Collaboration in Action: Serving Military Families through Strengthening Communities

How does a small North Carolina city become a national example of collaboration between military and community? 

Mayor Will Lewis says it starts with relationships - and a willingness to show up for one another.

In this episode, Jessica Beckendorf talks with Havelock, North Carolina Mayor Will Lewis about what it looks like when a city and an installation grow together. 

As president of Allies for Cherry Point Tomorrow, Mayor Lewis helps connect community, education, and military partners to strengthen opportunities for service members, veterans, and local families alike. 

Their conversation explores how collaboration, communication, and long‑term vision can build lasting readiness at every level.

Links and resources from this episode:

• Visit the ACT website: https://alliesforcherrypoint.com/
• Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12879756/ 
• Send us a message: practicingconnection@oneop.org 

Transcript

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Welcome to the Practicing Connection podcast. I'm Jessica Beckendorf. In this episode, we're spotlighting a community that has made partnership a central theme, Havelock, North Carolina. 

Havelock sits just outside Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, which also happens to be one of the largest employers in the region. It's a place where the city, the installation, schools, and local employers work hand in hand to support service members, veterans, and their families. 

That kind of collaboration does not happen by accident. It takes leadership, people, time, and a deep commitment to community well-being. Our guest today knows that work inside and out. Mayor Will Lewis has served the city of Havelock for nearly two decades, building strong bridges between the city and the installation. During this time, he has championed education, STEM outreach, and open communication across civilian and military sectors, all while maintaining typical mayor duties, like attending community events, community engagement, and working to make Havelock stronger. 

Mayor Will also leads Allies for Cherry Point Tomorrow, or ACT, an organization that began years ago with a single mission: to protect the Fleet Readiness Center East during a round of base realignment. But ACT has since evolved into a nonprofit that uplifts the installation and the surrounding region. So today, ACT convenes partners to expand access to engineering education, to grow local employment opportunities, and create pathways for transitioning veterans, all with an eye toward long-term community and family readiness. 

That is quite the introduction. Mayor Will, welcome to the podcast. It's such a pleasure to have you here. 

[Will Lewis]: Hey, Jessica, thank you for having me. I'm honored to be on your podcast. I'm going to do my best to make that intro do some justice to it. Thank you for that. That was awesome.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Well, we've already had a couple of off-air conversations, and I fully believe all of the things that we said about you. So let's get started with the first thing I wanted to ask you, was that, you know, you've served as the mayor of Havelock for nearly two decades, and now you lead Allies for Cherry Point Tomorrow. 

When you think about your journey, what personal values or experiences have most shaped how you show up for military families and the broader community?

[Will Lewis]: Well, I mean, it has been, this is my 21st year total. I did eight years as a commissioner on the board and this number 13 as mayor. So 21 years, as you said, for the city. 

And, you know, I think like most people who get in a position, whether for local service, like local government, it is about service and it's about people. It's about the people in your community. So I grew up here in Havelock. And I've been surrounded by Marines and all of our local citizens the whole time. I just wanted to give back. 

So when I first ran, the thought was, “I'm just going to be able to help some people, whether it's getting a stop sign right or, you know, fixing potholes in a street, whatever that might be.” I really didn't know when I first joined the board that there would be this whole component with Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and taking care of Marines. 

And I grew into that. And you kind of saw it a little bit. It's like when you grow up here, I tell everybody, like, “We're so fortunate. We live with everyday heroes.” Like, you're pumping your gas, you look over and the person next to you is about to deploy or is training to deploy. We're a very operational base. 

So like, man, we live with people that protect our freedom. 

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Yeah. 

[Will Lewis]: So it starts simple, like just seeing them at a local event and talking to them, and making them feel welcome when they're brand new, because they change out every three years. Making them feel welcome. Then it grew into ways that we can actually affect their lives, things that we can do for them to make their lives better. So I don't know that there was like any one thing or activity, or like realization. It kind of grows on you if you stay here long enough, I guess.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Oh, no, that makes so much sense. And it seems like as it grew on you, though, you all had, maybe it wasn't a realization, maybe it just was sort of a baby steps kind of thing that kind of built on each other. But it seems like you realized, “Oh, wait, working together kind of floats all the boats or gets all of the planes in the air,” however, whatever metaphor you want to use there. But working together actually helps the wider region.

[Will Lewis]: Yes. And I think I was fortunate enough to come along when that realization was happening. Maybe just the right place, right time. Because for a long time, the world of defense was, it was always like the base did its thing and the community did their thing. 

And then there was like, you intermingled, you know, we all played sports together and whatnot, but we didn't think about things like infrastructure together. We didn't think about water supply. We didn't think about sewer. We didn't think about, “What you can do as a larger community to protect families when their spouse deploys overseas?” 

