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Plaster Making a Comeback

Lauren Dillon
Mike Switzer/SC Public Radio

Most internal walls these days are made with sheetrock, but for hundreds of years, they were mostly plaster.  Our next guest is with a South Carolina company that is working to bring back historically authentic slaked lime plasters such as those used 400 years ago in Windsor Castle and St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Their work has, in fact, been installed in the Smithsonian Institute and in many other public buildings, hotels, and businesses across the country.

Mike Switzer interviews Lauren Dillon with Master of Plaster based in Columbia, SC.

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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.