Helping SC Small Business Community Survive the Pandemic

By Mike Switzer

Published August 20, 2021 at 5:30 AM EDT

For 42 years our next guest’s organization has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs throughout our state to succeed by providing them consulting and educational services. And in all of those years, probably none were as busy for them as last year’s pandemic year.

Mike Switzer interviews Michele Abraham, state director of the South Carolina Small Business Development Centers.

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Mike Switzer

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.

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