[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 2] [Senate] [Pages 1613-1614] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]JIM GOODMON--VISIONARY Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, back in the mid-1960s, I was enjoying life as one of the guys active in the management of a very successful television station in my hometown of Raleigh. The company, Capitol Broadcasting Company, had been founded by a remarkable gentleman, Mr. A.J. Fletcher, born in the mountains of Western North Carolina, son of a circuit-riding Baptist preacher whose ministry included hundreds of mountain families who attended the many churches under the watchcare of the Reverend Mr. Fletcher. Those were hard scrabble times and by today's standards, just about everybody whom Reverend Fletcher's ministry served was poor. A.J. Fletcher had nonetheless begun a lifetime love affair with the music of opera. So he headed east, to Raleigh and Wake County; virtually penniless he nonetheless studied law at night and in the process developed an instinctive knowledge of business and investment. In the years that followed, neither A.J. Fletcher nor anyone else in his family ever lived another hard-scrabble day. Mr. President, I developed a high respect and genuine friendship for and with Mr. Fletcher. What I have recited up to this point is intended to be a lead-in to a magazine article about one of Mr. Fletcher's remarkable grandsons, James Fletcher Goodmon who today is president and CEO of Capitol Broadcasting Company. I will get to the article in a moment, Mr. President, but I am obliged to mention my earliest impressions of Jim Goodmon when he was in high school in Raleigh and worked every possible minute of every day (and night) that he could manage at the television station (WRAL-TV) which was to become the flagship station-to-be of an expanded Capitol Broadcasting Company. I saw young Jim Goodmon frequently back in those days (and nights) as he concentrated on learning everything possible about the mysteries of keeping a television station on the air. Many times he was covered with grease, many times he was bound to have been tired, but Jim Goodmon was then, as he is today, a hard-charger. Grandpa Fletcher was proud of Jim--and so was I. I sensed back then that Jim Goodmon would one day be a leader in television--as he certainly has turned out to be. A few words about Jim Goodmon's family. After attending Duke University, Jim Goodmon found a bride--a lovely one and a hard-charger herself--across the mountains in Tennessee. Barbara Lyons was a registered nurse then. Now, years later, Barbara Lyons Goodmon genuinely cares about people. She and Jim have three children and one grandchild. They complement each other; both stay busy but never so busy that they cannot help each other in their myriad of projects. What I have stated is scarcely more than a snapshot of a remarkable family. Mr. A.J. Fletcher is long gone from the scene but I have a hunch that he is looking down from a Cloud Nine somewhere, nodding his approval of the way Jim and Barbara are doing things. Let me hurriedly add that Jim Goodmon is president and owner of the Durham Bulls baseball team which plays its home games in its dandy new stadium about 20 miles away in Durham--and then I will proceed to calling attention to a profile about Jim Goodmon published in the latest issue of the magazine, Region Focus. The article, by Betty Joyce Nash, is entitled ``James F. Goodmon, an industry visionary and community cheerleader defines the future.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Profile/James F. Goodmon--An Industry Visionary and Community Cheerleader Defines the Future Jim Goodmon was fighting fatigue and a cold. He had just flown back to Raleigh, N.C., from Colorado where he helped pitch the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle area as the site of the 2007 Pan American Games. Goodmon played a key role in luring the 1999 Special Olympics to the Triangle, so why not the Pan Am games? It wasn't meant to be. San Antonio was chosen instead of the Triangle. But that's irrelevant, Goodmon says, his spirit hardly dampened by the loss, the jet lag, or sniffles. North Carolina, he says, showed initiative in planning and promoting the future. ``What's important is that we were working on something in 2007 and not for next week,'' says Goodmon, president and chief executive officer of Capitol Broadcasting Co. Inc. in Raleigh. Goodmon's grandfather, A.J. Fletcher, started the company in 1939 to serve the community. Still a family-owned enterprise, Capitol is a rarity in the rapidly consolidating broadcast industry. So far, Goodmon has invested nearly $4 million to make Capitol's WRAL the nation's first television station to transmit television signals digitally. These high-definition transmissions provide flawless pictures and ``surround'' sound. WRAL-HD, the ``HD'' stands for high-definition, went on the air in 1996. Goodmon is still charged by the potential he sees in this medium. ``Not a day goes by that I'm not amazed that we can send pictures through the air,'' he says. Capitol's other holdings include minor league baseball teams in Durham, N.C., and Myrtle Beach, S.C., a satellite communications firm, and office developments in downturn