Let’s envision a stronger South Carolina, together!

As we are coming to the end of 2021, a year that signifies reemergence and advancement, South Carolina’s three largest metros gathered the state’s top leaders, virtually, for the South Carolina Leadership Exchange to build a shared vision for our state’s future that creates prosperity for all.

This year’s conference kicked off with a message from Joey Von Nessen, Research Economist, University of South Carolina, who emphasized the significance of employment preservation for the state’s economic recovery and threats to that recovery. He also brought light to the increase in personal savings rates and disposable personal income because of stimulus packages, noting that we’re returning to pre-pandemic norms.

Factors that are making a threat to economic recovery are the drastically increased, yet expected to be short-lived, U.S. inflation rate, wage growth because of labor shortages and the risk of the Delta variant. Though businesses and consumers are more equipped to handle this change and know what to expect, consumer confidence is directly tied to consumer spending and has taken a noticeable dive in the last couple of months.

In the next session, moderator Stacy Brandon, President, Upstate South Carolina; Senior Relationship Manager, Global Banking Markets for Bank of America, was joined by the Presidents and CEOs of the Charleston Metro, Columbia and Greenville Chambers for a discussion on building an ecosystem dedicated to ensuring the success of minority-owned businesses. When posed with the question “who’s partnering with your Chamber to drive DE&I efforts and what are some best practices that can be replicated?” they answered with the following:

Carl Blackstone, President and CEO, Columbia Chamber

• Collaboration is key!
• Look for opportunities that don’t impact their business but complement it and their mission. Have that conversation for what they (minority businesses) are.

Bryan Derreberry, President and CEO, Charleston Metro Chamber

• Find where people are really engaging, gaps and determining how we (Chambers) can fill those gaps.
• November/December minority ecosystem in the pipeline.
• Big question: How to make one region equitable across the board and achieve DE&I aspirations?

Carlos Phillips, President & CEO, Greenville Chamber

• Nothing the Chamber does is done alone.
• We have proud partners who are dedicated to making sure the community is diverse.
• Acknowledge that minority businesses need support and resources.

At the head of our communities are insightful leaders who want us to understand that the future of South Carolina’s businesses depends on the success and prosperity of minority-owned businesses.

Did you know South Carolina is the tenth-fastest growing state in the nation with the fourth largest state-maintained highway system? Following the Chambers’ conversation, Christy Hall, Secretary of Transportation with SCDOT, presented the progress of our state’s infrastructure systems and what it’s looking like for the next 20 years. Here are some key highlights:

• South Carolina’s interstate work has transitioned from being federally funded to state driven.
• Pavement conditions have improved across the state, close to half of all travel in SC is on major road pavements as of 2020.
• High priority bottlenecks: I-85 to I-385, I-20 to I-26 (Malfunction Junction), I-26 to I-526 and Mark Clark Expressway
• In regards to how minority-owned businesses are being included in SCDOT efforts, increased funding in individual goals are assigned to small and minority-owned businesses growth.

When asked “what can the citizens of South Carolina can do to support funding and infrastructure?” Hall encourages us to put our ideas in the heads of political leaders.

On the next panel moderated by Matt Bell, SC Launch Director with SCRA, Herbert Drayton III, Managing Partner with HI Mark Capital and Matt Dunbar, Managing Director with VentureSouth offered many words of advice for entrepreneurs, but one stuck out: NETWORK!

This is grassroot work and critical for state and university to work together in identifying then removing the friction in the entrepreneurial process – starting with institutions and ensuring those classes and resources are available. When those entrepreneurs enter the business sector, truly examining how we’re onboarding and introducing their business; this should be treated the same as onboarding a new employee. Both of our panelists did agree that it is critical to develop a stronger connection with larger companies and entrepreneurs.

For employers, allow your employees time to experiment and retain their position and determine what resources you can allocate to support them. Also, they encourage larger businesses to use these small businesses. For the entrepreneurs, you are encouraged to learn from your mistakes and keep pursuing your goal. As a community, we need to stop culture surrounding failures and looking down on entrepreneurs when they do. We need to celebrate their successes, but we also need to be willing to assist when we can.

When asked “what else can South Carolina do?” our panelists responded with:

Herbert Drayton III, Managing Partner with HI Mark Capital

• Reach out to corporations and encourage them to become mentors for entrepreneurs.
• Take a call from an entrepreneur, just to have the conversation.
• Discuss their goals and definition of success.

Matt Dunbar, Managing Director with VentureSouth

• Find ways we can attract, retain and entertain talent.

