Charged with growing entrepreneurs in rural Rutherford County, Tim Will surveyed foothills numbed by 14 percent unemployment and illiteracy and limited by few high-speed links to the global marketplace.
But one other statistic caught the newcomer's eye: the county's 6,000 small plots of land, much of it overgrown former farmland.
What if played-out cotton fields, Will wondered, grew fruits and vegetables again? And what if the produce was marketed online to Charlotte restaurants hungry for locally raised foods?
The result is Farmers Fresh Market, now ending its third year. Charlotte chefs log on to its Web site, clicking on the purple potatoes or haricot verts that please them. The produce is delivered to their kitchens within 24 hours of harvest.
This year, 87 Rutherford growers marketed their produce that way.
A San Francisco research group, Civic Ventures, got wind of the market, which is believed to be the only one of its kind in North Carolina. Each year Civic Ventures awards its "Purpose Prize" to social innovators over 60 who do good things in their "encore" careers.
That's why Tim Will is now $100,000 richer.
As you might expect from a former Peace Corps volunteer, affordable-housing advocate and inner-city teacher, Will shrugs off his role, crediting the community's effort.
"What's happened to them, they didn't cause this," he said of the boom and bust of the county's textile and furniture industries. "Over four decades, these people forgot how to grow stuff."
The director of Purpose Prize, Alexandra Kent, said that Will, 61, was chosen as "an inspiring role model" from among 1,200 nominations.
Will won, she said, "for his innovative approach to solving important and timely issues: job creation, ecological sustainability and the preservation of family farms."
Rutherford County lost 7,000 to 8,000 jobs in the past 10 years, says local newspaper publisher Jim Brown, the chairman of Foothills Connect, the nonprofit business and technology agency Will heads.
"Putting people back to work is as important as the product they sell," Brown said. "And the straw that stirs the drink here is Tim Will."
The pairing happened by luck. A few years ago, Will watched The Last of the Mohicans, filmed partly in Rutherford County, and decided the scenic hills were so beautiful he would die in them.
He and his wife Eleanor pulled up stakes in 2006, leaving his teaching job at a Miami high school. He was stunned to learn that Rutherford County schools lacked broadband Internet access.
Will fell into a job at Foothills Connect, where previous experience as a system integrator -- analyzing what industrial processes can be automated -- paid off.
The technology for Farmers Fresh Market fell into place. A $1.4 million grant from the N.C. Golden Leaf Foundation paid for 100 miles of fiber-optic cable that spread broadband service across the county, including all schools, police and fire departments.
It took time to convince Rutherford growers that their small bits of land could profit in a market 74 miles away in Charlotte. Chefs, they found, were willing to pay more for rare varieties.
Steadily, borlotti beans, Bull's Blood beets and Lacinato kale sprouted in the red clay. Garden-variety tomatoes were replaced by heirloom varieties so flavorful, market manager Kirk Wilson said, that 20 minutes after eating one "you can still taste it in your mouth."
Jean-Pierre Marechal, the executive chef at the Charlotte Marriott City Center, was the first to feature Rutherford County produce at the hotel's Savannah Red restaurant. The market now also sells to groups of Charlotte residents.
"The possibility to have vegetables picked in the morning and have it in your kitchen that afternoon, it's a new world," he said.
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