It's been 2 years since Danté Anderson, City Councilperson for District 1, joined us for an episode of Getting Real with Rob. And although the sitting Council looks a little different, Danté still brings her signature gravitas to the podcast booth, just as she does to any interview. Appointed as the Chair to the newly independent Charlotte City Safety Committee, she clarified what she sees as an effort to connect all the relevant safety-minded entities within the City with Uptown residents and business owners, to ensure they support and uphold the work of our dedicated police force.

"60% of our budget is dedicated to safety, covering police and fire protection," she shares, and then transitions into a narrative around her intention to lean into agendas that support safe, affordable housing in Charlotte. She calls home ownership, "…the second most important step to increasing safety in our community…" The first being a sustainable plan to bring in good paying jobs and provide a way for people to get educated so they can access these jobs, better equipping them to buy a home.

Councilperson Anderson brings a wealth of experience in the private sector to her work in the policy making realm. However, she remembers Charlotte before we became one of the fastest growing cities in the Nation. "I'm a native daughter of South Charlotte, raised during an era of the Queen City when Eastland Mall was a gem, Saturday afternoons at Queens Park were a treat and the possibilities were abundant." She continues, "As a poor African American girl reared in public and low-income housing, I've experienced housing instability and food insecurity throughout my childhood. Yet, if one were to tell me the possibility of improving my desired outcomes barely existed based on my location in the city, I would have rebuked that notion. I was hopeful, encouraged to reach higher, and keenly believed possibility could become reality."

Her CMS education armed me with the appropriate knowledge and skillset to successfully navigate through a dual BS Degree in Electrical Engineering and Cinema Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Fine Arts in Cinema Studies from New York University's The Tisch School and acquire an MBA from Harvard Business School. She desperately wanted the concept of achievement to resonate for all Charlotte residents, regardless of what side of the city they called home, and regardless of their location on the economic mobility ladder.

"I firmly believe my professional skills & experience, insight, civic engagement, and tribal knowledge of being a native Queen City resident can uniquely help to advance City Council's key focal objectives."

"It's really easy to identify a problem; it's actually not that hard to come up with solutions. The real work comes with implementing them." shares David Longo, our first guest of 2026, as he gave his closing remarks. Our episode drilled down into the details of the Transportation Referendum and the accompanying 1 cent sales tax increase that passed last November as David's leadership was instrumental in forging bipartisan collaborations between Raleigh and Charlotte. Helping to move this historic initiative forward, its successful passing reinforced his belief that real progress happens when people put community above politics. The referendum passed on the first attempt with 52 percent of the vote—an unprecedented outcome for an initiative of its scale and complexity.

David's role in advancing the Mecklenburg County Transportation Referendum, a once-in-a-generation effort to transform the region's infrastructure is a masterstroke of opportunity and vision. The soon-to-be-imposed sales tax will generate $19.4 billion in local funding over the next 30 years and will be matched by $6 billion in federal funding. The total results, say many, is estimated at $250 billion in long-term economic development.

A long time Charlotte influential, David has spent more than three decades transforming how organizations view their workplaces—not as static environments, but as powerful tools that shape culture, enhance collaboration, and elevate the human experience. That fingerprint will be conspicuously prominent as he takes his place as an appointee of the Metropolitan Transit Authority Board. As the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of CBI Workplace Solutions, he was also the 2025 Chair of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance – an organization that referendum proponents sought support from — acting as a strategic genius by building bridges of purpose that transcended divisive agendas. Through these civic efforts, David has earned a reputation as someone who works across lines of difference, uniting Democratic and Republican leaders, business executives, educators, and community advocates around shared goals.