Durham. But Goodmon's future includes a big role as community cheerleader. A sports fan, Goodmon tirelessly cheers for the Triangle. He is also president of his family's 50-year-old philanthropic foundation--the A.J. Fletcher Foundation--and is a chief promoter of Gov. Jim Hunt's Smart Start program for preschool-aged children. ``If you want to make a difference in the future, what's better than investing in kids?'' he asks. Despite his prominent role in the community, Goodmon likes to work behind the scenes, says longtime friend Smedes York. A former Raleigh mayor who has known Goodmon since high school, York was also a member of the committee that tried to lure the Special Olympics and Pan Am Games to the Triangle. Goodmon is serious about this commitment to making things happen, York says, and backs up his promises with resources. ``He'll pick up two or three key things and put his time and resources into those,'' York says. ``He's not just talking. He's putting up major money and people in his organization he'll assign to work on these tasks.'' Goodmon may have a preference for the background, but he is a natural leader. For instance, he persuaded the owner of the new Hurricanes hockey team to use the name ``Carolina'' Hurricanes, not ``Raleigh'' Hurricanes. While others might wring hands, Goodmon acts, says colleague Ben Waters. Waters [[Page 1614]] should know. He is Capitol's vice president of administration and often is responsible for getting Goodmon's projects off the ground. One night in 1985, Waters recalls, Goodmon called him and asked if he had seen a news show about Ethiopia's starving children. Goodmon gave him a task. ``He said, `Find out how we can help them. We can't sit back and not do anything,' '' Waters remembers. Although Capitol was too late to aid Ethiopia, a program to funnel aid through a religious organization to another famine hot spot is ongoing. The son of Fletcher's only daughter, Goodmon's legacy as a leader began at a young age. He was 12 years old when he took his first job as a gravedigger at a cemetery owned by his family. He earned 35 cents an hour. At age 13, he began his career in broadcasting by working odd jobs at WRAL. By age 15, he ran a camera as a member of the television production crew. U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., one of Goodmon's supervisors back then, remembers him well. ``I can see him now,'' Helms recalls of the young Goodmon. ``I did a lot of evening work to catch up with my correspondence and I'd see him every evening in that engineering department. He could show some of our full-time engineers how to do it.'' The love of technology carried Goodmon to Duke University where he studied engineering. But he left without a degree in 1965 to join the U.S. Navy. The technology bug stayed with him. A serviceman stationed in Memphis, Tenn., Goodmon also worked at a local television station. And it was in this city that he met his wife, Barbara, on a blind date. They played card games. ``Jim always said the reason he kept coming back to visit was that we had a color TV,'' Barbara Goodmon laughs. He often visited after he got off work at the television station. But when it was time to go, she had to help him start his car, an Austin Healy. ``The only way he could start it was to get underneath it,'' she says. ``I would get under the hood and hold something while he started it.'' The couple is still a formidable team when it comes to starting projects. As a member of the board of the Salvation Army, the matriarch has rallied family members to serve in soup kitchens and to participate in a variety of community projects. Although the couple's work is now less hands-on, it is more extensive. Their work with Healing Place is a prime example. The facility plans to offer shelter and rehabilitation services when it opens in November. Healing Place was boosted by the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, which provided start-up office space and supplies. Capitol paid an employee to act as the facility's director. And the community ponied up $4.5 million for the project. Sowing the seeds of self-sufficiency is a hallmark of the foundation, which now spends about $3.5 million a year to help fund worthy North Carolina projects and fledgling organizations. ``That's part of my future thing--getting things started,'' says Goodmon. His energy appears limitless. ``He is up and down on the computer during the night with ideas,'' his wife says. ``The people who work for him say, `We know how much he's been doing according to how many e- mails he has sent.' '' That relentless pace took its toll on Goodmon and led to a heart attack five years ago. He says the experience clarified his vision and forced him to work more efficiently and delegate better. Although always family-centered, he has a renewed commitment to spending time with family members, particularly his grandson, who is a toddler. He also watches Durham Bulls baseball games and attends movies with his family. Still, Goodmon's vision is in high definition as he plugs his energy into projects that will make a difference 10 years into the future. ``Things don't just happen right; things don't just come out right by themselves,'' Goodmon says. ``You have to work on it.'' ____________________