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September 8, 2006     The Columbia Star
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September 8, 2006
 
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6 SEPTEMBER 8. 2006 THE COLUMBIA STAR " SC by John Temple Ligon Sporting News to see more NASCAR Charlotte-based American City Business Journals is the nation's leading publisher of metropolitan business newspa- pers. ACBJ has 41 weekly business publications in cities across the U S. Last week, ACBI agreed to acquire Sporting News magazine and its :3.9 million weekly readers. St. Louis-based Sporting News has been published without interruption since 1886. Belk Last week America's largest privately held department store chain, Charlotte's Belk, reported second-quarter net income of $26.3 million, up 53% from the same period last year. Whittle well paid- very well paid Mack Whittle Jr CEO of The South Financial Group Inc was recognized last month by SNL Financial as one of America's over-compensated bank executives. TSFG's bank subsidiary Carolina First Bank runs roughly 100 branches in the Caroli- nas. TSFG is also the holding company for Florida-based Mercantile Bank. TSFG's assets total almost $15 billion. In 2004, Whittles pay included salary, bonus, restricted stock, and other compensation for a total of $3.2 million, according to SNL Financial. For 2004, TSFG had a return on average equity of 10.2%. Peer banks' performances averaged a return of 16.2%. As reported by SNL, among the same peer banks, Whittle's pay package rose above the average by 69.6%. Rogers Townsend & Thomas grows and moves Since 2001, Columbia law firm Rogers Townsend & Thomas has grown from 65 employees to 220. The firm's new offices at the Synergy Business Center off Broad River Road have 44 000 square feet, but the firm is already planning to add another 10,000 square feet within the year. Money chase The Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council will hold the fourth annual Carolina Connect Entrepreneur and Capital Confer- ence on September 14 at the Renaissance Hotel in Asheville. Conference registration is at www.ncmtns.biz. For details, call Jim Roberts at 828.273.9862. Greenhouse gases Columbia is about to join 300 other American cities in efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7% by 2012. Governor Schwarzenegger of California has negotiated a statewide plan to reduce similar gases by 25% by 2020. Watch for cli- mate change debates in this fall's mid-term election season but especially in the presidential race in 2008. Senator John McCain, leading Republican contender for the White House, is pushing in Congress for mandatory emission controls. Former transit provider Duke supports transit Like SCANA down here, Charlotte-based Duke Energy for- merly ran the bus systems in its power-service domain. Unlike SCANA down here, for its headquarters employees, Duke is offering up to $50 a month for bus passes. Aston Martins for sale at Hampton Automotive? Ford has appointed an investment bank to handle the sale of Aston Martin, its ultra-luxury brand of sports cars. Ford is also considering a sale of Jaguar, the world's sexiest car. Pos- sibly a package deal, the combined sale of the two in one transaction could put Aston Martins in Jaguar showrooms, such as Columbia's Hampton Automotive. Star of the show On display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City is an exhibition of Edward Hopper paintings. Attracting considerable attention is Hopper's 1955 work, "South Carolina Morning." Designed for Louisiana but certainly suitable for South Carolina Lowe's Cos America's second-largest home-improvement retailer, is selling house kits to hurricane victims. Katrina Cottages come on sale in November at about 2O Lowe's stores in Louisiana and Mississippi. The house kits come complete with just about everything except foundations and mechani- cal engineering for heating and cooling. Varying in size from 544 square feet to 936 square feet, the houses are designed to withstand winds of 140 mph. Figure on $50 a square foot to buy the kit and another $50 a square foot to finish the whole house. In other words, total costs run from about $50,000 for the 544 square--foot model to $100,000 for 936 square feet, plus land. Designers say the houses can be built in a month. Katrina has come and gone, but Louisiana and Mississippi must build for the next hurricane, as should South Carolina. South Carolina next BellSouth Corporation is asking regulators in North Carolina for the right to change prices and calling plans without first getting government approval or holding public hearings. Alabama, Kentucky, and Missouri have already approved similar concessions. 8CALI~JOF Sealed Bid 45+/- Acres, Lexington County Gaston, South Carolina Thursday - Sept. !4 2:00 pm BURNS For complete terms visit: ASSOCIATES www.JoeBurns.com/7 REALTOR~ AUCTIONEERS 1-800-569-1953 ext.7 By John Temple Ligon rempk~ rheCohunbia.gtarcom Last week eight Romanian high school stu- dents and their seven teachers discussed their 2006 Global Issues English Immersion Camp. Escort- ing the group were their international relations offi- cer and their official inter- preter. Their visit to Colum- bia was partially funded by the State Department in Washington. The balance of the sponsorship was shared by the Moore School of Business and The Columbia World Affairs Council. Dr. Carolyn /ones, head of the undergraduate program at USC's Moore School of Business, con- ceived the idea of a service learning project that would create an opportunity for undergraduate business students to introduce busi- ness skills and cross-cultur- al communication to high school students in emerg- ing