When Gary Allen heard Corning Inc. and Alcatel were hiring at their fiber optic plants in Catawba County, it did not take him long to apply.

After all, the textile company where he had worked for 15 years, like manufacturing companies across the Carolinas, was laying off workers and cutting back hours. Corning and Alcatel, meanwhile, planned to invest more than $1 billion.

But eight months after taking a job at Alcatel, Allen was laid off with 250 other employees. It turned out there was a global glut of fiber optic cable.

Now Allen, 36, drives a truck.

"That's just life. You have to take the lumps and go on," he said. "I just moved on to something else."

Allen's predicament shows how many in the Charlotte region still struggle to fit in to a global economy that has admitted 4 billion mostly low-income consumers and workers since the early 1990s. In the past three years alone, the 16-county Charlotte region has probably shed 30,000 manufacturing jobs and many in the region are wondering what will replace them.

There are no clear answers yet, but leaders around the region agree the economy is at a crossroads. They are scrambling to determine in which direction they should nudge it.

Three congressional districts surrounding Charlotte are spending $1.2 million in federal money trying to determine where their economies are headed. Common in the Rustbelt during the 1970s and 1980s, such studies were unusual in the booming Charlotte region until recently.

"This last recession has been completely different from any other recession we have seen in 28 years," said Michael Almond, chief executive of the Charlotte Regional Partnership, which promotes the 16-county area. "Every sector has been savaged. It was a perfect storm."

Brain power

Now, some economic development consultants wonder if Sunbelt cities such as Charlotte can catch up with Rustbelt cities that spent the past 20 years building up their universities to generate the kind of intellectual capital many economists say is key to competing in the global economy.Many companies stayed in the North because they wanted a skilled work force near major research centers, said Michael Gallis, a Charlotte urban planner now advising New York and New Jersey and Orlando. "So the North, in many ways, is better positioned for the new economy than the Southeast," he said.

Still, Almond is confident the region will match or surpass the tremendous economic progress of the past two decades. That will require growing the economy by 50 percent, or nearly 70 percent faster than the population. "I see a doubling of the population of Charlotte proper," said David Cline, a banker developer and investor who is current chairman of the partnership. "I see more office towers downtown, a larger downtown population, mass transit, an airport with international flights to any significant business destination in the world and UNC Charlotte with a research status equal to UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State."

Research role crucial

The latter may be a lofty dream, but moving in that direction is critical if the region is to grow and improve its quality of life.

UNC Charlotte has spent the past decade building up its research credentials and doctoral programs. Now much of Charlotte's business community is counting on it to reinvigorate the manufacturing sector, which still employs up to 30 percent of the work force in outlying counties.

Without a strong manufacturing sector, many fear these counties will rely on lower-paying service jobs, which do little to bring a community new wealth.

Backed by $92 million in state bond money, the university has embarked on a major expansion in research in e-commerce, biology, electrical and computer engineering, physics, optoelectronics, mechanical engineering and precision manufacturing.

In the next 20 years, the university's goal is to expand from 10 to 50 doctoral programs, significantly enhancing its standing as a research university. It hopes to lure private and federal research and development labs to its 100-acre campus along N.C. 29.

New-economy factories

The university thinks it can lure aerospace, defense and homeland security companies to a 100-acre research and development park it is trying to develop near campus, said Deborah Clayton, director of the Charlotte Research Institute.The institute, backed by a board of directors that would rival many Fortune 500 companies, is particularly excited about OpSource, Inc. The company was formed to market precision manufacturing technology developed by two of the university's faculty.

Essentially, OpSource has eliminated the costly trial and error process used to calibrate machine tools that make precision aluminum parts. The company has already showed Boeing how to cut $1 billion in costs out of its F-18 fighter jet program.

"They are a primary example of transforming from old world manufacturing to new world manufacturing," said Mark Wdowik, director of technology transfer at the university's C.C. Cameron Applied Research Center.

Clayton foresees a virtuous circle in which the university uses royalties from the licensing of its intellectual property to recruit nationally recognized researchers, who attract high-caliber students, who create more intellectual property, spurring more technology start-ups in the region.

Almond, meanwhile, sees potential to bolster the region's automotive sector. He is pushing to certify a handful of 1,000-acre-plus sites to lure an auto plant or other manufacturing project. Having such a site in hand, Almond says, will "cut us loose in Europe and we will bring back a big fish."

Retraining the displaced

Ultimately, however, the pace at which the region adjusts to the new global economy may hinge on people like Alesa Larkin of Denver, N.C.

Laid off in December 2000 after 30 years with a zipper manufacturer that moved its plant to Mexico, Larkin has spent the past two years studying office systems technology at Gaston College. Federal funds are paying for Larkin's job training because she was displaced by NAFTA.

"Going to college at my age," said Larkin, 50, "I had to learn how to learn again."

While laid off workers have swelled enrollments at the region's community colleges to all-time highs, some labor analysts still fret that not enough workers are upgrading their skills.

"It's really hard to bring in some of the newer industries because they're not convinced that we have the work force that they need," said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wachovia Securities in Charlotte.

Counties link up

In Catawba County, officials expect to hire an economic development specialist this summer who will for the first time try to lure non-manufacturing jobs. Catawba is also pinning its hopes on a comprehensive economic development study called "Future Forward," which includes Iredell and Lincoln counties.

A similar study covering Gaston and Cleveland counties also is under way.

The Future Forward project has identified several emerging industries such as tourism and pharmaceutical/medical technology that have potential.

But many say Cabarrus County's experience with the fiber optics industry show just how difficult it can be to pick winners.

Corning's optical fiber plant there was supposed to be a cornerstone in diversifying the county's economy. The company drew more than 500 employees, , and at one point planned to spend about $900 million to expand. But last fall Corning announced it was closing its plants in the county due to the ongoing telecommunications slump.

"It's virtually impossible to predict long term where those opportunities are going to be," said Donny Hicks, executive director of the Gaston County Economic Development Commission. "I think anybody who tells you they know what companies are going to be there in 20 years is just fooling themselves."