Star Profile
George Fletcher of New Carolina
By John Temple Ligon Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

George Fletcher

An engineer by education and training, George Fletcher wanted to build an engineering company, but his partner was more interested in software.

Fletcher and his partner split under amicable and reasonable arrangements, and then his former partner slashed software prices, greatly expanded sales and took Fletcher's former company public to a market capitalization value of $1 billion during the dot- com boom of the late '90s.

Fletcher didn't get in on the vast new wealth his former company created, but he's done all right and works to see South Carolina do all right.

Fletcher was born in Independence, Mo. His father was in the WWII Pacific theater as an intelligence officer with General McArthur, and his family was friends with the Harry Trumans.

Fletcher's father returned to the Midwest to work for Owens- Corning in Kansas City, where Fletcher attended school from kindergarten through high school graduation.

In high school, he starred as an all- state track man where he ran a mile in 4 minutes and 27 seconds.

Fletcher took his track talent to the University of Kansas, where as a freshman he competed in open AAU events against all comers. In one open track meet, he ran the mile against a high school freshman, the great Jim Ryun. Ryun ran the mile in just eight seconds over four minutes, well ahead of Fletcher. Fletcher dropped track.

Concentrating his time on academics, he took a heavy course load to earn two degrees, one in business and another in civil engineering.

Fletcher directed his education toward environmental issues and began work in pollution control in 1967. His company sent him to Clemson for his master's degree in environmental systems engineering while he continued to work full time in Anderson.

At Clemson, he met his future business partners and his future wife.

While working for Owens- Corning, he and his wife moved to Ohio, then to Rhode Island, and eventually back to Ohio.

Fletcher, his wife, and their two dhildren moved to Greenville as he rejoined his Clemson associates and formed Environmental Dynamic Inc., later EDI. The company put together software for running wastewater treatment plants. Another descriptive term in office use was "secondary treatment."

After eight years with his company and another eight years working with an unregulated subsidiary of Wisconsin Power and Light, Fletcher started Fletcher Group Inc. in 1993 while his two children attended college.

While in Greenville, Fletcher's company grew to 25 people, embracing technology in an interesting mix of real estate, chemicals, an industrial waste treatment plant, and other ventures.

As his own boss, he immersed himself in Greenville matters: president of the Greenville Rotary, first chair of ICAR, chair of the Greenville United Way, chair of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce, chair of the Western Carolina Regional Sewer Authority, and on and on.

The S.C. Council on Competitiveness was formed in 2004 to drive a long- term economic development strategy around Dr. Michael Porter's concepts of industrial clustering. Fletcher was the council's first executive director and remains as much while the council is known as New Carolina.

In his current position as executive director of New Carolina, he runs what is also known as the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness.

New Carolina's mission, in general, is to raise the per capita income average in South Carolina. Besides Fletcher and his staff in their offices on Gervais Street across from Channel 10, New Carolina has well over 200 volunteers working on various task forces and cluster committees. The three largest clusters represent the state's three largest industries: (1) tourism, (2) textile/apparel, and (3) agribusiness.

South Carolina is struggling, somewhat, in its transition from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy. The per capita income average has actually dropped a little in the past few years. The losses in textiles have been huge.

New Carolina has already published its strategic plan in tourism, and the textiles strategic plan is almost complete. Agribusiness follows. In the meantime, Fletcher frets over S.C.'s gross underfunding by the big national foundations, and New Carolina is in hot pursuit of Gates, Rockefeller, Ford, et al., all the big guns.

To measure new progress, New Carolina is designing new metrics for a new report card.

Real progress is being made, but real progress won't be very obvious anytime soon. As Dr. Porter put it in 2003, "It's a marathon, not a sprint."