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The State, Columbia, S.C., C. Grant Jackson Column: Pillars of Midlands Technology Industry Honored

Posted on: Monday, 5 June 2006, 09:01 CDT

By C. Grant Jackson, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Jun. 5--You've come a long way in the technology business, Columbia.

Five years ago, the Information Technology Council of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce presented its first Palmetto Pillar Awards. Barely more than 100 people attended the banquet at the Capital City Club.

Last month, more than 300 were present for the fifth-annual awards banquet, held this year at the Embassy Suites. Organizers had planned for about 250.

Much of the credit for the growth in the area's technology business that led to that larger crowd has to go to Joel C. Stevenson, who received the 2006 award for Individual Achievement.

As director of the USC Columbia Technology Incubator since 1999, Stevenson has been involved in nurturing almost 50 companies. Those companies have created 400 jobs and raised nearly $30 million in investment capital.

More importantly, Stevenson and the incubator, which recently moved into larger quarters at 1225 Laurel St., have helped foster a vision of a Midlands economy centered on knowledge-based companies.

The incubator has been doing it "one job at a time, one company at a time, and y'all get it," Stevenson told those attending the awards presentation. "It works because of y'all, and y'all should get the credit."

Stevenson now is involved in helping the S.C. Research Authority plan and develop its innovation centers on the campuses of USC, Clemson and the Medical University of South Carolina. Each will be modeled after the Columbia incubator.

The annual Palmetto Pillar Awards are presented by the Columbia Information Technology Council to the area's leaders and innovators in technology.

Also honored this year was incubator godfather Don Tomlin, who received the Community Service Award. Tomlin, president of Tomlin & Co. Inc., a private investment company, has served as cheerleader and financial backer of the incubator since its opening. He also was chief architect of the incubator's move to larger quarters.

Other Palmetto Pillar winners:

-- Abacus Planning Group, a fee-only investment counsel and advisory firm, received the Technology Application Award. Abacus married two technologies to create AdviceFlow, a program that allows the company to handle its clients in a nearly paperless environment.

-- Sensor Electronic Technology received the Technology Development Award. The Columbia-based company develops and makes light-emitting diodes, tiny devices that emit ultraviolet light.

-- The Kershaw County School District received the Technology in Education Award. Kershaw's i-CAN project is an initiative to provide wireless laptop computers to all of the district's ninth-grade students and their teachers over a four-year period.

-- The Mariner Group receivedthe Small Enterprise Award. A software company based in Columbia, Mariner's core product Commandbridge is used to help provide security to the nation's ports.

ITC chairman Tommy Crutchfield called the winners "just the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in this community. We've come so far."

The chairman of the Palmetto Pillar Awards is Forrest Jenkins, telecommunications business manager for SCANA.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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NYSE:SCG,

Source: The State (Columbia, S.C.)

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