15 INTRIGUING PEOPLE OF THE
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THEY COME FROM DIFFERENT PLACES AND BACKGROUNDS, AND THEY WORK IN DIFFERENT CORNERS OF THE COMMUNITY. WHAT DO THESE 15 LOCALS HAVE IN COMMON?
THEY FACINATE US.
LOWCOUNTRY
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Allen Kupfer:
BY JESSICA GOODY PHOTO BY LLOYD WAINSCOTT
THE HUMAN SPIRIT CAN ENDURE Allen Kupfer is one of the lucky ones. The Sun City resident and Holocaust survivor has experienced more loss, pain and cruelty in his 92 years than most, yet the experiences have left him with an open heart and an abiding faith in humanity. When the Nazis invaded Poland during World War II, Kupfer’s family was forced into the Warsaw ghetto. “I had to wear a Star of David on my arm,” he says. “People died of hunger because the rations were barely enough.” In the ghetto, he saw Orthodox men being forced to walk on burning coals and his parents were sent to Belzec, an extermination camp on the Russian border. “I lost all my family in one day,” he says. “Only my sister and I survived.” At the age of 16, Kupfer and his younger sister Rita were sent to work in the Hasag munitions factory. “As a youngster, I would go under the fence and forage whatever I could carry with me. I’d come back under the fence
into the camp and we would split the food; a potato, a piece of bread,” he says. After escaping, Kupfer took shelter in haystacks and barns, living on crops that he helped farm: “When harvest time came, I helped myself from the fields. I ate a lot of corn and roasted potatoes in the ground,” he says. “You don’t know how much a human being can endure. A person will do anything to survive.” Kupfer was rescued by the Macugowski family. “I had nowhere to go. It was December, and I slept in a hole in the ground, halffrozen to death,” he says. “They are the two biggest heroes in my life, because they risked their lives hiding Jews. Some of us were lucky, some of us were not so lucky.” After the war, he returned to the Warsaw ghetto to try and locate any surviving relatives. “142 members of my family — that I knew of — perished during the Holocaust,” he says. In 1949, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration provided him
with passage to America. “I brought $3 to the United States,” he says. “When I saw the Statue of Liberty, I went down on my knees and cried.” He settled in Chicago and worked in the garment import business. He and his then-wife, Lillian, an Auschwitz survivor, became U.S. citizens in 1954. While living in Chicago, Kupfer was instrumental in the development of an educational statute requiring the Holocaust be taught in Illinois schools. “Anti-Semitism, it’s here and it’s alive,” he says. “Hate is the disease of humanity.” Kupfer met his partner, Blanche Frank, 25 years ago while on a Sierra Club campout in Kentucky. They have lived in Sun City for 18 years. His deep-seated appreciation of life has inspired him to live every day to the fullest. “Life itself depends on attitude,” he says. “I don’t hate. Hate brings you to terrible things.” Despite everything that he has experienced, Kupfer says, “I never lost faith in people.” M
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Debby Grahl: BY ROBYN PASSANTE PHOTO BY MARK STAFF
DRAWN TO LIGHT AMID DARKNESS Due to a retinal degeneration disorder, Debby Grahl has spent her life gradually losing her sight. Luckily she has enough vision, imagination and resilience to not let the growing darkness stop her from pursuing her dreams. “I was diagnosed at 18 months, when my parents noticed I was feeling for my toys,” says the 58-year-old Hilton Head Island resident and romance writer whose first published novel, “The Silver Crescent,” won the Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewers Choice Award in 2014. After an active childhood, Grahl lost the ability to read printed material in her early 20s. “I started making up my own stories and would entertain my friends by telling them,” she says. “They were kind enough to sit and listen to me.” Grahl’s friends not only listened to her, they encouraged her to pursue her passion for writing. The only problem was she couldn’t see the computer screen to do research and look over her work. Then she discovered JAWS (Job Access With Speech), a computer screen-reading program that lets blind or visually impaired users hear what’s on the screen. “It was incredible,” Grahl says of using the program, which she took lessons on for a year in order to master; luckily, she already knew how to type. “JAWS is what I use now to research and do my books.” Anyone in publishing knows that merely writing a novel isn’t necessarily the hardest part, and when it came to bringing her book from computer to binding, Grahl had a few setbacks. After finding an interested publisher at a writers’ conference, an elated Grahl was offered a contract and started