As we dig into his background, the foundations of his philosophies become obvious. Raised in a loving and faithful home, he learned the value of responsibility, gratitude, and respect for others. His early influences—family, faith, and scouting—profoundly shaped his worldview and gave him a lifelong desire to serve others. In 1993, David founded CBI Workplace Solutions in Charlotte, North Carolina, guided by a simple yet transformative conviction: the workplace matters. What began as a small entrepreneurial venture quickly grew into one of the Southeast's premier workplace solutions firms, serving clients across North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida. Under David's leadership, CBI became a trusted distribution partner to MillerKnoll and Falkbuilt, delivering workplace solutions that integrate design, technology, and human insight. His approach transcends furniture and floor plans, and he believes that when leveraged correctly, the 'built' environment can profoundly improve people's lives, their processes, and their performance.

As Chair of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, he has been a unifying voice in the region, bringing together the public and private sectors to pursue long-term investments that enhance quality of life and regional competitiveness. In 2023, David co-chaired the $2.5 billion Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bond campaign, the largest school bond in North Carolina's history. His leadership helped secure widespread, bipartisan support for modernizing and expanding educational facilities across the county.

At the center of David's life is his family. He has been married to his wife, Chris, for more than forty years, and together they have raised three children and now cherish time with their two grandchildren. Family remains his greatest source of joy and grounding, reinforcing the values that have shaped both his personal life and leadership journey. In addition to his business and charitable work, David lends his leadership to a variety of civic and institutional boards, including UNC Charlotte, the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, Novant Health, Charlotte Center City Partners, and now the Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority. David Longo continues to live out a calling larger than himself—building not just workplaces, but communities, not just businesses, but legacies of purpose. "Success is not about status or power—it's about how we use our gifts to lift others."

In this episode, we turn our attention to policy makers and citizen groups' persistent distaste for growth, and confusion around managing it intelligently. And all over the US, albeit the world, there is a tug of war between those who live in a place and those who want to live in a place with each believing they hold virtue over the other. With NC assumed to become the seventh most populated state in the country by 2030, leaning in is a prerequisite to resolving our issues. That's why we're thrilled to welcome our guest Aaron Houck, a land use attorney at Robinson Bradshaw, who specializes in assisting his clients with zoning and entitlement endeavors and has some fascinating opinions about both sides of the argument. But he's also someone who is questioning the human tenues that block our ability to flourish.

So, what dogmas are fueling the grumblers who stand between us the right answers? Aaron reminds us that just because you're in the room doesn't mean you get to make all the decisions. And he brings up the point that although a city's outcome should be influenced by local citizens having what he calls, "a voice, a veto and a vote", we don't think about the people wo aren't in the room and are being denied all three. These are the folks who will need a home next year, or after school in 5 years, or when they're transferred here in 10 years. What will they find? Will they forever be the reason existing residents groan in distaste?

It is these ideas and more that light up the airwaves on our current Getting Real with Rob podcast. It's a conversation about how to see things on a larger stage and increase our peripheral view. It is about helping our elected leaders and neighborhood groups understand the economic and behavioral nuances that must be addressed. Otherwise, we're stuck in anger. That's neither democracy nor leadership.

By way of background, Aaron Houck brings to his profession an intricate set of skills and insights. His family moved to Charlotte when he was eight years old, he is a proud graduate of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, having attended Newell Elementary School, J.T. Williams Middle School, and Independence High School. And he went to Davidson College, where he double-majored in economics and political science, served as co-editor-in-chief of The Davidsonian, and played on the scouting squad for the women's basketball team. He then braved the cold, darkness of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for three years at Harvard Law School before returning to Charlotte to work as a real estate attorney at Robinson Bradshaw. He left the practice of law to pursue a Ph.D. in political science at Duke University, and he taught for seven years at Queens University of Charlotte, where he was a tenured professor in the Political Science Department. He subsequently boomeranged back to Robinson Bradshaw.

Where it gets fascinating is when Aaron's career as a lawyer and a political scientist was fueled by an interest in how cities work (and why they don't). At Queens University of Charlotte, he taught a course on the "Politics of Urban Design" that included taking a group of students to Barcelona. As a land use attorney, he helps his clients navigate rezoning and entitlement processes.

Aaron and his wife, Pearl, have two kids. They live in the Elizabeth neighborhood. They enjoy college sports and spending time in the North Carolina mountains.

Listen now to this episode!