And I think I was at the right place, right time that all that conversation was starting. And we were able to be a part of that and grow with that thought. So as that thought process grew over the 20 years, the City of Havelock has just been invested to grow that same way.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Oh, yeah. And so when you look across Havelock, the Marine Corps, Air Station Cherry Point, and the surrounding region, you've kind of started to allude to this, but how do you see the military family readiness system operating in real life? Like, who are the key players? And how do they work together to support service members and their families? You've started to mention that they're doing it, but yeah, how do you see this operating?

[Will Lewis]: Well, there's a lot of partners, right? So I should disclaim by saying anybody I accidentally forget, you can blame it on my brain, not on my heart. Because there's so many ways to help take care of your installation. 

So ACT, Allies for Cherry Points Tomorrow, we really represent a four-county region. So we have Craven, Carteret, Pamlico, and Jones counties. And then all the municipalities that sit in those, they all participate with ACT. And there's so many ways that we do it, all the way from, for example, all of our chambers of commerce all have a military affairs commission. And those military affairs commissions do things like service person of the quarter, where a command recommends somebody and writes a write-up of what they're doing in the community, and how they're volunteering and why they deserve to be service person of the quarter. 

And then we do a big lunch and all our local businesses come together, and they donate things to that person to thank them for what they've done in our community in their short time here. And they do things like, we do these chicken pickings on the base where you pick a squadron, you go over and you just cook a whole bunch of chickens, and everybody comes and eats chicken and hangs out with the Marines.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: That sounds like fun. That sounds like a good time.

[Will Lewis]: They're a blast. And every chamber has a piece in that. So it happens multiple times a year. I call that like the morale and welfare piece of it. 

But it goes even, like, our schools, like every one of our schools in Craven County or in Havelock in particular, we all have a squadron assigned to us. So when they do field day, the Marines come out and do field day with the kids and the teachers get to meet those Marines. And if they do science night, they come out and spend time with the kids doing the experiments. So it's at every level like that. 

And it goes all the way up to what I would say the most advanced levels, which are us as a community trying to understand their needs, whether it's inside the installation or out in the community, and then trying to provide those. 

And that could be anything from - perfect example: we didn't have lacrosse in Eastern North Carolina when I was a kid. Nobody played lacrosse. That was like a Northeast thing. But you get all these Marine families that come here and they came from the Northeast. “Why is there no lacrosse here? We played lacrosse when we were in Maryland,” or wherever. And the city evolves in that and the community decides, “Oh, we do need a lacrosse league.” 

And guess who our coaches are, right? There are all these Marines that have moved here and understand lacrosse. And then our local kids get involved in that. And now we have lacrosse everywhere, including even at the high school. And so I think the little pieces like that, because it's I say in Havelock especially, you can't separate Cherry Point and Havelock. We're like completely intertwined, right. 

But even our entire region now is completely intertwined into that. And when everyone's thinking about what they're going to do, they include, how does this impact the military? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it something they want? 

So there's a million ways. And it's everybody from school systems, community colleges, Allies for Cherry Point's Tomorrow, chambers of commerce, even the municipalities themselves, right.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Wow. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why we like doing episodes like this, where we are uplifting stories of the military family readiness system in action, like what's happening in Havelock. We hope that whether you've got a Marine Corps air station right next door or not, we hope that people in communities will ask, “How might this issue impact military families in our area?” Even if it isn't the biggest employer in the area, even if it's almost invisible. 

And we also hope that the folks who are on installations will ask, “How is the community already addressing certain issues?” And it sounds like you guys really have that relationship down. You're coming together and you're making decisions together and you're doing it in a way that is not just coordinated, but it's integrated into everything you do.

[Will Lewis]: Absolutely, Jessica, even our planning committees and our technical advisory committees, we include people from the installation on that. So we're talking about traffic or projects. They can give us input to say that's how it would affect us, or we think that's a good idea, etc. 

And I think a lot of it, it's because Havelock and Marine Corps Air Station grew together. Like a lot of communities already existed. They were already incorporated. And then a military installation came. For us, we were here as a community since the 1700s, 1800s, but we didn't even incorporate till 1959. And the base came here in 1942. As the base was growing its identity, Havelock was growing ours. 

And so, I mean, it's kind of like growing up with your brother or your sister. You get a little piece of them whether you want to or not because you're all growing up together. And I think that's what made us unique. 

And I didn't know we were unique, Jessica, I just thought that was normal. Growing up here, I just thought every community and their base had that exact same relationship. And it wasn't until we got involved with the Association of Defense Communities that we realized… that it isn't. That it is kind of unique. It's not that way everywhere. 

