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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
were coming to Greenwood. Several other Ohio entities moved
to South Carolina. The governor of Ohio called Geier to his of-
fice. “Look, I see all these companies moving to South Carolina.
Why? Why did you move your robotics division to Greenwood?”
“Because of the training programs,” said Geier.
“Who can I get from South Carolina to speak to a joint session
of the state legislature,” asked Geier. “I want them to tell what
South Carolina is doing for companies moving to South Caro-
lina.”
“A fellow in Greenwood named Lex Walters.”
“One Friday afternoon about three o’clock, I got a call,” said
Walters.
The caller said, “Hello, I’m from the office of the Ohio state
governor, and I’d like you to come speak to a joint session of the
state legislature.”
Walters thought it was another president playing a joke. It
wasn’t. “Finally this guy convinced me he was out of the office
of the governor of the state of Ohio. ‘Why are you calling me?’”
“Jim Geier recommended I contact you.”
Being but one head of a sixteen-college system, Walters de-
clined. He called the head of the system, and the question was,
“Do we really want to tell them all that we’re doing here? If they
put in place what we have in place, then the companies will stay
there.”
“We had this big meeting in Columbia to brainstorm this
through. And the decision was that Ohio has a very strong labor
base, a union base. They couldn’t do what we do in a Right-to-
Work state. The fellow who headed Special Schools went to Ohio
and spoke to the legislature.”
Other governors heard that South Carolina had a great sys-
tem bringing business to the state. One celebrated governor
decided to see for himself. Dr. Tom Barton remembers when a
governor with a famous name came calling. “Arkansas Governor
Winthrop Rockefeller came in on a jet that belonged to the State
of Arkansas.”
He came with an entourage. Dr. Lex Walters was there too.
“As Governor Rockefeller walked down the steps from his jet,
bottles clanked down the steps and three women in very, very
short skirts followed him.”
Barton adds, “The governor could hardly walk. He stood
about six foot, five. Big guy. And when he got to our nurse center,
he saw a bunk and said, ‘I’m going to relax a little bit.’ He got up
in the sheets with his shoes on and went to sleep. We couldn’t get
him out of the bed.”
A LIFE’S CALLING
The 1960s had been good to South Carolina’s dreams of train-
ing the populace and attracting new industries. But something
unprecedented was happening as the 1970s arrived. Future edu-
cators viewed the state’s technical training as an effective way to
help their native state. They wanted to be part of it.
Most presidents had had other careers—everything from
high school football coach to industry executive to chemical
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
1975 1976
1975:
Governor James B. Edwards proclaimed March 10
through March 16 as the state’s first annual
Technical Education Week Observance.
1976:
The General Assembly passed Act 654, which provided
for the TEC area commissions to continue as they were presently
set up. The fiscal year’s training program brought the number of
companies trained to 465 and individuals trained to 56,525.
Charles Palmer resigned as executive director, and G. William
Dudley Jr. was appointed TEC’s executive director.
