Textile industry leader forms nonprofit organization

Visible and well-traveled areas of Burlington, N.C., lacked the vigor and beauty that Allen E. Gant Jr. thought would attract people to live, work and invest in the city. Gant, president and CEO of Glen Raven Inc., joined Rett Davis, retired director of Alamance County’s Cooperative Extension Office, to form the New Leaf Society, a private nonprofit focused on planting a better Burlington. Gant modeled New Leaf after a similar effort undertaken by Roger Milliken, another textile industry leader, in Spartanburg, S.C. Three landscaping projects to install hundreds of trees and more than 1,600 shrubs will bring blooming magnolias and other colorful plants back to public areas of Burlington. Gant will match donations up to $100,000 each year for the first three years of the program.