And we've tried to do our best to explain how we do what we do and give them a little bit of the magic sauce, so that other communities can benefit. Because a lot of people look at it as a challenge. I look at it as this complete and total benefit that we have all these Marines and their families and sailors and their families here. It benefits us dramatically, makes us better as a community.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Yes. Wow, I really appreciate that comment. So the city and the base grew together, but also ACT, the Allies for Cherry Point Tomorrow, started as an effort to save the Fleet Readiness Center East, right? During, I know the acronym is BRAC, but I cannot remember what it stands for.

[Will Lewis]: Base Realignment and Closure.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Thank you. And because it's since become a nonprofit focused on strengthening both the installation and the community. So I'm wondering, can you share a moment, and maybe the answer is no, there is no moment, it just was a lot of little things that happened over time. But can you share a moment when you realized that ACT's work was about more than one decision point, you know, saving the Fleet Readiness Center East - that it was about building long-term community infrastructure for military families?

[Will Lewis]: I can talk about when the moment was for me. So I've been a part of ACT for, I guess I'm right at 11 or 12 years on the ACT board. And it was some great individuals that started it long before that in the 90s when you're talking about them. 

Specifically, it got larger around that the whole community coming together to protect Fleet Readiness Center East aboard Cherry Point. But I know that sometimes those decisions were opportunity driven, and that was ours. So we always knew that we had to advocate on behalf of Cherry Point for the readiness and the mission and making sure that that was all as healthy as it could be. 

But for me, it was when the school system came to us at Allies for Cherry Point Tomorrow and we were heavily deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they came to us during the month of April, which is the month of the military child, they came to Allies for Cherry Point Tomorrow. 

And they said, “We do these deployment boxes.” And it was, this box was kind of a lot of, every branch I think has them, but it's got a teddy bear in it in uniform. And then it's got some stationary to mail back and forth, and some other things. There's a book in there, and it's to help kids whose parents have to go deploy and go to war. And the school system came to us at ACT, and I was pretty new on the board and they said, “Hey, we've got a lot of deployed military right now. We want to get more of these deployment boxes and we don't have the budget. How could we partner to do this thing?”

And that was when I think it flipped a switch in me that was like, ‘oh, we can do more.’ And then I feel like every year it's like, we can do more, we can do more, we can do more. So we're always just looking for more, right. But that was what I realized. Maybe it's not just about advocacy. It's also about as a community, what do we do that kind of rings out bigger and across everybody, and including these young people because we all, you know, a lot of times we forget about the kids. They're dealing with that deployment just like that spouse that got left behind while they were gone is dealing with it. That was kind of the moment for me that I realized ACT could be a bigger impact in the community even. 

And that turned into just constant evolution over the last 10 years. And it's been everything from us doing the deployment boxes to kick all that off. But then it grew into us providing scholarships at the local community colleges for transitioning military and their families. It grew into a star base. It's leaps and bounds over the last decade from the idea of just like, “What's next? What can we do? How can we do more?”

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Wow. Well, I mean, I feel like you've already expanded on, you just gave a whole bunch of great examples of this, but I'm wondering if you have sort of a favorite example of an initiative where you saw, maybe it was through ACT, maybe it was through some other initiative where you saw municipal, educational, and military partners come together in a way that really improved readiness for families?

[Will Lewis]: Sure. The most recent example, literally, like the kids actually started this week and I'm going to get super excited. So if I go on too long, Jessica, just tell me.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: No, I want to hear this. I want to hear all the details!

[Will Lewis]: So we transitioned from a C6 to a C3. As a C6, we were just an advocacy nonprofit, but then we became a true nonprofit. And that was really spurred by that moment when it was like, we want to do these deployment boxes. If we want to do more, we've got to be a real nonprofit, not just a government advocacy nonprofit. That led to some scholarship things that we do through our C3 for transitioning military, which have been hugely successful. 

We've raised almost $40,000 over the last two years. They go directly to our community colleges. We have three of them. And it is for transitioning military, specifically for things they might want to learn or get a certificate in, or a degree in that is not covered by the GI Bill. And so workforce items and things like that. And it's been wildly successful. But the most recent one where everybody came, this is the one with the most partners. And if you've heard of DoD Starbase, or if you've ever heard of -

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Starbase. From you, I think, from our last conversation, yeah.

[Will Lewis]: So it's a project or it's a program within manpower part of the department. And it's been going on since, I'm going to say the early nineties, I want to say the first Starbase started, but it is a fifth grade STEM education outreach program that is co-located with a military installation. It's funded through the department. 

