Exactly where he wanted to be.
After spending the early part of his career in government, Honeycutt is the community relations manager for Progress Energy in Moore County. He is the one who reassures the public when homes lose their power during storms.
He covers a large area, but is headquartered in Aberdeen, which is just fine with him.
Honeycutt spent the first eight years of his life in Warsaw. When he moved to Aberdeen, he was excited to find that town had a fast-food restaurant and a movie theater.
“This was like the big city for me,” he says. “The school had an auditorium and a gymnasium.”
He was born to Fay and Bruce Honeycutt in 1969 in Clinton, site of the nearest hospital.
His father and uncle ran a bridge-building business. Honeycutt remembers being on the projects, wearing a hard hat and flotation device.
“I thought I was part of the team,” he said.
His uncle died when Honeycutt was 7. He says his father didn’t want to take over, so the business folded.
His father moved the family back to Aberdeen, where his grandfather owned the Aberdeen Packaging Plant.
Honeycutt loved being in Aberdeen.
“There was a four-lane highway,” he says, “more than one fast-food restaurant and a movie theater. It was urban living.”
Both his parents went to work for the N.C. Department of Corrections. They now own an antiques store in downtown Aberdeen. His mother has been heavily involved in civic activities, even serving on the Town Board in the 1990s.
Honeycutt graduated from Pinecrest in 1987. He was on the basketball, golf and tennis teams. During his senior year, the basketball team made it to the state quarterfinals.
‘Pretty Rewarding’
He attended Appalachian State University. He studied political science under legendary professor Dr. Matt Williamson, who had a reputation for taking in students with promise and setting them up with great jobs.
Honeycutt proved his mettle to Williamson by working at mending fences on his horse farm. Williamson wanted the task to begin at 8 a.m. on Saturdays, Honeycutt said.
“I’m convinced he did that to see what I was made of,” he says.
If it was a test, Honeycutt thinks he passed. He developed a good relationship with his professor, who acted as a mentor and nurturer.
He also fostered a relationship with a young woman named Donna Green. She went to Peace College before transferring to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was from Boone.
One of Honeycutt’s fraternity brothers dated one of Green’s high school friends. Honeycutt and Green met and began dating.
He graduated and went on to an internship in Troy. Working on special projects, he had his hand in most aspects of running the town. He learned the ins and outs to everything from garbage pick-up to budgeting to planning and zoning.
He found that he enjoyed municipal government work.
“I love it,” he said. “It’s never the same day twice.”
The day-to-day wrangling might be exciting to share with friends over dinner. But the reward came in knowing he had been part of a job well done.
“When you look back,” he says, “you see all the good work you’ve been doing. It’s pretty rewarding.”
He began his work in Troy in 1991. He worked under Town Manager Matt Bernhardt, who is now an assistant manager in Salisbury. Bernhardt had been a former intern as well and acted as a mentor to Honeycutt.
Six Years in Burgaw
Honeycutt applied for an internship with Andy Wilkison, village manager of Pinehurst. After a meeting, Wilkison offered him a job.
But it wouldn’t come to pass. He headed west along I-40. Honeycutt got an offer for a full-time job from Woodfin, a suburb of Asheville.
Green moved to Asheville to be near Honeycutt and worked in a dentist’s office. He says that the job was all about that city defending itself from annexation and creating an identity of its own.
Honeycutt worked there for more than two years. One of his biggest tasks was in establishing an extra-territorial jurisdiction. There was no countywide zoning.
“Western North Carolina did not embrace land-use controls,” he said.
He also worked on creating a municipal golf course and a landfill that was more than a $3 million project.
Honeycutt’s next stop was east along I-40 in Burgaw, where he took a job as town manager. Friends used to kid him that his entire career path was based on communities with hard names to pronounce.
It was a great place to work, he says, and Screen Gems movie studio, based in nearby Wilmington, often worked in the town.
But everything wasn’t perfect.
“Donna said, ‘I’m not going to follow you around the state,’” he says.
As soon as he moved, he proposed. They married a year later.
The Honeycutts spent almost six years in Burgaw. He liked it because he was still learning and because it “had a real small-town feel.”
It was only about a half-hour drive to the coast, and Honeycutt says that he always liked to travel. Especially within the state. He also likes to travel outside of the state, but rarely has had time.
After Burgaw, Honeycutt had choices. He was offered a position in Garner as assistant city manager.
Wrightsville Beach became aware he’d been offered a job, so the town invited him to dinner. Over dinner — Honeycutt points out that spaghetti is the worst entree to order during a job interview — he spent two hours endearing himself to the town.
It offered him a job as assistant manager.
He says it was an amazing place because the residents were so smart and skilled. The town also carried enough weight that it was given a seat at the table on regional affairs.
“Wrightsville Beach was a great place to be,” he says. “It was fun to go to work.”
‘Full Circle’
He expected to be there for a long time, but someone had other plans. After about two and a half years, John Elliot with Progress Energy approached him asking for advice about a position he needed to fill.
He wanted a community relations manager. Honeycutt says that it was an impressive Fortune 250 company. Plus, the kicker: The person who took the job would need to move to a little town in Moore County called Aberdeen.
Elliot asked if he knew anyone who might be interested. He said he might be interested himself.
Honeycutt met with representatives of Progress Energy at the Carolina Hotel and wound up with a job offer.
Honeycutt says he was a little worried about moving into the private sector, but he had been in local government for 10 years and wanted to be closer to his family.
“It helped that it sort of brings me full circle,” he says.
Working at Progress Energy, he was amazed at how well a company of 14,000 employees can work together.
He is the face of a company that is now on the mind of the public more than ever before. With active hurricanes being blamed on global warming and the media focusing on conservation, Honeycutt says that the industry is ever-changing.
He has also acted as the face of the company while following in his mother’s footsteps in civic life. He is the chairman of the Moore County Chamber of Commerce, is on the Public Education Foundation of Moore County and the local American Red Cross board
He also helps coordinate Progress Energy philanthropic goals.
Honeycutt may be glad to be home, but he still enjoys day trips. He calls them “road trips without an agenda.”
He can be at the mountains in the morning and the beach in the afternoon, passing some of the best golf courses in the world on the way, Honeycutt says.
“In North Carolina, you can really do about anything you want,” he says. “You can go to an urban area like Charlotte and there is the beach and the mountains.”
He also likes playing with his two daughters, Carson, 6, and Camille, 4.
“I love taking off with them and going somewhere and turning off the cell phone,” he says.
He covers a 10-county area with 50 municipalities, so there isn’t a lot of time for rest. Honeycutt doesn’t golf much, he says, because he isn’t very good. What he likes to do is work on his house.
“I enjoy the fruits of my labor,” he says.
He doesn’t know what the future holds, whether he will ever return to government work. He enjoys working for Progress Energy. He knows one of the secrets of succeeding at whatever he tackles.
“It’s about developing relationships,” he says. “Good things always come from good communication.”
Matthew Moriarty may be reached at 693-2479 or by e-mail at moriarty@thepilot.com.