As we are all aware South Carolina is a beautiful state and ranking high as ‘Top Places to Visit’ in the nation. Duane Parrish, Director of SC Parks, Recreation and Tourism, moderated a discussion to divulge recovery, resiliency and future of tourism and travel with South Carolina’s leading professionals in the tourism industry. Here are some takeaways and what to expect for the future:

Helen Hill, CEO, Explore Charleston

• As a state we know how to overcome something difficult, we just didn’t know COVID was going to last so long. We were able to leverage outside activities (golf, beaches, etc.), a lot of jobs were saved under great leadership.
• Staffing has been a tough challenge. Local owners and small businesses have kept their staff.
• Proud of South Carolina in beating other states to getting back online and opening back up but as more states start to join the fold, South Carolina does have a concern about competing.

Sheryl Lang, President and CEO, VisitGreenvilleSC

• Hotel performance occupancy levels back to 2019 and showing great promise for quarter four.
• With leisure and amateur sports coming to Greenville, this creates opportunities for small businesses to thrive.
• There’s been an increase in last-minute, midweek travel so we’re trying to find a more stable 7-day week for travel and occupancy.

Bill Ellen, President and CEO, Experience Columbia SC

• Shortly after vaccinations came out, growth in demand to get back to in person and normal events.
• Leisure and sporting events allowed for target marketing. Business travel is still lagging but leisure travel has closed that gap.
• With people expecting CDC guidelines and protocols to be in place, customers are more accepting of changes to venues.
• It is important to understand that restaurants are not at full capacity and hotels may have numerous floors shut down. Making adjustments as we go has proved to be a major challenge, but we’re functioning the best we can.
• With government assistance slowing, hopefully we will experience growth in labor.

Karen Riordan, President and CEO, Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce

• Projections for the rest of the year: breaking occupancy and rates, being consistent and having additional funding, expecting heavy leisure travel, but not much corporate. A lot of sports teams are coming back.
• The demand for beach vacations in May resulted in a negative perspective for Myrtle Beach, but recovered in September. High unemployment, recovery likely not until the fall.
• Never considered defunding marketing for tourism, we knew at some point that people would want to come back. Strong dedication to tourism marketing and signage, asking for customer patience and reflecting change in operating hours and services.
• Also offering rewards and incentives for employees working double shifts.

Parrish used a great analogy to describe the last year and a half “it’s like trying to fly a plane while we’re still trying to build it.” This is an all-hands-on-deck scenario to ensure success for this industry and lasting employees cannot have a “that’s not my job” mindset.

In our final session, we heard from South Carolina’s leading politicians on tools and resources that can be implemented and developed for economic prosperity. First hearing from Congressman James Clyburn on the significance of getting broadband in rural America, though it has been in the works, the pandemic stressed the immediate need for this. As cases were increasing, rural hospitals needed to be connected to mainstream hospitals to get the resources and teachings. Since switching to a virtual climate, students were missing out on education simply because they didn’t have internet in their homes. Clyburn placed great emphasis on connecting rural America to the rest of the world and the need for internet to be in all homes!

Following Congressman Clyburn, Senators Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott and Congresswoman Nancy Mace shared their perspectives on the future of South Carolina’s infrastructure and opportunity zones. Here are some takeaways:

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham

• We’re going to have to put more money into the economy to support the population growth.
• Harbor deepening project must get to 52ft deep to support the ports and ships coming into Charleston Ports.
• COVID funds should be used for state infrastructure. SCDOT supports bipartisan infrastructure bill, which will provide an additional billion-dollar fund in addition to the money we already have.

U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Mace

Regarding the recently passed infrastructure bill, Mace’s thoughts are that this is not what was expected nor not what was promised; the expectation was that infrastructure could be worked on in a bipartisan way. There are 42 new taxes involved in this bill.

Sharing three key opinions:

• Initiatives like electric vehicle charging stations should be for market driven industry and remain open for entrepreneurs. Federal government should not get involved and become direct competition.
• If improvement to highway rail is to be explored, federal government should invest in proper execution in a specific region.
• States should keep unspent COVID relief money and decide how they want to spend it on infrastructure.

U.S. Senator Tim Scott

• We can continue to build on opportunities for zoning in rural and urban areas. Strong concerns in the current administration increasing taxes can result in decreased opportunity for zoning.
• Thankful to entrepreneurs and small businesses for making it easy to grow produce and farm in South Carolina.
  • Agricultural Center in Hampton County created 2000 new jobs
• When asked how businesses can help and contribute to improvement in opportunity zones, Senator Scott responded with:
  • Invest in and bring jobs to those low income and impoverished zones.
  • Encouraged businesses to show compassion for their employees as well as the citizens and customers they serve.
  • This is a prime and classic opportunity for businesses to lean into making a difference right at home.

What a great and insightful day one! Thank you to all of our sponsors below for your commitment to making our state the best it can be.

Now on to Day Two

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