring for aging parents.

“Both are still in good health, both are still living on their own,” said Coleman, “but we find ourselves closer to them now and being there to support them.”

But where there are valleys, there are also peaks.

“The most exciting news of late is we just had our first granddaughter,” he said. “We’re delighted.”

Key to facing the inevitable ups and downs of business is resilience, said Coleman.

“We talk to businesses a lot about resilience and understanding that change is going to happen,” he said. “There’s going to be something that someday impacts your business – a natural disaster, an economic crisis, a pandemic. How will you and your business respond? What’s your plan? What’s your strategy?”

Ironically, a younger Coleman would experience some of these same questions firsthand when, in the 1970s, many downtown businesses facing urban blight made a deliberate dash for Wilmington’s emerging suburbs to set up shop at the mall and surrounding areas.

“It was a different time. It was a small town,” said Coleman. “We lost a lot of the retailers to the mall, and it changed the whole dynamic of downtown.”

But times have changed.

“New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties are the fastest-growing counties in the state, so we’re benefiting from that,” said Coleman. “We have a lot of businesses that are being started here because there’s so much growth going on.”

And while there will always be changes in the business world, there are still some comforting constants for the future captains of industry walking through the SBC doors at 402 N. Front St. in downtown Wilmington.

“I’m pretty laid-back and even keeled, you know,” confessed Coleman. “I love what we do. I love our small business center mission. I tell people all the time I’ve got the best job at the college.”