Architecture firm LS3P Associates Limited has offices in Charleston, Columbia, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Wilmington. Frank Lucas, one of its founding partners, is still in the Charleston headquarters. Compared with Lucas, Columbia's Mary Beth Sims Branham is fairly new to the firm with her four years on board, but her presence as a woman architect in the upper reaches of management is also fairly new to the profession.

Branham was born in Greenville, S.C., where her father was with South Carolina National Bank. He soon shifted to the S.C. Railroad Association as its chief lobbyist. He and Branham's mother later worked for CSX Railroad. Branham was 18 when her father died, and her mother filled the position with CSX.

Branham's older broth- er Lana Sims is a Columbia attorney with Ellis Lawhorne & Sims. Her younger brother Ted Sims is in real estate with Prudential's Columbia office. Her sister Cathy Thenix is a travel agent with Prestige on Devine St.

Branham spent her kindergarten and first and second grades in Panama City, Panama. For grades three through six, she was at Columbia's Bradley Elementary on Covenant Road. She then attended St. Joseph's on Devine Street for grades seven and eight. She graduated from Cardinal Newman High School.

Branham went to Converse College in Spartanburg where she planned to major in art, but she worked for a Spartanburg architecture firm her first summer in college. There she was convinced to change schools and majors in the middle of her sophomore year. She transferred to Clemson University to major in architecture.

After Clemson, Branham worked for GMK Architects & Engineers when they were on Millwood Ave. She was their first female architect, and she stayed with them for seven years.

She ran her own graphics firm, which also catered to architecture offices short on graphics talent. She did such a good job serving the Columbia office for Atlanta- based Stevens & Wilkinson Architects & Engi- neers, she was invited to work there. She stayed for 13 years as S&W's director of business development. Her big score was the renovation and update of the State House, about $50 million in modernization.

Branham has been the managing principal of LS3P's Columbia office for about four years, beginning with one person and bringing the office work force to 14 people. She is also the firm's vice president.

A registered architect since 1990, Branham has been president of the S.C. Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. She has served as the editor of their statewide magazine, South Carolina Architecture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even in the current business climate, particularly challenging in the private sector, Branham's reputation among the school districts in the Carolinas is enough to pull her firm's Columbia office through the recession.

One of Branham's active files is the new parking garage for downtown Columbia. The first phase is to help decide where to put it. There are three favorite options among the merchants, the property owners, and the city, and Branham is helping them to decide on one.

Another current activity is to convert her office's computer software to a cutting edge three- dimensional AutoDesk product called Revit Architecture. Since the mid- 1980s, Branham has been working with a sequence of issues of AutoDesk's AutoCAD, soon to be obsolete.

Branham's older son, Wesley, is at Florida State majoring in vocal performance. Her younger, Daniel, is one of the better baseball players at Crayton Middle School.

To commemorate her recently attained half- century mark, Branham visited Barcelona and Paris. Besides grand architecture and great culinary offerings, travel gives Branham the opportunities to see more musical theater.

At Columbia's Town Theater, Branham has played Mame twice, 20 years apart.