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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
Dr. Darrel Staat recalls that some states knew what South Car-
olina was achieving; others didn’t. During his time inMaine, Staat
was working with the economic development people in Bangor.
“They had no idea what South Carolina was doing.” I said, “Look,
there’s a strategy going on in the South.They are bringing business
into the state and training people to work in those businesses.”
He invited key leaders to come to South Carolina to meet with
the state’s development board and technical system leaders. “The
Northeast pride in business is phenomenal. Flying down they
said, ‘Why in the world are we going to South Carolina?’”
“On the way back I couldn’t get them to shut up. They talk-
ed the entire time about what they were going to do and in six
months the General Assembly of Maine had set up a very sim-
ilar program to what was going here. They didn’t call it Special
Schools, but it did exactly the same thing. And it brought in some
rather high-powered businesses.”
South Carolina’s tech system, flexible, adaptable, and creative
didn’t have the restraints other states had, and the ability to make
things happen turned heads. “People from all over the country
would come look at our Special Schools program but couldn’t
implement it because their legislation restricted them,” said Mor-
ris. “They couldn’t change the legislation because other interests
competed for that kind of work. We didn’t have any difficulty ex-
plaining what we were doing because people couldn’t emulate it,
which is kind of fascinating.”
The curious just didn’t come from all over the country; they
came from all over the world. “One of my tasks,” said Ed Zo-
bel, “was sticking pins in a world map showing where we had
visitors. We were getting them from everywhere: New Zealand,
Australia, Damascus. A lot came because of our Horry-George-
town tourism and culinary programs, Special Schools too. Ev-
erybody wanted to know about that. The number of visitors
said something about our system, because the word got out that
South Carolina has got something going. You’d better look at
it.”
AHEAD OF ITS TIME
Yes, South Carolina deserved a good, hard look in the 1980s if
you were a progressive company looking for a forward-thinking
home. “Design for the Eighties” was looking out for the environ-
ment too. If you’re recruiting all manner of industries, you had
better help them protect water quality.
Dr. Jim Hudgins served as president of Sumter Tech in the
early 1980s and developed the Water Quality Institute with the
South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Con-
trol. He worked with the state board and got it to include the
Water Quality Institute as a late-arriving component of “Design
for the Eighties.”
Current board chair Nick Odom remembers when the sixth
“Design for the Eighties” resource center, the South Carolina
Water Quality Institute, opened. “Ground was broken in 1983
at what was then called Sumter Technical College for the Water
Quality Institute. This institute addressed the needs for people
wanting expertise in making drinking water or cleaning indus-
trial wastewater.” Governor Richard Riley (1979-1987) came for
the institute’s dedication.
Nixon signed the law creating the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency resulting in new regulations. “All of a sudden,”
said Odom, “people had to catch-up. How do you catch-up?
Well, the technical college system formed the Water Quality
Institute. I think they got a $500,000 EPA grant, and the board
promised—I was not on the board then—to commit $75,000 of
operating money year one and $50,000 operating money year
two.”
TheWater Quality Institute soon recognized other critical en-
vironmental needs. “By 1986, it just wasn’t water. How do you
handle hazardous waste properly? How do you protect people
from a hazard, yet have the expertise on staff to meet regulations,
and manufacture safely?” A revision was in order.
“We changed the name from the Water Quality Institute to
The 1980s
A D E S I G N F O R T E C H N O L O G I C A L C H A N G E
