When the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Greater Triad recently announced a new vice president for advancement, it was a familiar face to many in Guilford County. Ray Trapp, a popular former member of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, has returned to Greensboro to step into the role.
Trapp, a Greensboro native and Navy veteran, held the District 8 seat on the county board from 2012 to 2017. He stepped down to take a government relations position at North Carolina A&T State University, where he earned his master’s degree.
“I loved serving as a commissioner, but I felt like I couldn’t pass up that opportunity,” Trapp said.
In 2021, he left the Triad for the Triangle, taking a senior position with the Research Triangle Foundation and later a district manager role with Duke Energy. Last year, he was working as director of communications and development for Families and Communities Rising when A&T came back into his life—this time when his wife Shannon was offered an associate vice chancellor position there.
“I think we started thinking, ‘Hey, is this the time for us to relocate back to Greensboro, back to the Triad?” Trapp said.
His youngest child was about to enter high school. The time seemed right. The opportunity to work with the Boys & Girls Clubs—something much more community-oriented after years in the business world—seemed to confirm that.
“Ray joins our organization at a pivotal moment,” said William D. Gibson, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Greater Triad, in a statement on Trapp taking the position.
“As we expand our footprint and elevate our impact across the Triad, this role is about far more than fundraising,” Gibson said. “It’s about shaping narrative, strengthening trust, and building the relational philanthropy required to sustain a regional movement.”
The Boys & Girls Clubs provide after-school activities for youth ranging from sports and academic support to workforce training. That’s a mission that resonated with Trapp, who said he needed that sort of support himself as a young man.
We caught up with Trapp recently to talk about his time away from the Triad, his return, and what he hopes to accomplish in his new role.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
I think it’s safe to say you were one of the most popular Guilford County Board of Commissioners members during your time on the board. You were never defeated at the polls, but ultimately you did step away from office to pursue other opportunities — and those took you from the Triad to the Triangle for years.
Yeah, it was exciting. And I have to say the Triangle really opened its arms to me, from Raleigh to Durham to Chapel Hill. I met some great people and did some great things on the Durham Sports Commission. Mary-Ann Baldwin, the mayor of Raleigh at that time, was extremely welcoming, as was Steve Shewel when he was the mayor in Durham, and then Elaine O’Neal when she was mayor there, and now Leo [Leonardo Williams], who is mayor.
I’m getting my doctorate at Chapel Hill now, so I’m still very invested there.
I kind of had a base already in the Triangle because when I was a commissioner, I was highly involved in the state association—I was vice president of the North Carolina Association of Black County Officials when I left. So I already knew people across the state and had great relationships with them.
You were always such a Greensboro and Guilford County guy, I think a lot of people were surprised when you ultimately took a job with the Research Triangle Foundation and relocated.
That was hard. But I’m a firm believer that if you’re doing community work—and economic development is community work, nonprofit work is community work—that you actually have to be a part of that community.
Talk to me a little about your new role with the Boys & Girls Clubs. When I was growing up in a military family, in military towns, groups like that were so essential—especially in places where kids might have one or even both parents in jobs where they may be deployed or in training.
Absolutely. It literally takes a village. That old idiom is very true. And one of the things I’m excited about being able to do is expand that work in our region. The Boys and Girls Clubs has essentially been High Point—High Point has been the base and will be the base for this expansion. And I’ve always thought regionally.
I was born in Greensboro, but I spent equal time between Greensboro and Atlanta. And in Atlanta, they always thought regionally—it didn’t matter whether it was the City of Atlanta, Fulton County, DeKalb County, Gwinnett County, wherever. To everyone outside of there, it was Atlanta. And Atlanta fully embraced that.
When I was on the commission, we were still breaking down some of those silos between Greensboro and High Point. We brought economic development from Greensboro, Guilford County, and High Point all together. And people didn’t think that would ever happen. But now it’s ten years later, and they’re still operating together as one.
So I saw the Boys & Girls Clubs, a nonprofit that is operating in the youth space, especially serving underserved youth. And I saw they were expanding regionally. That was right down my alley. It was a no-brainer for me.
Talk to me about the scope of that expansion.
We’re looking to expand to serve around 7,500 to 9,000 youth. That’s going to involve expanding from five locations right now in High Point and Asheboro to about 20 all across the region. We’re looking at Greensboro expansion first, and then Winston-Salem expansion to follow.
One of the things that struck me was that the kids that go to the clubs are really me. I was a club kid. Sports were big for me, and parks and recreation saved my life. I was sort of a knucklehead when I was younger and hung around with people I shouldn’t, who were into different things. But sports was one of the big things that changed that for me. I knew I had to do well in school so that I could play basketball. But what I didn’t know was that was actually engaging me into school, and what ultimately became the basis for my life as an adult to pursue education and be a lifelong learner.
I think all the youth, especially the underserved youth who need it the most, should have that opportunity.
You’ve been very public about your cancer diagnosis a few years back and how it changed your life. You used it as an opportunity to talk publicly about how you initially ignored your symptoms, as too many of us do as men, and the toll that illness took on you both mentally and physically. I’m glad to hear you’re in remission now. I wondered if that diagnosis may have played a part in your changing courses in your career, away from the corporate world and back into nonprofit work.
I think what it really did for me was that it gave me a very short tolerance for things or situations that don’t make sense or don’t feel right, for things that don’t advance the community.
Even as an elected and before that, I think, I was always about advancing the community. regardless of where it was. And now I think that’s just become even more of my focus. Now I understand the corporate world is not for me. I’m not a corporate person. I don’t care about buildings. I don’t care about property. I care about people.
I always want to be helping people and helping the community. That’s why I’m committed to making change with the Boys & Girls Clubs, and I think they’re doing great work with our youth right now. They’re really struggling right now with where they fit in, how to find community, a sense of belonging, and how to connect. If we can be part of the solution to that and expand that work, that’s the work I want to be doing.