In major manufacturing plants there is the need for employee food service, both vending and serving. Lexington- based Food Service Inc. caters to the people on the industrial floor across South Carolina during their breaks, at lunchtime, and whenever else there is an attack of the munchies.

Gene Rountree founded Food Service Inc. more than 40 years ago, and he is still the owner and the CEO of his company. On Tuesday morning, January 6, right after his interview with The Columbia Star, Rountree was leaving for his first visit with his new customer, the Honda plant in Timmonsville. Other typical customers for Food Service Inc. include Bose and Westinghouse. Westinghouse contracted for Rountree's first full- service cafeteria operation in 1977.

Rountree was born in Dumbarton, S.C., which is in Barnwell County. Rountree, like everyone else in Barnwell County at the time, felt the impact of the local triumvirate of power, aka the Barnwell Ring, which was Winchester Smith (chairman of the S.C. Highway Commission), Representative Sol Blatt (House Speaker), and Edgar Brown, state senator and Dean of the Senate, as he was called.

There were four or five stores in Dumbarton, and three were owned by the Rountrees. Besides being the town's main retailer, Rountree's father was also a farmer, and his mother helped manage the farm's employees.

Rountree's younger sister Annie Jo teaches kindergarten.

After elementary school in Dumbarton and a short term in Williston, Rountree attended Barnwell High School, where he played tackle on the single- squad football team and where he was the baseball team's second- baseman and relief pitcher.

After high school graduation, Rountree worked for the state highway department in its Engineering Aids Training School for about a year, the time it took for his girlfriend Emily Sprawls to graduate from Williston High School and then marry Rountree.

The Rountrees moved to Columbia, where Gene began studies at USC in accounting, and Emily started in education. This was the late 1950s, and USC had 4,000 students.

Each of the Rountrees scored a small scholarship, which meant a lot in the era of small tuition. For another savings scheme, they lived in the converted second- level porch on Laurens Street for an affordable rent. The place was the home of Columbia's Cynthia Gilliam, a cousin. Three- and- a- half years later, the two graduated, moved to Atlanta for six month's training in accounting and then to Charlotte.

The Rountrees have five daughters, all born in a seven- year sequence: (1) Dana, a corporate attorney in Cleveland, Oh., with Baker & Hostetler; (2) Julie, an occupational therapist in Columbia; (3) Gina, a registered nurse in Lexington; (4) Maria, a medical doctor in Charleston; and (5) Amy, a clinical psychologist in Columbia. Following the five daughters are 12 grandchildren.

Rountree worked for Price- Waterhouse, the Big Eight accounting firm, in its Charlotte office for six years. He left the accounting firm and Charlotte to start his own business in Lexington.

Rountree's Food Service Inc. began in 1967. He and his family lived on St. Andrews Road for two years, and for another six years, they lived in Mungo's Whitehall.

Rountree went farm shopping, thinking his daughters could ride horses on about 10 acres, maximum. He negotiated an owner- financed deal for the long term at rock- bottom interest for 125 acres about a mile from the intersection of Lexington's Barr Road and U.S. Highway #1, where each daughter could essentially ride on her own 10 acres. But it really was a farm, and the family raised and sold hay, mostly.

Rountree's community service was recognized about 10 years ago with the Woodrow Wilson Award for his efforts in regional cooperation. Another 10 years before that, he was president of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce. For a long time he served on the Executive Committee of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce. He was also chairman of the Midlands Education Business Alliance, and he was vice- chairman of the Regional Education Business Alliance. Helping children with disabilities, Rountree was chairman of Easter Seals of S.C.

He continues to serve on the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Hollings Cancer Center at MUSC, Charleston.