Lorri- Ann Carter This year is the 10th anniversary for CarterTodd & Associates, Main Street's goto firm for public relations, media placement, and graphic design. CarterTodd is on the ground floor at 1233 Washington Street between Sumter and Main, next to the Marriott banquet rooms and close to the Sheraton on the corner at Main.

Lorri- Ann Carter is the firm's founding owner and chief executive officer. She has another five people with her.

Lorri- Ann Carter was born in Athens, Ga., where her father was in the Air Force. He soon moved the family to Vicenza, Italy, still with the Air Force. In the private sector after the Air Force, her father managed mills for Milliken in S.C., one in Laurens and another in McCormack.

Carter's father today is a Realtor with Russell & Jeffcoat.

Carter went to kindergarten in Laurens, spent the first grade in McCormack, and transferred back to Athens for the rest of her primary and secondary education. She graduated from Clarke Central High School, where she was a cheerleader.

A journalism major at USC, Carter worked part- time at the local daily newspaper in advertising process- ing. After graduation, she took a job in a Columbia public relations firm for almost five years - enough to pick up the expertise and confidence to partner up and form her own firm.

CarterTodd began as a partnership in 1998, and Carter bought out her partner in 2002. Their early clients included Renaissance Interactive, a Web site design business also beginning at 1233 Washington Street. Another technology client in the beginning was VC3 on Lady Street, still with CarterTodd.

CarterTodd pulls in business from afar, too, such as the National Association of Homebuilders in Washington, D.C., and Resolve Technologies in Boston, Mass.

Carter met her husband Phil Phillips in Columbia in 1996, when he managed a medical practice. Today he's a vice president for product strategies with Medi- Notes Corp, based in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Carter and her husband have a seven- year- old son, Trey, whose nickname is taken from Gregory Paul Phillips III.

Carter is a resource partner with S.C. Launch, which helps start- up technology companies find funding. Along the same lines of interest, she helps the USC Incubator, another institution dedicated to boosting start- up companies.

CarterTodd readily takes on non- profits as clients. This past month, for example, the firm produced a brochure for Team Junior Tennis, part of the S.C. division of the U.S. Tennis Association.

In the middle of it all downtown, the Oliver Gospel Mission at the corner of Taylor and Assembly is a Carter- Todd client.

Carter's office gets out the good word on the City Center Partnership, the operations arm of the downtown business improvement district, or BID. As further development of buildings and more expanded stories of success come out of Main Street, Columbians can expect to see and hear about it from Lorri- Ann Carter.