Exploring the Valley
Discover the hidden gems, local legends, and can’t-miss experiences in Black Mountain and the Swannanoa Valley as we dive into the perks of Chamber membership and uncover what makes this mountain town a must-visit destination. Whether you're a local business or just passing through, there's something cool waiting for you!
Exploring the Valley
What Your State Representative Actually Does
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Raleigh can feel far away right up until your road washes out, your business paperwork stalls, or disaster recovery turns into a maze. We’re joined by North Carolina State Representative Eric Ager, a Fairview native and former Navy helicopter pilot, to talk about what state-level leadership looks like when Western North Carolina needs results, not headlines.
Eric shares his story from growing up on a farm to the Naval Academy and decades of service overseas, then returning home to raise a family, run parts of the farm operation, and help grow a local equine nonprofit. From there, we dig into the nuts and bolts of the North Carolina General Assembly: the part-time schedule, why the state budget is the legislature’s central obligation, and why the “representative” part of the job often means constituent services. When unemployment claims, business licenses, or agency bottlenecks hit, knowing who to call and how to escalate problems can make a real difference.
We also tackle Hurricane Helene recovery and the ongoing disconnect between what mountain communities experienced and what much of the state sees today. Eric talks candidly about where relief fell short for small businesses, why loans were often the wrong answer, and what faster grant or forgivable loan programs could have changed. Then we pivot to tourism recovery in Western North Carolina: rebuilding visitor confidence, investing in North Carolina state parks, restoring key routes like Highway 9, and even the idea of trout stream designation for the Swannanoa River to support conservation funding and fishing tourism.
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Welcome And How We Met
SPEAKER_00Eric Eger, I am really glad you're here today.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think let's see, you and I met in Raleigh. I guess that was the first time we met. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, on uh West North Carolina Chamber Day or whatever you call it at the uh Capitol. But at the beginning. Yeah, and at at first, um I think we got I know what it was. We got stuck in the waiting area, waiting for the rest of the group. I mean, there's chatting and it was fun. But um I wasn't I wasn't nervous, but a little bit like starstruck because I know a lot of the people in Georgia, but I know nobody in Raleigh. And now you're my best friend in Raleigh. So you're easy to do. Figuring it out quick.
SPEAKER_01You're figuring it out quick.
SPEAKER_00I'm trying. But but anyway, I appreciated your hospitality and making it where I was comfortable and everything was super cool.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's great. I really appreciate it. It's important that you come down and that people from Western North Carolina do come down because they need to go a long way, and what happens in Raleigh matters. That's right.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Well, we'll we will talk about that, but I would like to know first what's your story and where are you from?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I, you know, I grew up right here in uh well over in Fairview. So one ridge over, I kind of look at, you know, high windy from my porch now. But I grew up on a dairy farm and an apple farm over there. You know, my there was some political world going on when I was growing up, but I graduated from Reynolds in 20 or in
From Fairview Farm To Naval Aviator
SPEAKER_01sorry, 1996. I was gonna say, man, you look good. And uh and then went to the Naval Academy, uh, spent four years in Annapolis and then graduated in 1996 and went on to flight school and spent, you know, 25 years after the Naval Academy in the in the Navy, mostly as a helicopter pilot, kind of bounced around. I was a helicopter pilot uh in Guam and then in Virginia Beach, spent some time on a carrier in Norfolk. Sorry. Well, sorry about that. My favorite place. No, mine neither. Um but uh, you know, had a good time doing that. Spent a lot of time in in Turkey, and then at the end of my career, I kind of transitioned into the international world and the intelligence world and spent four years at the embassy in Turkey and then three years in Germany at a at a funny think tank where I worked primarily on the Ukrainian uh transition to a democracy.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's interesting. I didn't know all that. That's very cool. So then you just decided to come hang out back at home, or what happened?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, my kids were getting older. They were coming back here because they kind of grew up grew up coming here to summer in the summer every year. And so they came, they were moving back here slowly and and going to college back here. And so I said, Well, I think it's about time to retire and retired from the Navy in 2021 and felt really lucky to be able to come back to a place like this and it be home. You know, when you're coming out of the Navy, everybody's always looking to kind of where are you gonna go? Because you can kind of go anywhere. And I feel really fortunate to have this be home and be able to come back. That's cool.
