SC Business Hall of Fame to induct 3 new members

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Pioneers in real estate, engineering and manufacturing will be inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame on March 10.

The hall, established by Junior Achievement of Greater South Carolina in 1985, honors leaders who have left their mark on South Carolina by personifying four core values: integrity, leadership, respect and excellence/history of civic achievement.

The new inductees are: The late Norman Arnold, former president and CEO of Ben Arnold Co.; George Greene III, founder and former CEO of General Engineering Laboratories and executive chair of Water Mission; and Jack McBride, CEO of Contec Inc.

The ceremony will be held at the Pastides Alumni Center.

“As visionary business leaders with a strong commitment to their communities, these South Carolina Business Hall of Fame laureates serve as role models to current and future generations, inspiring them not just to excel but to give back,” Casey Pash, Junior Achievement of Greater S.C. president and CEO, said in a news release.

Arnold became president and CEO of Ben Arnold Co. when his father passed away in 1963. Columbia-based Arnold Companies remains a leading commercial real estate firm. He also served as director of the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers of America for 28 years. Arnold was a founder of the Columbia Zoological Park and a trustee for the Medical University of South Carolina. His $17 million gift to the University of South Carolina financed an endowment supporting teaching, research and public education efforts for what is now the university’s Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health.

Greene began his own engineering firm in 1981 after working for large corporations in the U.S. and in Germany. General Engineering Laboratories became one of the largest privately held environmental laboratories in the county. After a trip to Honduras in the late 1990s to help with hurricane relief efforts, Greene sold GEL and began a global ministry, Water Mission. The nonprofit, now with more than 430 employees, has provided safe drinking water to more than seven million people in 57 countries.

McBride, a graduate of Duke University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, began his career at Milliken before creating Contec Inc. 31 years ago. A leading manufacturer of cleaning products for the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device industries, the company employs more than 700 people and has manufacturing sites in Spartanburg and Suzhou, China. McBride is a Mary Black Foundation trustee and a board member of the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare Foundation and the United Way of Piedmont.