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Midlands Company Celebrates $300 Million Order

Hakan Ozmen
Mike Switzer/SC Public Radio

As telecom companies continue to fight harder for more customers, they are aggressively upgrading their infrastructure.  And this is benefiting not only the cell phone users in our state but our manufacturing industry, as well.  Our next guest’s company in the Midlands of South Carolina, for example, recently inked a $300 million optical cable contract from Verizon.

Mike Switzer interviews Hakan Ozmen, president and CEO of Prysmian Group North America in Lexington, SC.

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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.