SPEAKER_00That's cool. And then and then what did I mean, everybody who retires from military? My my husband was in the Navy and he he was he was very disappointed in himself because he was six years, five years, something like that from retirement. He's like, Man, I blew the game. I should have, I should have stuck with it. I mean, it was he was like reserves. He was like, I should have just stuck with that. It wasn't anyway. But so then he's like, Well, I could have retired there and then started over. That's right.
SPEAKER_01So what'd you do? Well, so I came back, I got roped into running the farm for a year. You know, we've transitioned now. My brother primarily spent his time uh after college building up the or redoing the farm, and it's now primarily uh beef, chicken, you know, turkeys and and pork, I guess I didn't say. And then uh, you know, so raising animals there and have a farm store over in Fairview. And and so I ran that operation for a year, as well as turning our horse operation into a nonprofit and uh and and built uh you know, just trying to keep that that going and we do a summer camp in the summer for six weeks, the day camp, and then you know, do riding lessons and some equine therapy throughout the rest of the year. And it's cool. It's really a lot of fun, and I I really appreciate that. Um, and then, you know, in 2022, I got roped into running for the North Carolina house, mostly because it's it's a tough job to do for somebody that doesn't have some extra income and sort of a flexible job, right? And certainly for I'm fortunate to have a pension from the Navy, um, which allows me to do it. But, you know, I think that's a real structural deficiency in that regular people have a really hard time taking six months out of the year to go to Raleigh every week. That's true.
SPEAKER_00That's it's like working for the chamber. That's right. It really helps if you have the residuals from your insurance sales. There you go. There you go. I get that. Well, all right. And so you have a family.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've got a wife who I met in Pensacola. She spent her whole life in the Navy and then moved back here with me. And we have four kids that were born sort of as we traveled around the world. The first two were born in Guam at the naval hospital there. And then we our third daughter, we have one daughter, three boys. The daughter was born in California right before we moved to Turkey, and then our youngest was born in Turkey.
SPEAKER_00So they were all born in another country, in another country world basically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So Charlotte, she was born in California. Well, that's the one. That's another country, if you ask me.
SPEAKER_00I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_01There you go. There you go.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. Okay. Well, all right. And so now you so you are a state rep. Yep. And I have you came along with Warren Daniels for uh uh what did we call it? Town hall or something like that. Town hall or something like that earlier this year. And uh really that was that was good. I'm looking forward to the next one, and it'll be much better.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think those things are great. I mean, I think impact is really important.
Coming Home To Family Farms
SPEAKER_01I think people feel these days very disconnected from their representatives, and that's not the way it should be, right? And so any opportunity we get we have to be able to just talk to people is is really important in my mind.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And learn what it is that we really need. Yeah. Not what you think we need. That's right. That's right. I'm always disappointed when somebody's running and they don't have any opponents because they don't have to do anything. They don't have to listen. They don't have to. And um, so uh I was part of a campaign in Georgia and the person was running unopposed, and I said, You're gonna do some listening things. And they were like, What? Why do I I was like, you have to. If you don't, you're not gonna have the support when you get there. Right.
SPEAKER_01And you you know, and and the reality of it is is the scope of what you do in Raleigh or in Washington or wherever you are in politics, the scope is really big, right? And so you need to know lots of experts and lots of people in the community that and understand their perspective on those things because otherwise you won't you just won't do a good job.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. Well, and that's what I appreciated about y'all. And so what do you do in Raleigh for me, for us, for regular Joe? You know, people who live here.
SPEAKER_01There's a couple things, right? And so, you know, the the North Carolina General Assembly is a part-time General Assembly. We travel down in the first year of the uh what's called the biennium, which is a two-year period because our elections are every two years. The first year we're we're basically down there every week from kind of end of January through June. Sometimes it goes farther and and we come back weeks later and you know, it's not not perfect like that, but then that's the way it's supposed to work. And then in in the second year, called the short session, we meet kind of from April to June. And you know, our big job is to to pass the state budget, right? I mean, that is the main job of the legislature in Raleigh. Um, you know, this year we had some interesting times doing that because we didn't pass one in 2023 when we should have, and and then, you know, finally did get one passed. Or sorry, we we we did pass one in 2023, we didn't pass one in 2025 when we should have, and so we did pass it here in 2026.
SPEAKER_00Uh year twenty-five would have been a hard year. Just well, I don't know, though. That's the whole state. It's not just Western.