And then you have a local nonprofit that runs the money and provides STEM education. It's predominantly for Title I schools, but it can be for any schools after you get through your Title I schools. And we've never had one here. And there are 90 of them across the country, but there never been one in Eastern North Carolina. FRC East, which is located aboard Cherry Point, they have a really big STEM outreach into the community. They go to schools and they have a fab lab they bring around, and they kind of show kids STEM and try to get them excited. 

So FRC East was like, “We need a star base. We've got to have a star base.” So we all got in this room about two years ago and it was FRC East. It was our Marine Corps Station Cherry Point leadership. It was Allies for Cherry Points Tomorrow and some school folks. And we said, “How do we make this happen?” 

So we filled out an application. We got letters from all of our congressmen, senators, both state and federal, and even our governor got letters from our military affairs commission, our local superintendents, and we flooded the department with letters. And eventually they said, “Yes, we're going to make you a Starbase.” 

There was some funding issues, always is, right? Never enough funding to do everything everybody wants to do. But this past year, they got enough funding to actually start a Starbase here. And so where the real partnership happened was FRC is trying to make this thing happen. They have to have a nonprofit step in to run the money. Well, ACT's never been a government contractor. That's not what we do. But they came to us and they said, “We think you're the perfect partner. You're focused on our kids in the community. You're focused on our kids in the military. You're focused on our mission. Would you be willing to partner?” 

And so my board said, “Yeah, let's do this thing. Let's figure it out.” So over about an eight week period with the help of FRC East and the station, and then we had to kind of go on our own to do the actual government contract. We write the contract submission. We turned it in. It got approved. We worked out a contract. And as of October 1, we officially have a star base. 

But to make that happen, to get these kids in there, it's just I can go on and on about the opportunity for the kids because I think it's an amazing opportunity. But to do it, it took the command at Fleet Readiness Center East. It took the command at Marine Corps Station Cherry Point. It took Allies for Cherry Points Tomorrow. It took every one of our four school systems, superintendents and deputy superintendents in charge of curriculum or whatever their title was in each one. It took the buy-in of the principals of those schools because we're asking them to give us fifth graders for five days, to get 25 hours of curriculum. That's a lot of time out of the school building. And so we had to kind of help them understand how exciting this opportunity would be. 

It is rigorous, exciting, unique STEM education that they get to go do hands-on. They call it ‘Hands-on, minds-on,’ which - I love that phrase. So they're literally like building dragsters and making boats out of clay, and trying to understand all these STEM concepts. And they get to go on the Marine Corps installation to do that as a field trip. They go on the installation to this building that's dedicated for the Star Base. 

We even included our community college because Allies for Cherry Point’s Tomorrow had to hire all the teachers and instructors and the director. We don't have a big employee payroll. So we went to our community college and we partnered with them and they came in and they actually hired them for us. And then they work for ACT. And we have this huge partnership with all of those folks. 

So you're talking about eight or ten partners across all these spectrums that had to come together over a very short period of time. So we were awarded October 1. We had kids in the building February 17th. So over October, November, December, and January, we literally built an entire schoolhouse as a team, all of us together. And that included furniture, fixtures, equipment, iPads, computers. Curriculum, you name it.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Did the curriculum have to be written?

[Will Lewis]: So the department provides the curriculum.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Oh, okay, good. 

[Will Lewis]: But the curriculum, Jessica, is massive because they want it to work for any installation. You get to go through the curriculum and pick which ones you want to utilize. And then you're allowed to customize them to what you do as an organization. 

So we obviously are focused on some aviation and fabrication type stuff because of what we do. And then we get to kind of tweak the stuff, but we have to follow that curriculum. So just going through the curriculum for the director and the instructors was a Herculean task to do in a short period of time, because once they decided what they had to do, then we had to order all the materials and get them here in time so they could practice. 

So when the kids walked in the building, everything would be just right. We were in the building the day before they came in until, you know, six o'clock that evening and the weekend before just making sure everything was perfect. So those kids would have a phenomenal experience.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Oh, and by the way, in that four-month period of time, there were also a couple of holidays that a lot of people take off for.

[Will Lewis]: Yeah, Thanksgiving, Christmas. We had a little government shutdown in the middle of all that. 

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Oh yeah, we did a little bit, just a little one.

[Will Lewis]: Yeah, right? So all of that combined to make it quite a challenge. We would have never gotten it done. I mean, there's no way ACT could have done that. There's no way FRC could have done it. There's no way the college could have done it. 

