Jeremy Wilson of Grub & Ellis Wilson/Kibler Star Profile

Jeremy G. Wilson in front of his offices on Laurel Street between Assembly and Main.

By John Temple Ligon

Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Jeremy G. Wilson, CPM and CCIM, was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. His father was a Philadelphia stock broker, and his mother later was the comptroller for Crouse, the world's largest nuclear clean- up company.

The family moved a little farther out to Wayne, also on the Main Line, the rail connector for the tony western suburbs of Philadelphia.

Wilson went to grammar school in Wayne, but he left town for prep school at St. James School in Hagerstown, Maryland. Before graduation at St. James, Wilson decided on the University of South Carolina instead of the Air Force Academy.

While at USC, Wilson pledged Sigma Chi about the time Columbia's Jim Papadea and Robert Tobias were in the fraternity. He majored in a combined business program of banking, finance, insurance, and real estate.

Taking a year off from the Columbia campus and living in Allendale, Wilson maintained his academic pursuits at USC- Salkahatchie while working three jobs and managing to hunt regularly.

One project was in direct response to a request from Governor Robert McNair, who asked Wilson to survey demand for a technical school near Allendale. Wilson quantified the demand, justified the school, and the school was built.

Graduating with a BS in 1968, Wilson toyed with the idea of going to law school, but he joined Walter Keenan and the Keenan Company in Columbia.

One of his first major responsibilities was leasing and managing the South Carolina National Bank Building on the southwest corner of Lady Street and Main Street, then next door to the Carolina Theater on Main and Jimmy Holmes's Columbia Office Supply on Lady.

Another big chore was the Bankers Trust Tower, now the Wilbur Smith Building, where Wilson was project manager for development and leasing in 1971 and 1972. The top floor tenant is the original tenant, The Summit Club, and the ground floor lobby occupancy has changed with banking to the Bank of America.

With the two early major accomplishments at SCN and Bankers Trust, Wilson became Keenan's vice president in charge of property management in 1972. Six years later he became senior vice president in charge of both leasing and property management.

Another major project with Keenan was the transformation of Richland Mall, which Wilson sold to LJ Hooker, the huge Australia- based property group that inserted Bonwit Teller into Forest Acres. Considering how Wilson was able to completely renovate, alter, and expand Richland Mall while keeping tenants happy and continuously leasing space to new occupants, quiet comparisons with the city's construction track record in Five Points, Main Street, and Lady Street come out with sharp differences.

After 18 years with Keenan, Wilson partnered with fellow real estate man Marshall Kibler to form Wilson/Kibler, in the fall of 1987. It was a challenging year after Congress ended accelerated building price depreciation in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. America overbuilt in response to the 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act, and, consequently, supply greatly exceeded demand.

When the attraction of accelerated depreciation was lost in 1986, so was a good bit of the attraction to buy the many available buildings. The ensuing recession pushed out George H.W. Bush (#41) from the White House when Bill Clinton won the election of 1992.

Also, there was a shakeout in the savings and loan industry, and property prices lowered further as the Resolution Trust Corporation unloaded unwanted properties. Through a broad- based operation with strategic diversification and fair-minded fee schedules, Wilson weathered the storm rather well, coming through the '90s on a growth curve.

On New Year's Day, 1999, Wilson became chairman of the board of his and Kibler's company that now has 20 brokers and another 10 staff members.