SPEAKER_01And we were sort of the only state in the country that didn't pass a budget. So that was that was interesting, and and we don't need to go into all the quick difficult quickly, but uh but that's our big job, right? But at the same time, our job is also to represent constituents, you know, with offices within the administration and really to be kind of a point of contact for people when they don't know where to start, right? Uh and that became really apparent following Hurricane Helene, which was a a huge effort and you know, for everybody in the community, right? We were all peddling away at that, but sometimes you run into problems in bureaucracy that you can't solve. And and that is a you know, as as as a member of the legislature, you are able to, you know, get people to answer your phone calls and get people to answer your emails and and you can you can call places in the bureaucracy where there might be some hang up and say, hey, look, this is a problem, we need to fix it, and and get people to pay attention to it. And so that's that's what I spend a lot of time doing, uh, you know, certainly when it came to Hellen relief, but also on anything
Why Running For State House Works
SPEAKER_01really, right? Unemployment and, you know, business licenses, all those things are are things that we you know deal with.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. So I tell people all the time, most people think the chamber is like ribbon cuttings and you know, that's all we do, and you know, throw a little festival here and there. But but our number one job is actually advocacy. Our number one job is to know you and be able to call you or text you on the phone and go, hey, I need to know the answer to this question, or can you help me with this? What do you see as what is what does that look like from your side? What is what is advocacy from a chamber look like to you?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, and you know, there's lots of different chambers, right? And so so they're all a little bit different, but but I, you know, what what it is to me is, you know, I'm not talking to every business owner every day in the district, right? That's impossible. And so what the chamber can do is bring that, bring business owners together. And small business owners are the backbone of of of they're really the backbone of the economy everywhere. But it's especially true here in Western North Carolina because you know, we don't we don't tend to have a lot of big, big chains and businesses and that sort of thing. And so the chamber is is the voice of those folks and and and they bring that sort of list of of agenda items down and say, hey, this is what we really need to thrive. And that it matters because, you know, as the representative for this area, I certainly want the economy to thrive. And that is real service that that the chamber plays.
SPEAKER_00Good. Okay. So people can understand your side of it. I talk about it all day, and people look at me like, what?
SPEAKER_01What do you do? Well, I mean, you know, I th there are things that happen in Raleigh all the time that impact people's everyday lives, right? And I think they may not realize that. It seems awfully far away. But the chamber is paying attention to how legislation impacts, you know, their members and and and can point out to legislators who who, you know, they're they're looking at lots of issues all the time, right? And so getting them to focus, getting us to focus on, hey, this issue really matters. We need to fix this or we need to put this in there is the chamber's role, and they're they do a good job of it.
SPEAKER_00Well, good. Thank you. Well, when when uh when we go, when we talk to people from other parts of the state, a lot of times they go, Oh, yeah, y'all are done with that hurricane thing, right? And we're like, No, we're not. What what? Who are you talking about? I mean, I got a road two weeks, two months ago. I have a road again. I don't have a dirt road to get to my house.
SPEAKER_01I'm still sawing trees that fell during the hurricane.
SPEAKER_00So but that's what that's part of it is we need y'all to be able
Advocacy And What Chambers Do
SPEAKER_00to say, well, wait, wait a minute. I'm still sawing trees and I'm still doing this. And I'm sure that there are people who are that are that are still live. I know there are people still living in campers or or tents or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it it's I mean, I, you know, taking that message to Raleigh is really important. You know, I was, I will, you know, it was I was in my first term when the hurricane happened, right? So I was in the second year of my first term. So still very much figuring it out. But but the the the surprising thing to me was, you know, I mean, obviously we all know what happened up here. You know, life was was crazy, you know, didn't have power for a month. I was taking, you know, my baths in the pond and um, you know, and filling up the toilet with no pond water. And and so, you know, you're kind of in a state, and and this is what you're thinking about all the time is really survival and how do you help your neighbors and how do you how do you keep everybody going through this thing? And then, you know, we drove down to Raleigh, I think it was about a month after, maybe three weeks after the storm, to to go and and try to help solve solve some of the problems. And, you know, you get past Marion and life is normal. Crickets. And nobody and and you get to Raleigh and and people just don't have any understanding at all what we went through.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I felt like that was still true.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's still I think that's still true. I don't think we ever, you know, I don't think they ever really figured it out. And of course, the people in the East all think they understand hurricanes.
