CONTRIBUTING WRITER PROFILE

In 2002, the world of technology was radically different than today. Steve Jobs was still five years away from inventing the iPhone. Computers were running Windows 98, or Windows 2000. Google was only 3 years old. The United States w... Read More

By Barry Waldman Take a scorching hot industry with jobs growing like kudzu. Add a community pouring resources in to support it. Mix in a shallow pool of highly specialized talent being wooed from one end of the continent to the o... Read More

On Monday, the Palmetto State will have an extra million people visiting. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know why. The nation’s first total solar eclipse since 1979, and the first to cross from the West Co... Read More

In today’s digital age, like it or not, everyone has a personal brand. What are you doing about yours? I work with CEOs, entrepreneurs and business professionals to build their personal brands, and I’d like to share three ... Read More

Looking for an interesting and free way to grow your brand? Consider Facebook Live. Love it or hate it, the facts are undeniable. Facebook has more than 1.6 billion users. That’s BILLION folks. That type of exposure is power... Read More

By Melinda Waldrop Business is booming in the senior living industry, and that trend is likely to gather speed as an aging baby boomer population enters the picture. A June 8 ribbon-cutting ceremony heralded the latest area entry i... Read More

Running a business is never easy. In addition to the day to day challenges, bad ideas continue to come from Washington that make the cost of doing business even more difficult, if not impossible. The Border Adjustment Tax (BAT), a compon... Read More

It was the answer heard around the state as representatives of the S.C. House and Senate voted to override Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto of the proposed roads bill that raises state gas taxes for the first time since 1987. Whil... Read More

What is your story? In business today, whether or not you’re in sales or marketing, the time will come where you’re at an event and asked to introduce yourself, and what you do. Many call this introduction, an elevator pitch.... Read More

By Marc Rapport Contributing Writer   Moultrie Ball, Colin Griffin and Chloe Rodgers are doing very different things in the same place, the Bakery at BullStreet Common.  Ball makes and sells toys. Griffin builds web app... Read More

By Marc Rapport People regularly stop at The Bakery at BullStreet building on the old State Hospital grounds and knock on the door, asking what’s for sale. Software, maybe, but not sweet goods. The Bakery is indeed an old bak... Read More

By Anne Cleveland While there is an implicit assumption that a nonprofit should not generate a profit, the premise is profoundly inaccurate and untenable. I suspect that all business ventures assume that they are filling a need and pr... Read More

By Thomas Heath “This is probably the most appropriately named event ever,” mused Grier Allen, the CEO and co-founder of BoomTown. “The Startup Grind. For those of you who are in it, who know what I’m talki... Read More

By C. Grant Jackson As redevelopment of the 1600 block of Columbia’s Main Street reaches a crescendo, eyes are turning north toward the 1700 and 1800 blocks. Three major initiatives hold the key to redevelopment on those two ... Read More

“Siri, turn on 'do not disturb.’” Those six words have changed my life. Let me explain ... In today’s world of connected electronics, I sometimes feel like one of Pavlov’s dogs. My iPhone pings, and I... Read More

“I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks. Let’s make lots of money.” So goes the song Opportunities, from the '80s electronic pop duo the Pet Shop Boys. These days, it takes a whole lot more than i... Read More

I can’t stand networking. To me, it’s inauthentic. If someone is trying to “network” with me, I usually find they’re only looking out for themselves and how they could sell me something.  That&rsq... Read More

From Feb. 13-26, 2017 print issue of the Columbia Regional Business Report By C. Grant Jackson Contributing Writer Columbia architect and developer Scott Garvin is planning a restaurant, coffee shop, and office space for a repur... Read More

Sales and marketing folks: Does this routine sound familiar? Go to event. Meet a prospect. Ask for their card. Send them an email follow-up. Hope they open it and respond. (then start all over again.) Isn’t t... Read More

Taxes are something that business owners are all too familiar with, especially when it comes to property tax. Not only do business owners pay these property taxes as a citizen, on their house and other property, but they also pay prop... Read More

  By CHRISTINA LEE KNAUSS   Can classroom time for employees reduce hassles for customers at big-box retailers and also improve the bottom line? Wal-Mart believes it can, and that was part of the reason it was back-... Read More

By Marc Rapport The Columbia area needs to “magnify its opportunities” but is making a lot of progress as business and community leaders work to build a thriving, dynamic place for people to live, work, learn and play in ... Read More

By Marc Rapport Amidst the sound and the fury of the presidential campaign there was one small detail not discussed. “America is broke. They never got to that,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, the best-selling author, columnis... Read More

