Future 10: Young Professionals Making a Difference

“It’s wonderful to be part of an organization that provides quality recreational activities and is filled with beautiful parks.”

If you’ve enjoyed any of Brunswick County’s parks or special events in the last six years, you have Melinda Johnson to thank. Her job as marketing and community events coordinator for Brunswick County’s Parks and Recreation Department puts her at the forefront of fun across the county.

“I love this area,” she says. “We just bought a boat, have been exploring the Intracoastal Waterway, and are starting to fish a little. I’ve only caught three, but it’s a start.”

Johnson’s love for the region and willingness to try new things (witness the fishing) makes her the perfect woman for her job, which takes her from one end of the county to the other. She organizes free concerts and summer movie series events during the summer and coordinates marketing efforts with local sponsors.

But that’s not all. She’s a volunteer with the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, the Waccamaw River Greenway Committee, First Tee of Brunswick County, the Oyster Festival, Communities in Schools and more.

“It’s quite humbling to be praised for something that you do for a living,” she says. “Having chosen parks and recreation as my career early on, I can’t see me doing anything else. It’s wonderful to be part of an organization that provides quality recreational activities and is filled with beautiful parks. I’m honored to be part of the Future 10.”

Brandon Sauls
InterCoastal Net Designs
Owner

“Grind it out. Put family first, then work, then play.”

Brandon Sauls has been in business for a while. In 1999, at the age of 24, he founded InterCoastal Net Designs. Since then, he’s only looked ahead, creating and finding more success at every turn. What started as a one-man-operation has become a 20-person web design and Internet marketing firm that his employees call “the best place in Brunswick County to work.”

“I fell in love with this area in college, around the same time I fell in love with web design,” Sauls says.

Spending summers in Brunswick County as a charter-fishing captain, he found that the area left an indelible mark on him. After graduating from college, Sauls started his business and promptly moved it to the place that impressed him so much — Ocean Isle Beach.

Sauls’ recipe for success is simple: “Grind it out,” he says. “Put family first, then work, then play.”

For him, family is his wife, Whitney, and their twin 6-year-olds Sloane and Sydney. Play is fishing (but no more charters) and family time. Work is web development, volunteering on countless boards and finding ways to motivate his team.

“This award,” he says, “it’s not for me, it’s for everyone who’s part of the team at InterCoastal Net. It says a lot that we were recognized.”

Sauls says his team has done a lot of quality work to get to the point where they are today.

“I think being named one of the Future 10 means that me, my team and the business are respected in the community, and that means the most,” Sauls says. “My philosophy has always been to hire local employees and to try to be a good citizen. I guess that’s what I’ve been doing all along.”

Amy Causey
Arbor Landing at Ocean Isle
Director of Community Relations

“Brunswick County is important and I want to see it continue to do well and see more people choosing to stay or move here.” 

“Amy is a very driven and self-motivated person … I see every day her desire to be the very best,” reads Amy Causey’s Future 10 nomination form.

Spend 10 minutes talking with her and you’ll see that every word rings true.

A lifelong resident of Brunswick County, Causey says she’s “fortunate to find work I love in a place I love.” Surrounded by her family and friends, her husband, Wes, and their daughter, Reagan, she doesn’t think there’s a better place in the world for her.

As the director of community relations for Arbor Landing, Causey is responsible for showing prospective residents what makes her home county a great place to live. When she joined Arbor Landing in January 2010, she was their first employee in Brunswick County and was on the ground spreading the word before they’d even broken ground on their facility. Now they have more than 40 residents, and her job has expanded to include admissions duties in addition to her marketing and outreach efforts, but this is something Causey enjoys.

“I like wearing a lot of hats and staying busy,” she says.

She certainly stays busy. When she’s not at work, you’ll find Causey volunteering with the Shallotte Junior Women’s Club or working with the Brunswick County Senior Healthcare Marketers Group, where she just stepped down as chair. But on Sundays, you’ll always find her and her husband rooting for the Carolina Panthers.

“I can’t help but root for the home team,” Causey says.

“I’m really excited about [being named one of the Future 10],” she says. “Because I grew up here and I now am raising my own family here, it means a lot to be recognized as a vital part of the future of our community. Brunswick County is important and I want to see it continue to do well and see more people choosing to stay or move here. I’m part of that and I just hope I can make a difference in a positive way.”

Adam Glisson
ATMC Wireless
Wireless Business Technician

“I need to know the best solutions for a lot of different types of businesses.”

Adam Glisson’s a friendly fellow, which is good since his job as Wireless Business Technician at ATMC Wireless puts him in contact with customers every day. Landing his current job was an act of persistence.

“When I put my application in with ATMC, I was persistent,” Glisson says. “Every couple of days I’d call back to see if a decision had been made. Looking back, I guess I showed them how dedicated I am when I’m passionate about something.”

The job at ATMC is Glisson’s first foray into wireless, but a hunger for knowledge in the wireless technology field pushes him to learn more, play with devices and setups, and to be an expert for his customers.

“So much of what I do is to help setup and maintain our business accounts,” he says. “That means I need to know the best solutions for a lot of different types of businesses. Which means I have to stay current with what’s going on in the industry.”

That makes it sound like when he’s not working, he’s working on knowing more about work, but that’s not totally true. Glisson is a bowler, though he has yet to roll a perfect game. “I came close once. I bowled a 248, but I’m getting there,” he says.

He’s a drummer at New Beginnings Community Church, where he’s also volunteered extensively, helping out with audio/video production and assisting in the youth ministry.

“I think that being recognized like this is really cool,” he says. “I feel like I’m doing a good job and I hear it from my supervisors, but to get something like this, to hear it from the chamber, well, that’s special.”

