eSTEAM Festival shows what we can achieve for students
As the presenting sponsor of the first-ever Sumter eSTEAM festival, I want to say a heartfelt and gracious THANK YOU - to all of Team Sumter, especially the economic development board staff, volunteers, exhibitors, vendors, partners, collaborators and the guests that came and witnessed an inspiring and awesome event. As chairman of the Sumter Economic Development Board and a board member of TheLINK Regional Alliance, with Lee County, our efforts to be thought leaders and change agents in the development of our talent pipeline has borne witness to a wave of positives over the past several years.
In 2016, the development board hosted a Regional Education Summit. This event was envisioned to bring together all of our education partners to clarify our strategic mission of moving the needle forward, with regard to developing talent, in our region. From the summit, we engaged the services of the University of South Carolina-Darla Moore School of Business to take a deep, unbiased, economic dive into our region and provide us with the needed facts and information to really impact positive change in our communities.
It is our duty to help create a world-class education system and develop our talent pipeline to meet the standards of today's fast-paced business and industrial environment. In Sumter, we are just now beginning to hit our stride. There has been much improvement over the past two years, but there is still much work to be done. Continuing to make good, solid decisions for our students, so that they are armed with the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for opportunities, is now the most important thing we can do for our community. Never in our country's history has talent development and economic development been more interlinked, and never has our community had the opportunity to impact change in education as much as we do now.
When we hosted together as business and education partners this past summer's street party during the Professional Development Conference for our teachers and administration, it was apparent there was a new-found spirit of energy and enthusiasm in our school district. It is imperative that we continue to build this wave of positivity within our school district and recognize that by choosing school board members who believe in the path forward and not back is the best opportunity for our kids to succeed.
This past Saturday's Sumter eSTEAM festival provided our community a glimmer of what we are capable of achieving when we look at the glass half-full. When business, industry, education, economic development and the community support our talent development pipeline with energy, enthusiasm and a commitment to doing what's right for our children, really amazing things take place. Let's continue to make efforts to move the needle forward in Sumter. I encourage you all to vote for your school board leadership, and make the decision to keep moving ahead by choosing those who will engage with the business community and lead from the front. This is our opportunity to make certain we keep our eyes on what the future looks like for our kids. We owe it to the next generation to make this community the best it can be, and it starts with making sure our school district is the best it can be.
Greg Thompson is a Sumter School District Finance Committee member, chairman of Sumter Economic Development Board and is president and CEO of Thompson Construction Group Inc. and chairman of Thompson Industrial Services LLC. He also serves on the board of TheLINK.