But all of us coming together, we pulled this thing off. We are now, right now, the only active Marine Corps star base in the country. There's 90 of them. We're the only Marine Corps one. There are two other ones in North Carolina. They're at National Guard locations, one in Wilmington and one in Charlotte. But we're the only Marine Corps one. And we got our first kids in this week. And so far it has been phenomenal. And the kids are absolutely loving it, which has made it all worth all the effort that everybody put in.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Well, I'm excited that I'm getting to talk to you during the week that this huge initiative is launching because that's not only a huge task to get done in that short period of time, but also you must be immensely proud. You and all of the people involved must be so proud.

[Will Lewis]: Oh, incredibly. And just the idea that all of our school systems can bring their fifth graders there, it doesn't cost them a dime. They just have to come up with the ability to bus them there. And then we provide everything else. 

So you're talking about kids that may never get to experience that level of STEM, get to now come and experience it for 25 hours with people that are super passionate and excited about STEM. 

I would say we're literally changing lives, Jessica. There's going to be at least some kid out of the 1,800, by the way, that we're going to serve over the next year, 1,800 kids, you know, at least one, probably a hundred are going to be like, “Oh my gosh, I didn't know that this was an option,“ right. 

And we have a lot of opportunity for those jobs here with FRC East, Fleet Riding Center East, and obviously the Marine Corps and the Navy side of what happens here. So a lot of opportunity for them to then find a career path that keeps them in Eastern North Carolina and gets them excited about STEM. 

[Jessica Beckendorf]: And you just touched on the next question I was going to ask you, is what do you hope will happen in the future? You know, sort of what are those future outcomes that you hope will happen? And it sounds like one of them is, ‘Hey, we really hope that we can not only help some kids find something they're really passionate about, they really want to pursue, but also that they'll be able to actually pursue that right here at home.’

[Will Lewis]: Yes, ma'am. And so if you don't mind, I'll tell you a little bit about it.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: I don't mind any of this. Please continue. We've talked already. You know I'm riding the wave. I love it. 

[Will Lewis]: So we have, I think the thing that Eastern North Carolina has done really, really well is create this sort of STEM ecosystem for kids to go through from starting in fourth grade all the way through high school and even into college. And it started with this organization called the Eastern Carolina Aviation Heritage Foundation. That is a long name. We call the ECAF for short, but it's a wing of the city and we started it. I was a commissioner at the time and my mayor assigned me to go over there and help start this ECAF thing. 

We did not know at the time we would become what we are. We basically are a small museum with some airplanes and some cool stuff for kids to come see and interact with. That's about the heritage of Cherry Point and Havelock. But what it turned into was we were the first STEM summer camp for fourth through sixth graders in Eastern North Carolina because we realized there was not one. By the time they're in middle school, eighth grade, ninth grade or whatever, it's almost too late to get them excited about something new. You want to start a little earlier. 

So we started this camp and we do 50, 60 kids. We've done as many as 80, depending on the year. Always have a waiting list. It's competitive to get into it. And we run this camp through the Havelock, through our foundation. Well, then NC State, North Carolina State University, land-grant university. I'm a graduate of the North Carolina State University myself. They put a satellite location here in Havelock at our local community college where you can get a four-year degree in mechanical engineering systems. They did that to serve the base. 

So the base kept asking them, “How can we get engineers here faster? Because we have over a thousand engineers over there at Cherry Point.” And so they built that system. And so then there was this gap in the middle and the community college stepped up, and they run a sixth through eighth grade camp. And then we run a high school camp with a partnership with NC State. And then you can get your four-year degree here. So in fourth grade, if you go to a STEM camp and you're like, ‘this is my path,’ then over the last decade, you've been able to go to a camp every year and get more and more enhanced STEM. 

And all those camps work together. So they're not little silos of STEM. They're working together so that you're growing in your capability every single year. And then those kids can go to NC State right here in Havelock, get a degree, walk right across the street, and go to work at FRC East at a job that pays twice the average salary in eastern North Carolina.

And the Starbase is just now a new component of that because all these camps cost a little bit of money. We do have scholarships and things. But the Starbase now opens that door up for people that maybe can't afford the camp and can get excited about it, and then figure it out through our camps or through the school system. 

I think, you know, my personal opinion, East North Carolina, that's kind of where we're crushing it. We are a very STEM-related base with operations and then FRC, and what they do to tear apart airplanes and rebuild them. And we know we've got to build that workforce. And now we've had kids that started in fourth grade at our camp and went through all the years and then went on to get a degree and are now working at FRC East. And that's pretty special. 

I don't know of anywhere else that does it quite that way. We're having our annual gala tonight, Jessica. If you're in town, you could definitely come with us.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: I would totally do that.