Regina Stanley-Lowry
Autumn Care Nursing and Rehab Center
Activity Director

“The most rewarding part of my job is seeing our residents smile.”

A self-described “social butterfly,” Regina Stanley-Lowry finds that her job as activity director at Autumn Care Nursing and Rehab Center in Shallotte comes naturally.

“I love what I do,” she says. “Every day I get to interact with our residents and organize events, outings and seasonal to-dos. But the most rewarding part of my job is seeing our residents smile.”

Lowry has been delivering smiles to Autumn Care’s residents since 1997, when she joined the facility as a Certified Nursing Assistant. Soon, she joined the activity team and found that to be her calling. She returned to school, earned an Activity Director Certification from Cape Fear Community College and returned as activity director.

“Everything I do is intended to help make our facility as homelike as possible and help our patients have the quality of life they deserve,” she says. “Being a Brunswick County native, ‘homelike’ to me means a lot of things, like oyster roasts, eating fresh spots and big, family celebrations throughout the year. I try to put together as many events like this as I can.”

She and her family — 7-year-old twin daughters Kendall and Kara and her husband, Heyward Lowry — spend a lot of time doing these same activities, but gardening, she says, is where she finds her moments of relaxation.

“I stay busy,” she says with a laugh, “after all, I am an activity director, so we’re always out on the boat or fishing or cooking. Plus, we travel a lot. There’s always something to do when I’m around.”

The job is like giving back to the grandparents who raised her.

“I have a great love for the elderly, and this job, it means a lot to me,” Lowry says.

The staff at Autumn Care, her team of volunteers and the residents and their families all give her a pat on the back for a job well done, but being named one of the Future 10 was something she called “an unexpected blessing.”

“When I heard about the award, I just sat at my desk and cried,” she says. “I realized that I’ve come a long way in my 16 years here and it means a lot to be recognized for what I’ve done. All I do is try to make everyone I interact with as comfortable and happy as possible, so this validates it all.”

Dr. Stephanie Hardy
Vision Square Eye Care
Optometrist

“It’s important for me to give back to my community.”

For Dr. Stephanie Hardy, there’s no better place in the world than near the water, specifically the waters of North Carolina’s coast. The Pinehurst native was drawn here to attend UNCW, where her love for the ocean grew and her passion for optometry presented itself.

“While I was at UNCW, I thought I might want to be an optometrist,” says Hardy. “So I started working for a local optometrist to see if I liked the field. Turns out I did.”

Hardy left North Carolina to pursue her Doctor of Optometry degree in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and found herself once more near the water.

“After school, I stayed in Florida for a year, working, but I felt North Carolina calling,” she says. “The people here are friendlier, and the way of life is much more inviting. So I came back home.”

Back home was Wilmington for a short bit, then Brunswick County, where she joined the team at Vision Square Eye Care in Shallotte.

As a student in Florida, Hardy joined the Lions Club and found that she loved both the camaraderie and the civic outreach.

“Their work with the visually impaired was a natural fit for an optometrist,” she says.

Once in Shallotte, she joined the local Lions Club to continue her civic duty.

“It’s important for me to give back to my community,” says Hardy. “To be named one of the Future 10 and be recognized both for my professional and personal contributions, well, it’s an honor.”

Hardy gives to the community in more ways than with the Lions Club. She’s an active member of the Brunswick County Chamber of Commerce and she just finished her first year (“my first of many,” she confesses) as “Team Mom” for the Shallotte JV Pirates football team. She describes her duties as Team Mom as “a sort of coach, one to keep them motivated and help keep a positive attitude in everything our players do.”

Ask any of her players (or their parents for that matter) and they’ll tell you that someone as cheerful and upbeat as Hardy was tailor made for the job of Team Mom. And that, in turn, makes her an ideal Future 10 member.

Jessica Dosher
CoastalCare
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

“I help them because they deserve it. No one should have to deal with being mistreated on their own.”

“By nature, I’m a person who enjoys giving,” says Jessica Dosher.

In her job as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, she specializes in giving – giving care, support and a helping hand to her clients, many of whom suffer from mental illness and substance abuse disorders.

“It’s the small, subtle things in life that can mean the most to us,” Dosher says. “Offering to listen. Having compassion. Providing a nonjudgmental place for people to talk. Providing empathy and understanding. These are all important in building relationships and starting the healing process.”

Much of Dosher’s work involves children and adults who are victims of abuse or who are suffering from addictions or mental illness themselves.

“I help them because they deserve it,” Dosher says. “No one should have to deal with being mistreated on their own.”

To get where she is today, Dosher took a path from Brunswick Community College to Campbell University to East Carolina University. At East Carolina, her work and studies took her to a children’s advocacy center in Greenville, N.C., and eventually back to Brunswick County. Here, her hard work, compassion and drive to help others made her one of the Future 10.

“It’s exciting to know that there’s an appreciation for young professionals in our community and that the [Brunswick] chamber is making efforts to recognize us,” Dosher says. “It really is humbling to know that the time, patience and diligence that it’s taken for me to get where I am today are being recognized in such a positive light.”

Chris LaCoe
HWY 55 Burgers, Shakes & Fries
Odysea Surf and Kite Boarding
Ocean Cure
Owner, Co-Owner and Founder

“When I started making fries at Andy’s,  I had no idea I’d be where I am today.”

Chris LaCoe is living the American dream. He started at HWY 55 Burgers, Shakes & Fries (when it was Andy’s) as a fry cook and worked his way up the ladder, joining the ranks of franchise owners, expanding his business, starting another successful venture and founding a nonprofit. All in the last 18 years.