Greenville, SC -- Liberty Fellowship, the statewide leadership initiative sponsored by Hayne Hipp, Wofford College and the Aspen Institute, today announced the accomplished South Carolina leaders who will serve as Mentors for the Class of 2010. Each Fellow in the leadership class is provided with a mentor, who provides principled guidance throughout the two-year Fellowship. ""We give a great deal of thought to our pairing of Mentors and Fellows,"" says Hayne Hipp, founder of Liberty Fellowship. ""Mentors challenge, motivate, and provide counsel to their Fellows, but it actually goes far beyond that. We have chosen Mentors who are inspiring both personally and professionally, and their impact on the lives of their Mentees is likely to be significant."" The Mentors selected for Liberty Fellowship's class of 2010 are:
Gayle O. Averyt began his career with Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company in 1958 and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors from 1970 until 1993. He has served as a Member of the Boards of Directors of the South Carolina State Ports Authority, Unum Corporation, and NationsBank. He also served as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Health Insurance Association of America and Secretary of the South Carolina Insurance Commission. He is past President of the South Carolina Orchestra Association. In 1994, he was awarded The Order of The Palmetto. Averyt was inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame in 1998. Averyt will mentor J. Michael (Mick) Mulvaney, President of the Mulvaney Group, a family-owned business and one of the largest developers of residential building lots in the Charlotte and Rock Hill area, and a State legislator.
William Barnet, III is the Mayor of Spartanburg, and CEO of The Barnet Company and Barnet Development Company. Barnet serves on the Boards of Bank of America, Duke Energy, and the Duke Endowment, and is past President of the South Carolina Textile Manufacturers Association. Barnet earned B.A. and MBA degrees from Dartmouth College. Barnet will mentor John Entsuah, the Director of Strategy and Business Development for the Apparel and Specialty Fabrics Division of Milliken & Company.
Paula Harper Bethea is Director of External Relations for the McNair Law Firm, P.A. She serves as Chair Emeritus of the United Way of America's Board of Governors, having been Chair in 1996-1997; she also serves as a former Chair of the United Way of South Carolina, and Chair of the Centers of Economic Excellence Board. Bethea is a Board Member of First Financial Holdings, Inc. and a Founding Board Member of the Palmetto Institute where she serves as Secretary. She is a life Member of Independent Colleges and Universities of South Carolina; Vice Chair of the Board of Presbyterian College; and past Chair of the Board of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and Columbia College (1998-2000). Bethea will mentor Mia Butler, a Founder and Principal of McLeod Butler Communications, LLC, which specializes in governmental relations and corporate affairs.
Elizabeth (Betsy) Fleming is President of Converse College. Formerly the Executive Director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, Fleming graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard with an A.B. in Fine Arts and received an M.A. in History of Design from the Royal College of Art in London. She earned a Ph.D. degree in the history of art from Yale University. Fleming’s prior professional experience includes The Frick Collection in New York City, Yale University Art Gallery, The Victoria & Albert Museum, and The Department of Decorative Arts and Sculpture at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum. She interned with The J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, and served as a Whitney Fellow at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fleming has also taught at Yale and the Parsons School of Design. She is Chairman of the College Town Consortium, comprised of Spartanburg’s six institutions of higher education, and serves on the Board of the Women’s College Coalition, The ETV Endowment of South Carolina, United Way of the Piedmont and Brevard Music Center. She is a member of the Liberty Fellowship Class of 2006. Fleming will mentor Erin Rodman Jones, the Director of Bob Jones University Museum and Gallery, Inc.
