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Hiring Challenges Remain For Foreign Companies in SC

Companies are always telling us that finding and keeping highly qualified employees is a constant challenge.  Our next guest says that that challenge is amplified for foreign companies with facilities here.  And that's why they host annual conferences here in our state for all those involved.  One of these events is coming soon to the Upstate.

Mike Switzer interviews Lee Ferrell, a lecturer of German at Clemson University, a member of the committee for the annual Language and International Trade Conference held on their campus each spring, and he's now getting ready for their second annual Forum for German and Spanish in the Professions, where this year's topic is "German Companies in the Americas - Hiring and Maintaining a Qualified Workforce: Old and New Challenges".

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.