Posted April 5, 2017

Sometimes, especially in this era of political animus that divides families and friends, it’s good to talk things out and hear the point of view and intentions of someone with whom you have disagreed. This was the case Tuesday when Dr. Peter A. Coclanis of UNC-Chapel Hill chatted with me for a few minutes following the Southern Textile Association’s (STA’s) Northern Division Spring Meeting at the N.C. State College of Textiles in Raleigh, N.C.

In February, you may recall, I wrote a rebuttal blog to Dr. Coclanis’ op-ed piece in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., in which he declared the textile industry “all but gone” in North Carolina. Under the headline (that he didn’t write), “Textiles spun a new N.C., but what will replace it?” he presented a pretty accurate historical summary of how the industry, along with furniture and tobacco, propelled the state’s economy and improved the lives of many of its citizens for more than a century.

Although I agreed with much of the piece, the primary cause of my discontent was the “all but gone” declaration. You and I know the industry is hardly that. Of course, it doesn’t drive the state’s or the region’s economic engine anymore, but it’s still here, still chugging along, still improving the lives of millions of people by providing clothing, shelter, comfort and more.

After my blog was published, STA board member Thomas Poston of Daikin America invited Coclanis to the meeting in order for him to learn more about today’s textile industry, and he graciously obliged. And, admittedly, everyone didn’t have the same takeaway to Coclanis’ op-ed as I did.

“I feel a little bit abashed about the way some people perceived my piece,” he told me. “I talked to a couple of people here today who said, ‘I didn't read it that way. Actually, I read it as pretty much the way I see the industry.’ ”

Point taken.

As did I when meeting Coclanis, he attended the STA meeting with an open mind, he said – and came away impressed, he said. Though unintentional, the half-day meeting seemed to have been organized specifically for the professor or anyone else who may have doubts about the industry’s wellbeing, with the event appearing to eerily and thematically revolve around the notion that the U.S. textile industry is alive and well, thank you, and here’s why.

The day started with a presentation by Dr. David Hinks, dean of the College of Textiles, who provided a head-spinning overview of all the good things happening at the College, noting, “We’re as strong as we’ve ever been.” Kent Hester, the College’s director of Student and Career Services, carried the momentum forward with a talk entitled, “Dispelling the Myth of a Dying Textile Industry.”

N.C. State economics professor Dr. Michael L. Walden, a long-time friend of Coclanis, drove the point home by noting, "Clearly, we have lost a lot of people in the textile and apparel industry in the last few decades. But you didn’t take it lying down. You transformed yourself – kudos to you, kudos to the College of Textiles."

Later, Jim Chesnutt, CEO and chairman of National Spinning Co., presented a seasoned veteran’s perspective of how and why the industry had to evolve over the past three decades in order to survive. And the optimistic tone reached a crescendo when Wade Tyner, manager of Applications Engineering at Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based APJeT, Inc., discussed game-changing plasma technology that could, on a large scale, change the way textile materials are processed.

All of which led to the Burning Question of the Day: What does Prof. Coclanis think of the industry now?

“It's an amazing industry,” he told me. “It's not only resilient but it's advancing by leaps and bounds. I came away extremely impressed, both with the way in which it has adapted and in the way it is pushing frontiers. It's not merely reactive, it's moving forward very aggressively. And I think the type of work that's being done at N.C. State is an exemplar of this. It's eye opening to me, and I think it would be to a lot of people who teach in academia about textiles or technology or American competitiveness.”
 

Coclanis, UNC’s Albert R. Newsome Distinguished Professor of History and director of the Global Research Institute, added that the textile sector is “almost a new industry today.”

“It's reinvented itself, and I have nothing but admiration, really, coming away from this with how you've done it and the degree to which people have been able to adapt and change,” he said. “And that's not easy, especially with some of these older people and how they've done it. That's really something I'll take back with me.”

In addition to his overall perceptions, I was struck by something else that he, as an “outsider,” took away from the meeting, a point I’ve made on numerous occasions on these pages: That people in the textile industry have a deep passion for it and feeling of community among their likeminded brethren.

“I like the camaraderie I saw here,” Coclanis said. “In a way similar to places such as Silicon Valley, people are loyal to the industry, but not necessarily to any particular company. Here, people really see themselves and their futures and pasts as part of a long chain or trajectory. And I like that about the industry.”

So, having been presented a snapshot of the industry in a few short hours, would he write the same piece again?

“I wrote a long paper on the subject, and that was just a 600-word reduction of it,” he said. “But I certainly would write it differently today and I would qualify some of the things I wrote. And I would've probably ended it with another paragraph saying something to the effect that we should respect what the old textile industry did and it's no longer here – but a new one is well on its way to rising and, hopefully, it will succeed in not the same way in terms of its overall importance to North Carolina but in terms of being part of this new, advanced manufacturing sector.”

I would like to thank Dr. Coclanis for attending the meeting, speaking with some of our representatives and giving me (and all of us) his time. Of course, textiles isn’t politics, but it’s always good to talk through things with an open mind, regardless the subject.