Our Town: Agents of Change

If you ask Max Heller, it takes leaders. Leaders who always seek the next big idea, who act boldly. Leaders who don’t take past success for granted. Leaders who strive mightily to create “a place of beauty and safety—a people place.”

Heller is the man who started it all. But let us also introduce you to nine more visionary leaders who, each in their own way, have effected change in our community—some through their influence, others through their innovation. All are actively working to make sure Greenville’s future is bright, bold, and, most important, an improvement upon the past.

Leading the Way

The vision and work of former Greenville mayor Max Heller laid the foundation for Greenville’s bright future

Max Heller Former mayor of Greenville, 1971–1979
Field of Impact Downtown Greenville
In his words: “I could not go into some parks because I was Jewish. I could not get certain jobs because I was Jewish. If I was sick, I had to see a Jewish doctor. I saw people beaten because they were Jewish. And then here I come to the land of the free. I’m accepted with open arms. How could I not be grateful?”

Ninety years old and suffering bouts of debilitating back pain, Max Heller still speaks his mind with vigor and conviction: “Take nothing for granted,” he says. An Upstate legend credited with initiating downtown Greenville’s revitalization thirty years ago, Heller is anything but complacent. And he has a message for those who want to see the city continue to thrive in the future—and shine even more brightly.

“Take care of the trees, plant the flowers,” he says. “Take nothing for granted.”

If Greenville’s appealing downtown continues to make a strong impression on both visitor and long-time resident alike, it’s because an Austrian Jew fled Nazi genocide in 1938, arrived in Greenville, worked as a stockboy at Piedmont Shirt Company, founded his own business in 1948 (Maxon Shirt Company), served two years on Greenville City Council, and in 1971 won election to the first of two terms as mayor of Greenville.

If Greenville sparkles, it’s because Max Heller made his home among us. “He pointed the way,” says current Greenville mayor Knox White.

Heller became mayor at a time when Greenville’s Main Street was “pretty well shuttered-up, really devastated,” says White. Cars drove through downtown, quickly, not stopping. Heller had an idea that was “unusual for the time,” says White. He would invite an urban planner to redesign downtown. He would narrow the lanes to slow traffic, ask restaurants to put tables on the sidewalk, plant trees and flowers.

He would make Greenville’s center a pedestrian-friendly, European-style downtown. “Where I grew up, there were flowers and trees everywhere,” says Heller. “There was always natural beauty. I told the architect for downtown, ‘Give me that, give me a people place.’”

It was easier said than done. Many resisted change, as people do, says Heller. “There was a petition against us.” But he persevered.

An early success for Heller was garnering the Hyatt Hotel downtown, spurring other positive developments. Over thirty years there were advances and retreats, but the long arc of the years bent toward progress.

Three decades later: “I look at downtown with joy,” he says, giving credit to business leaders of the time, including Buck Mickel, Tommy Wyche, and Allester G. Furman. He also credits Mayor White and other city leaders, past and present, with maintaining the momentum, extending downtown revitalization to encompass the West End.

Heller left Austria in 1938, as Jewish synagogues and property were being burned and vandalized. Memories of Nazi oppression gave Heller his strong sense of social justice. Asked what he’s most proud of, it’s not downtown, it’s the social progress that has been made, with people of all races and faiths growing more tolerant of each other.

It was with immense pride that Heller saw the unveiling of a statue of himself downtown on his ninetieth birthday last May. The statue and the North Main Street plaza that houses it—appropriately named Legacy Park—draws parallels between Heller’s life and downtown’s growth, says Ken Betsch, managing principal of Betsch Associates, whose firm designed the square. And the larger-than-life Heller, his head inclined and right arm extended, seems to be making a point: perhaps something about carrying on the legacy of the city’s forward-looking leaders. —Paul Hyde

Future Driven

Economic development guru Kym Petrie spearheads the city’s latest industry recruiting tool, ThriveDowntown.com

Kym Petrie Executive vice president, Downtown Greenville Development Initiative
Field of Impact Economic development, recruitment, and lead generation
Role Model “Just one? Far too many to choose ... any passionate, powerful, balanced, driven game changers and thought leaders in their given field. I am continually inspired by individuals who take their lives, their families, their companies, and their communities to a level of success and satisfaction beyond their wildest dreams.”
Look for her work www.thrivedowntown.com

Kym Petrie hesitates to call herself an innovator. But she will enthusiastically admit that leading an online initiative to recruit business to downtown Greenville is as cutting-edge as it gets. “I don’t know of any other effort like this in the country,” she says, “and I’ve looked.” Scouring other cities’ Web sites and talking to administrators, executives, and politicos all across the United States confirms this, but Petrie also points to the sheer number of calls she’s gotten from other urban centers that have asked for her assistance with their own efforts.

The Greenville Development Initiative is a public/private partnership between the city, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Downtown Owners Group to promote economic development within the city’s urban core. The initiative, launched in July 2008, aims to attract additional office tenants of all sizes to relocate or expand into downtown’s vacant office space.

What’s different about leading this charge is two-fold: Petrie, the former president of DRIVEN Consultants, specializing in marketing and economic development strategies for businesses and municipalities, landed in Greenville via her native Ottawa, Canada, in the fall of 2007. It was love at first sight. She eventually accepted the position to head up the new downtown development initiative last June. And since then, she’s been laying the groundwork for marketing downtown and building relationships with corporate decision-makers.

Unfortunately, the effort coincided with the nation’s economic slump. Undaunted, she offers, “Every city has companies closing down or moving out. We combat that by looking at what we have and finding other small businesses to add texture to the whole community.”

Escorting these businesses proves what she’s known all along: “When people think of the South, they think three things: Atlanta, Charleston, or Mayberry. Then they come here and see good planning, green building, thriving businesses, great quality of life—I almost don’t have to sell it.”

So far she’s played host to executives ranging from an international financial group, two software design firms, an electric car company, a bioenergy company, a creative group, a strategic consulting company, and a health services group. Ever the optimist, she’s forging full-steam ahead in preparation for an economic turnaround. “That,” she says, “is what works.” —Lydia Dishman

Educator Squared

Outgoing Furman University president David Shi leaves a legacy of sustainability, record enrollment numbers, and unprecedented building

David Shi Outgoing FurmanUniversity president, after sixteen years at the helm
Field of Impact Education
Community Service Shi was the co-chair of Vision 2025, the long-range plan to make Greenville a better place to live and work.
Where You’ll Find Him www.furman.edu

If you tell David Shi to go take a hike, he’ll likely not take offense. That’s exactly what he plans to do—hike—when he retires in July after sixteen years as Furman University president. He’ll be journeying to the Colorado mountains for a few weeks to begin what he calls “a year of reflection and renewal.”

But the ever-busy Shi, 57, is hardly heading off into the sunset of an easygoing retirement. A multitude of projects await when he returns from vacation, including the ninth edition of the popular textbook he co-authors, America: A Narrative History.

In addition, Shi may find time for another book idea that has nagged him for years. More than two decades ago as a history professor at Davidson College, Shi began taking notes for a book on the theme of loneliness in modern American culture, with observations on creative figures as diverse as painter Edward Hopper and playwright Arthur Miller. Shi looks forward to completing that project while remaining open to “unknown opportunities” that may present themselves, including possibly teaching at Furman.

“It’s time for me to return to my first love—teaching and writing about American history, and it’s time for Furman to open a new chapter in its rich history,” Shi said in June last year when announcing his retirement. Shi’s final months at Furman, however, hardly constitute a winding-down.

Shi is passionately committed also to some important local environmental projects. There’s Furman’s master plan for sustainability, transforming the university into an even more energy-conscious enterprise. In addition, Furman and its students are spearheading a project to weatherize homes in some of Greenville’s struggling communities—saving energy and saving money for low-income families.

After teaching history at Davidson College for seventeen years, Shi joined the Furman administration in 1993 as vice president for academic affairs and dean. The following year he was appointed Furman president. During Shi’s tenure, applications to the university soared 75 percent, faculty salaries rose appreciably, the university’s endowment quadrupled, and the fifty-year-old campus was transformed by $210 million in new construction and renovation.

A safe hunch is that David Shi, in retirement, will remain very much in the Greenville spotlight.
—Paul Hyde

Drama Queen

Debbie Bell, executive director of the South Carolina Children’s Theatre, is a tough act to follow on any stage

Debbie Halter Bell Twenty-one years’ involvement with Greenville-based South Carolina Children’s Theatre, ten years as SCCT executive director
Field of Impact Children’s Theater
Role Model Caine Halter, her brother, a prominent local businessman and community leader who succumbed to cancer in 2007. “He was everything I’d like to be,” says Bell.
Where You’ll Find Her www.scchildrenstheatre.org

Debbie Halter Bell’s career with South Carolina Children’s Theatre began, well, rather modestly. In 1988, Bell walked into the fledgling SCCT seeking opportunities for her two young children in a production called “Dracula Spectacula.” Her children got cast, and Bell herself was given the wage-free job of stage manager. “It was basically opening and closing the curtain at Greenville High School,” she quips.

In those days, Bell recalled recently, SCCT volunteers sold tickets out of their own homes. Personal answering machines provided information for upcoming productions. The theatre had no permanent home. Shows might take place at Greenville Little Theatre. Or at the Greer Civic Auditorium. Or at any number of local high schools.

But how things have changed.

Two decades later, with Bell as executive director, SCCT is recognized as unique among children’s theatres for the caliber of its performances and the wealth of its outreach activities in schools. Over the years, SCCT gained a permanent home for its productions (the Peace Center’s Gunter Theatre) and an office and rehearsal space on Augusta Road. Its annual budget soared more than tenfold to almost $800,000.

SCCT is best known for its five annual main stage productions in the Gunter Theatre. The family-oriented shows, lavishly staged (ranging from $45,000 to $55,000 per show), run the gamut from Annie to The Sound of Music to The Wizard of Oz and the upcoming Sleeping Beauty.

Those who’ve participated in an SCCT production (including this writer) can easily sum up the ingredients of SCCT’s success: equal measures of talent, high standards, and good, hard work.

Adult actors often are impressed by the discipline of the young people involved in the shows. Acting in an SCCT show certainly is fun for everyone, but along with the fun comes a serious commitment: several weeks of almost daily rehearsals in an atmosphere of high expectations.

As in most any successful endeavor, the tone of professionalism comes from the top, although Bell is quick to give credit to SCCT directors, staff, volunteers, and board members for the theatre’s popular productions. “They always strive to present the best performances possible,” says Bell, who recently celebrated her tenth anniversary as SCCT’s executive director.

Bell is equally proud of the theatre’s educational efforts. SCCT is not merely a production company but also a conservatory, offering classes for almost a thousand young people ages three to eighteen.

“The true mission here is to help young people develop into independent thinkers, to be better communicators, to build a child’s self-esteem, to work as team players and treat each other with respect,” says Bell. “There are so many lifelong lessons to be learned through theatre.” —Paul Hyde

Mother Earth

In two years, Donna Putney’s Upstate Locally Grown food cooperative has blossomed

Donna Putney Founder and market manager of Upstate Locally Grown, since November 2007
Field of Impact Eating Local
Role Model Eric Wagoner, creator of LocallyGrown.net
Look for Her work www.upstatesc.locallygrown.net

It’s Wednesday afternoon in the parking lot of Clemson’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and Donna Putney hurriedly pulls pallets of farm-fresh eggs, coolers of Anderson County–raised beef, and plastic bags stuffed taut with winter greens from her well-worn Ford Windstar minivan. One by one, folks emerge from their cars and sidle over to pick up their fresh, organic produce, dairy, and proteins that hail from all across the Upstate. An offering like this was once unheard of outside of warm-weather Saturday farmers markets, but Putney has worked to change the way Upstate omnivores eat year-round. And she’s done it one household at a time.

“This appeals to me the way peace and love appealed to me in the ’60s, and—later on—as Whole Earth magazine and Mother Earth News appealed to my sense of being one with nature,” Putney offers, a wild mane of curls bobbing around her face.

A little more than two years ago, the flower child–turned–sustainable farmer founded Upstate Locally Grown, a virtual market that brings local, organic produce and proteins to residents of Anderson, Greenville, and Pickens counties. Today, her food cooperative has 600 members and counting, and it is one of about 115 such markets across North America.

“Not only does Donna’s program provide us with great-tasting and nutritious farm products, it also provides greater economic opportunities for our local farmers,” says Geoff Zhender, coordinator of Clemson University’s Sustainable Agriculture Program.

For Putney, eating organic is fiercely personal. At nineteen, newly graduated from nursing school, she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Within a few years she was totally disabled. She sold Tupperware, and that’s when a colleague referred her to a holistic doctor who treated her for a virus. “That began my interest in whole foods and herbs,” she says.

She and her husband Lenard own ten acres in the Friendship Community of Honea Path and raise about 300 laying hens, grow a handful of fruits and vegetables, and cultivate a variety of edible flowers and herbs.

Putney also finds herself laying the groundwork to usher Upstate Locally Grown into its next phase. She envisions including more small-scale growers like herself to the market, incorporating a teaching component, and setting up a distribution system that will streamline deliveries and conserve resources.

As co-op members become more involved, Putney sees even greater growth ahead for the organization. “I really, truly love our members … and regardless of socio-economic background, we all love real, fresh foods, and we’re willing to do what we have to in order to get local foods into our homes.”
—Heidi Coryell Williams

How It Works
The Upstate Locally Grown food cooperative is supported by dozens of local farmers and hundreds of Upstate buyers. Each week, growers list their product availability on the online market, and each weekend, when the market is “open,” buyers can browse the Web site and make purchases. (Most of the food is so fresh it’s still in the field while orders are being placed.) The market manager then processes the orders and drops them at various points throughout Greenville and Pickens counties.

Road Warrior

Urban designer Andrew Meeker turns his two-wheeled passion into cutting-edge bicycle facilities for Greenville

Andrew Meeker Senior landscape architect, City of Greenville
Field of Impact Changing the way we get around Greenville
Role Model Lawrence Halprin, renowned landscape architect
Look for his work On the Hincapie Trail section of the Swamp Rabbit Trail. He also helped create six miles of bicycle lanes in the city, and secured Greenville’s designation as a Bicycle Friendly Community
www.bikeville.org

The high cost of fuel, traffic congestion, and a sedentary lifestyle has many of us looking for a different way to get around town or even to work. Lucky for Greenvillians, the city’s senior landscape architect, Andrew Meeker, has a passion for getting from place to place without a drop of gasoline.

On a brisk December morning when the temperature hovered around thirty-nine degrees, Meeker’s brand-new custom “urban assault bike”—a road/commuter/mountain hybrid—was parked outside his office at the City of Greenville’s Department of Public Works, just as it is most days. Since beginning work with the city in 2005, Meeker has translated his pedaling proclivity into assisting in the completion of the Swamp Rabbit Trail (he was project manager of the Hincapie Trail section), six miles of bicycle lanes in the city, and, most recently, securing Greenville’s designation as a Bicycle Friendly Community.

Meeker says concern and respect for the environment helps drive his work. “That’s why I chose to pursue landscape architecture and why I love to come to work every day. I can leave the planet a better place than I found it,” he explains.

In pursuit of this mission, Meeker is bringing biking to the people, one rider at a time. For the kids, he’s organized bicycle rodeos emphasizing safety and skills, and for the utilitarian riders, there’s the Lights for Life outreach program where Meeker and other volunteers provide education, a blinking safety light, and reflective strap to those who must ride their bike to work because they do not have a car.

Along with the advent of the city’s community bike initiative, Bikeville, Meeker says the cycling movement in Greenville is gaining momentum—and it’s clear he’s fully prepared for the ride.
—April A. Morris

Bridge Builder

Former U.S. ambassador to Canada and state Speaker of the House David Wilkins created consensus throughout his decades-long political career

David Wilkins Twenty-five years in the South Carolina legislature, eleven as Speaker of the House; U.S. ambassador to Canada (under President George Bush)
Field of Impact Lawmaker and politician
Where You’ll Find Him www.nelsonmullins.com/attorneys/david-wilkins

David Wilkins admits to one shortcoming during his tenure as ambassador to Canada: never learning French in the bilingual country. “I never got past ‘Bon-joor y’all,’” he quips. “I did take French, but it didn’t take to me.”

That slight omission notwithstanding, Wilkins’s ambassadorship was widely hailed as a great success, characterized by the quality for which the Greenville native is perhaps best known locally and abroad: bringing people together. Notably, Wilkins, 63, helped resolve a contentious softwood lumber dispute by bringing then-president George W. Bush to the table with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The complex issue involved tariffs and a wide range of other disagreements between the two nations, but Wilkins’s deft diplomacy helped heal two decades of wrangling.

He brought that same knack for consensus-building to numerous other U.S.-Canadian issues, ranging from energy and national security to travel and the environment. For Wilkins himself, meanwhile, being ambassador to Canada for three years and seven months was a dream job.

“I got up every day, looked in the mirror and said, ‘You get to represent the United States of America today,’” says Wilkins. “It was a real adrenaline rush.” A personal highlight for Wilkins was a trip to Afghanistan to visit with Canadian and American troops, including 1,800 South Carolina national guardsmen.

Wilkins’s overarching vision as ambassador was to “leave the relationship (between the two nations) stronger than we found it,” and by all accounts he achieved that goal. Wilkins’s stint as ambassador came on top of his twenty-five-year tenure in the S.C. legislature, with eleven of those as Speaker of the House.

Two of his proudest moments as Speaker include the legislature’s banning of video poker and its decision to remove the Confederate battle flag from atop the statehouse dome. Recalling the bitter divisiveness of the flag issue and how it had thrust the state into a harsh national spotlight, Wilkins says of the 2000 flag decision, “It was the right thing to do, and the right time to do it, and I’m glad we got it done.”

South Carolina historian Walter Edgar calls Wilkins’s leadership on the flag issue “a tremendous act of statesmanship.” Edgar, author of the definitive history of South Carolina, describes Wilkins as “a man who did a fabulous job in what is probably the most politically difficult job in the state.”

After completing his term as ambassador in January 2009, Wilkins was invited to join, as a partner, the law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. He focuses primarily on international law. In the meantime, Wilkins remains in the public eye as chair of the Clemson University board of visitors.

But would he ever seek elective office again? “I have no plans to,” says Wilkins, adding: “But you know what they say: ‘Never say never.’”
—Paul Hyde

Search & Rescue

Roger Owens’s life-changing mentoring program Save Our Sons turned lives around citywide

Roger G. Owens Twelve years as president of the Greenville-based Save Our Sons; former longtime insurance executive at Liberty Corporation
Field of impact Helping at-risk black children, ages seven to fourteen, turn their lives around
Awards The Governor and Mrs. Richard W. Riley Award for Excellence in Dropout Prevention
Role Model “I admired my father’s strength, his self-motivation, and his ability to raise himself up by his bootstraps from virtually nothing. I also admire the late S.C. Cureton, pastor of Reedy River Missionary Baptist Church. He was strong but compassionate, and he lifted everybody up.”

As he drives around Greenville, Roger Owens sees success stories everywhere. In grocery store parking lots. At the mall. In restaurants. But if he gets a little choked up talking about them, it’s only because they’re his success stories. For a dozen years, Owens was president of a Greenville organization called Save Our Sons (SOS) that helped turn around the lives of hundreds of young black men, ages seven to fourteen, who had run into trouble with the law.

He fondly remembers one such story: “Oh, he wasn’t a malicious kid,” says Owens, who founded SOS in 1993 and remained president until it closed in 2005. “But apparently he didn’t know when to shut his mouth. We tried to instill in him a respect for authority.”

Did they succeed? “I saw his mother the other day on the way to my car in a parking lot,” Owens says. “She told me he’s ... he’s now ...” Owens’s voice breaks. A pause, and then Owens forces out the next sentence: “He’s now a pre-med student at Morehouse College.”

Another pause, and Owens says, “It’s very gratifying.” He adds in an apologetic voice, “When I start talking about them, I get a little emotional.”

SOS boasted some impressive successes. Eighty-five percent of the young men who were assigned to SOS by family court and remained for two years didn’t get into further trouble. What was the secret to SOS’s success? “The philosophy was we’d take young men who had gotten into minor trouble with the law and mentor them, providing strong male role models for them,” says Owens. “We followed that with strong academic and religious mentoring.”

It was the tragically high rate of incarceration of young black men that motivated Owens to start SOS. As well as providing positive role models for young men whose fathers were absent, SOS offered intensive counseling, field trips, sports opportunities, computer classes, and even manners training. In addition, SOS granted twenty-five college scholarships, many of them valued at $40,000 over four years.

Despite its achievements, SOS had to close in 2005 when funding dried up. Owens remains disappointed that public agencies failed to see the value of SOS and provide funding.

Now 69, Owens is still sending out an SOS of sorts, passionately arguing that a program like SOS has value and deserves to be revived.

