Ex-SC House GOP Leader Gary Simrill joins Winthrop University in president’s office
South Carolina Rep. Gary Simrill, who will retire later this year after 30 years in the Legislature, has a new job.
The former Republican House leader and current budget chairman has joined his alma mater, Winthrop University, in the president’s office, serving in the role of special assistant to the president for community engagement, the Rock Hill-based college announced this week.
Winthrop said Simrill’s new role in President Edward Serna’s office started July 1, the same day Serna started.
Simrill will earn $158,000 a year in his new job, and Serna will earn $248,067 a year, according to Winthrop.
“Together, the two of them will tell others about the Winthrop story, its welcoming campus community, and its willingness to work with others,” the university said in its release announcing Simrill’s new role.
In an interview with The State, Simrill said Winthrop went through so much presidential turnover that it had been operating in a silo. Before Serna, the university had three permanent presidents over the past decade. One of the university’s more high-profile presidential exits came in 2014, when then President-Jamie Comstock Williamson was fired after only 11 months on the job.
In his new role, Simrill said he will work to ensure Winthrop builds upon relationships with stakeholders, ensuring the university is working with the business and political communities and the community overall.
“I love Rock Hill, I love South Carolina and my alma mater. To be able to connect all of those loves ... it is a perfect segue for me in this transition of my life,” Simrill, 56, said. “To tie Winthrop, Rock Hill and the state of South Carolina all together is a highlight.”
Simrill will retire from the General Assembly this fall after three decades in the lower chamber, where he held powerful positions from majority leader to the current chairman of the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee.
On the budget committee, Simrill chaired the panel overseeing college and university spending, and was largely credited with shifting attention to growing tuition costs after years of neglecting higher education.
Simrill’s role as House majority leader was set to end at the end of his term in November, but he stepped down early to become budget chairman after a shuffling of leadership positions.
Announcing he would not seek reelection in 2022, House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, stepped down early from his chief role and retired early from the House. Lucas has since joined Prisma Health as the hospital’s senior vice president for government affairs, though he won’t register as a lobbyist and won’t lobby lawmakers, a spokeswoman said.
By state law, former lawmakers are prohibited from serving as lobbyists for a year after their public service ends.
After Lucas stepped down, former budget chairman Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, was elevated to House speaker, leaving Simrill — among the longest-serving legislators in the chamber — to become chairman of Ways and Means.
This story was originally published July 28, 2022 at 11:54 AM.
