Clare Morris, Burnie Maybank, and Karen Blair Manning

Clare Folio Morris is a Columbia resident, a wife, a mother of two boys, and president of The Clare Morris Agency. Her work history starts and continues in South Carolina, but she picked up pieces of the world along the way. Greenville's Clare Morris worked at her father's dry cleaning business while she attended high school. She graduated from Furman University in 1983. In 1988, she was awarded her masters in sociology from USC.

Her husband, a '77 West Point graduate, recently retired from the US Army as a colonel. In their years together while he served our country at several Army posts, they traveled and worked all over the globe and throughout America.

Between 1987 and 1989, Morris worked as a public affairs specialist for the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, where she linked the activities of 95 cadet parents clubs around the world. She also took on writing assignments and drafted public policy for resident generals.

Overlapping some with her West Point practice, she taught public speaking, mass communications, professional development, and other courses at both Mount St. Mary College (Newburgh, NY) and South College (Savannah, Ga.).

Staff and friends of the Clare Morris Agency (l-r) Trisha Ostrowski, VP for public relations; Amy Murray, VP for communications; Karen Owens, marketing and communications manager, SCDepartment of Commerce; Jessica Daly, VP for creative strategies; Clare Morris, president; and Karen Blair Manning, general counsel, SCDepartment of Commerce. While her husband was stationed at Fort Bragg, NC, she created and implemented a comprehensive public affairs program for Resource Consultants International. Continuously taking on assignments and management challenges in public relations, Morris also continued her writing career with web site copy, newspaper lifestyle articles, opinion pieces, college grant proposals, newsletters, marketing materials, guidebooks, college curricula, and research surveys. She has been published in National Business Employment Weekly , Family magazine, Army Times , The Georgia Guardian , Islander magazine, Elements magazine, Savannah News-Press , The Leavenworth Times , and Assembly magazine, among others.

From 1997 until 2000, she worked for Congressman Mark Sanford as his press secretary, special media projects coordinator, and director of media relations.

SAP in Waldorf, Germany, is a multi-billion-dollar multi-national company as a software industry leader. For about two years beginning in 2001, Morris simplified complex information and wrote original documents for translation and distribution in 52 countries. She was responsible for departmental corporate branding compliance and terminology standards.

In 2003, she went to work for the SC Department of Commerce, first as their communications director and later taking on a larger role in marketing while still managing communications overall. Morris managed a $1.2 million marketing budget, working with entities such as BMW, Boeing, and the government of Queensland, Australia.

Morris stays in shape. She recently competed in her first "duathlon," which wassequenced with an 8K run to start, a 26-mile bicycle race, and a 5K run to finish.

She left Commerce recently to form The Clare Morris Agency with headquarters on Gadsden Street, near the corner with Gervais Street. Their client list includes Furman's Riley Institute, the SC Council on Competitiveness, resort developer Shuler Group, and Vought Aircraft. Vought's assembly plant grand opening near the Charleston Airport is June 8. Vought will be working with Boeing in the assembly of the new Dreamliner jet aircraft, the 787.

Roe Morris, her older son, commands a 4.6 grade average at AC Flora High, where he earned a letter in soccer.At Flora elevated academic courses count foradd-on credit in the grade averages, which is how Roe rises above the presumed maximum of 4.0.Her other son, Andrew Morris, 13, attends Crayton Middle School. He has a significant following for his piano playing. Morris's husband Jim is a Columbia realtor with Bollin Ligon Walker.