[Will Lewis]: We're having our annual gala for the ECAF, which is the fundraiser that supports that summer camp. And we will fill our local tourist and event center with all the companies and people that support that area. It's a community buy-in. Everybody in the community supports those summer camps because they know that this is how we're growing our community into something special.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Wow. Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about, so one of the reasons that Havelock stood out to me is your size. What's the population?

[Will Lewis]: So right now, if you ask the state OMB, they say we're just over 18,000.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Okay. Yes. Small city, regardless. I mean, even if your population swells certain times of the year, it's still a small area. And am I wrong in that you're in a fairly rural area? 

[Will Lewis]: Yes, ma'am. 

[Jessica Beckendorf]: So that's one of the reasons Havelock stood out to me, besides, of course, all the incredible work you guys are doing. I wonder your thoughts on sort of the wider region, and do you see what you all have done in Havelock as something that is at least on maybe different scales replicable in other communities, right? 

You're a small community, and I've worked in a lot of small communities and I know that in small communities, the human capacity, the amount of time people can spend on doing all of the volunteer things and doing all, you know, really trying to support people in the community is low. And my God, it's amazing that people thank you so much.

[Will Lewis]: And if you look at even our whole region at the four counties that I mentioned, Craven, Carteret, Jones, and Pamlico, even the population of all four of those counties combined, I'm going to guess is in the range of less than half a million of all four counties. 

Jones and Pamlico are even more rural than we are. Craven's a little over 100,000 and Carteret, we're the two biggest. So it's probably more like 300,000 total in the area. 

I think the answer, I mean, it sounds simple, but it's like you said at the very beginning, it's a lot of partners. So we noticed when we look across all of our committees at the city and even at the county, including our ECAF that I just mentioned and Allies for Cherry Points Tomorrow, there's a lot of overlap. You've got somebody who's on the ECAF board is also on my ACT board and is also on the Rec Advisory Board and is also on the Appearance Commission and is also on the County Rec Advisory Board. So there's a lot of overlap. 

One thing that we found, and we learned this specifically in ACT and at our ECAF Foundation I was talking about earlier, the right people matter, the people that have that passion. You know, there's that old thing that says, “If you want to get something done, give it to the busiest person you know, they'll probably get it done.” There's some truth to that.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: And it's so sad, but also, yeah.

[Will Lewis]: A lot of truth, right? Yeah. I think the secret sauce is pretty simple for this one. It's getting a unified vision that everybody wants to pull in the same direction. And I think what's really unique about our area is nobody's trying to take credit for what's happened with STEM. 

ACT is not running around saying, “We wouldn't have STEM if it wasn't for Atlas Retriever Points tomorrow.” ECAF isn't saying, “We started the first elementary school.”

 Everyone just sits down every now and then and talks about what's missing. What are we doing right? How can we all help each other? And how does that turn into an area that everybody wants to live in? And maybe it's because we are in a rural area that everybody realizes we have to work together. There's no competition. 

Cherry Point is a $2.6 billion industry to our community. $2.6 billion. Nothing comes even close. There's no other employer, like FRC East is over 4,000 employees. There's nothing even close in our area. And then you add in the fact that these are everyday heroes that are literally doing the nation's work to keep us all safe. And it kind of makes it easy to want to help them. 

But I think you do have to have good leadership. A lot of our good leadership are folks that have maybe retired from the installation and stayed in the community. They realize Eastern North Carolina's paradise. And then they're like, ‘hey, I want to stay.’ So like the guy tonight that's going to run our gala is the chairman of our ECAF,  a retired two-star general from Cherry Point. And he has stayed here for decades. Helping us grow Eastern North Carolina. So leadership matters. But I think having a cohesive mission that we all can just say the mission wins, the mission trumps everything. Yeah. Mission trumps it all.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: There's no competition here. There's no -  one thing I've seen in a lot of smaller populated areas is sometimes there's this competition for the scarce dollars that are available, or whatever the scarce resources in general, the human resources and everything. 

But it sounds like you guys really have built a culture of collaboration as well. And perhaps that did start with some really strong leadership saying like, “There's no ego here. We need to just get the job done and do it together.”

[Will Lewis]: And define those lanes everyone's going to swim. And so, like, for example, our Chamber Macs, they do a phenomenal job at the morale of welfare. ACT has no business getting involved in that. I don't need to do chicken pickings and I don't need to do pig pickings and I don't need to do any of that because the Chamber Macs do a great job. 

So guess what? They do that and they invite us. And we're members of the Chamber Mac. So when they do that chicken picking, we're going to show up. We're just going to serve some Marines and we're going to talk to them. We're going to have a good time. But they're the ones that actually do it. 

