ENTREPRENEURIAL AMERICAN LEADERSHIP AWARD

R. Philip Hanes

Date: January 2007

ISSUE AREA: Highlighted Inidividuals & Communities

Through a lifetime of tireless effort and devotion, Phil Hanes has installed arts and culture at the forefront of economic and heritage revitalization in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Even at eighty- one, Hanes continues to reinvent and extend the importance of culture and small business development throughout the city and outlying areas; effectively making Winston-Salem a cultural gem of the Carolinas. Hanes is a true missionary, philanthropist, and advocate of the arts and has exuded an unmatched ability to convince even the strongest critic of the immense importance of culture in community revitalization. While his accomplishments abound, Hanes has managed to stay focused on the individual entrepreneur and has become a living embodiment of the notion that culture really can build community.

A founder of the American arts council movement, R. Philip Hanes has served on the boards of more than 50 national, state, and local arts agencies, most notably as a founder of the North Carolina School of the Arts, a founding member of the National Council on the Arts, and as founder and first chairman of the North Carolina Arts Council. He is the recipient of three presidential appointments, three honorary degrees and 24 arts awards, including the National Governors Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts and the 1991 National Medal of Arts. In September 2005 he received the Founder’s Award, presented by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA). Also in 2005, he received the National Endowment for the Arts Chairman’s Award. He is the former CEO of Hanes Companies, which received six national Business in the Arts awards. Hanes has also founded two conservation organizations and served on the national boards of three others.

Hanes’ involvement in the arts began in 1949 when he was asked to bring his business expertise into helping to form the first Arts Council in the United States, the Winston-Salem Arts Council. This umbrella organization grew into the North Carolina Arts Council and later the nationwide American Council for the Arts. In the 1960’s, Hanes helped to create the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In the early 1980’s, Hanes was directly responsible for shifting the focus of Winston-Salem’s downtown development towards cultural development using his own partnership with the North Carolina School of the Arts to build The Stevens Center for the Performing Arts.

Recently, Hanes has focused his vast networking and fundraising abilities on the small-business and artists communities in downtown Winston-Salem. After being named Commissioner on Cultural Affairs for the city in 2000, Hanes has advised business owners and has secured programs to give low-interest loans to aspiring artists, artist venues and restaurant owners. Though Hanes is currently directing much of his unmatched energy on downtown Winston-Salem, he is also noted for his land preservation and development efforts in northwestern North Carolina and southwest Virginia. Through his work with the New River Community Partners, an organization which he helped found, Hanes has secured an 11 mile stretch of the New River as a National Heritage River. Using the model that the arts bring tourism which builds the economy, he single-handedly secured a private collection of over 12,000 art teapots - the renowned Kamm Teapot Collection of Los Angeles - by persuading the Kamms to donate the collection to create the Sparta,NC Teapot Museum. Hanes and his wife Charlotte are spearheading the effort to raise 10 million dollars to build a world class museum in downtown Sparta.

Hanes is the author of "How to Get Anyone to do Anything," a pithy handbook on getting things done the Phil Hanes way, which contains several entertaining and enlightening examples from his 50+ years of civic engagement to illustrate his points.

Hanes is the quintessential "doer" and through his advocating of arts and culture, he has furthered the ideals of livable communities, which has made a grand impact not only on Winston-Salem, but on the country as a whole.

Phil Hanes lives with his wife, Charlotte, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.