Earl N. "Phil" Phillips Jr.
By Pamela Babcock

igh Point businessman Earl N. "Phil" Phillips Jr. (BSBA '62) was recently named U.S. ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean, a post he assumed mid-March. The diplomatic assignment covers Barbados and six smaller eastern Caribbean independent island nations, including Dominica; Grenada; St. Lucia; St. Kitts and Nevis; Antigua and Barbuda; and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

But it won't be all sun and sand for envoy Phillips, 61. Just how radically his ambassadorship would be altered became obvious Sept. 11, when Phillips and nearly a dozen future ambassadors were immersed in a two-week ambassador training program at the State Department, just blocks from where the third hijacked jet hurtled into the Pentagon.

"When those planes hit the World Trade Center, we were talking about big picture, peacetime issues," Phillips recalls of the riveting experience. "Now, our mission has changed dramatically. It was a pivotal point in American history."

In an effort to diversify their economies, some Eastern Caribbean islands have become targets for money-laundering operations. One of Phillips' goals is to work with governments in the region to drive money launderers out by ensuring well-regulated and transparent banking systems that will prevent them from being used to hide transactions of terrorism, organized crime or other illicit activities.

"Money laundering is far and away my top priority," Phillips said. "The Caribbean countries have worked very closely with the United States to help us in this war on terrorism, but where they can be most helpful is in the banking system, by bringing better controls and oversight to these offshore banks."

In Bridgetown, Barbados, Phillips oversees 160 embassy employees in an increasingly complex world. As ambassador, he plans to work to stem the tide of drug smuggling, to join with officials from the United States and the Caribbean to help fight the AIDS epidemic and to promote economic development, which is heavily dependent on tourism and was hard hit by the terrorist attacks.

Phillips, who also received an MBA from Harvard in 1965, was appointed to the three-year post by President Bush and has more than 35 years of private-sector experience. He retired in 2000 as chairman and CEO of GE Capital First Factors Corp., a High Point asset-based lending company he co-founded in 1972. The company, originally called First Factors Corp., was acquired by GE Capital in 1998. Phillips is currently chairman and CEO of Phillips Interests, a real estate and home furnishings showroom management company in High Point, and a partner in Showplace, a local showroom and exhibition complex. Both work closely with the semiannual International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, which draws buyers and sellers from all 50 states and 110 countries around the world.

Phillips has been heavily involved with UNC-Chapel Hill over the years. He served from 1983 to 1991 on the University's Board of Trustees, including two terms as chairman, and for 16 years was a trustee on the University's Endowment Board. Phillips also served on the University's Board of Governors and the Kenan-Flagler Board of Visitors and, in 2000, was co-chairman of North Carolinians for Educational Opportunities, a $3.1 billion university and community college bond referendum that won overwhelming approval by voters. Phillips also enjoyed a four-year term on the board of trustees of the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.

His name has become synonymous with international studies at UNC. In 1992, The Earl Phillips Jr. Professorship in International Studies was established to help attract outstanding undergraduate teachers. Last fall, Phillips was awarded Kenan-Flagler's Global Leadership Alumni Award, and, in 1995, he received the University's coveted Davie Award.

Carolina is truly a family affair for the Phillips family. He and his wife, Sallie (BA '70), have two children: Courtney, a 1996 political science graduate, now employed with Morgan Stanley in private wealth management in New York City, and Jordan, a sophomore majoring in economics, with a minor in Spanish.

"I'm really proud of him. He's thinking internationally," Phillips said of his son, Jordan. "Or at least as much as a 20-year-old should."

Meanwhile, Phillips says he's excited about the future of Kenan-Flagler and his role in advancing the educational, research and public service mission of the School.

"They've got on the drawing boards a global technology building, and fund raising is just beginning on that," he says. "That's going to catapult the business school even higher in the international rankings."