editing her manuscript. Then the publishing company unexpectedly closed. Undeterred, Grahl reached out to another editor who had seemed interested at the same conference, and received another contract. She had a preview copy of “The Silver Crescent” in her hands when she experienced a devastating bit of déjà vu: That publishing house also abruptly closed its doors. “But they were nice enough to give me a list of other publishers to try,” Grahl says, and the third time was the charm. The Writers Coffee Shop, a small independent publisher based in Australia, published “The Silver Crescent” in January 2014, and her second novel, “Rue Toulouse,” a year later. “Every time somebody buys my book I just can’t believe they’re actually talking about
me. It’s so overwhelming, to think that the stories I make up are entertaining people,” she says. “I go into Barnes & Noble and they want me to sign my books, and I just can’t believe it.” Grahl is now working on two novels at the same time. Though unrelated, they are both set in the South Carolina Lowcountry. One is specifically based on Hilton Head, the place she’s called home since her husband retired and they moved here four years ago. The two met when she was in her early 30s at a Civil War re-enactment event in Michigan. “We ran into each other by a campfire, and we will have been married 26 years on Feb. 17,” she says. It seems Grahl has always been drawn to the light amid the darkness. M
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Marcus Mullis: BY DAVID GIGNILLIAT | PHOTO BY MARK STAFF
SAILOR WITH A LASER FOCUS Marcus Mullis is a man of precision. He has to be. As an expert in working with medical laser equipment, attention to detail is an absolute must, as the machines rely on precise measurements and settings to function properly. “I’ve always been very interested in how things work. I’d get a toy or a bicycle for Christmas, and the first thing I’d do is want to take it apart,” says Mullis, a longtime Hilton Head resident originally from Valdosta,
Georgia. “It seems like second nature to me. I’ve just always wanted to know how exactly (something) worked. It’s just my inquisitive nature.” Most of the lasers he services are used for outpatient surgeries, primarily for procedures that treat prostate conditions and eliminate kidney stones. His work also includes providing preventative maintenance inspections on the machines every six months, currently across two territories. A call
could come in at a moment’s notice, and he’ll be on a plane to service a machine. “One of the things I love about my job is that it’s never the same,” says Mullis, whose work often takes him on the road three to four days a week. “There’s no set schedule. Every week is different. I could get a call today, and be somewhere tomorrow.” The work he does, making sure complicated machines function properly, ultimately helps patients extend their lives. “Always my first concern when working on lasers is that when I leave, is it going to be beneficial to somebody. That’s real, real important,” he says. “Even if a tiny thing is wrong, I’ll stick around an extra day to make sure it’s working properly. Ultimately, the patient is the most important thing to me.” One of the few experts in his field, over the years he’s traveled as far as Argentina, Venezuela, Europe and Japan to work on laser devices. “It’s so unique to get to see all of these wonderful places, and it makes you appreciate how really wonderful the United States of America really is,” says Mullis, who studied art while in college. Mullis currently works for Boston Scientific, a leading worldwide developer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices, and has worked for several laser companies since the early 1980s, when he first started in the field Mullis first studied electronics while in the Air Force. After finishing his Air Force co mitment, he started working on linear accelerators, which deliver high-energy X-rays that help eradicate tumors. After spending about 10 years in the linear accelerator field, he switched to working with medical laser equipment, and has worked professionally in that field now for more than 30 years “I realized being an art major was probably not going to be a very lucrative career,” he says. Mullis owns two condos in Hilton Head, but chooses to rent them out, and lives on his sailboat, Raising More Cane, at Broad Creek Marina when he’s not working. Sailing has always been an interest, something he may do more when it comes time to eventually retire. “The view is spectacular. I have a 360-degree water view year-round,” he says. “Sailing is my passion in my life. At any given time, I can take the lines out and go sailing. It’s very freeing.” M January 2016 63
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Alex Brown:
INTRIGUING BY KIM KACHMANN-GELTZ PHOTO BY ROB KAUFMAN
