Wells Fargo & Co.'s top executive reaffirmed the company's commitment to North Carolina during a speech Wednesday in downtown Winston-Salem, pointing out that the state has the second-highest number of Wells Fargo employees, after California.
"In North Carolina, when I came here three years ago, I made a promise to then-candidate Beverly Perdue (now governor) and other legislators that we would do our very best to respect the culture, to engage and honor our team members, help our customers and continue to give back to the community," said John G. Stumpf, the chairman, chief executive and president of Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco.
Stumpf was the keynote speaker of the 126th annual meeting of the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce at the Benton Convention Center. More than 1,000 people attended the luncheon, held in conjunction with the Winston-Salem Rotary Club.
Stan Kelly, the bank's regional president for Carolinas Community Banking, said during the meeting that Wells Fargo has invested $7.5 million in local charities since 2008.
In addition, Wells Fargo has just agreed to establish a $2.5 million faculty endowment with Wake Forest University, Kelly said.
"This gift will enable Wake Forest to recruit new faculty whose research demonstrates the potential for the development of intellectual property and other business concepts to further build the economic renewal in the Piedmont Triad Research Park," Kelly said.
In October 2008, Wells Fargo bought Wachovia Corp., which was started in Winston-Salem in 1879. The company completed its integration of Wachovia in October.
Gayle Anderson, the president and chief executive of the chamber, said in her introduction to the meeting that Wells Fargo has added 200 local jobs since the merger.
Wells Fargo has 320 banks in North Carolina and is the second-largest employer in the state.
"We have more bankers than any other bank," Stumpf said. "Our philanthropy has gone up."
Stumpf said the bank's number of jobs has gone down a bit, "but not much." He said Wells Fargo serves more than 1.2 million households across the state.
He also gave his views on what has happened to the economy.
Three years after the downturn, "we're still struggling on the unemployment side," he said. "We're still challenged with job growth and economic vitality."
He noted that even though unemployment is around 9 percent, the U6 index, which also measures underemployed workers and those who have given up job-hunting, is more like 16 percent to 17 percent.
Stumpf said the housing downturn affected 70 percent of Americans and the United States doesn't manufacture as many goods as it did in the past.
"We need a renaissance in this country on manufacturing," he said. "We need an educational renaissance. We need to grab those qualities we had in the past."
He said saving money is good, and consumer debt was too high before the recession, but the switch to saving instead of spending has been too dramatic in a short amount of time.
"It hurts retailers — those who rely on consumer spending," he said.
Two awards were presented at the meeting. Jeff Smith, the creator of the Smitty's Notes blog, received the Duke Energy Citizenship Service Award. KeraNetics, a Winston-Salem biotechnology company, received the Cook Medical Innovation Award for creating a first-ever gel that can be applied to thermal or radiation burns.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement