SC Technical College System: Training born out of SC’s economic necessity
In 1959, the General Assembly didn’t want to put up the money to start a state technical college system – despite two thirds of South Carolina’s work force being functionally illiterate and the state teetering between economic desperation and collapse.
Against that backdrop, newly-elected Gov. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings tapped a top lieutenant, Columbia resident and World War II compatriot, O. Stanley Smith, to help him find training for a work force worthy of a future.
There were obstacles to overcome – not all limited to money. But the payoff would be great, eventually helping bring today’s big manufacturers, such as Boeing and BMW – and their higher paying jobs – to the state. And giving hope to workers who once stood on street corners scrambling for a chance to earn a day’s pay.
Hollings, elected in 1958, managed in his first year in office, to wrest away from state lawmakers $250,000 of more than $364,000 he asked for, to launch the technical school system. However, a rumor had persisted that the man Hollings insisted must lead the effort, Smith, likely hadn’t even voted for the Charleston Democrat for governor, a potential public embarrassment.
“I don’t give a damn; he’s the right man for the job,” said a brash, 37-year-old Hollings – as quoted by the late S.C. Gov. John C. West in the video archive titled “Transforming South Carolina’s Destiny – SC Technical College System’s First 50 Years.”
A year after Hollings secured the funding and put the leadership in place, the city of Greenville would donate more than 100 acres for the state to build its first technical college, Greenville Tech. Only during ceremonies on ground breaking day did state leaders and invited dignitaries discover the school was being built atop a landfill dump pre-dating World War I.
Today, the South Carolina Technical College System has grown to include 16 schools and is touted as a national model for other states to follow. No cluster of jobs comes into the state – including the thousands now at Michelin, BMW, Boeing and Continental Tires – without going through the S.C. Technical College System. The same is true for significant business expansions.
This week, the S.C. Chamber of Commerce and Agape Senior, a residential and health-related network of companies in Columbia, will honor Hollings and Smith, founding fellow captains of the tech school system, in a reception for the newly-named president and executive director, James C. “Jimmie” Williamson. The immediate former chief human capital officer at Agape Senior, Williamson took over leadership of the state technical college board March 17.
“More than 50 years after its creation, South Carolina’s technical college system remains focused on the important work of growing our state’s workforce,” Williamson wrote just days after being named to the position. “The system educates more undergraduates than all of the state’s other public colleges and universities combined.”
Fifty years ago, however, the state was mired in the dead end, cotton-based culture and mindset of the past – termed a “dire economic situation,” by West in the Transforming South Carolina’s Destiny archive video (accessible at http://www.sctechsystem. edu/transformingsouth carolinasdestiny/).
Before technical colleges, “(South Carolina) was textiles; manufacturing in a hot, dirty building, carrying very, very little money home,” says Tom Barton, Greenville Tech’s first president, from 1962-2008, in the video archives. Not only that, South Carolina was experiencing a great out-migration of residents to the upper Midwest and Northeast, as both farming and textile manufacturing gave way to mechanization.
South Carolina’s workers were fleeing to Detroit’s car manufacturing plants and cities such as Philadelphia and New York for job opportunities. One survey taken in 1959 found that only 5 percent of high school graduates in South Carolina went on to college.
Hollings, who served as governor from 1959 to 1965, is universally credited as the visionary of the need for technical school training in South Carolina, and still is known as the “Father of the SC Technical College System.”
Asked recently if he fully fathomed the immense, critical role technical colleges would come to play in the economic lives of South Carolinians, Hollings was unequivocal.
“Oh, hell yeah,” he said. “I broke ground for 16 of them. We needed the skills.”
Hollings formed the vision for technical colleges in the Palmetto State while attending a Lutheran conference in Dayton, Ohio, as he campaigned for governor.
A building there lit up well into the night caught Hollings’ attention, and upon closer inspection, turned out to be a technical college conducting training – suited for a working class worker’s schedule.
Among the challenges Hollings faced starting the education system from scratch was a pushback from public school educators, who resisted the idea, Hollings said, because they mistakenly thought the plan was to introduce technical instruction into the existing school curricula. On top of that, cornerstone civic institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce opposed the plan on the grounds of costs, he said. The staunchest adversaries, however, were the entrenched textile industry, which Hollings and others said strictly favored the status quo for the state – having men standing on street corners waiting for a plant foreman to come offer work.
Still, within four years, Hollings said his administration had provided 1 million jobs.
“I called on Michelin in June 1960, along with Bob Claussen, the head of the Bank of Hartsville,” Hollings recalled. “Now we got four Michelin plants, (and other tire makers including Bridgestone and Continental) employing 11,000 workers.”
Age 92 now, Hollings said he also traveled to South America in 1960 seeking business for the Port of Charleston, while other members of his administration traveled to Europe to drum up business for the state.
“He really was the visionary,” said Smith, 90, who Hollings hand-picked to head the first state technical board, charged with setting a direction for the new system. “He was smart, and a great leader, he has the best interest of the state at heart, and he could sell you anything,” said Smith, who loves to laugh, has a million stories to tell, but also has unmistakable, deep respect for Hollings.
It could all go back to World War II.
As a 19-year-old young man, Smith found himself far away from home in France, at the Battle of Bulge, what he describes as the largest land battle ever fought by the United States armed forces.
The Battle of the Bulge was the fight for the Colmar Pocket and the battle for the Ruhr River in France.
It was Christmas night in 1944 and Smith, an artillery officer in the 75th Infantry Division and his other young compatriots, “fresh off the boat,” and “scared to death” – were assigned to take a high ground occupied by the enemy in a sneak advance as the Germans were celebrating into the night.
“It was so dark, there was no light at all,” Smith recalled. “If you want to see how dark it was, just close your eyes and put your hands tight over eyes.”
The next night, huge search lights suddenly beamed out of the dark onto the dark snow clouds above, reflecting onto the ground, casting enough light to see other humans, tanks, trucks and other things, Smith said. “That saved thousands of lives.”
Turns out, the commander of that search light brigade that beamed light onto that dark battlefield in France in 1944 was Hollings, Smith said.
Neither knew it until almost seven decades later, when in 2012 and 2013 Hollings and Smith both received the French Legion of Honor, created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 to reward extraordinary accomplishments and outstanding services rendered to France, as determined by the president of France.
It is unclear if both Hollings and Smith will be able to attend the reception and honor this week in Columbia, though both are still active.
Hollings said he writes members of Congress vociferously and the needs of good technical school education are not very different than decades ago.
What is the primary need?
“Money,” Hollings said. “All the colleges need money. That Legislature up there and governor – we need money,” he said. “They just use that budget to get re-elected.”
TECHNICAL COLLEGE’S BIG S.C. IMPACT
SOURCE: South Carolina Technical College System
This story was originally published May 10, 2014 at 4:46 PM with the headline "SC Technical College System: Training born out of SC’s economic necessity."