Jim Reynolds recently stepped down after one year as chairman of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce, although he stayed on board as a member of the executive committee. Reynolds, president and owner of Total Comfort air conditioning, was succeeded by banker Chuck Garnett.

A native of Columbia, Reynolds graduated from Dreher High School in 1970. His undergraduate degree in economics is from Davidson College, and his MBA is from the University of Virginia. For ten years Reynolds worked for Coca–Cola in Boston and in Atlanta. In 1988, he returned to Columbia to take charge of Total Comfort.

When Reynolds assumed the chairmanship of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce a little over a year ago he identified three main challenges: (1) gaining economic development, (2) forging a broad–base leadership, and (3) moving Midlands education forward.

In economic development Reynolds found his timing fortunate. Dr. Andrew Sorensen was seeing USC’s research campus gaining definition and breaking ground. The City of Columbia was revamping Main Street and Five Points while continuing the push in the Vista. The city’s convention center got under way with an annual marketing budget above $1 million.

Lessons learned from chamber trips to Columbus, OH, and Austin, TX – where flagship universities overlapped economic development efforts with the local chambers – were put to work in Columbia.

Seeing the rise of a local creative class, young leaders in pursuit of start–ups and a new social stir, Reynolds recognized what was missing in Columbia 20 years ago. Then, maybe eight icons ran the city and its business community. Now, the count moves to more than 20 key leaders, and each of whom can identify two or three others not counted in the first 20. In other words, Columbia has flattened, fortunately.

City council member Daniel Rickenmann’s initiative for a “cool commission” on the order of what he saw in Memphis – where the city’s younger half met mostly in absence of the older half – came together in Columbia with 300 at the first meeting, double the expectations.

In education Reynolds saw the fundamental issue for the Midlands. To paraphrase Aristotle, Reynolds says the future of our community is directly dependent on the education of our children. Moving business into education, Reynolds actively engaged the chamber with the Midlands Education and Business Alliance (MEBA).

With the nine school districts of Richland, Lexington, and Fairfield Counties and their 100,000 school children, Reynolds and the chamber pulled together enough interest to achieve a critical mass where success stories began to multiply. Between sponsoring job shadowing among its business members and guiding students through career orientations, the chamber gives direction to children early on. A sense of relevance between future career choices and classroom commitments set in.

On a closer level, internships offer more than orientation. They begin to train students and direct them to career tracks.

Reynolds and his Total Comfort illustrate a telling example of MEBA. Young Cedric Brown, whose mother was a school teacher and father a railroad engineer, took an offer from Total Comfort to develop an interest in air conditioning and other fields of mechanical engineering while at Columbia High School. Brown took a half–day job at Total Comfort, worked his way to a scholarship at Midlands Tech, matriculated to USC in computer science, all the while staying on the job with Reynolds. Having just turned 21, Brown bought a house.

Overall, Reynolds over the past year kept after the nine school districts to increase the number of guidance counselors, and he tirelessly applied to the Midlands every available advantage to come out of the SC Legislature and its Education and Economic Development Act. Among many offerings, the EEDA helps students choose electives in high school with a career orientation.

Reynolds closed the conversation by recognizing the president of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce, Ike McLeese, as a first–rate CEO, and he welcomed Chuck Garnett, new chairman of the chamber.

Jim Reynolds