Upstate company still happily growing in SC

By Mike Switzer

Published June 14, 2023 at 5:30 AM EDT

We often hear about our state being an in-migration state where many more people are moving here than leaving here. But, as you may have heard in our interviews over the years, this has been happening with companies for a while. Today we have another example: a 103-year-old manufacturing company that relocated here from New York in 2007. Mike Switzer interviews Kevin Fee, president of Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Co. in Liberty, SC.

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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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