Jeff Throneburg, a homebuilder from the southern part of the county, has announced that he’s about to break ground on an electoral campaign for Alamance County’s board of commissioners.
A 26-year veteran of the residential construction trade, Throneburg has previously made his mark on county government as the former president of the local homebuilders’ association. Now, the 58-year-old Republican hopes to expand on this foundation as he competes for one of the two seats that will be up for grabs on the county’s governing board in 2026.
Throneburg contends that his leadership of the local homebuilders, which ended in 2024, has given him some valuable insights into what’s currently ailing the county.
“During that time, I saw a huge disconnect between our elected officials and the public,” he recalls. “They turned a deaf ear to what people wanted, and that’s what has motivated me to run for commissioner.”
As president of the local homebuilders, Throneburg took on a number of land-use initiatives that he insists are symptomatic of the county’s current tone-deaf leadership. These gambits included an ill-fated attempt to introduce zoning to the unincorporated community of Snow Camp as well as a failed plan to increase residential lot sizes in areas outside the county’s cities and towns. In both of these cases, Throneburg believes that the board of commissioners was slow to pick up on problems with these proposals which he noticed immediately thanks to his real-world experience as a homebuilder.
Yet, the arena of planning and zoning is just one area of county government that Throneburg argues could benefit from a shakeup on the board of commissioners. The Burlington native is also convinced that he has the wherewithal to bring a more collegial, publicly-oriented mindset to this five-member board.
“I’m a Republican. But I think that at a local level, decisions should be made on a nonpartisan basis,” he contends. “We can have a conversation to fix these issues. It’s doable. But we have to sit down, be civilized, and work toward a common goal.”
Throneburg’s own introduction to this collegial spirit dates back, in part, to a four-year stint that he served in the U.S. Air Force. After his discharge, the former airman parlayed his skills as an aircraft mechanic into a lucrative private sector career, which eventually saw him managing aircraft “powerplants,” or propulsion systems, for several airlines by the time he celebrated his 30th birthday.
In 1999, Throneburg made an occupational about-face that led him to lay down the diagnostic tools of an aircraft technician for the hammer and level of a professional homebuilder. The aspiring county commissioner would go on to ply this new trade throughout Alamance County, including the scenic countryside along Southern High-Mount Hermon Road, where he and his wife Courtney currently live with their two school-age sons.
Throneburg notes that his experience in the homebuilding trade has given him first-hand insights into the workings of county agencies, like the environmental health unit of the local health department, which is responsible for issuing permits for septic systems in rural parts of the county. Although the aspiring commissioner concedes that he has generally had good working relationships with this particular unit’s staff, his overall experience has been increasingly strained by employee defections due to inadequate pay.
Throneburg insists that a similar loss of talent has caused service delays in EMS as well as faltering student performance within the Alamance-Burlington school system. He goes on to assert that the board of commissioners has done little to correct these problems because of its misplaced priorities and the adversarial tone of some of its members.
Instead of addressing salary issues among rank-and-file staff members, Throneburg contends that the commissioners are wasting resources on things like a $30,000 pay raise, which they recently extended to Alamance County’s sheriff Terry Johnson.
“[The sheriff] was already in the 90th percentile for pay in the state,” he asserts. “Yet, we have a shortage of bus drivers, we have EMS delays, and we’re losing employees to other counites.”
“I am for our first responders,” he adds. “I am also for our school teachers, and I want them to be paid comparable to other counties. If that means a tax increase, I’m for it. But we may not have to raise taxes as much as we think.”
Any whiff of support for higher property taxes has traditionally been the kiss of death for Republicans who’ve sought the GOP’s nomination for the county’s board of commissioners. Throneburg insists that his own preference isn’t to raise property taxes, per se, but to find constructive solutions to the county’s problems by dispensing with the usual partisan filters.
Throneburg argues that the county’s uneasy relationship with the school system is a case in point of how tribalistic tendencies have become a real detriment for the current board of commissioners.
“You have the commissioners calling out the school board for not showing up [at commissioner meetings],” he goes on to explain. “But these agendas are not in the best interests of the citizens of Alamance County…Instead, let’s fix those relationships so our students won’t be in the lowest percentile for test scores.”
Throneburg insists that, if given the chance to serve on the board of commissioners, he would encourage more dialogue to improve public services. He also promises to strive for greater transparency and increased public access to the county’s elected leaders.
“I’m going to pay for a website out of my pocket to let people know what the commissioners are looking at and what they’re voting,” he says. “I’m also in favor of a townhall meeting where there are no constraints on what an individual can say.”
In the end, Throneburg believes that a more interactive approach can transform Alamance County into a better, more hospitable community for all of its residents. But like the construction of a new home, he is adamant that this vision will require everybody to roll up their sleeves – and work from the same set of blueprints.
“We all agree that something needs to be done,” he insists. “But first, we have to define what we want Alamance County to be, so we know what direction to go.”
