County Leaders Create Business-Friendly Environment

Tom Strange knows firsthand the success stories that happen in Pickens County.

Strange, chairman of Alliance Pickens, remembers the beginnings of his business, St. Jude Medical.

“Four guys in a flower shop in Pickens, almost 20 years ago,” Strange said. “Now we're approaching 400 people and we continue to grow.”

St. Jude Medical has become a global corporation with $6 billion in sales and facilities all around the world.

“At the tail of the worldwide recession and the American recession, and the uncertainty with healthcare, South Carolina was the one site in 2012 that was still growing and will continue to grow,” Strange said. “The reason for that is that there are some excellent reasons to be in Pickens County.”

He made his comments during Wednesday morning's announcement that TaylorMade Golf Company would be investing $13 million in a new facility at the Pickens County Commerce Park in Liberty.

“We're blessed with a gorgeous community, but even more so we're blessed with an enlightened populace and government,” Strange said. “Alliance Pickens serves as that juncture, that nexus point between public entities and private entities, people like myself who are interested in seeing Pickens County do better and be better, and to create that kind of fertilizer for this sort of an event. We'd like to see more of these and we're working very hard to see more of these.”

Alliance Pickens is working closely with County Council on “new initiatives that we think are going to drive this sort of thing,” Strange said.

“We're putting together the infrastructure that's so critical,” he said. “County Council has worked with us to create an extremely business-friendly environment, and that's so, so important, because there's still the allure for companies to want to go where other companies are.”

He used St. Jude Medical as an example.

“When you think of medical devices, you would naturally think of being in Boston, being in Minneapolis, being on the West Coast,” Strange said. “I've been to all three places. They're very wonderful, but they're not very business-friendly. They're packed to the gills with businesses and, frankly, they don't need any more. So if you want to be there, you have to work to be there. Here, we want you.”

Strange spotlighted the work being done at Tri-County Technical College, overseen by college president Dr. Ronnie Booth.

“They stand at that juncture between the four-year institutions like Clemson and the excellent high schools that we do enjoy,” Booth said. “If you've looked in the paper and seen where we rank in the nation, you know we have a very good education system. But they're not content with that. So Ronnie has been working to push Tri-County Tech into the high school and the bridge to Clemson. Here you have someone who's working both sides of the barrier to allow people access to education.”

Strange congratulated Booth on his efforts.

“I'm proud to work with you on this,” Strange said.

Ray Farley, “chief cook and bottle washer” of Alliance Pickens, agreed.

The School District of Pickens County, Tri-County Technical College, Clemson University and Southern Wesleyan University help create “a skilled workforce that rivals any workforce in the U.S., and we're proud of that,” Farley said.

“It's because of that and the solid, stable nature of our local government, low level of taxes, and a stable tax climate in Pickens County,” that creates a business-friendly environment, Farley said.

He said South Carolina counties need not compete with each other.

“The economic enemy is not living amongst us,” Farley said. “The economic enemy for us is places like China, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, other places in the world that manufacture goods that could be manufactured here.”