Global Impact » Capital Rotary Club

Dr. Michel van Tooren (wearing white shirt, blue coat in photo background) explains industrial oven use in new materials manufacturing to Capital Rotary members on a tour of the Ronald E. McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research. Van Tooren is deputy director of the center founded at the University of South Carolina in 2011 and named after the late Challenger astronaut. It supports the state’s second largest industry through aerospace education, research, outreach and economic engagement. Capital Rotary’s tour was part of the club’s Fifth Wednesday program featuring local field trips in place of a regular weekly meeting.

Capital Rotary Club members and their spouses enjoyed a spring social at Spirit Communications Park in mid-May. The occasion was a match-up between the Columbia Fireflies – a minor league baseball affiliate of the New York Mets – and their Pittsburgh Pirates-affiliated counterparts—the West Virginia Power. An added attraction was the presence of former college football star and ex-NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, currently on the Fireflies roster while pursuing a pro baseball career. The happy fans shown are (from front to back) Rotarians Bob Davis; Allison Atkins; Craig Lemrow; Chris Ray and his wife, Joie; Pete Pillow and his wife, Anne; and Blake DuBose, the Capital club’s president-elect.

This Wednesday, our speaker was James E. Clark, the 12^th President of S.C. State University. As you can see from his biography, he has had an outstanding career. President Clark will speak about South Carolina State’s partnership with the community.

South Carolina State University’s 12th President, Mr. James E. Clark is a native of Quincy, Florida. Referring to his parents as “the smartest people I know,” they instilled in him the value of a good education, hard work, and discipline. His father Edmond had a second grade education and his mother Annie, a sixth grade education, but they wanted more for Clark and his siblings. His father became his first role model as a well-respected businessman within the farming community and Clark followed in his footsteps, with expanded opportunities he could have only imagined.

An accomplished visionary with a stellar career, Clark brings to the presidency a results-oriented, business approach that launches and drives positive outcomes. His proven experiences in leading Fortune 5-500 companies has prepared him to provide the leadership necessary to move SC State University forward to the next level. Clark firmly believes that solid business practices of the institution is critical to its operations, success, and brand enhancement.

A resident of Columbia, SC, Clark has served as vice president of a $1- billion division of AT&T which he converted from a money-losing division into the most profitable division in AT&T’s computer business. Clark also worked with Gould Incorporated, General Electric, Gillette, and Exxon International. To these positions, Clark brought a wealth of expertise as a successful relationship builder, mentor, and team motivator who is highly respected for his ability to develop consensus among diverse functional groups.

Clark served on the Benedict College Board of Trustees for 18 years, and he has been Chair of the University of South Carolina Research Foundation for three terms. He has also served as an SC State Board member during the past year where he chaired the Finance and Management committee. He also served as an Executive Director of the prestigious Bell Lab, the most respected research institution in the world at the time.

Along with his passion for education, Clark has a passion for building and flying aircraft. He is an active member of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Board of Directors, and has performed as an Air Show Performer. As an engineer and a pilot, he brings the intricacy of “attention to detail” and the critical aspect of its effect on success.

Clark holds a Master of Science Degree in Management (Marketing) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management (M.I.T.); a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from M.I.T.; and further studies in Global Leadership and Senior Management Development programs at the University of Michigan and Indiana University.

Capital Rotary president Tommy Gibbons welcomes retired South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, guest speaker at a recent club breakfast meeting. Toal’s topic was how the country selects its judges, especially those to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Toal served on the state’s highest court from March 1988 to December 2015 after representing Richland County in the South Carolina House of Representatives for 13 years. She was the first female Chief Justice in the state’s history and graduated from Agnes Scott College and the University of South Carolina School of Law.

The Honorable Jean Hoefer Toal, Retired Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, spoke to Columbia Capital Rotary Club on May 3, 2017. Toal graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1965 and the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1968, where she was Managing Editor of the South Carolina Law Review.

As a lawyer, she argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the Catawba Nation. She represented Richland County as a Democrat in the South Carolina House of Representatives for 13 years. Toal, the first woman and the first Roman Catholic to serve as Chief Justice, was sworn in to the South Carolina Supreme Court on March 17, 1988 and served until retirement on December 31, 2015.

Ione Cockrell, area assistant governor for Rotary District 7770, presents two banners to Capital Rotary past president David Boucher (left) recognizing the club’s 2015-16 giving to The Rotary Foundation. Those donations help strengthen peace efforts, provide clean water and sanitation, support education, grow local economies, save mothers and children, and fight disease around the world. Current president Tommy Gibbons holds a Leadership Citation badge for 2016-17 participation in local/district community service projects plus contributions for international humanitarian outreach.

President Tommy Gibbons welcomes University of South Carolina graduate Catherine Glen to the podium to update Capital Rotary Club members on her Global Grant Scholar activities for 2016-17. Glen, who taught special education students in rural Japan for three years, is now working toward a master’s degree in the psychology of childhood adversity from Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As part of this year-long program, she wants to help establish a child development center in Nairobi. Global Grant scholarships support graduate level study in one of Rotary International’s six areas of focus: peace, disease prevention, water and sanitation, maternal/child health, education, and economic/community development.

In March of 2016, Capital Rotary Club members assisted volunteers helping to rebuild a Columbia-area residence damaged during heavy rains and flooding in October 2015. That effort was coordinated by the St. Bernard Project, a national leader in family recovery following natural disasters.

Now, about a year later, this same partnership has completed repairs to another flood-afflicted home – one occupied by Inez Pempleton and her family. Capital Rotary “adopted” the family as a Christmas project, contributing to their 2016 holiday celebration and helping them get their house back in order in February and March of this year.

Repairs included removing damaged items from the home, demolition, mold remediation, putting up insulation and drywall in the basement, plus painting and digging a drainage ditch. A skilled volunteer group recruited by the St. Bernard Project was able to be on-site consistently for about two weeks to complete the work.

In a letter, Ms. Pempleton thanked the St. Bernard group and Capital Rotary, saying that “I am so grateful to all of you for what you’ve done for us … We are so blessed to have you all in our lives. I pray God will be with you all throughout the coming year and all his love and blessing be with you.”

Capital Rotarian Abby Naas and club president Tommy Gibbons introduce Andy Markl (center) as the newest member of the Columbia-area service organization. Markl, a Lexington native, is director at The Graphics Source, a local firm specializing in print, marketing and advertising materials. Educated at Midlands Technical College and Clemson University, Markl serves on graphics advisory boards for both schools and has worked for International Paper and graphics/printing firms in both Carolinas. He and his wife, Donna, are the parents of three children.

Twenty-one members of Columbia’s Capital Rotary volunteered at Harvest Hope Food Bank to help pack over 150 boxes of groceries for distribution to the needy and elderly. Their participation was part of Rotary District 7770’s call for community service projects fighting hunger in the first quarter of 2017. Harvest Hope began in 1981 and since has expanded to feed the hungry across 20 counties in the Midlands, Pee Dee and Greater Greenville regions of South Carolina. The club counts the food bank’s executive director, Denise Holland, in its membership ranks.

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