And by the same note, we're really good at government advocacy for our base. So they all know that that's what we're going to do. So they're members of our organization and we do the advocacy. So we kind of all understand what our roles are and there's no need to duplicate efforts. And nobody kind of -  we just don't really fight over that. And I think that helps too is once you've got that mission and everyone agrees, then we can just define what we're going to do and everyone kind of accepts that.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Wow. Well, I had a couple of other things I was curious about because, you know, you've talked about some really big initiatives, but behind some of those big initiatives, what are some of the everyday collaboration practices that make initiatives like that possible? 

Things like, you know, how you communicate with installation leaders, or how you engage schools or employers. Or how you keep veteran and family voices in the mix. So what are some of the small kind of everyday things you all do? I know one of them you mentioned already that when there's an issue, you all sit down and you're like, ‘how does this affect the military families?’ But what are some of those other small collaboration practices?

[Will Lewis]: One thing I know that we do really well is we talk to our base leadership all the time. So, for example, I talk to our base CEO, our commanding officer. He and I talk multiple times a week. And it could be really simple stuff. Like he just might be calling me to say, “Hey, we're going to do some work outside the gate. It's going to probably slow traffic down in Havelock. You may have an issue with these lights. Just letting you guys know.” 

And it could be something we're doing in town, “Hey, did you know this was going to happen? It's probably going to affect you guys.” So it's like very mechanical infrastructure things. But also it's just like, “Hey, what's going on this Saturday night? Do you guys want to come out to the club and we'll just eat supper together and talk about what's going on inside and outside the gate?” Kind of that more informal, just getting to know each other. 

I think everything in the world comes down to relationships. As a mayor, that's probably not a hard thing to guess that I would say that. But I also say the relationship has to be real. And so those touch points where you're just like catching a quick meal together or, you know, when the new CEO comes to town and you're just like, “Hey, you and your family should come out and check out this restaurant. It's a great one out in town. When you go, give us a holler. We'll meet you over there.” Those things are important. 

But I think even further down in the weeds, I know in Havelock, for example, our departments are talking to their departments every day, right? So I don't know what my police department's doing today. I mean, I know that they're protecting and serving, but I don't know what they're actually doing. But they're talking to the PMO, the Provost Marshal's Office on the base, and they're coordinating traffic and they're coordinating what's happening in and out of the community. And they're talking about different things that I don't even know about every day, but it keeps that relationship solid between the base and the city. 

And then from the bigger picture of Allies, Triple H, Tamar, and the counties, we have this really cool committee that the base started. It's called the Civilian Military Community Council, the CMCC. And once every two months, our base hosts one representative from every municipality and county. And the municipality and county gets to pick who they send. It's typically a mayor or a county commissioner. We all go have lunch together on the base. And when we do, the base CO brings in all the commands and they just give you a quick brief. What's happening? What's going to happen in the next couple of weeks? What can you expect at the base? That sort of thing. 

And then the community gets to report to the base the coolest stuff going on in their community. So they say, “Hey, we got a grant to put in a sidewalk over here. We're going to be doing that next week.” Or, “We’ve got a kayak launch. We know all your Marines like the kayaks. We got a kayak launch. It's going to be open October 4th,” whatever.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: I didn't know Marines like to kayak. That's great to know.

[Will Lewis]: Anything, you know, I mean.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Outdoor stuff, yeah.

[Will Lewis]: Yeah, anything outdoors. So everybody kind of gets to say like what they love about what's going on. And typically you'll hear things like other mayors, like I talk to the CO every day, but other mayors don't necessarily get that if they're not right by the base. So they're like, “Hey, thank you guys for sending Marines out to serve at our local festival. They came out and they played games with the kids and they helped serve food and it was so much fun. Thank you for that.” 

I think that is a big one and I can take zero credit for that. That was started a long time ago by a base commanding officer and it has become expected by our community. Everybody loves the CMCC. Some local boards, their members fight over who gets to go, because you want to go and you want to hear that brief and you want to brag about your city. It gives you those subtle touch points again where everyone kind of gets to know each other a little bit. 

The CEO gets to know communities that aren't even right outside his gate. I mean, I can throw a baseball from my office to the main gate. So we talk all the time. But if you're 20 miles away, 30 miles away, that's not the case. So that's another tool in our toolbox that we all use as a community to stay connected.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Wow. I feel like if we looked at a network map of all of these relationships, that there would be a lot of back and forth and a lot of connections. It sounds like there's a lot of touch points. And I think that's rare. It kind of brings me to another question. 

