The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles License Plate agency at 3333 N Main St. in Hope Mills has been a part of the community for decades. The agency is responsible for providing the community license plates for their cars, trucks, motorcycles and RVs. They issue handicap plates and placards, and will soon have NC FAST for customers to clear fees for toll roads within the state. They have done this under the direction of Roger Hall for 43 years.
Now however, Hall is taking a step back from the office. In his place will be Jim Trogdon, a Hope Mills native and former Secretary with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Hall took over the office in 1983.
“The DMV office in Hope Mills got shut down due to the previous contractor not abiding by several DMV rules,” he said. “At the time, I had an insurance agency on North Main Street in Hope Mills, and heard the DMV was accepting applications to operate the shut down office. I applied and after an interview, was chosen as the new contractor.”
License Plate Agencies in North Carolina are contracted agencies.
“The DMV is probably the largest state customer facing organization in government, and this is just a portion,” said Trogdon of his soon to be office. “This is the motor vehicle side, which is separate and it's the only part that is contracted. So the government employees do the drivers’ services but contractors run the license plate agency. This is an opportunity to help people with registration and all of those things that are involved with vehicle services.”
Trogdon has been involved with transportation in some form or another for all his life. A South View High School graduate, he decided to go to NC State for his civil engineering degree, where he signed up for ROTC. Trogdon became an engineering officer and spent most of his military career with the NC National Guard. He had several combat deployments and was deployed to 24 countries on humanitarian deployments.
“It was a good opportunity to see the world, and to do engineer missions all over the world,” he said.
Trogdon returned to NC State for graduate school, after which he got a job with the North Carolina Department of Transportation. He served in that capacity for 27 years, starting out at the entry level and eventually becoming named Secretary of the NCDOT. He retired as secretary in 2020. He was instrumental in legislation concerning I-295.
“That was part of one of the things I worked on for the region with the DOT: How can we do things like accelerate 295. It had been built all the way to All American, and it was running into some significant funding challenges, and I was able to work on two things which helped,” he said. “One was to be able to start using some bonding programs, so that we could bond those projects and accelerate them instead of waiting ten years. Then we created something called the Strategic Transportation Investments Law, which allowed projects to be selected based on how much traffic they move and how much travel time could be saved, so 295 scored well.”
The Camden and Rockfish roads improvements were also beneficiaries of that law and its process.
“That’s what the region needs to support growth,” he said.
Trogdon isn’t done with transportation yet. This latest venture will see him at the Hope Mills DMV LPA office several times a week. While he currently lives in Pittsboro, his father still lives in Hope Mills, and Trogdon is still very much a part of that community.
“Memories [are my] favorite things about Hope Mills,” he said. “The tightness of the community, I still know a lot of people who live there. My dad still goes to Hope Mills Methodist Church. I can remember growing up, you couldn’t misbehave in public without a relative calling your parents or grandparents. It’s just a tight community. Today of course it is much bigger, and it’s really an opportunity for the community to grow, evolve and change but still support the needs of the residents who are moving in and those who have been there all their lives.”
The Hope Mills DMV office sees roughly 700 transactions a day, Trogdon said. That number of transactions speaks to the efficiency of the workers in the office. Trogdon and other LPA contractors, as well as the Drivers License agencies in the state, are working to modernize the systems and make visits to the DMV smoother and quicker.
But Hall said, the workers at his DMV are already doing a fantastic job.
“The most rewarding part of this job is knowing you helped an individual who struggled understanding what they did wrong concerning their license plate, and you are able to fix it for them. Our staff continuously receive flowers, candy, lunches, etc. from customers showing their appreciation for the fast and friendly service we provide,” he said.
For Trogdon, he’s excited to start this new adventure.
“Me and my wife are honored to serve Hope Mills. We are really excited and we are looking forward to expanding our capabilities and our contributions with this office, giving courtesy and friendly service that all our citizens deserve,” he said.
The Hope Mills DMV is located at 3333 N. Main St., and is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

(Photo: The Hope Mills DMV office in June 1983, when Roger Hall took over the contract. Hall will be handing off his contract to Jim Trogdon. Photo courtesy of Roger Hall)