Biography of Steve Adams

Download

Before I came to the sandhills, I had a big intense management career. I graduated from North Carolina State University in 1975 with a bachelor of arts in Business Management. In fact, that was the first year they offered the words "Business Management" on a diploma from North Carolina State University, and since my last name is Adams, I was the first person to get a "Business Management" degree from North Carolina State University. From there I went on to become Project Manager/CEO at Kildaire Farms in Cary, North Carolina's first and largest planned unit development. Every planned unit development in this state has been patterned off of the work that I did at Kildaire Farms. After that, I started and built my own construction company, and grew it into the largest residential construction company in the state of North Carolina. At the same time I owned and operated the largest nightclub on the East Coast with over 40,000 members, and I accomplished all this by the age of 38. Ultimately the layers and layers of government bureaucracy took away the fun of building and developing housing projects, so I shut down my construction enterprise and invested in the broadcast media which is where I am today. So you see ladies and gentlemen, I am a professional manager. I know how to manage resources, assets, and personnel.

This is where my opponents and I greatly differ in our backgrounds. They are career government bureaucrats with a law enforcement background. I come from the private sector with a strong business management background. A bureaucrat solves every problem by hiring more staff, buying more equipment, and requesting the commissioners to raise you taxes to pay for it. The Moore County Sheriff's Office does not need an increase in funding, it just needs to be restructured. Recently Ronnie Fields (the Republican candidate) was asked by the League of Women Voters:

Do you believe the Sheriff’s office receives sufficient funding to operate effectively? Ronnie Fields responded "No, there needs to be increased funding for the jail. They are currently understaffed and often utilize road deputies to cover positions in the jail. This practice causes a shortage within the patrol division which ultimately threatens public safety. An allocation of funds to hire an additional 7 Detention Officers would optimize both officer safety as well as inmate safety. Increased funding is also needed to continue to provide our deputies with the best training and equipment available to law enforcement. They deserve nothing less. The opiode crisis that our country is experiencing now is also an issue that needs to be addressed. Currently, there is only 1 investigator assigned."

I am telling you that we currently have more than enough money to opperate the Office, and enough assets to generate our own cash flow, in order to give every penny of the budget back to the taxpayer.

Ladies and gentlemen may I strongly suggest that the Sheriff's Office is a management position. It is about managing resources, assets, and personnel. The Sheriff does not go around kicking in doors and making arrests. An effective Sheriff is an effective manager. A good analogy would be First Health. When you go there you find an atmosphere to get well. That is provided by the CEO. He and I have three thing in common, we both have impeccable integrity, we're both great managers, and neither of us has a medical degree. Yet more people trust him with their healthcare than all the doctors in this county combined, because he provides everything needed for his clients to get well. This is the same philosophy needed at the Sheriff's Office.