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Need Research Experience and a Way to Pay for Grad School?

  You’ve probably heard us talk before on this program about the role of university research in maintaining our state’s competiveness, but what you may not have heard is about South Carolina’s connection to the invention of the laser and how one of our research universities is helping students from smaller schools get research experience and learn how they can pay for graduate school.

Mike Switzer interviews Dr. John Ballato, the J. E. Sirrine Endowed Chair of Optical Fiber and Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET) at Clemson University.

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.