Midlands Mother-Daughter Team SCORES National Business Award

By Mike Switzer

Published October 27, 2016 at 5:58 AM EDT

SCORE, the all-volunteer small business counseling arm of the US Small Business Administration, recently held it’s American Small Business Championship awards gala in Washington, DC. Our next guests’ company was one of the finalists from South Carolina and the winner of the Outstanding Diverse Award..

Mike Switzer interviews Gabrielle Goodwin and her mom, Rozalynn, who together solved the age-old problem of disappearing girls’ hair barrettes, started their Columbia, SC company: GaBBY Bows, and within two years, had sales in 48 states and eight countries.

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Mike Switzer

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.

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