On the Porch: Dr. James Wood on The New Authoritarianism

This Week: Dr. Henry C. McKoy, Jr. is a seasoned professional in business, community and economic development, policy, government, finance, energy, philanthropy and the academic worlds. He held two Senior Presidential appointments in the administration of President Joseph Biden from 2022-2025 following a distinguished career in finance, investing, business, higher education, and public service. Dr. McKoy served as the founding Director of the U.S. Office of State and Community Energy Programs (2022-2024) at the United States Department of Energy where his team managed 28 programs totaling $16 billion in funding, investing in all 50 states, 5 U.S. territories, and Washington, DC, while touching 250 million Americans.

This Week: David Delaney is a Chatham County Commissioner representing residents in District 3, which extends from Pittsboro to the Orange County line. Elected in 2022, David's county work has focused on strategic planning, climate change, and good governance. David is a cybersecurity and privacy attorney, former senior executive with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, West Point graduate, and army veteran. He has taught national security law at Indiana University and UNC Chapel Hill, he chairs the criminal justice committee of his NAACP branch, and he is an assistant scoutmaster with a Carrboro troop.

This Week: Kirsha Dudenhausen is the General Manager of Chatham Marketplace, a food co-op in Pittsboro, NC where she's worked since 2021. Working at The Chatham Marketplace means Kirsha can make a difference in her community by helping to provide access to fresh, local goods while supporting regional farmers and other producers. Kirsha celebrates working in a place where she shares common values with employees and customers. Kirsha and her family have lived in Pittsboro since 2018. Nicole Villano is a Strategy and Development Manager for the National Cooperative of Grocers, a business service cooperative for retail food co-ops in the US. Prior to that she was the General Manager at Deep Roots Market in Greensboro, NC, where she still lives and works remotely. She earned an Anthropology degree from Appalachian State and is working on a Master’s in Sustainability at UNCG. Nicole also serves as Board President for Carolina Common Enterprise, a non-profit cooperative development agency. Nicole believes that food systems are unsustainable without cooperation and that local food economies are critical to our future.

This Week: Heather Washburn is the President of Calico Studio, a boutique multidisciplinary design firm with clients on both the East and West Coasts of the US. She has built her career on listening to her clients, looking for patterns, and thinking outside the box. Heather is also the owner of Calico Creates, the artistic arm of Calico where she creates fine art and upcycled accessories such as bags and wallets. She is the founder of Calico Makers Market which happens twice a year. Heather is a native of NC, local architect, an artist member of the Orange County Artists Guild, and other community organizations.

This Week: Born into a blue collar and agricultural clan in rural Pennsylvania, Jim Crawford was the first in his family to graduate from college. Earning his PhD from UNC, he taught US and World History at several universities in piedmont North Carolina for several decades. He served as chairman of the Chatham County board of commissioners, and currently serves as trustee for Central Carolina Community College. He is a firm believer in American democracy and trusts that the constitution will hold firm now as it has in past crises despite the broken, distempered electorate.

This Week: Dr. Jennifer Platt has three decades of public health leadership practice in policy and program development, implementation. She specializes in using systems thinking approaches to solve complex problems. Dr. Platt runs TickWarriors, LLC, specializing in eco-friendly pest control and their sister nonprofit Tick-borne Conditions United (TBCU). TBCU strives to bridge the gaps between patients, emerging science, and healthcare provider education.

This Week: Born into a blue collar and agricultural clan in rural Pennsylvania, Jim Crawford was the first in his family to graduate from college. Earning his PhD from UNC, he taught US and World History at several universities in piedmont North Carolina for several decades. He served as chairman of the Chatham County board of commissioners, and currently serves as trustee for Central Carolina Community College. He is a firm believer in American democracy and trusts that the constitution will hold firm now as it has in past crises despite the broken, distempered electorate.

This Week: Host Randy Voller, welcomes Elana Etten, the digital marketing expert on a mission to help small businesses and nonprofits ‘Streamline. Strategize. Simplify.’ As the owner of Identity Marketing US, Elana uses powerful tools like AI and automation to take the work out of marketing and business processes, saving business owners valuable time and helping them reach more customers. Since 2015, her clients have seen game-changing results, like surviving the pandemic, increasing their customer base, and cutting their business process hours in half. Elana’s motto is simple: ‘It’s time to automate your business’ so you can focus on what matters most. Let Identity Marketing help you leave your mark today.

The chairman of North Carolina's Democratic Party and four current or former party leaders are resolving their dispute.

How Democratic candidates do in North Carolina’s 2014 and 2016 elections — when millions of voters will go to the polls — may depend a lot on a race about to be decided by less than one thousand Democratic party officials. On Saturday, February 2, six hundred or so members of the Democratic Party’s state […]