Caleb Fort has been Co-Chairman of The Merit Group, Inc. (national distributors of residential and commercial paint-related products and various industrial supplies), Spartanburg, SC, since 1990. Fort is active in several charitable, civic, and educational organizations, currently serving as Vice President, Board of Directors, SC Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics Foundation, Member, Board of Trustees, Converse College, and Member of the Executive Committee, SC Chamber of Commerce. He has served as Chairman, Board of Trustees, Coker College, Member, Board of Trustees, The Arts Partnership of Spartanburg, Vice President, Board of Managers, SC Historical Society, Board Member, The United Way of The Piedmont, Board Member, and Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce. Fort graduated Leadership Spartanburg in 1997, and is a Member of The Liberty Fellowship class of 2006. Fort also serves as a Director for Carolina Alliance Bank, of Spartanburg, and has been a Director of Sonoco Products Company (NYSE: SON), since 2001. He graduated with a B.A. from The University of South Carolina in 1984. Fort will mentor James (Jay) Cuthbert Self III, President and COO of Greenwood Mills, Inc.
Eric Friberg is Director Emeritus of McKinsey and Company, with whom he worked from 1969 through 2002. He served as a Senior Advisor to Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts & Co. from 2002 through 2005. Friberg is Chairman of the Spoleto Festival, USA, Chairman of the Mason School of Business at the College of William and Mary, and First Vice President of the Gibbes Museum of Art. Previously he was Chairman of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, President of The Atlanta Opera, and Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium. He currently sits on the Board of Willis Group Holdings, and was previously a Board Member of Yellow Pages Group – Canada. He is an Officer in the Order of Leopold II in Belgium. Friberg received his A.B. in Engineering and Applied Physics from Harvard College, and his S.M. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Friberg will mentor Kathleen G. Wilson, Principal Harpist with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, a Member of the Applied Music Faculty at the College of Charleston and Charleston Southern University, and currently serving on Charleston City Council.
Dr. Raymond S. Greenberg is President of the Medical University of South Carolina. As a faculty Member at Emory University working on cancer research, Greenberg was appointed as the first Dean of Emory's newly-established School of Public Health. He served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at the Medical University of South Carolina before his appointment as President in 2000. Nationally recognized for his cancer research, he has authored nearly 150 scientific publications. Greenberg graduated from the University of North Carolina, and earned his M.D. degree from Duke University and a Master's in Public Health from Harvard before returning to UNC for his Ph.D in Epidemiology. Greenberg will mentor Faith L. Polkey, currently both the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Beaufort Memorial Hospital and the Chief of Pediatrics at Beaufort-Jasper- Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, Inc.
Bobby Harrell is Speaker of the SC House, a position he has held since 2005. Prior to that, he served as House Majority Leader from 1997-1999, and as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman from 1999-2005. He has also served as Chairman of the Economic Development and the Public Education Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee. Harrell and his wife Cathy have been owners and operators of a State Farm Insurance Agency for more than 25 years, and are also owners of Palmetto State Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceuticals repackaging company. Harrell has served as President of the Exchange Club of Charleston, the Vice President of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, and on the Board of Directors for the Boy Scouts of America, Child Abuse Prevention Center, and Crime Stoppers. Harrell earned his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of South Carolina. He will mentor Jim Lehman, Operations Partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLC, responsible for day-to-day operations of the firm.
John A. Hill is founder and Vice-Chairman of First Reserve Corporation, the leading private equity buyout firm specializing in the world wide energy industry with offices in Greenwich, CT, Houston, TX, London, England and Shanghai, China. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Putnam Mutual Funds, a Director of Devon Energy Corporation and various private companies owned by First Reserve. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Sarah Lawrence College. Hill is a Member of the Advisory Board of the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance at the Yale School of Management and the National Advisory Council for the Historic Charleston Foundation. Prior to forming First Reserve in 1983, Hill was a senior officer with F. Eberstadt and Company, a New York investment banking firm. Between 1969 and 1976 Hill held various senior positions in Washington with the Federal government, including Deputy Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration during the Ford Administration. Hill was born and raised in Midland, Texas, received his B.A. in economics from Southern Methodist University and pursued graduate studies there as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Hill will co-mentor Kristi Harrington, a Judge on the South Carolina Ninth Circuit Court.
Marilynn Hill is an historian, author and community volunteer. She taught as an adjunct professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland in 1994, was a teaching fellow in American history for a number of years at both the University of Maryland and Southern Methodist University, and was a Visiting Scholar at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard-Radcliffe. She is currently editor of The Bronxville Journal. She is the author of Their Sisters’ Keepers: Prostitution in New York City, 1830-1870 (1993), and co-author of Around Bronxville: Images of America (1998). Hill is currently on the Boards of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, the Foundation for the National Archives, the School of the Arts of the College of Charleston, and the National Advisory Council of Historic Charleston Foundation. She formerly served on the Executive Board of Southern Methodist University’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences and as Co-Chair of the Harvard College Parents Fund. Over the past two decades in Bronxville, New York, she has served as Chair of the Board of Ethics, the Adult School, the Friends of the Library of Sarah Lawrence College, and Co-Chair of the Village Centennial Celebration and the Bronxville Historical Conservancy. Hill has a Ph.D in history from the University of Maryland and an M.A. and B.A. in history from Southern Methodist University. She was a Rotary Graduate Fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway. Hill will co-mentor Kristi Harrington, a Judge on the South Carolina Ninth Judicial Circuit Court.
Hunter Howard is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. After earning a B.S. degree in Accounting from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, he managed his own CPA firm. In 1974, Howard was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives as the state’s youngest legislator and served for eight years. He has served on the South Carolina Tax Commission and as Chairman of the Tax Commission. He received the Order of the Palmetto in 1992 and was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award by the USC College of Business Administration in 1996. He also received the 1998 Outstanding CPA in Business & Industry Award from the SC Association of CPAs. He has served as a Member of the SC Board of Economic Advisors, the Charleston Southern University Board of Trustees, the SC Retirement System Investment Panel, Board of Directors of Leadership South Carolina, Junior Achievement of Greater Columbia and the United Way of South Carolina. He currently serves on the US Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100, US Chamber Accreditation Board, the Advisory Councils of SC Commission on Higher Education, Clemson University ICAR Economic Development and Board of Directors of Palmetto Real Estate Trust, Grand South Bank Corporation, Free Enterprise Foundation, SLED Advisory Panel and the Greenville Hospital System Board of Governors. Howard will mentor J. Michelle Childs, Chief Administrative Judge for General Sessions and Business Courts for the Fifth Judicial Circuit.
Robert Hughes, Jr. is Chairman of Hughes Development Corporation, a real estate company that develops and manages commercial, residential and industrial real estate in the southeast. He is also the managing Member of InRe Financial, LLC, a joint venture completing the construction and financing of 70 public schools in Greenville County. Hughes is on the Board of Directors for Artisphere and formerly chaired the Greater Greenville Chamber of Commerce, and is Chairman of South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities. He is also a Member of Medical University of South Carolina Foundation and the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness. He earned a B.A. in economics and political science from Duke University and a law degree from the University of South Carolina. Hughes will mentor Jill R. Davis, Vice President of Corporate Planning and Strategic Services for BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina in Columbia.
Darla Moore, a Partner in Rainwater, Inc., is Founder and Chair of the Palmetto Institute, a nonprofit think tank aimed at bolstering per capita income in South Carolina. She serves on the Boards of the University of South Carolina and New York University Medical School and Hospitals. The University of South Carolina’s business school is named in her honor and she is the first woman profiled on the cover of Fortune magazine and named to the List of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business. She has served on numerous corporate Boards, including Hospital Corp. of America (HCA) and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. She currently serves on the Board of The South Financial Group and MPS Group and the national advisory Board of JP Morgan and was formerly a Managing Director of its predecessor Chemical Bank. She recently received the Business Person of the Year Award from the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and has been inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame. A graduate of the University of South Carolina, Moore earned an MBA from George Washington University. Moore will mentor Eve M. Blossom, President and Founder of Lulan Artisans, a for-profit textile company focused on environmental, cultural, social and economic sustainability.
Richard W. (Dick) Riley, formerly Governor of South Carolina and U.S. Secretary of Education, is currently an attorney with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. He is also a distinguished professor and Trustee at Furman University, where he serves as Advisory Board Chair of the Richard W. Riley Institute of Government, Politics and Public Leadership. He previously served as a South Carolina State Representative and State Senator from 1963-1977, and was elected Governor in 1978. After graduating Cum Laude from Furman University in 1954, Riley earned a law degree from the University of South Carolina. He serves on the advisory Boards of South Carolina's University Center in Greenville and Winthrop University, where the School of Education is named in his honor. Riley will mentor Joel Lourie, a businessman and State Senator who resides in Columbia.
Michael C. Riordan is President and CEO of Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center (GHS), a 1,250-bed not-for-profit hospital and research medical center. From 2001 to mid-2006, he led the University of Chicago Hospitals and Health System. From 1995 to 2000, Riordan was Chief Operating Officer and, later, Senior Associate Hospital Administrator, of Emory University Hospital and Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta. Before that time, he served for three years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a lieutenant. Riordan is currently serving a three-year term as an assembly Representative for the Association of American Medical Colleges and is on the administrative Board of the Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems. He serves on the Boards of Prometheus Payment Inc., the South Carolina Hospital Association and the Palmetto Hospital Trust and PHT Services, Ltd., a healthcare risk management company. He is also a Member of the Society of Health Services Administrators. Riordan serves as a Board Director for the SC Chamber of Commerce, and is Board Chairman of Health Sciences South Carolina. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Peace Center for the Performing Arts, and the Board of the Urban League of the Upstate. Riordan earned his B.A. in liberal arts/English from Columbia University in New York in 1980 and completed his master’s degree in education/psychology from Columbia in 1981. He earned a Master of Science degree in health systems from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Riordan will mentor Lawrence (Laren) Harmon, Vice President of Strategic Distribution for Michelin North America.
Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News, providing analysis for all network news programming. From 1996-2002 she and Sam Donaldson co-anchored the weekly ABC interview program This Week. Roberts also serves as Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio. In her more than forty years in broadcasting, she has won countless awards, including three Emmys. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, and was cited by the American Women in Radio and Television as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting. In addition to her appearances on the airwaves, Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media. The Roberts are also contributing editors to USA Weekend Magazine, and together they wrote From this Day Forward, an account of their more than forty year marriage and other marriages in American history. The book immediately went onto The New York Times bestseller list, following Cokie Roberts’s number one bestseller, We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters, an account of women’s roles and relationships throughout American history. Roberts’ histories of women in America’s founding era--Founding Mothers, published in 2004 and Ladies of Liberty in 2008, also became instant bestsellers. Cokie Roberts holds more than twenty honorary degrees, serves on the Boards of several non-profit institutions and on the President’s Commission on Service and Civic Participation. This year the Library of Congress named her a “Living Legend,” one of the very few Americans to have attained that honor. Roberts will mentor Hildy Teegen, Dean of the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.
M. Edward Sellers is Chairman and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina. Before coming to Blue Cross Blue Shield in 1978, Sellers worked for Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the Boston Consulting Group. Sellers is Chairman of the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness, is Vice Chairman of The Palmetto Institute, and Past Chairman of the South Carolina State Chamber of Commerce Board of Trustees, the Palmetto Business Forum, Columbia College and the ETV Endowment of South Carolina Board of Trustees. Together with his wife, Dr. Suzan D. Boyd, he was honored this year as one of the United Way of the Midlands Humanitarians of the Year. In 2002, he was named Business Leader of the Year by the South Carolina State Chamber of Commerce. Sellers received his B.A. in Physics from Vanderbilt University, and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Sellers will mentor Peter Bristow, President and COO of First Citizens Bank and Trust Company, and EVP and Director of First Citizens Bank Corporation of South Carolina.
Minor Shaw is President of Micco Corporation. She was previously with C&S National Bank of South Carolina and the Manly Investment Group. Shaw currently chairs The Daniel-Mickel Foundation and is Vice Chair of the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport Commission and the University Center Board of Advisors. She is also a Vice-Chair of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce. Shaw is a Trustee of The Duke Endowment, the Hollingsworth Funds and the Belle Baruch Foundation. She is on the Boards of Columbia Nations Funds, Piedmont Natural Gas and Blue Cross – Blue Shield of South Carolina. She previously served on the Boards of Interstate Johnson Lane and NationsBank Carolinas. She attended Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and received her A.B. degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Shaw will mentor Melinda Davis Lux, a Partner at Wyche Burgess Freeman & Parham, P.A.
Andrew A. Sorensen is Distinguished Professor of the University at the University of South Carolina (USC), Professor of Medicine at its School of Medicine, and President of the Institute for the Advancement of Health Care, USC/Greenville Hospital System Academic Health System. Now Distinguished President Emeritus, he served as President of USC from 2002 to 2008. Prior to that he served as President of the University of Alabama, Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs at the University of Florida, Executive Director of the AIDS Institute at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He currently serves on the following Boards: National Institutes of Health Services Advisory Board for Biosecurity, National Board of Public Health Examiners, Association of Academic Health Centers, Southeastern University Research Association, Big Brothers (Honorary Chairman, Columbia SC chapter), Collexis Holdings, and LNS Associates (Vice-Chairman). He received a bachelor’s degree in ethics and master’s and doctoral degrees in medical sociology from Yale University, a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master’s Degree in Public Health form the University of Michigan. Sorensen will mentor Reggie Lloyd, Director of the State Law Enforcement Division.
William B. Timmerman is Chairman, President and CEO of the SCANA Corporation and its subsidiaries. He was Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration for Carolina Energies, Inc., which later merged with South Carolina Electric & Gas Company to form SCANA Corporation. Timmerman was elected to the SCANA Board in 1991 and has been Chairman since 1997. He was previously a CPA with Arthur Andersen & Co., and formerly chaired the South Carolina Research Authority Board. He serves on the Board of Directors of Nuclear Electric Insurance, Ltd., a mutual insurance company, The Palmetto Institute and the Palmetto Business Forum. He also serves as a Trustee of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and was a Director of the South Carolina Ports Authority. He earned a B.A. in accounting from Duke University and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. Timmerman will mentor John E. Bauknight IV, President of the investment firm Longleaf Holdings USA, LLC.
Donald R. Tomlin, Jr. is president of Tomlin & Company, Inc., in Columbia, an investment banking business which provides merger and acquisition advice to print and electronic media organizations. He has spent more than 30 years working in real estate and print and electronic media, and also runs Tomlin Interests, a venture capital investment company for technology-related businesses. Tomlin has extensive experience in financial management and multi-family housing development, and has interests in city-sized residential community projects in Charlotte, Mt. Pleasant and Northeast Columbia. He received a B.S. degree in Business Management from the University of South Carolina. Tomlin will mentor Bill Santerini, Chief Executive Officer of Allora, LLC., a company that provides land planning, architecture, construction and design-build services for single and multi-family projects and developments.
William (Billy) Webster IV is Chairman of Advance America, the former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Education and a former White House Fellow. In addition, he served as Assistant to the President and Director of Scheduling and Advance in the White House. Webster was a representative to the South Carolina Commission on Government Restructuring, a Member of the Board of Directors of the Palmetto Project and the Alliance for Quality Education, and Co-Chairman of the South Carolina Voter Registration Drive. Webster serves as Vice Chairman of Converse College. A Summa Cum Laude graduate of Washington and Lee University and a Fulbright scholar, Webster is a University of Virginia Law School graduate. Webster will mentor Samuel (Sam) W. Smith III, President of Triangle Construction Company, a 180 employee firm specializing in commercial construction.
