Can NC Global TransPark lift East Kinston residents out of poverty?
Aerial photo of Global TransPark (Screenshot: NC Global TransPark)
Can NC Global TransPark lift East Kinston residents out of poverty?
by Greg Childress, NC Newsline
November 20, 2025
This is the second in a two-part series on how one of the state’s most economically disadvantaged communities is trying to change its fortunes.
The North Carolina Global TransPark in Kinston was created in the 1990s as an industrial park to bring economic prosperity to a region that had lost more than its fair share of agricultural and manufacturing jobs. But nearly two decades after its launch, the TransPark had not lived up to expectations and was deemed a boondoggle, even by some supporters.
These days, however, the Global TransPark, with a renewed focus on aeronautics and more than 1,800 employees working on site at companies like Spirit AeroSystems and flyExclusive, is bustling with activity. That’s leading many to hope that the TransPark will finally produce the economic outcomes regional leaders and residents were promised.
The park’s growth has been substantial in recent years. Last year, state, federal and local officials broke ground for the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center East, C-130 Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul complex that will create more than 400 new jobs and generate $400 million in new investment for the region. And Lenoir Community College is building a $25 million Aviation Center of Excellence at the TransPark to offer training in aviation systems and aircraft construction, as well as an aviation academy for high school students.
According to the state’s 2025 State of Aviation report, the TransPark generates $781 million in economic output, supports nearly 3,000 jobs and contributes $43.5 million in state and local taxes. The park was created as an independent government agency within the N.C. Department of Transportation.
“I’ve seen us go through some great times and I’ve seen the bad times,” said Mark Pope, president of the N.C. Global TransPark Economic Development Region, which includes Greene, Lenoir and Wayne Counties. “I see us really inching our way back up to being a different community than what we used to be.”
But the park’s rising fortunes aren’t lifting all its neighbors equally.
East Kinston, one of the most economically depressed communities in the state, is about five miles north of the TransPark. From there, Chris Suggs, a city councilman and founder of Kinston Teens, a youth-led nonprofit devoted to community improvement, is closely monitoring the TransPark’s newfound success.
Suggs worries that residents in some of the county’s poorest communities could be left behind if intentional efforts aren’t made to include them.
“You have this confluence of economic activity in a community where a few miles away, there is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the state,” Suggs said. “I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing if our leaders could actually figure out how to connect the two. Right now, neighborhoods like East Kinston and a bunch of rural communities in Lenoir County are disconnected from Global TransPark.”
A main concern, Suggs said, is the lack of adequate public transportation. Without it, he said, residents from low-wealth communities find it difficult to reach the new jobs or the community colleges where training for them takes place.
“If we make those types of investments in our civic and social infrastructure, if we make greater investments in housing so that people are able to take advantage of these jobs … I think those are some of the positives that can come from the economic boost the Global TransPark is starting to bring to this region,” Suggs said.
Suggs said his colleagues on the city council and members of the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners have “missed the moment” when it comes to investing in quality housing and public transportation. Suggs did not seek reelection. His term on the council ends next month.
Jeremy Stroud, executive director of the Global TransPark, said the average salary at the TransPark is in the $75,000 range, compared to $48,000 for Lenoir County, where Kinston is located.
“Our main function to help the people in Lenoir County and Kinston and the region is to work with private industry to attract more industry to the Global TransPark,” Stroud said. “In doing so, you have more technical jobs available to local residents.”
Stroud and others who spoke to NC Newsline said the path to good-paying jobs at the TransPark is through the public schools and Lenoir Community College, where many TransPark’s employees are trained.
The TransPark has a strong relationship with Lenoir Community College and others in the regions. It also sponsors summer camps for students and offers job shadowing career days to spark interest in the high tech jobs available at the TransPark, Stroud said.
“We try to engage with the local school systems and local community colleges routinely,” Stroud said. “I would say to a student, if you find something you’re passionate in, communicate that with your advisors and with the school systems and with the Global TransPark. We would love to expose those students to those careers.”
Lenoir County Commissioner Preston Harris believes the TransPark can be a catalyst to help lift residents out of poverty. Harris said those efforts must begin as early as elementary school.
Harris noted that high school students also take courses at Lenoir Community College through early college programs. Students can graduate with an associate’s degree and some have “automatic jobs” with companies in the park, Harris said.
“A few of those companies, they actually have something set up in the schools where they will co-op with students so that while they’re in school and during the summer, they can actually work with those companies,” Harris said.
To better prepare the region’s future workforce, Pope said more schools need STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs to engage children and to get them “excited about learning how to fix things.”
Pope noted the workplace is changing, and technology and robotics skills are becoming essential to employment.
“That’s why our STEM programs have to be so important in our elementary, our junior high, our high schools,” Pope said. “How do we train and get our kids engaged with what’s being made in their own backyard?”
Pope, the park’s executive director, wants an aviation-focused “academy or charter school” for middle school students near the TransPark that would enroll students from across Eastern North Carolina. He said he’s been talking to a lot of people about how to make that a reality.
“I think that’s another missing piece of the puzzle,” Pope said. “If we had that, it would be a game changer for a lot of these young kids.”
As NC Newsline previously reported, Suggs returned home not long after graduating from UNC Chapel Hill in 2021. He wants more of his peers and the youth coming up now to see Kinston and Lenoir County as an option after graduating high school or college.
“It wasn’t necessarily the easiest thing for me to do,” Suggs said, referring to his decision to return to Kinston. “There are so few of us who went away to college and then came back.”
He said many of those who stayed after high school have struggled to find good jobs and stable housing.
“I want my peers, my generation, the generation coming behind us to feel like Kinston is a place that they can stay in and remain in and make a decent living and have a good quality of life,” Suggs said. “I don’t want us to be constantly losing our best and brightest to Raleigh, the Triangle or to Charlotte or anywhere else in the country.”
Missed the first story in this series? Find it here.
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