SPEAKER_00That's my favorite. That's my favorite.
SPEAKER_01I'm from Florida. I know about hurricanes. No, you don't. No, this is not this is a different animal right here, you know. Their water comes up and makes a lot of mud and then comes back down and you shovel the mud out and you're you get back to work. You know, here the the water came through at 100 miles an hour and and just ripped the country apart.
SPEAKER_00What do you know about mud slides down in Florida? Come on, tell me about those.
SPEAKER_01Tell me how those work for you. It doesn't happen. So anyway, that that was a real eye-opening experience. But, you know, it took all of the Western North Carolina legislators to really advocate, and and we were able to do plenty. Um, you know, we we did allocate quite a bit of money at the state level that I think had a real impact here in Western North Carolina. It was not nearly enough. Never will be. And it never will be. And and so that that's been a real challenge. And and to me, that you know, our biggest failure, and this is something that I pushed hard for, and you helped with bringing some businesses out from Swantanoa and that sort of thing, as we tried to figure out how do we get these businesses back up and running. And and to me, our biggest failure, both at the federal and the state level, was not providing real relief for small businesses. You know, there were bits and pieces
Hurricane Helene Relief And Bureaucracy
SPEAKER_01here and there and some grants and some loans and you know, SBA, uh, but I think we could have gotten going. I think those businesses could have gotten up and going a lot quicker if we would have just had, you know, a forgivable loan or a grant program that allowed them to take some money and get rolling quickly.
SPEAKER_00We're still all paying for the COVID grant. I mean loans. Yeah, we're still paying those back.
SPEAKER_01So they're just what you know, loans just weren't the right answer. And um and and so certainly I was pushing hard for that. And I feel like that's one of our biggest failures at the state level.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Well wow. Somebody just admitted to a failure at the state level. That's awesome. Thank you. Good job. Job. All right. So if we're not talking hurricane season, if we're not talking hurricane stuff, because I really hate talking about the hurricane, but tell me also how you help with what do y'all do in in terms of like tourism? How do you help us attract more people? We truly are starting to see the same numbers. They're not spending the same money, same amount of money, but the numbers are almost back. What can we do about that? And what do you do about that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I went to the Mountain Bizworks uh report yesterday, and you know, and that was the story. It's just kind of, you know, not terrible, not great, just kind of meh. And that's frustrating to me because I really want to see us, you know, roar back in a way that that we were sort of on a trajectory to do prior to COVID and then prior to the hurricane. But, you know, tourism, you know, we create a lot of rules about about tourism and we and we, you know, put money into, you know, tourism promotion. Yes. Right. And and that's that's really kind of the main the main focus of what we do on the tourism side. But, you know, also helping, you know, we we have a great state park system in North Carolina and supporting and and and and figuring out where the state parks are going to get a new new state park in Buncombe County, kind of on the other side from where we are here in Black Mountain. But but that's gonna be a a great way to to bring folks in. And we really don't have that many state parks here in the West. And so, you know, figuring out how to to really build that. And you know, Chimney Rock obviously was a was a big issue following the storm, but but a big issue uh, you know, they bring in a lot of tourists into Chimney Rock, and that's kind of just over the over the ridge. They bring them to us too.
SPEAKER_00And they are and they come here, right and ask us, oh, we're going to Chimney Rock tomorrow. And they tell us about it.
SPEAKER_01And then, you know, I mean, getting the roads fixed, right? I mean, that's really important, and that that is primarily a state, gets gets a lot of federal funding, but that's primarily a state effort. And come on, Highway Nine. We need to get Highway 9 up. We need and then you know, where it connects into 74A into Asheville, which is the road I live on, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm not as worried about your road. Sorry, I'm worried about nine. I need nine.
SPEAKER_01I am happy about I would love to get nine open and and and you know, um getting sixty-four and then seventy four A down from a chimney rock below was great, but we really need to get you know nine and and seventy-four A back open.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, whatever.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm just so people can do the loop.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. That's right. It is funny how many people come in and they say, we tried to go down nine. And we're like, well, if you'd stopped here, we would have told you not to. You know, we have a big sign that says do not use nine. Even though it is open, you can get through it. It's just not a good idea. And it's not helpful.
