GASTONIA – Donny Hicks started his job 15 years ago by inheriting a spiral notebook as Gaston County’s "database" for building sites and business recruitment.

Last year, Hicks, executive director of the county’s Economic Development Commission, helped attract the largest single industry investment in Gaston’s history.

Now his work is not only being noticed in Gaston, but throughout the state.

At its 35th annual conference in Atlantic Beach on Tuesday, the North Carolina Economic Developers Association awarded Hicks its Practitioner of the Year award for 2000-2001.

The NCEDA committee awards the plaque to someone working in economic development who demonstrates significant leadership and accomplishment over the past year, said Richard Wiley, chair of the committee and a member of the NCEDA board of directors. Wiley also is director of economic development for Duke Power North Carolina service area.

The committee took notice of Gaston landing both DSM Desotech and Buckeye Technologies Inc., whose combined investments total $150 million. Buckeye is the county’s largest single industrial investment at $137 million. Both are located near Stanley, which helped alleviate industrial losses for the town, Wiley said.

According to EDC statistics, Gaston County has lost 4,967 jobs since 1999,with more than 750 from Stanley.

Hicks was nominated by Stanley Mayor Jim Harrill, DSM Desotech officials and Lane Holbert, an industrial real estate broker with Grubb & Ellis Bissell Patrick of Charlotte.

"He’s just head and shoulders above other EDC guys and really works extremely hard," Holbert said. "He’s knowledgeable and detailed in a lot of facets and doesn’t give up easy on any prospect."

Holbert worked with Hicks previously as a civil engineer showing clients different scenarios for prospective sites.

"The things that he (Hicks) does for Gaston County and the knowledge he has are just phenomenal," said Chuck Elliott, chairman of the Gaston County EDC’s board of directors. "I sit there sometimes in utter amazement of the information stored in that brain."

In working with Hicks during the last five years at the EDC, Elliott says he has appreciated his work over the last year or so in recruiting companies such as Buckeye and DSM Desotech.

"I used to tell people, with Donny’s technical background and the facts that he knows about the area, unless someone is going to give away the store, they’ll be in Gaston County. He has a reputation around the state that he is one sharp, young man."

In his work over the past year, Buckeye and DSM Desotech are two projects that stick out, officials said.

"They’re the kind of companies that anyone would like to have," Hicks said. "They both are very, very high quality companies, and they’re both significant investments."

Both companies are located near Stanley, with DSM Desotech remodeling the former Queens Group building and the-soon-to-open Buckeye plant off N.C. 27.

With several closings, Stanley lost most of its industrial base in a short time, Hicks said, adding that having two new manufacturers so close is rare.

"You don’t see them 800 yards apart in a town of 2,200 people," he said. "To be able to come back and replace it, I think it’s a really unique situation to be able to do that."

A Charlotte native, Hicks has been a member of NCEDA for almost 17 years. Starting off at Gaston County’s EDC as an intern from the public administration program at UNC Chapel Hill in 1984, he was hired on to a full-time position. Two years later, he was hired as the commission’s executive director.

Hicks, 40, says since he started, there have been dramatic changes in the levels of competitiveness for companies and in incentive packages.

"When I started, it was pre-fax and Fed Ex," he said. "Nowadays, regardless of the size of the project, we have to be ready to give answers immediately. People will say right away, ‘This is what I’m looking for. Do you have anything I’m interested in?’"

Today, the EDC’s open sites are mapped using AutoCAD as opposed to paper maps and blueprints.

The county’s capital improvements plan to extend and upgrade water and sewer services to other area is the "most important thing we’ve done in 20 years," he said. "Had we not done that, I think the county would be in desperate shape."

Based in Raleigh, NCEDA has 700 members throughout the state. Its members focus on recruitment of manufacturing industries, trade, tourism, downtown development and business retention.