Western NC Week: Jack Cecil, Biltmore Farms

In honor of our upcoming forum on civic engagement, ReCONNECT to Community, being held Sept. 17 in beautiful, scenic Asheville, we’re doing something special. Next week, we have FIVE new First in Future podcasts lined up, all featuring a different western North Carolina leader. We’ll start off the week with Kit Cramer, president & CEO of the Asheville Chamber of Commerce. We’ll end the week with Oscar Wong, owner of Asheville’s Highland Brewing Company. As for the rest of the week’s guests . . . well, you’ll have to tune in next week to find out who they are!

In the meantime, we’ll revisit a conversation we had with Jack Cecil of Biltmore Farms, who’s long been an Asheville leader in many different ways. As a direct descendent of George Washington Vanderbilt, the man behind the Biltmore Estate, Cecil and his family have been in Asheville for generations. As we talk with Cecil about how Asheville recovered from hard times during the Depression to grow into the “Paris of the South,” he’ll tell us lessons he’s learned about how to develop communities that last.

Listen to the podcast: