The Charleston Marketing Podcast
Welcome to The Charleston Marketing Podcast, the podcast that dives deep into the world of marketing, with a specific focus on the vibrant city of Charleston. Join us as we explore the strategies, trends, and success stories that shape the marketing landscape in this historic and captivating coastal city.
Each episode of The Charleston Marketing Podcast brings you exclusive interviews with local marketing experts, industry thought leaders and Charleston entrepreneurs who have harnessed the power of effective marketing in the Lowcountry and beyond. From strategic communication, social media, PR, digital strategy and everything in between, we uncover valuable insights and actionable tips for our listeners.
The Charleston Marketing Podcast
Innovation Lives Here: Inside the South Carolina Research Authority w/ Adrianne Grimes
How are we doing? Who do you want to learn from next? Text us with notes and ideas.
What if your tax dollars could directly fund life-saving innovations happening right in your backyard? For South Carolinians, this isn't just a possibility—it's a reality through the South Carolina Research Authority.
Adrianne Grimes, Director of Marketing and Communications at SCRA, joins the Charleston Marketing Podcast to pull back the curtain on how this unique organization is transforming healthcare, manufacturing, and technology across the state. Despite its name, SCRA doesn't conduct research—they fund and support the brilliant minds who do, ensuring groundbreaking innovations actually make it to market.
From a device helping premature babies learn to feed properly to 3D imaging technology revolutionizing cancer diagnosis, the innovations supported by SCRA solve real human problems. The organization maintains six innovation centers across South Carolina, providing specialized facilities for researchers and tech startups who might otherwise leave the state. The impact is measurable—jobs supported by SCRA typically pay 72% higher than the state average.
What makes Adrianne's perspective particularly fascinating is her own remarkable career journey. Before championing innovation at SCRA, she managed communications for Tim Scott's first congressional campaign, rolled out the Affordable Care Act across two states, and advocated for telehealth solutions in rural South Carolina areas where medical care is sparse. Her story exemplifies the diverse opportunities available in marketing and communications when you're willing to pivot and embrace new challenges.
Whether you're an entrepreneur looking for support, a professional seeking career inspiration, or simply a curious South Carolinian wondering how to make your tax dollars work harder, this conversation offers valuable insights into the innovation ecosystem that's quietly transforming the Palmetto State. Visit SCRAorg to discover how you can redirect your tax dollars to fund the next generation of groundbreaking ideas.
Show Notes:
https://www.scra.org/get-to-know/who-we-are/our-team/
https://www.scra.org/get-support/lease-space/
https://musckids.org/about-us/news/2018/09/05/using-new-therapies-to-teach-critical-skills
https://www.pensievision.com/
https://www.scra.org/give-support/ipf/
https://www.scra.org/sc-launch/our-portfolio/
https://www.palmettolifesc.com/video/2025/02/11/video-l
Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Media Solutions
Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association
Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton,
Produced and edited: RMBO Advertising
Photographer | Co-host: Kelli Morse
Art Director: Taylor Ion
CAMA President: Margaret Stypa
Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary and Mathew Chase
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Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston, from business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and shakers choose to call the Lowcountry home. They live here, work here and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together.
Speaker 2:The Citadel, which is the military college in South Carolina. I thought was going to be the most unfriendly, unhelpful. It was the exact opposite.
Speaker 3:Okay, so you're not military. You're not anything military to deal with.
Speaker 2:No, so I enrolled and I got my master's. I graduated in december 27 how was their online? It was it's probably more online now, but back then it was some, but I wanted in person because I've been in school in 100 years yes, when did you go then?
Speaker 3:when did you decide to go back 2015? Okay? To december 2017 so you like 25, 26 years old when you went back.
Speaker 2:It's so funny, our oldest went off to USC.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Literally. I went to college, I went to grad school. When she went to college.
Speaker 3:Oh, there you go, stuff for the share and.
Speaker 4:I was like this is crazy.
Speaker 2:Plus I had braces. I was like y'all, I got braces and going to school.
Speaker 1:That's so cute. I was, yeah, I was 47 years 47.
Speaker 3:I love that, and I graduated at 49 okay, all right, so you're right.
Speaker 2:You're right in line I have no excuse, so listeners they are so good to you that's amazing they make sure you do it, understanding you're in your 40s, yeah I've heard really good things hello, welcome to the charleston marketing podcast.
Speaker 3:My name is mike compton. I will be your co-host today. Roomba is my advertising agency. It's rmboco. We just went through a rebrand.
Speaker 4:I like the rebrand.
Speaker 3:Do you? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, your friend Taylor helped out with that.
Speaker 4:I know she did. I know I like the little animated character you have going on.
Speaker 3:You're hearing the voice of Stephanie.
Speaker 4:Stephanie say hello. What's up guys? How are you? I'm stephanie barrow. I am the founder of stephanie barrow, consulting a digital marketing strategy agency here in charleston, and one of your camera past presidents. We have a very exciting guest I'm excited about it. I'm very, very excited you don't have a background in pr, right do you? Yes, oh, he learned something new about me every day, every day listeners.
Speaker 3:Did you know that? Make a comment in the box there if you knew that stephanie was in the public relations beforehand of course you were.
Speaker 4:You were in everything. Yes, I try um.
Speaker 3:We have adrian grimes in the house.
Speaker 4:Yes, she is the director of marketing and communications at the scra, which is the south carolina research authority. Can you dive a little bit into what the scra is? Say hello.
Speaker 2:Hello, and I'm so glad you said South Carolina Research Authority, because when people don't know what SCRA is, they make up their own.
Speaker 3:Yes, of course South.
Speaker 2:Carolina Regional Alliance.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:So, South Carolina Research Authority we try to use that actually more than we used to, because there are some other SCRAs out there and we want to make sure people know we're talking about the research authority.
Speaker 3:That's got to be tough for you. I mean, we're in the marketing podcast here so that's one hurdle there. Yes, wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool. What do you do there? So I'm director of marketing and communications, and our name is also a little bit misleading because we're the South Carolina Research Authority, so people think that we're researchers.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's what my first thing came to mind.
Speaker 2:We are not researchers.
Speaker 2:We fund and support researchers the authority part okay, yes yes, we also make sure, we help make sure that they aren't working on the same research and development. So we have three research universities in the state Clemson University of South Carolina and Medical University of South Carolina. So a lot of our funding goes to R&D there. R&d meaning research and development, but we also have exciting research happening at places like the College of Charleston and I was going to tell you about some of the exciting things that they're doing. So we fund, we give dollars, grant funding, federal matching dollars. So, for instance, if the researchers and developers, and typically faculty and researchers, if they get federal money, we can match it. It's called federal matching grants. Plus, we provide our own grant funding and so we do that at the colleges and universities just to make sure what they're working on ends up in the market, and some of it's important stuff, some of it's life-saving, some of it's just great stuff. For instance, medical University is working on an innovation called Baby Strong, and Baby Strong helps stimulate.
Speaker 2:I have to look at my notes it stimulates the vagus nerve so that premature babies know how to suck, because when they don't know how to suck, they can't latch on, you can't feed them.
Speaker 4:This is a big deal for us moms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have to stay in the hospital a lot longer which is harder on the families and harder on the baby. So this device helps them feed themselves. Oh wow, and so they are in the-.
Speaker 4:Is this a device for more premature babies? Premature babies Okay, it's a premature baby feeding system.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, and it is right now in the clinical testing phase. It hasn't hit the market, and so we pump money into things like that, because we need to bring those innovations to the market so that it can help babies not only at MUSC, but babies around the country.
Speaker 3:Where does the money come?
Speaker 2:from, so our money. We have three different income streams. We own six innovation centers across the state and we have researchers and developers and tech startups that pay us to be there.
Speaker 4:Love to hear that you get a percentage of all the things they pay us to be there. Got it, got it.
Speaker 2:Yes, understood and you can go on our website and look at some of our facilities when. We have six of them. So we have we own. Have you heard of where Vicor Scientific is, west West Edge? Have you heard of West Edge? Yes, Harbor. Yeah, over near the Ashley River. Yeah beautiful spot. We own space in there and there are some companies in there, like Vicor, that pay us to be there.
Speaker 1:Yes yes, yes, we have the MUSC Innovation Center on.
Speaker 2:Meeting Street, ooh, and we have researchers and developers and tech startups in there. We have a very large facility in Nexton in Somerville yeah, smart, we have a very large tenant there called ATI, automated Technology International. I hope I said that correctly.
Speaker 1:It's about 400 employees.
Speaker 4:Are you going to all of these different facilities and building these relationships with all of these people?
Speaker 2:Our facilities team does. That's a lot of ground to cover, yeah, yeah, so that's just one of our main services, which is providing space, and that's important because some of it's wet lab space and that's important because some of its wet lab space and it's specialized space, and if we don't have the space for these folks, they will leave our state and go somewhere else and we don't want them to do that.
Speaker 3:Do all the businesses align with your mission so we have four sectors.
Speaker 2:Life science you have to be left science Advanced manufacturing or materials Advanced manufacturing materials.
Speaker 3:That's interesting.
Speaker 2:That means you're using some kind of tech within your manufacturing, information technology or energy and sustainability. So as long as the startups or the projects, meaning the R&D projects, fall within that, they can come to us and request funding.
Speaker 4:How did you get involved in something like this? Because you have a different kind of.
Speaker 3:You've been working in the PR for 30-plus years.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I started off in TV like a lot of PR people. Yes, yes, I was at WIS in Columbia and WCSC TV. Here is where I met my husband.
Speaker 4:He was there. Did you go to college here in Charleston?
Speaker 2:I went to University of South Carolina.
Speaker 4:Okay, in Columbia Go Gamecocks yes.
Speaker 2:So that's where I went, and so I left TV. A long time ago, like six months after we got married, we realized both of us couldn't. It's a lot of schedule.
Speaker 4:Because we never saw each other, we realized both of us couldn't.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of schedule Because we never saw each other. Yeah, so I left.
Speaker 3:What was Randy doing at the time? Oh, her husband's name is Randy, by the way. Shout out.
Speaker 4:Randy, who's very good friends with Compton Not very good friends I've met him a couple times.
Speaker 2:Randy at the time was. I believe he was the master control operator when I met him.
Speaker 3:Oh okay. So that's kind of a high-stress job too.
Speaker 2:back then as well, yeah, back then making sure the brakes, yeah, so we met at Lifehive News in.
Speaker 4:I've had the whole tour backstage my daughter was a meteorologist, so we would walk around and saw all them working the gadgets, I'm like this is a high-stress job. Yeah, we own the ball. Yeah, this is a high-stress job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to be on the ball.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my spot, there is neat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we met there in 1988. Okay, and they just did a whole feature on us. If you want to watch it for Valentine's.
Speaker 3:Day. Oh my gosh, that's awesome, it was called Life.
Speaker 2:I have Love Stories, so it's on if you want to look at it. I definitely want to look that up. That's great Because we met, got married there and, yeah, our whole history.
Speaker 4:You got married at the station, not at the station, okay.
Speaker 3:Over the green screen. I was a visioning, eric Kinzel. That might be different. It might be fun and different. Who knows? You know?
Speaker 4:People get married in the internet. Love is love.
Speaker 3:Stephanie, I like the idea the idea I was excited for a minute. No, no, no, no. But they all came and they threw a bunch of showers and parties before.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, I love that story.
Speaker 3:So you're south carolinian I am.
Speaker 2:I'm as local as local can be. I grew up here. Uh, my parents, where is here? Uh well, my parents got married. They moved to cannon street downtown charleston. My dad's from raven, my mom's from Somerville. We are as local as local can be, Always wanted to move away, but I got stuck in the Chuck, stuck in the Chuck. Because I married a Charlestonian.
Speaker 3:Oh, and he's Charlestonian too, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:You told me earlier that you have a child who's a Gamecock.
Speaker 2:All three of our kids are University of South Carolina graduates 2018, 2020, and 2022. And USC just did a feature on us. Oh my gosh, Because we're all University of South Carolina, J-Schools. She is South Carolina.
Speaker 1:We're like this weird legacy family.
Speaker 2:No, I love it. South Carolina royalty and I told them they could go wherever, but Randy's such a huge Gamecock and he raised them in Willie B Williams-Price Stadium, so their psyche is USC when they think of college.
Speaker 4:So you know instead of a Christmas tree. We had the 10-foot inflatable cocky in the house, so you're really into it. I love this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty bad, Do you have?
Speaker 4:like the inflatables on your lawn at the holidays or during football season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when they're not doing terribly bad. Our next-door neighbor, they're from well, everybody on our street's from Ohio, but they have the Buckeye, what's his name?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Brutus, I wouldn't know. They put the Brutus on their front lawn, and so Randy put cocky out there.
Speaker 2:And he said well, you guys haven't won any national championships for football.
Speaker 3:So, then, we were trying to figure out how to put a pin in Bruna's head, because we were so offended. Yeah, who cares?
Speaker 2:It's a blow-up dude, no, I love it, but thanks to Don Staley we got a lot of basketball national championships.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, there you go For women's basketball. So, adrienne, we're a bunch of communes, okay. Okay, I'm from Detroit as well as Tampa.
Speaker 4:I'm from Virginia, from LA and Nashville.
Speaker 3:That's kind of what the Charleston American. American Association. We're a melting pot of people who are really embracing Charlestonian life, uh-huh.
Speaker 4:So why?
Speaker 3:did you decide Thanks? Why did you decide? Thank you for welcoming me. Other than you could have left.
Speaker 2:I could have I tried.
Speaker 3:What kept you in shock? I tried, you got stuck in shock. Nope, I got stuck in shock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I married a Charlestonian and he loved it too.
Speaker 3:You all didn't be like okay, let's just go check out something else. Real quick.
Speaker 2:We thought about it right. But you know we have three kids. In fact, I used to work for Cigna Healthcare on Daniel Island from 96 to 2002 in Cigna consolidated offices. We had two choices get a severance package or a relocation package. But at the time the kids were one, three and five, yeah, and we were not leaving grandparents. So no.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna be the same way and I'm proud about it, my daughter's nine? Yeah, I will just follow her around for the rest of the week.
Speaker 3:You saw the window and you're like no, we love this place too much um, because of what the beaches, the downtown, yeah, the family the family.
Speaker 2:So we go away to get away from our family I know people come here to visit.
Speaker 3:People come here, they're like we're gonna move now.
Speaker 4:That's what I did, and that's what you did that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. Came for vacation. 2019 is when I moved okay, uh, 2015.
Speaker 2:yeah, welcome, welcome, yeah, yeah my daughter is still feeling that's true.
Speaker 4:That's true my boys are tampons oh, wow tampanians I don't think you want to call them tampons. Oh wow, tampanians. I don't think you want to call them tampans. Yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 3:Hopefully that's not a thing they were born in tampa. How about that?
Speaker 2:there you go. I will be in tampa in two weeks. I'm looking forward to oh, it's cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're doing a conference there.
Speaker 2:You're a speaker no, my friend, who's a former meteorologist who used to also be at live, five news um. She married a man from Tampa.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:And he kept his house in Tampa and we're going to hang out in Tampa.
Speaker 3:Where Do you know so?
Speaker 4:she's from here.
Speaker 2:She's from here she grew up here as well, but yeah.
Speaker 4:I went once I had all the Cuban food. Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 3:No, oh my gosh, go to Ybor City. I've been there.
Speaker 2:I've been there on a chamber trip, the Charleston Metro Chamber, oh, I saw that a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do those fly-ins every year and one year we went to Tampa and it was to look at tech startups.
Speaker 2:So I was really interested because that's what we do with the Research Authority.
Speaker 3:We find tech startups.
Speaker 2:So we flew down to Tampa and we learned about what they do for their tech startups and their entrepreneurs and founders.
Speaker 3:They've got some great incubators and accelerators down there yes, yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff happening yeah yeah, uh, I left. Yeah, so not me, but everything else is still growing there like big time his company is still based.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, we are still based in tampa, so he's got ties there. I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, you're right stuff uh, but let's go back to aging um I want to hear a little bit about how you worked in politics yes, please, thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, go through the timeline real quick, so you um, so I left tv yeah and um went into pr and did it at MWR Charleston Naval Weapons Station, then Charleston Southern University. Then I got recruited to go to Cigna Healthcare. Okay, and that wasn't PR, that was sales, and marketing.
Speaker 4:I was going to ask you that, okay.
Speaker 2:And I took it because we were having our first kid and Cigna said you can work remotely. And I'd never heard that.
Speaker 4:Priorities. Done and done it was 1996.
Speaker 2:Circa 96. Wow. And they recruited me. They came to Charleston Southern, which is where I work, for on-campus interviews and job fairs and they recruited me from Charleston Southern and I love Charleston Southern. I'd been there three years and they were like we're here to recruit students, but we want you.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, and so I was like I'm more PR. They were like we don't care, we have sales and marketing. And I was like I'm there. So I was there for six years. We were the first building on Daniel Island. Before the Blackbaud building was the Cigna building which is Was it right beside it 146, fairchild.
Speaker 3:What does Cigna do?
Speaker 4:Cigna Healthcare.
Speaker 3:Healthcare.
Speaker 2:Health insurance.
Speaker 4:That's actually the healthcare I have. So, yeah, so I was there for I'm supporting the cause?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, like I said, they started consolidating offices and I took the layoff, the severance. It was the best severance package ever. And then I went to M&A Prime Benefits and kept doing because I wanted to be home. Sure, kids were young back then and I could do account management with health insurance and have some flexibility.
Speaker 4:Was that also, daniel Island?
Speaker 2:no, that was West Ashley. They're still West Ashley M&A Prime Benefits and in 2008, the market crashed and the economy tanked and we lost about a bunch of accounts because I was focused on small group segment, so a lot of the smaller companies, just you know. So then I was like, okay, I got to do something. So I went back to my PR comms roots and I ran into. This is a really crazy story.
Speaker 2:he's now Senator Tim Scott because he went to Stahl High School and I went to Somerville and we're all home folk, yeah, and he was, um, a newly elected state representative, but he wanted to run for lieutenant governor and he heard about me being helping people with websites and all back then and he asked me to take a look at his website because he was going to run for office and to be the lieutenant governor. And he asked me if I would, if I would look at the website he was working on, and I said it sucks and he said, well, will you help me?
Speaker 2:and I was like sure.
Speaker 3:So I helped tim scott with his what type of website was it you remember to?
Speaker 2:run for lieutenant governor for south carolina fire angel fire now oh, the back end it was uh um, it was a wordpress okay, okay.
Speaker 3:So that's almost a circle. When did he run for?
Speaker 2:this was 2000. If he hears this thing, he's gonna crack up because I got so much history on him this was 2008 now sure, okay, he was gonna run for lieutenant governor and so we got the website done, went live, had I was doing his press press conferences, all that great stuff, nice, and at the time it was a congressman. Henry Brown decided to retire and Tim was recruited to run for Congress and I got a call in the middle of the night saying pull that website down. We've got to do a congressional site.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm switching races, all right.
Speaker 4:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't just me. It was me and a bunch of contractors, of course, of course. So we, it wasn't just me. It was me and a bunch of contractors. We brought down the lieutenant governor site and went live with the congressional site and he won district one congressional.
Speaker 4:And he became the congressman, quickly switched gears All of the branding, all of the messaging.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. And he was my first political client, first of how many Goodness Years worth were maybe six, five or six okay. I did that from 2008 until 2012 and then and I also did comes for Newt Gingrich for South Carolina presidential primary yep, did you enjoy doing that type of work?
Speaker 4:I enjoyed doing all kind of comms.
Speaker 2:And I also did David Mack, who is deceased now. He was a state representative representing Charleston County. I did his.
Speaker 3:What part of that do you like it?
Speaker 2:is adrenaline work. It is so stressful and crazy, but it's exciting.
Speaker 4:You probably have to put out a lot of fires, don't you?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. It's a lot of events and making sure there's photo and video at all of their events, and so you're always contracting, because I'm not a videographer and I'm not a photographer, so I was always trying to find people to cover their events and, um, my, my forte is writing in media.
Speaker 2:I can do that with my eyes closed and I can also do marketing with my eyes closed, but I had to get people to help me. I had to get a web web person, um, but we got it all done and I learned a lot, especially when Tim Scott won and being part of his transition team and going to DC and his swearing in and just managing all of that.
Speaker 3:Oh, you were all for that. Oh, cool.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, because at that point they don't have congressional staff. They're trying to hire, so the campaign staff does all of that until they get congressional staff. Okay yeah, and then, once they get sworn in, then their congressional team, congressional comms, handles everything.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, super interesting. It is interesting I know who to hire now, when I'm ready for my campaign to roll, for whatever that's going to be.
Speaker 4:I used to work with actors and we'd have to go through like stills and approve everything. I can't even imagine working in politics and we'd have to go through like stills and approve everything.
Speaker 2:I can't even imagine working in politics. Oh yeah, you are the gatekeeper to everything. Oh yeah, even Boeing telling, calling Boeing's media telling you to take that plane that you use from the picture of the event off of the website because of something, and we're like, oh we're sorry, we didn't know. You know, it's all the rules of engagement and staying on top of everything. They were nice about it, I don't know when you slept.
Speaker 4:You know there wasn't a lot of sleep. Were you in high school?
Speaker 2:By then they were 8, 10, and 12. And I always know how old they are because our son was born in 2000. So, whatever the year is, Right before. That's how, though. So they were 8, 8, 10 and 12 back then when I was doing all that campaign communications, and then I stopped in 2012 okay, because I was recruited to work with the affordable care act rollout, so I was part of healthcaregov going live in south carolina, okay in the website.
Speaker 4:What a legacy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I did comms and marketing for South Carolina and Tennessee. I worked for HHS and so we rolled out healthcaregov in South Carolina and Tennessee and the health insurance co-ops that are now defunct. But back then they were trying to have more options for people in states that had a monopoly and we still have one. Blue Cross, Blue Shield is a monopoly here. Even though I have them and they're great, they're a monopoly.
Speaker 4:We don't have a lot of choice.
Speaker 2:So, president Obama, at the time, part of the ACA was to have health insurance co-ops, much like electrical co-ops, that are member owned, member governed, and so we got. I worked on Tennessee and South Carolina and we enrolled, I think, around 33,000 in Tennessee and 38,000 in South Carolina.
Speaker 2:It's all in the post-curriculum if you want to look it up, yeah, and then we were all shut down when Marco Rubio ran for president in 2015. He ran on the premise that he was going to shut down the obamacare co-ops oh, I know, and so we lost our jobs, oh my gosh. And then that's when I went to musc in 2016 right and I was working in telemedicine and telehealth did that for four years and 2020, the research authority, which is where I am now so you were telehealth before we needed telehealth um, yeah, just um, musc is.
Speaker 2:Well, it's called the south carolina telehealth alliance. It's a state-funded um initiative to get telehealth and more coverage into rural areas of south carolina and when I talk to people around here they don't understand that. Because if you leave Charleston, greenville and Columbia, those areas, or Aiken, augusta, rock Hill and maybe Myrtle Beach, south Carolina is fields and highways.
Speaker 4:There is nothing out there. I have this conversation with my husband every election year. He's like well, this is why that happened. I'm like awesome, it's the tale of two South Carolinas. Yes, no kidding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that other South Carolina. You know there are no pediatricians, there are no, so there's a lot of telehealth equipment. What a magical feat you've had to overcome, through all of that and a lot of clinics in places like Bamberg, where they can connect, which is life-saving, because if you're having a stroke in a place like Bamberg or some really rural place, you can connect to a neurologist at MUSC in minutes. That's incredible. And that saves your life.
Speaker 3:That'll save your life.
Speaker 2:Yes, because they can examine you virtually and figure out what kind of stroke you're having, If it's a bleed or a clot. I mean, this is life-saving stuff yeah, and so I worked on a lot of policy, government, more public affairs I mean public relations too with with media but it was a lot of public affairs as well, because there wasn't a lot of coverage for it back then. But now there's since the pandemic happened, right there's a lot of coverage that's my point.
Speaker 3:All you needed was a pandemic. That's right. That's right. I'm sure that catapulted that yeah.
Speaker 4:With all of this experience, have you ever thought about getting in politics yourself?
Speaker 2:I have, oh, but not anymore. Yeah, about 10 years ago, I thought about running Every time I had a fight with Tim.
Speaker 4:You're like I'm just going to be your opponent.
Speaker 2:I told him I was going to run against him.
Speaker 3:He got scared too. It was a running joke.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he wouldn't mind me saying that no, no, no, he, no, no, no. He said all the time.
Speaker 3:So we've got this weird thing Like oh, Vance is coming to town, so we're shutting down Clements Ferry.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:We've got about eight minutes until that happens. It's 1222 right now. I want to talk about SCRA, yes, and where we are now and what the future looks like. And then do you collaborate, because I feel like there's so much going on between the Harbor Entrepreneur Center, between Charleston Tech Center, between y'all I feel like there's a lot of collision, I think, because that's what some people like to call it.
Speaker 2:Yes, we need them. We need them because they feed us tech startups.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So a lot of the tech startups that are in those programs eventually will become South Carolina SCRA member companies. So they go online and they apply to be a member company and they're. You know, you have to be at a certain level to be ready for us, Sure.
Speaker 3:And they help them, the startups. So, listeners, if you're a startup, you start at the Harbor Entrepreneur Center or the Charleston Tech Center.
Speaker 4:Yes, and then you transition through yes, yes and we have megan corsello.
Speaker 2:She's in our meeting street office. She is turning over every stone looking for the next best tech startup that is sweet, that's a cool job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is her job.
Speaker 4:You have some really neat success stories on your website yeah, oh, they're wonderful.
Speaker 2:like I said, you know you think of some of the things that we're funding. Not all of it is health care. A lot of it is like the feeding system we talked about, but there's location-based technology. Lifetagger, that's a company here. You can look them up. They're doing location-based content delivery and they're testing out some stuff at the Charleston Airport, which is exciting delivery and they're testing out some stuff at the Charleston airport, which is exciting. Brightmaw Farms is growing hemp fibers and those hemp fibers are going to be in things like car seats. So that's another one you can look up. Pinsivision I want to talk about them. They're based out. They came spun out of College of Charleston. It's a 3D imaging camera that's making cancer diagnosis and testing more efficient.
Speaker 4:Stop it Okay.
Speaker 2:It's called PensaVision. Heirloom Cloud is a cool one.
Speaker 3:I just met him. I just met Jeff the other day. He's one of our member companies. I was just going to ask you about Heirloom Taking videos and photos and adding them to the cloud.
Speaker 2:So we have SCRA member companies and then we also have an investment side called SC Launch Inc. And once our member companies are growing and become high value, we flip them over to our investment affiliate called SC Launch Inc and we start investing in them. So that is another way we get our money. So our money comes in three ways. I told you about leases at our facilities. We also get return on our investments and our portfolio companies.
Speaker 2:And then, lastly, we have the tax credit program. So all of you in this room, if you pay taxes in South Carolina, you can direct your taxes to us instead of the South Carolina Department of Revenue.
Speaker 4:All right, explain this to me, because I just did my taxes a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can give, so people, companies and individuals can direct their tax dollars to us.
Speaker 4:How would we go about doing that? And that is our major funding.
Speaker 2:It's called the IPF Industry Partnership Fund.
Speaker 4:How do we go about doing that? Because we pay plenty of taxes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just go online and go to our CRAorg, Okay, and you click that you want to contribute. There's a couple of ways to do it. You can do it online or you can send us a blank check for December 1st with the amount of your tax obligation. It will get put in a vault. It won't get. It'll get put in a vault, it won't get cashed until December. And then we send you the form and you use that and when you're filing your taxes your South Carolina taxes they'll show you the tax credit programs and you'll click ours and you'll put 5,000 or 6,000 or whatever you gave us.
Speaker 4:And it's a wash because um, and, and it's a wash Because Wow, Very cool, and they were that's very very cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were founded by former governor Dick Riley who is now Secretary Riley because he was the secretary under the Clinton administration. But we were founded to be like the research triangle In the Raleigh-Durham area.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we were kind of modeled after that. It was like what can our state do to grow innovation? Yes, and to help you know everything that we do, we create higher paying jobs in the state. And that lifts up our entire state 100%, because our jobs typically pay about 72% higher than the average salary. So our tech startups and our R&D projects. It becomes startups. This is all the knowledge economy.
Speaker 4:So how do you recruit people to come work for you?
Speaker 3:Wait, wait, wait, let's talk about SC Competes. I think that might be something you're going through right now, right they?
Speaker 2:have a summit happening right now and I was there yesterday. They're one of our collaborators.
Speaker 3:They work. They're a different organization. I see Copy that.
Speaker 2:I thought maybe that was your no no, they're a separate organization, but we collaborate.
Speaker 3:Cool, yeah, cool. And then so I'm sorry, how do you recruit? Then I thought maybe through SC Competes.
Speaker 2:How do we recruit for employees?
Speaker 4:Yeah, However, we need to.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you're such a special individual I'm sure you're attracting like-minded people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact I talked about Megan Corsello in our Charleston office. You all want to know her name because she works with all of the entrepreneurs and the startups in the Charleston area. This is her territory. And then Kevin Eichelberger he started Monday with us. He's the new investment manager. So in every area we have an associate investment associate like a Megan, who's looking for leads yes, and then we have a Kevin who's the investment manager, who is managing the current book of business Love it. Our current tech startups.
Speaker 2:That's awesome that are in this area. We also have Kella, who's out on maternity leave now. She handles all of the stuff coming out of the academic, so MUSC.
Speaker 1:College of.
Speaker 2:Charleston Academic startups.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So that's a different team than the regular startups.
Speaker 4:In your free time I think you should come on board on Charleston AMA and do like a lunch and learn Talk about brand strategy and how to pivot when you're working with people like politics and that kind of thing there's so many things. There's so many things that you could talk about.
Speaker 2:I'm so old?
Speaker 4:that's no it's seasons it's because I've done a lot of things you've done a lot of really cool things that other people wouldn't have the privilege of being a part of very cool, very cool.
Speaker 3:Thanks for doing that too. I get the front lines, as I was telling stephanie, like you were at the front lines marketing for charleston. Yeah, right, and it being, you know, for our half, you know growing the city yeah, you got children shoes to fill?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, you know they're doing very well our daughter is have you, do you guys read charleston today? Yes our daughter is the city editor, erica grimes. Really, yeah, I, I literally. You read my daughter, you see her coverage.
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 1:That's our oldest. She's our 28-year-old.
Speaker 4:I reached out to her a couple of days ago for. Jazz in the Park.
Speaker 2:Yep, erica Grimes. She's our 28-year-old, so when?
Speaker 4:I don't hear back from her, I'm going to be like I'm actually friends with your mom now.
Speaker 2:Your mom now, and she told me to tell you to respond to my email. Yeah, and then morgan grimes is our 26 year old.
Speaker 4:She works for np strategy. She is in pr, I know morgan oh my gosh, stephanie.
Speaker 2:I know morgan grimes it's the whole family because she is.
Speaker 4:I work with a client, the dream girls conference. Okay, do you know? Morgan does a lot with the dream girls conference. Yeah, she's a wonderful human. I have her in my phone. I'm texting her when I leave here, that's so funny.
Speaker 3:And then your youngest.
Speaker 2:Jared Benjamin. He lives in Charlotte and he works for Cox Media Group.
Speaker 3:Okay, awesome In advertising. In advertising nice.
Speaker 2:He's our 24-year-old.
Speaker 4:We need to bring him home to Charleston.
Speaker 3:He's not getting stuck in the check listeners. It's not just done yet so matthew is our engineer, our sound engineer. He's got randy grimes as a professor.
Speaker 4:Yes as a professor. That's uh at trident tech. It's crazy. Wow, what's up. I'm gonna text.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna text morgan just got a lot going on. You guys doing it, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:We got goals because we all stayed here but you're also change makers. You're not just like you know.
Speaker 3:Sitting back and relaxing.
Speaker 4:You're all like really big hearted, good people, so I love your daughter. She's incredible.
Speaker 1:So she's a wonderful human.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Anyhow, thanks for being on the show with us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we time out. We could talk all day.
Speaker 2:Please go to SCRAorg and read about all the great things we're doing and please consider redirecting your taxes to us.
Speaker 4:We will gladly take them.
Speaker 2:Yes, because you will be personally supporting everything that we do.
Speaker 4:Interesting. That is so cool.
Speaker 3:I like blank checks.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sure, you can send me blank checks Go as out to Compton.
Speaker 3:Anyways, shout out to Charleston Media Solutions for the studio time.
Speaker 4:Yes, this has been a fun conversation. I still have so many more questions, so we're going to powwow later.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have to get out because they're kicking us out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because of the vice president, the vice president, apparently is coming down Clements Ferry today and they're shutting down the street. The police have informed us. We weren't planning on that today.
Speaker 3:The vice president, apparently, is coming down Clements Ferry today and they're shutting down the street Clements Ferry. Yeah.
Speaker 4:The police have informed us. So, we weren't planning on that today. Give a shout-out to old Jerry Feelsgood for the beats in the front Yep, yep, and of course to AMA, and if you want to be a guest on our show, you can reach out to us at podcastcharlestonamaorg and we will get back to you. And tomorrow we're at Dig South, so you can hang out with me all day tomorrow.
Speaker 3:I know, oh my gosh, that's right. He sounds super enthusiastic.
Speaker 4:He's like oh, it's going to be a long day.
Speaker 2:Megan and Kevin will be there.
Speaker 4:Oh good, we'll go by. No kidding, we're going to be streaming live all day tomorrow, so send them our way, send them over we.
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