Fred Day
Recently Retired President and CEO of Progress Energy
Fred Day is former president and chief executive officer, Progress Energy Carolinas, a regulated electric utility serving 1.4 million customers in North Carolina and South Carolina. He led an organization that includes seven customer service and system operations departments. Those functions include four regional operations departments, a distribution engineering organization, transmission operations and planning for the Carolinas and a customer service organization that includes three customer service centers (one in North Carolina and two in Florida).
Mr. Day spent his entire career with Progress Energy (formerly CP&L) and held several management positions within the company. He was named senior vice president-Energy Delivery in 1997, executive vice president in 2000, and promoted to President/CEO in 2003.
Currently, Mr. Day serves on the boards of the N.C. State Engineering Foundation, Advanced Energy Corporation, Microcell, N.C. Economic Development Board, and the N.C. Military Foundation. He is past chair of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. He is also past chair and director of the N.C. Zoological Society and Wilmington Industrial Development, Inc.
Mr. Day received a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Mars Hill College. He is also a graduate of Progress Energy's Management Institute at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mr. Day and his wife Patsy enjoy spending time with their family. He has a son and daughter and two grandchildren. Mr. Day’s favorite pastimes are playing golf, boating and hunting.
Rick Weddle
President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina
Rick L. Weddle is President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, owner and developer of The Research Triangle Park. The renowned Research Triangle Park was established in 1959 and is located in the heart of North Carolina on the eastern seaboard of the United States. The Park enjoys an extraordinary 48-year history as the leading and largest high-technology park development in North America, covering 7,000 total acres. Today, the Park is home to 157 organizations, more than a 100 of which are research and development related. Approximately 80% of the Park’s 39,000 full-time employees work for multinational corporations.
Mr. Weddle joined the Research Triangle Foundation in July 2004. Under his leadership to date, the Research Triangle Park has generated successful development projects with projected capital investment of over $800 million and the projected creation of over 6,300 new, high quality jobs. The Foundation assisted in recruiting eighteen new firms and facilitating four expansions to the Park since 2004, compared to the historical average of one to two locates per year. The new locates and expansions will offer average salaries of over $80,000, a 44% increase above the overall Park average of $56,000.
An active speaker and leader in numerous economic development and science park organizations, Mr. Weddle currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of University Research Parks (AURP). In 2002, Mr. Weddle was elected as the first Chairman of the Board of the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), an organization formed by the merger of the American Economic Development Council (AEDC) and the Council for Urban and Economic Development (CUED). Mr. Weddle was elected to AEDC’s Board of Directors in 1995, and in 1998 was appointed Western Regional Vice
Chair of the Executive Committee. Mr. Weddle chaired AEDC’s Education Board (1994-96) and its Preeminence Task Force (1994-96). In addition, Mr. Weddle has served on numerous gubernatorially appointed task forces and working committees, including the Arizona Partnership for the New Economy (2000-2001) and the Ohio Economic Development Advisory Committee (1996).
Mr. Weddle holds a bachelor’s degree in political science with a focus on public administration, from the University of Oklahoma. He completed a five-year management program and received his Economic Development Executive (EDE) certification from the University of Oklahoma, College of Continuing Education. Mr. Weddle has also been an instructor at the Economic Development Institute, an extension of the University of Oklahoma, since 1986.
Mr. Weddle and his wife Ginger reside in Cary, North Carolina. They have three adult children: Ryan, Emily and Meredith.
Dr. Phail Wynn
President, Durham Technical Community College.
In July 1977, Dr. Wynn accepted the position of Assistant to the President at Durham Technical Institute (now Durham Technical Community College) in Durham, North Carolina. In January 1979, he was promoted to Vice President, Support Services. In May 1980, he was appointed Interim President of Durham Technical Institute and served in that capacity until November 1980, when he was named President. He was the first African-American community college president in the North Carolina System. Since his appointment as President, many innovations have been implemented for the purpose of enhancing accessibility of all educational opportunities offered by Durham Technical Community College. As a result, the college serves more than 25,000 area residents each year through a variety of credit and non-credit course offerings. In addition, Durham Technical Community College has been a leader in providing training and instruction in various high-technology areas. Durham Tech has provided customized training programs for most of the firms in the Research Triangle Park.
Some of Dr. Wynn's most significant community and professional activities include: member of the Board of Directors of the Triangle Community Foundation, member of the Board of Governors of Research Triangle Institute, and member of the Corporate Board of Directors of SunTrust Banks, Inc. He is a founding Trustee of the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science at North Carolina State University and also serves on the Board of Directors of the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, MCNC and the UNC Health Care System. He is the former Chairman of the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and formerly served on the North Carolina Board of Nursing, the Governor's Commission on Workforce Preparedness, and the N.C. Education Standards and Accountability Commission. He is a member of Saint Joseph's A.M.E. Church where he has served on the Trustee and Steward Boards.
Dr. Wynn was named by the North Carolina State University Alumni Association as 1981's Outstanding Young Alumnus. He was honored as one of the country's outstanding community college presidents in a University of Texas national study of "Transformational" Presidents in American Community Colleges. He is the recipient of N.C. State University's 1991 and 2005 I.E. Ready Distinguished Graduate Award for Leadership Excellence in Community College Education. The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce named him as recipient of its 1995 Civic Honor Award. Governor James B. Hunt, Jr. awarded him The Order of the Long Leaf Pine on November 9, 2000. Dr. Wynn received the Meritorious Service Award from the Commission on Colleges of SACS at the 2000 Annual Meeting. He received the M.B.A. Alumni Merit Award for 2004 from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill.
