Mary Weston Grimball of Junior Achievement
By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Mary Weston Grimball

Mary Grimball is president and CEO of Junior Achievement of Central South Carolina, which encompasses 22 counties.

Architect Robert Mills, financier Darla Moore, and industrialist Robert Small will be inducted into this year's annual South Carolina Business Hall of Fame Gala, May 24, sponsored by Junior Achievement.

Grimball was born in Columbia at the corner of Hampton and Harden, the old Columbia Hospital. Her father was an orthopaedic surgeon, and she was the second oldest among five children.

The family stayed on the east side of downtown while they moved from Coleman to Haynsworth to Trenholm to Kathwood, which is where they remained after 1961.

Grimball's father helped organize Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, whose first headmistress was Susan Robinson. Grimball attended Heathwood for four years and took ballet at Roy McCullough School of Dance off Devine Street.

Grimball's father was also in the start- up group at St. Martin's on Clemson Avenue across from Crayton School. Grimball finished Crayton Junior High School, and entered A. C. Flora High School the next fall. After her senior year, she lived in France for the summer.

Grimball majored in psychology at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va. and minored in French while she lived in the French House on campus.

After college, Grimball taught history and psychology at Hammond Academy. Eventually, Grimball left for Germany, where she taught American soldiers in Hanau.

For the next three years, Grimball worked in Washington, D.C., as the managing technical director at the American Psychological Association. She moved to Greenville in 1976 and to Columbia in 1977, about the time her son was born. The family moved to Atlanta, where Grimball earned an MBA at Emory University's Goizueta Business School.

In Atlanta, Grimball was the chairman of volunteers for the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the American Red Cross. She moved to New Orleans for five years with the chamber of commerce, where she was the director of membership development.

In mid- winter 2000, Grimball moved back to Columbia to work as director of development for USC's College of Engineering and Information Technology. Over five years, her team increased private support for the college from $11 million to $30 million.

Grimball moved on to Junior Achievement of Central South Carolina in early 2005, taking charge as president and CEO. In 2005- '06, Grimball's Junior Achievement reached almost 20,000 Kindergarten- 12th grade students, emphasizing the value of completing their educations.

Junior Achievement education programs, mostly business and economics, divide into three divisions: elementary school, middle grades, and high school. In economics, for example, the elementary after- school program is titled "Dollars and Sense," where the students learn about earning, spending, sharing, and saving money.

The middle grades after- school program teaches entrepreneurial skills through innovative activities that focus on filling a need, knowing the customer and the product, being creative, and believing in oneself.

The high school programs include banking, finance, economics, job skills, and company structure. A one- day job shadow experience is available, as is a course on grant making and community philanthropy. Even the children who have made their first big mistakes get a shot.

At Stevenson Correctional Institution, 17- 25-year- old first offenders learn skills for productive lives using the JA Success Skills curriculum.

Grimball, also a gardener and a sailor, is proud of her Junior Achievement's position as the recipient of the Summit Award for the past 19 years.