democracies. In the summer of 2004, 13 USC students and six staff members traveled to Cluj-Napoca, Columbia's Sister City in Romania. Seven local high schools in the Cluj metropolitan area participated. In the winter and spring of 2005, Emilia-Alina Lup, dispatched from the mayor's office in Cluj, visit- ed Columbia to observe business incubator opera- tions and other economic expansion practices. Work- By John Temple Ligon Templt~TheCo/uml#aSta/:.com Karen Floyd was born in Hermann Hospital in the world's largest medical com- plex, the Texas Medical Cen- ter in Houston, where her father was a geologist for Esso, now Exxon-Mobil. At age rwe, her father and Esso moved the family to Libya. Finally in 1971, they moved to South Carolina, and her father located at USC as a geology professor. Her moth- er taught elementary school. Floyd ran cross-coun- try at Irmo High School and also competed in the mile and the two-mile. She still charges her batteries by run- ning up to eight miles every morning at five unless she has a longer run required to get up for an occasional marathon. Floyd was an academic standout at Irmo, enough to gain acceptance at Goucher College, the female wing of Iohns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Her college inter- ests spread across three dis- ciplines: political science, computer science, and French. She is still fluent in French. Floyd graduated from law school at the University of South Carolina in 1986. She was soon prosecuting cases of child abuse and neg- lect. And there she began her observations of continuing cycles of generational pover- ty. She became a Chief Mag- istrate in Spartanburg Coun- ty, where she restructured courthouse operations to Emilia-Alina Otezan, City of Cluj; Michaela Sinca, teacher; Lucia Maria Lungu, teacher; Ana Daniela Ladariu, teacher; Rodica Doina Iancau, teacher; Alexandra Columban, student; Radu Garbovan, stu- dent; Miruna Magdas, student; Bigi Maria, student; Georgian Cocis, student; Cristina Lupea, archicture student; Adriana Michaela Vuscan, teacher; and Gabriella Lucia Wainblat, teacher. ing with the director of tion, (2) Shared Perspec- and their teachers are USC's business incubator, tives on European Politics, guests i.n the homes ofgen- loel Stevenson, the City of (3) Entrepreneurship. erous Columbia families for Cluj has developed two Ongoing is a book theweek. business incubators, drive, a donation of books Coming from a coun- In July2005, eight stu- in English sent to Cluj. try of 23 million people, dents and Dr. Kristia Finni- Thanks to the Moore almost 90% ethnic Roman- gan from USC's College of School's Undergraduate ian, the business students Arts & Sciences joined fac- Student Leadership Coun- are here for not only total ulty members and eight cil, about 1,000 books were language immersion but for students from the Moorecollected and shipped. A the fullAmerican cultural School of Business for the parallel activity by Colum- and demographic exposure, trip to Cluj. Duringthe 2005 bia-area high schools is too. Romania emerged in student camp, three semi- under way. A.C. Flora held late 1989 after 45 years of nars for the participating the first high school book Communist rule. Colum- Romanian high school Eng- drive and collected another bias visiting Romanian stu- lish teachers were offered 1,000books. dents' average age is 17, by USC instructional team While visiting Colum- making them the firSt'tO' members: (1) PeT Instruc- bia, the Romanian students See RomanianS on page 7 drop costs and gain efficien- cies. She also served as the county council's first female chair, learning early to build consensus to get things done. In the private sector, Floyd rose to vice president at Spartanburg's Advantica Restaurant Group, altogether eight different national chains, to include Denny's and Hardee's, and 160,000 employees. Floyd and her morti- cian husband have twin 10-year-old boys who are enrolled in Pine Street Ele- mentary School. They live in Andrews Farm Acres, near Pacolet, where General West- moreland grew up. Floyd introduces her- self as the candidate offering real reform in South Carolina public education. Her plans for improvement fall on two sides, the innovative and the traditional. She itemizes five points on the innovative side, while she offers some symmetry from the tradi- tional side. Her five points for innovation: (1) Shift ways we hold ourselves accountable, even overhauling PACT (Pal- metto Achievement Chal- lenge Tests). (2) Redirect funding to where the money funds the child, not the enti- ty and remove the blame game. (3) Build up a statewide infrastructure and brick-and-mortar bank on the Arizona model, where they built 158 schools and renovated 6,600, all in a 4-year period and all under court order, which should resolve underfunded chal- lenges such as the 1-95 "Cor- ridor of Shame." (4) Embrace cutting-edge technology and upgrade existing outmoded systems. (5) Keep research and development continu- ous, solving old problems and discovering new ones to be tackled. In the traditional areas, Floyd is adamant about school security and safety. She espouses zero tolerance when it comes to violence or the threat of violence. Each school has to understand clear responsibilities and protocol alld policy. Move- ment for improvement needs to be legislated, politi- cally mandated, and child- centered. The S.C. Department of Education oversees 672,000 K-12 kids and 55,000 teachers, including teaching staffs and administrators. The State of South Carolina contributes $2.7 billion to the budget, local taxes kick in $2.4 billion, and the feder- al government passes along $550 million, all for one big organization that should be run by an experienced exec- utive, says Floyd.