Event honors local entrepreneurs

Lawrence “Larry” Walsh

The way Jeff Saut sees it, the stock market is like a spring.

“You can only push down so far before you get a — boing — bounce back,” said Saut, chief investment strategist and managing director of equity research for Raymond James.

He spoke Tuesday night at the 32nd annual Stock Market Symposium, which was organized by the Center for Entrepreneurship at Methodist University and held at Fayetteville’s Doubletree Hotel.

It was an event where even the prayer before dinner touched on the fact that investment portfolios held by many — if not most — in the room aren’t worth what they were during the 31st annual symposium.

So has the market hit the bottom?

“It’s too soon to tell,” Saut told a room full of business movers and shakers from Cumberland and surrounding counties.

But his theme for the evening centered around his conclusion that while there still are likely to be some periods of weak growth yet ahead, “We’ve probably seen the worst of it.”

Job loss numbers are going to look worse in the future, Saut said, adding that those are backward-looking indicators.

But housing affordability and interest rates are just some of the positive signs of recovery, he said.

“The time to be bearish and cautious was a year ago,” Saut said.

Four key awards were also presented during the evening.

And if the winners had one theme for their acceptance speeches, it was giving credit to their employees.

Here are this year’s award winners, with biographical information primarily pulled from their citations:

Lawrence “Larry” Walsh received the Silver Spoon Award, which is presented to individuals who “although not born to wealth and status, have distinguished themselves by significant economic achievement and accomplishment.”

Before retiring from the Army in 1997, Walsh worked logistics and received the Bronze Star for organizing the Logistical Support Base for his battalion during Operation Desert Storm.

With a fellow retired Army warrant officer, Ben Sweatland, Walsh founded The Logistics Company Inc. (TLC), which opened with 11 employees and one contract worth $235,000 and grew quickly from there.

Working on government and civilian contracts, the company now employs more than 1,000 people at locations across the country and abroad. In 2008, Inc. magazine listed TLC’s revenues in 2007 at $69.9 million and ranked TLC as the 10th fastest-growing logistics company in the United States.

A new headquarters for The Logistics Co. is planned for Patriot Park, a mixed-used development on Andrews Road approved for rezoning this month by the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners.

Dr. Ernest J. Goodson received the Small Business Excellence award.

After completing a one-year fellowship in dental surgery at the University of London, Goodson worked as a public health dentist in nine counties of eastern North Carolina; completed his residency at the University of California; and has been practicing orthodontics in Fayetteville since 1986.

For 13 years he has been volunteering his services at the CARE Clinic of Fayetteville, which provides free medical and dental care for uninsured, low-income adults in Cumberland County. He has volunteered as a coach and has for years tutored elementary and middle school students.

Working with the Caring 7, he has fed and supported the homeless at Thanksgiving and Christmas for 10 years and when his wife, Judge Patricia Timmons-Goodson, was campaigning for the North Carolina Supreme Court, he served as an advisor and strategist.

Rena McLaurin was named Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur of the Year

She is co-owner and one of two marketing directors for the AmeriSpec Home Inspection Service, which her husband, Arnold McLaurin, purchased in 1995.

That business started in Fayetteville and has since expanded to include two other locations in North Carolina and two locations in South Carolina.

In 2007, the McLaurins were recognized for achieving the highest gross revenue of any small-market franchise owner, not only in North Carolina, but also in all of North America, and were recently honored for being AmeriSpec’s sixth in the nation in terms of 2008 revenue.

McLaurin is vice president of the Hope Mills Area Chamber of Commerce, and has served on its board; serves on the Hoke County Housing Coalition for Fair and Equitable Housing; and has volunteered in several capacities including helping to develop the “Love Lunch Program” in Hope Mills.

Robert “Bob” Smith, Jr. received the American Business Ethics Award.

Smith worked his way up through the ranks at Monroe Systems for Business, eventually landing in Fayetteville in 1974 to become the local branch manager. When the owner began downsizing and consolidating locations, Smith got to work on new opportunities that led to Copiers Plus, making it an authorized dealer with Mita Copystar America.

With some former employees beside him, Smith and his wife, Jackie, opened a small office on Ramsey Street.

By 1988, Smith’s son, Tim, and his daughter, Leslie, were part of the team. By 2000, the business was flourishing and the team moved to a new 8,000-square-foot facility on Chicago Drive. In the same month, a second location opened in Raleigh. Later, Smith purchased a dealership in Wilmington and opened a branch in Greensboro.

Copiers Plus now employs 35 people and has furnished copiers to several local nonprofit organizations.

Staff writer Rebecca Logan can be reached at loganr@fayobserver.com or 486-3582.