“If the funding became available, the model has proven itself,” says Owens. “There’s no doubt that it’s beneficial to the community. It’s needed now more than ever.”
—Paul Hyde

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Creative Connectivity

Social media guru Trey Pennington thinks outside the technology box and gets Upstate professionals (and beyond) talking face-to-face

Trey Pennington Social media instigator, entrepreneur, writer
Field of Impact Social Interaction
Role Model Greenvillian, politician, and brilliant businesswoman Deb Sofield
Where You’ll Find Him www.treypennington.com

Trey Pennington put Greenville on the virtual map last December when he started a social media revolution in the Upstate, walking into a packed-out coffee shop where Facebook junkies, Twitterers, and Blackberry addicts awaited his message about the start of a social media club here.

“I thought if eight or ten people were there it would be a smashing success,” he muses. In only a year, Social Media Club Greenville has gathered more than 650 people to become the second-largest social media group in the world, and online he’s built a community of followers who are coming to know our community via computer screen, including 53,705 fellow Tweeters and enough friends on Facebook to max out the limit.

A new study shows that Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, and other social networking sites have—combined—edged out e-mail as the single most popular Internet activity. But by its very nature, the technology is constantly evolving. So Pennington went about creating a forum for people to discuss those changes in person.

“I’m a Bob Jones graduate; I’m Republican by default. My general pattern of life would never put me in contact with certain people,” he says, grinning.

But social media has broken down some of those walls and given him a broader understanding of the world. Following the success of starting Greenville’s club, Pennington spent much of the past year traveling the world starting other such clubs and speaking to people about the power of online networking. He has had a hand in developing groups as close as Spartanburg and Asheville, and as far away as the United Kingdom and Australia.

He’s driven by more than espresso shots; Pennington’s goal is to make the world a better place. “I like to find that missing piece in people’s lives and search for a way to help them or connect them with someone else who can,” he says.

He is instilling in his six children the same innate kindness that has fueled his own success, and Tweeting that same message from the WiFi-wired shops of cities all around the world.

But the face-to-face connection is what still means the most to Pennington, because, as he points out, “The real social media is happening at coffeehouses, not on our iPhones.”
—Nichole Livengood

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Preservation Professional

Upstate Forever’s Brad Wyche works to safeguard the area’s wild places and encourage smart growth

Brad Wyche Founder and executive director, Upstate Forever
Field of impact Preservation and responsible development
Where You’ll Find Him www.upstateforever.org

Natural winter sunlight—rather than florescent tubes—illuminates Brad Wyche’s office in Upstate Forever’s downtown Greenville headquarters, a 1916 house that has undergone a complete green retrofit. On this day he’s talking about his organization’s beginnings back in 1998 and recalling his vision for preserving precious places throughout the Upstate—its rolling hills, dense forests, clear flowing streams, and other wild land.

A Greenville native, Wyche developed a connection to the natural world during childhood trips—hiking, backpacking, and canoeing with his father, Tommy. After training in natural resources management at Yale University and in law at the University of Virginia, he returned to the area to practice law. He helped form the Friends of the Reedy River in the early 1990s, but Wyche wanted to go one step further.

“I thought, ‘Why can’t we create a nonprofit, member-based organization for the entire Upstate?’” He left full-time practice in pursuit of a group that would preserve land and promote sustainable communities in ten Upstate counties, Upstate Forever. “I am inspired by the stunning beauty and diversity of the Upstate—from the spectacular waterfalls and rugged peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the fast-flowing rivers and rolling hills of the Piedmont,” says Wyche.

What began as an effort from a home office evolved into the nonprofit that now has two Upstate offices, twenty-one staffers, and is supported by nearly 4,000 members. In addition to advocating for smart growth, Upstate Forever works to educate landowners about leaving a lasting land legacy. “Ideally, we’d like every landowner in the area to know that creating a land trust is an option.” The nonprofit also works to partner with developers to prevent Greenville from growing into the next Atlanta.

Upstate Forever board chair Erwin Maddrey says, “Today, Upstate Forever is recognized as a sensible voice in land use, preservation, and sustainability matters. The organization has also been recognized nationally for it’s leadership—and that leader is Brad Wyche.”

Brad has continued the land preservation tradition started by his father—Tommy Wyche was instrumental in protecting Greenville County’s Mountain Bridge Wilderness. “If I could accomplish 10 percent of what he’s done, I would be very pleased,” says Wyche. He is well on his way. To date, Upstate Forever has perpetually preserved 12,600 acres of farms, fields, and forests.

In the next ten years, with Wyche at the helm, Upstate Forever plans to preserve an additional 100,000 acres and recruit 7,000 more members. Because there is much more work to be done.
—April A. Morris