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Rural South Carolina Building Economic Alliances

South Carolina, like most states, certainly has areas that one might refer to as “off the beaten path”.  And those areas oftentimes struggle to bring jobs and growth to their economies.  Our next guest’s organization though, while representing the most rural economic development region of the state, has been busy building coalitions with industry and government leaders across Europe and North America for the past 21 years.

Mike Switzer interviews Kay Maxwell, with the Southern Carolina Regional Development Alliance in Barnwell, 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.