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| S C T E CHN I CA L CO L L E G E S Y S T EM ’ S
F I R S T 5 0 Y EAR S
At 6:00 a.m., Smith was there. “Bortolazzo was like a bull be-
hind the desk, a burly guy.”
“You let me down.”
“I didn’t let you down,” Smith replied. “I didn’t know anything
about it until I got back home.”
“I want to speak to Governor West,” ordered Bortolazzo. He
didn’t know it, but Smith knew that John West got up at five
o’clock in the morning.
Smith called West. “Governor, Dr. Bor-
tolazzo wants to speak to you.”
“Put him on,” said West.
“No support. I’m going to quit,” said
Bortolazzo.
“Come by my office,” said West. “We’ll
get your check written in two hours.”
A stunned Bortolazzo resigned. His
fleeting-but-fiery feud with the “well-oiled political machine of
the University of South Carolina” was over.
BRIEF, SPECTACULAR,
BORTOLAZZO BLUE
Bortolazzo had particularly taken offense at USC board mem-
ber Michael J. Mungo’s statement, “South Carolina faced two
crises on import—Japanese textiles and Bortolazzo.” The son of
Italian immigrants took Mungo’s statement as a personal attack.
Upon resigning Bortolazzo fired back: “I am sure South Caroli-
na can get along even better if it could export Mungo and Jones
(USC’s president).”
The system’s new director had been a contentious taskmaster
fascinated with a color folks came to call Bortolazzo blue. Dr.
Lex Walters, Piedmont Tech president from 1968 to 2008, re-
members. “Julio had a fixation on blue, a bright, bold blue much
like cobalt blue. He accented his office in Bortolazzo blue, and he
had light blue note pads on which he would
write notes in his bold Bortolazzo blue ink
color. He signed all correspondence with a
big, bold Bortolazzo blue ‘JULIO.’”
Walters recalls, “Bortolazzo turned a lot
of people against him and against the com-
munity college idea. They feared the system
would lose its focus and gains made as a
technical college system and become strict-
ly a transfer college system. South Carolina
was just not ready for him.”
Even before he arrived, he asked each president for a compre-
hensive report on the status and vision for his college. Presidents
who didn’t provide a vision got a Bortolazzo blue report blasting
them. “He was not tolerant of anything he saw as a job half done,”
said Walters.
“He got to work every morning about six o’clock, and he ex-
pected everyone else to get to work at six o’clock. He would pick
up the phone at seven in the morning and call the University of
South Carolina president or the head of the Senate. In short or-
der, he turned everyone against him. The state board had to ask
The 1970s
A M O D E L F O R T H E N A T I O N E M E R G E S
“Bortolazzo turned a
lot of people against
him and against the
community college
idea.”
—Dr. Lex Walters
1971 1972
1971:
SC Commission on Higher Education conducted a study on
a proposal to establish a community college system. TEC hired
Julio L. Bortolazzo as executive director; Bortolazzo resigned
after only ten weeks. O. Stanley Smith, Jr. was appointed by the
State Committee to serve as executive director.
1972:
Act 1268 established the State Board for
Technical and Comprehensive Education.
Classes for Aiken TEC began in temporary
facilities in Aiken in the fall.
