Bill Workman

William Douglas Workman, III, known as Bill Workman (born July 3, 1940),^[1] is a retired economic development consultant who served from 1983 to 1995 as the mayor of Greenville, South Carolina.^[2]

His father, W. D. Workman, Jr., was the journalist with the Charleston News and Courier and then The Columbia State, who ran for the United States Senate in 1962 and for governor of South Carolina in 1982, both times on the Republican ticket.

Background

Workman was born in Charleston^[3] but spent his first five years in Walterboro in Colleton County in the South Carolina Lowcountry while his father was in the United States Army as an intelligence officer during World War II. His mother, the Heber Rhea Thomas (1918-1988), a native of Walterboro, was the supervisor of recreation for the Walterboro Works Progress Administration servicemen's club. Called "Tommie" by her husband, whom she married in May 1939, Rhea Workman graduated from Winthrop College at age eighteen and went on to obtain her Doctorate from the University of South Carolina. She was a full Professor of English from 1957 to 1977 at Columbia College in Columbia.^[4] Her mother, Ruth Dorrill Thomas, Workman's grandmother, taught at Walterboro High School and in 1935 launched the Future Teachers of America chapter at the school.^[5] Workman has a sister, Dorrill "Dee" Workman Benedict, now residing in Greenville, South Carolina with her husband, Lloyd Benedict.^[4]

Reared in Charleston and Columbia, Workman graduated in 1961 from The Citadel in Charleston, the alma mater of both his grandfather, father and both his sons.^[6] Workman served two years active duty in the United States Army, with subsequent United States Army Reserve Corp Service, in which he attained and retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel.^[3] Like his father, he was a newspaper reporter for the Charleston News and Courier. He also worked for the Greenville News. He was, for a time, an educator and dean of Allied Health Sciences at Greenville Technical College. For six years, he was a member of the Greenville County School Board. He was among the founders of the South Carolina Literacy Association.^[7]

Workman has been twice married. From his first union, to Marcia Moorhouse Workman, he has two sons: William Workman, IV and Frank Moorhouse Workman. From his second marriage to Patti Gage Fishburne (born 1942), who was formerly married to Donald K. Marks (born c. 1942) of Greenville,^[8] Workman gained three stepdaughters,^[7] Gage Marks Beerer, Barnwell Johnson Marks, and Kemp Fishburne Marks.^[9]

Patti Gage Fishburne Workman, a native of Walterboro, graduated in 1960 from Walterboro High School,^[10] where Workman's grandmother had once been on the faculty.^[5]

Economic development is a high calling as far as I am concerned. ... Downtown is everybody's neighborhood. -- Bill Workman

Political life

From 1975 to 1978, Workman was the executive assistant to Governor James B. Edwards of Charleston, the first Republican chief executive in South Carolina since Reconstruction. As Edwards's assistant based in the capital city of Columbia, Workman was an alternate to the Appalachian Regional Commission. He became involved with planning and economic development issues. From 1972 to 1975, he was vice chairman and then chairman of the South Carolina Appalachian Health Council for which he worked to attract to South Carolina the growing number of federal categorical grants.^[11]

Workman was an at-large member of the Greenville City Council for two years preceding his tenure as mayor.^[2] The 33rd mayor, he served for twelve and one-half years, in which capacity he refined his emphasis on economic and downtown development, the thrust of which dated back to 1971 to 1979 during the administration of the Democratic Mayor Max Heller.^[12] In 2004, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham acknowledged Workman's accomplishments in attracting new industries to his city and region: "There is no doubt Greenville is now one of the Southeast region's premier cities for business."^[7] Workman faced the rapid decline of the textile mills in western South Carolina, a loss which made economic development more difficult. Workman described economic development as a process which requires both diversification and specialization. Quoting the urban planner Jane Jacobs: "Poverty happens; prosperity, you have to work at it."^[13] In 1994, Mayor Workman was elected by his colleagues as president of the Municipal Association of South Carolina.^[14]

Involved in Republican politics, Mayor Workman in 1984 attended a Reagan-Bush rally at Greenville Technical College.^[15] In 1986, Workman ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina's 4th congressional district. The position was vacated by Carroll A. Campbell, Jr., a Republican who was elected governor that year, only the second Republican in the office in the modern era. Workman defeated airline pilot Ted Adams in a runoff election for the Republican nomination, 8,453 votes (55.3 percent) to 6,829 (44.7 percent); in the primary, however, Workman had polled 49.2 percent, nearly enough to win outright. Workman lost in the general election to State Senator Liz J. Patterson, 67,012 (51.4 percent) to 61,648 (47.3 percent). Two minor candidates polled the remaining 1,747 votes (1.3 percent).^[1] Johnston is the daughter of Olin D. Johnston, the Democrat whom Workman's father had unsuccessfully challenged twenty-four years earlier in the 1962 race for the U. S. Senate.^[16]

In February 2004, Workman spoke in Orangeburg, South Carolina, to support downtown revitalization efforts there. He said that development depends on a mixture of "love, humility and cooperation among all residents. ... Downtown is everybody's neighborhood."^[17]

In March 2004, Workman received the annual John D. Whisman Vision Award from the Development District Association of Appalachia at the annual conference of the organization held in Arlington, Virginia. The conference represented more than three hundred officials from seventy-two economic planning and development districts.^[11]

Beginning in 2004, the Greenville Area Development Commission, of which Workman was its first chairman, launched the presentation of its annual "William D. Workman III Buffalo Hunter Award", which honors either an individual or an organization that has demonstrated a major impact on the local economy. "Buffalo Hunter" refers to locating new businesses to Greenville.^[18] He is a past president of the Greenville County Research and Technological Development Corporation.^[7]

Later years

In 2004, Workman retired from the position of vice president of South Carolina district operations of the Piedmont Natural Gas Company but continued working as an economic development consultant.^[7] Thereafter, he served as town manager of Bluffton in Beaufort County.^[19] He also headed the Colleton County Economic Alliance Board.^[3]

In 2014, Workman, by then retired in Walterboro, summed up his business and political career as follows, "Economic development is what I have done for a living and for fun. ... Economic development is a high calling as far as I am concerned," upon receiving in Columbia the designation of "South Carolina Economic Ambassador".^[20]

References