SPEAKER_01It's not helpful. There's still a lot of work going on there at the far end where it comes in the back cave. And uh, you know, and and you know, it's been tough for the people of Broad River, which
Tourism Recovery Roads And State Parks
SPEAKER_01are, you know, Black Mountain people.
SPEAKER_00That's right. They really there you go. Well, good. If y'all are are in session those short periods of time, right? What do you do other than your job like when you're here? What do you like? Tell me, like, if you're a human being and not a state rep, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, I I have we've got a big family out in Fairview, and so, you know, and and I I I run a small business in addition to the nonprofit, the small business. We have a warehouse that we run. And so, yeah, I do that job as well to try to keep those things going and managing some some land out in in and uh, you know, but I love to hike. I love to get out on the rivers, I love to do some trout fishing, you know, those are kind of the things that I love to do. And when you get time, I love to go up to, you know, Jackson County and go up on the Tuckasiji and and fish. And uh, you know, I love to, you know, go on hikes just right around here. Um, you know, Black Mountain's got some great places to go on beautiful walks. And, you know, my my dad's family had a place here when he was growing up. And so he uh his his aunt lived up here when we were a kid, and she was a she was a 70-year-old lady who who m wanted to get us all out hiking all the time. And and she, you know, the trails that she knew were all over here in Black Mountain. So we spent a lot of time coming over here and and doing different hikes and you know, and and and stomping around the beautiful valley over here.
SPEAKER_00So I was talking to Kenny over at One Fly Outfitters, and he was telling me that we needed to get something, so a trout designation, what is the word for the Swannanoa River.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, you know, betting it designated as a trout stream would obviously have big benefits. You can get funding both from the federal level and the state level to help restore stream banks and and and create fish, fish, you know, trout habitat. And, you know, tell tell them I'd love to talk to them and and figure out how we can we can push for that in the world. Yeah, can you do anything about that? I mean, you know, we we can we can certainly you know figure out the process of getting it designated through wildlife and then you know, either passing legislation to do that. It's probably a you know, it's probably a little bit of a long-term project, but I would love to figure out how to do that because I think, you know, first of all, I'd love to come over and fish on the Swannanoa, but uh, you know, I think it would be really great for tourism here. You know, Swann Noah has had a long sort of reputation as a little bit of an industrial river, especially as it goes through Biltmore into the and you know, and and that's not as true anymore. We don't have all these these industrial sites, and so you know, sort of getting it back to its original state and getting the trout thrive and her would be. I'm gonna hold you to it. Absolutely, yeah. Tell them to come see me. I will.
SPEAKER_00I'm the I'm the weird fisherman that uh I'm super happy if I'm throwing a line in there and just reeling it back in. If I never catch a thing, I mean it's so fun when you do, yeah, but I don't know what I'm
Hiking Fishing And A Trout Stream Goal
SPEAKER_00doing. I just that is the like it's it's an ADHD thing that you can just it's monotonous and there's something to it and it's silent and there's water involved. And it's the only time I'm really calm. There's two things I do, that and like painting. Those are my two things that I do that aren't I'm not good at either of them, but they're the only thing in my life that's just calming. So it doesn't bother me, but there's a lot of people who aren't gonna fish just like that.
SPEAKER_01So something about sitting out in the woods by the water that is pretty important.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. So we gotta figure that out. So we're gonna work on that. Okay, good. Okay, good. Put that on the top of your list. I got that. No, no. Well, anything else that that I didn't think of to ask you or anything you wanna anything you want to say?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think you know, the the thing that I just want to make sure people know is that I, you know, I do take the representative part of the job seriously. And so, you know, I'm easy to find, easy to email. And we do our best to answer all those emails and and to really engage with people. But if you've got ideas, if you you think there are things that can be done better at the state level, please do reach out to me. I would love to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. And I know how to get a hold of them too. So I got secret ways to get a hold of them. I really don't, I'm nothing special, but even when I didn't know you, you were responding to my emails and my texts. So I do appreciate that. Well, I appreciate it. But um, thank you very much for coming today. I appreciate you and I appreciate your friendship, but also the work that you do.
SPEAKER_01Well, thanks for having me and thanks for all the work you're doing here. We gotta keep this uh great community going. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00This is my dream job. I love it. Thanks for joining us on Exploring the Valley. Until next time, keep celebrating the pride of our community and discovering the magic of the mountains. In the meantime, you're free to move about the valley.