So if there wasn't an installation near you, I guess I'm wondering, like, there's still a value we know in supporting military families in an area. Like what advice, I guess, would you have for community leaders who maybe don't have an installation near them and the value of supporting military families?

[Will Lewis]: So this is, I like to remind people that I think that people think that if you're in the military, your life is pretty easy. Like you just get a paycheck. You go to work every day. 

So the first thing I always remind my community is it's as hard as any other job, probably way harder. And it's as hard on the family, especially when we're in deep deployment cycles. And it really doesn't matter if you are 100 miles from a base or not. 

I think just being cognizant of the fact that they are actually, people are like, “Oh, if they're not in war, what are they doing, man?” And it's such a complicated organism of what they do to protect us and to train and to be a part of the, you know, what Marines like to call the “kill chain,” like to be some part of that kill chain. 

And so when you look at that big picture, I think people should understand, first of all, that not only are they working for a living, but they've chosen service, right? Like all of us have a job. They chose to sign a check to give up part of their life for the United States of America. So like, let's just stop first and respect that. Whether you have a base in your community or not, let's respect that. Especially if you didn't choose to do it, like let's respect that they're willing to do that. 

And then think about how does that impact their life? I mean, they move every three years. In the Marine Corps, they're moving every two to three years. So you're packing everything you own up. You're trying to make weight on the shipment. You’ve got to get rid of things. You’ve got to decide what to keep. You’ve got to get your kids in a brand new school. All those things are a challenge for a family. 

So if you're close to one, it's easy to remember that. If you're not close to one, it's a little more difficult. I think if you're close to one, or you're not, spend some time trying to understand that. And sometimes the easiest way is just to have a conversation with someone you know that's either in the military or used to be in the military, and they can tell you some of those challenges. Once you understand that, I think the rest of it falls into place. 

Then you can find ways where you can kind of get in where you fit in to try to alleviate some of that pain, or provide something for them that makes their life a little easier. Like, for example, Craven County Schools put military counselors in all of our schools. So when those kids come here, there's a dedicated counselor that they sit down with the family and they talk about where their credits came from. Because I mean, some of these kids come from overseas and they just got credits there that don't just necessarily match up to what you've got. 

And picking that military counselor, that was a big deal for our school system to do that. And I mean, money's short, right? And I think if you understand the challenges, you can find solutions in that way. 

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Yeah. I used to work in a county that was pretty far from an installation. And the county veteran service officer was really working hard, trying to work with the sheriff's department on sheriff's deputies carrying challenge coins with them. 

And to start asking, you know, are you a veteran? When they would arrive at calls, you know, asking, are you a veteran? And giving them some training on how to use the challenge coins and how to talk to veterans. And I bring this up because I think, you know, whether you're far, we were in a county that was very far from installation. I know that veterans are everywhere, but we also know that military families are too. 

And so even just the simple act of asking the families that you serve, or asking, “Do we have military families in this area that this issue would also affect?” seems like it would possibly go a long way, based on what you're saying.

[Will Lewis]: Yeah, that's a really cool example. And it's a reminder, too, that some of these military folks just go home when they're done, right. So I always try to convince them to stay in Eastern North Carolina, because we want them to stay. But some of them were like, “Hey, my family's in Alabama and that's where I'm from. I'm going to move back to this area”. 

And they get back there and there's no military base close. But when they come back to that school system, their kids still have the same struggle. They still have the same opportunity to engage with the sheriff's department or wherever when they go back home. And even if that's a small percentage, it's a percentage we should pay attention to, in my opinion.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Yeah. I agree. 

Mayor Will Lewis, thank you so, so much for your conversation. I've enjoyed every one of them, whether they were recorded or not. I really appreciate hearing about everything that Havelock is doing, but also just your dedication and passion for serving the military families in your area. So thank you so much for being here.

[Will Lewis]: Oh, it was my pleasure. I love talking about it because I can't even imagine if I was going to be a mayor. I love being the mayor of a town that hosts a military installation. I love it because I get to take care of my own citizens, plus people that are sacrificing for the world that are also my citizens. I think it's a special opportunity and I love talking to people about it. 

So thank you for having me, Jessica.

[Jessica Beckendorf]: Mayor Will Lewis is the longtime mayor of Havelock, North Carolina, and president for Allies for Cherry Point Tomorrow. 

That's it for this episode of Practicing Connection. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed today's conversation, share it with a friend or colleague. 

We'd like to thank our co-producer, our announcer, Kaylin Goebel, Meg Lucas and Joyce Vaughn for their help with marketing, and Nathan Grimm, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast. We hope you'll listen again soon. Until then, keep practicing. 

The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of One Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U.S. Department of Defense, under award number 2023-48770-41333.