By Holly Fisher Contributing Writer All Pat Walker, president and CEO of Lowcountry Food Bank, has to do is look outside her office on Azalea Drive in North Charleston to see food inaccessibility. The nearest grocery store is a b... Read More

At least some Midlands members of the S.C. House of Representatives are hopeful that changes in the state’s leadership coupled with some pending rules changes in the S.C.  Senate could lead to moving forward on issues like fix... Read More

By Marc Rapport South Carolina’s economy seems to be on a steady course. While the growth of the past several years has leveled off, the state’s job market is indeed growing, to the point where good help can be hard to fin... Read More

By Barry Waldman In 1739, a literate African slave named Jemmy instigated an uprising among his fellow slaves against slave owners along a corridor of plantations now known as U.S. Highway 17 in Ravenel. Research has determined that t... Read More

By Marc Rapport After putting some 350 bright, young students through college at the University of South Carolina, Bob McNair has turned his sights to helping empower free enterprise through academia. The billionaire philanthropist... Read More

By Marc Rapport Bob McNair sees new opportunity for the U.S. economy emerging with the election of Donald Trump as president. McNair, the founder and CEO of the NFL’s Houston Texans, was in Columbia on Thursday to announ... Read More

By Marc Rapport Contributing Writer Sheree Smith knew there was trouble when she woke up that Sunday morning last October and saw footage of Coplon’s clothing store under water. After all, her little shop occupied a space in ... Read More

  From Oct. 10, 2016 print issue of the Columbia Regional Business Report By Marc Rapport Contributing Writer A thousand-year flood couldn’t put a 50-year-old shop out of business. Not when it’s Michael Marsh... Read More

By Barry Waldman If an employee of an S.C.-based company earns $1,000 per week and claims two exemptions, the employee’s biweekly S.C. withholding tax is $108. Starting next year, the first update in the state’s withholdi... Read More

Editor’s note: This article is reprinted from the Municipal Association of South Carolina’s October issue of Uptown. At a city managers meeting in January, Forest Acres City Administrator Mark Williams asked for a show of ... Read More

By Marc Rapport If it isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity that will vex homeowners and businesses alike in the years ahead, says a national authority on insurance risk management. Changing weather patterns increase the li... Read More

By Chris Cox ccox@scbiznews.com Published Jan. 4, 2016 From the Dec. 7 – Dec. 20 edition of the Columbia Regional Business Report Nathan Stuewer would wake up early on those cold, snowy Michigan mornings and head for his ch... Read More

By Marc Rapport The only certainties in life are death and taxes, right? Well, they may be certainties but they aren’t constants. Just as tax rates — and the object of the tax collector’s attention — change, so... Read More

By Barry Waldman The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1. But disaster season could be anytime in the Lowcountry, as the historic October floods showed. Area emergency management officials and community leaders took the time in ... Read More

During our primary season, we’ve heard talking points about “disastrous trade deals” written by “corporate America.” As discussion continues and Congress considers the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it’... Read More

  By Mike Fitts The New York Mets, the parent franchise of the Columbia Fireflies, select and pay the coaches and players. The Mets have a style they want their players to play and skills they... Read More

    By Marc Rapport colanews@scbiznews.com   Izaak Walton wrote “The Compleat Angler” in the 17th century. The University of South Carolina School of Law has only be... Read More

By Mike Fitts Contributing writer The building of the Spirit Communications Ballpark, which debuts tonight as home field for the Columbia Fireflies, far exceeded city goals to involve local business as subcontractors, Columbia Mayor ... Read More

By Marc Rapport colanews@scbiznews.com Jason Freier, with a passion for detail and for baseball, has committed considerable intellectual and financial capital to making the capital city once more home to that great American pastime, ... Read More

By Mike Fitts colanews@scbiznews.com Finding and retaining a skilled workforce in South Carolina isn’t just a looming future challenge for employers — the challenge is here today, according to a panel of S.C. business... Read More

  By C. Grant Jackson colanews@scbiznews.com Drive down Columbia’s Gervais Street in the Congaree Vista and you’ll find few vestiges of a time 30 years ago when National Geograph... Read More

By Teresa C. Hopkins In 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Court upheld a lower court’s opinion that NCAA rules to limit what athletes can be paid violate antitrust laws. It is this ruling, along with parameters... Read More

By Nick Johnson The newly renovated Charleston City Market received a 2012 Phoenix Award from the Society of American Travel Writers. The Phoenix Award is presented to individuals and communiti... Read More

By Molly Parker mparker@scbiznews.com Published Aug. 26, 2009 North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said Boeing’s decision to seek permits to expand in his city indicates “we’re very much in the hunt” for a Dre... Read More