© 2024 South Carolina Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Building Rural Economic Success

South Carolina Business Review logo

If there’s one thing our state has an abundance of, it’s small rural towns and cities.  Probably the biggest challenge these communities face is: increasing, and in a lot of case, creating economic vitality.  Our next guest’s locale believes they have found a winning formula.

Mike Switzer interviews Seth Kines, director of VisitLakeCitySC at the Greater Lake City Community Development Office in Lake City, SC.

Stay Connected
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.