ISLAND FAMILY ROOTS RUN DEEP Alex Brown is a sixth-generation native islander, Camp Hilton Head business executive, mentor at Central Oak Grove Church and the chairman of the Town Planning Commission. If Brown wrote a book, he would call it “Sense of Place.” Brown said that native islanders had a strong sense of place before 1956, when only private boats and a state-operated ferry could access Hilton Head Island. They were tied together and to Hilton Head Island by the pristine land, farming and fis ing traditions, a shared Gullah and Geechee culture and language, and the historical legacy of freed slaves. “We had to rely on each other. Not everyone fished, not everyone farmed. We had to come together. But after the bridge and island development began, our sense of place diminished,” he said. What’s the story of Hilton Head today, Brown asks. Does it have any substance to it? Or is it
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just a built-out resort for tourists and wealthy homeowners, like Myrtle Beach? “We’ve got all walks of life here. And any healthy community will respect those (socioeconomic) tiers. If that doesn’t happen, our community is going to decline,” Brown said. “Look at some of the native islanders who’ve lived here for generations but can’t find a job or affordable housing. They’ve inherited land that’s worth a lot of money; it makes more sense to sell it and move on. That troubles me.” Brown thinks many young native islanders don’t have a good understanding of why they belong here. “That’s why it’s important that we support things like The Mitchelville Preservation Project. It gives kids something they can touch and feel and better understand,” he said. The legacy of native islanders is important on a local, regional and national level. Their history provides a cultural, linguistic, and historical perspective on freed slaves in the years after
the Civil War. The values of native islanders are deeply spiritual, communal and focused on family and work. “Dad made me earn everything and taught me the importance of work ethics,” Brown said. “I remember him waking me up to help him with paperwork before school. He drilled in me that there are only so many hours in the day, and you’ve got to get work done.” After school, Brown would have to help his grandfather in the field. His family planted peas, corn, watermelon and other staples on their land in what used to be called Chaplin Plantation. While his father and grandfather taught him how to work hard, his mother taught him how to love. “She always found the brighter side to situations. And that stuck with me; I very seldom have a bad day,” Brown said. “I believe that things happen for a reason, that God put something in front of me as a trial or tribulation, something to make me grow stronger.” M
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donated to the local Little League to put it over the top of its fundraising goal. “Meanwhile, my work philosophy is that if you wait for the perfect time to do something, you’ll never do anything. You have to make the time right when it’s mostly right.” Schlotman applied this philosophy to the revitalization of Shelter BY KIM KACHMANN-GELTZ Cove. “It was always a dream of mine to have KROGER’S CHIEF FUN OFFICER a Kroger store on the island. I knew it would be successful, but finding the right spot Mike Schlotman is chief financial office wasn’t easy,” he said. “When the bankrupt and executive vice president of the Kroger mall became available, a great opportunity Co. He envisioned and helped engineer fell into our laps.” the Kroger superstore and revitalization of Some islanders criticize Kroger and its Shelter Cove on Hilton Head Island. joint venture partner, Blanchard & Calhoun, “I don’t call myself the chief financial of for taking out too many trees to develop cer, I call myself the chief fun officer,” he said. the complex. Schlotman points out that they As a kid, Schlotman ran Kool-Aid stands planted 50 percent more trees than they to make money. Starting at age five, for a took down. quarter a week, he would take out his uncle’s “The proof is in the pudding. We stayed trash. true to what the island’s founding fathers “I grew up in Kentucky and lived in a wanted. We took the heart of the island out, 600-square-foot house with two brothers. I and gave it a heart transplant. It has a healthy, like to think that, if I lost everything today, I’d strong heartbeat now,” Schlotman said. “The be okay. Part of my philosophy is, ‘Rememcomplex is successful beyond expectations.” ber where you came from.’ Another part of If Schlotman could do one thing to help my philosophy that my mother taught me is, ‘ his customers eat and live better, it would be “I can’t” never did anything.’ ” to be to embrace Kroger’s health and wellSchlotman was the first kid in his family to go to college. ness initiative. “My dad didn’t talk to me for two years “We have bike racks and bike pumps at after I left,” he said. “Our family heritage was our store,” he said. “We’ve introduced more that you go to high school, you get a job and natural and organic products, including go to work. Dad would question who the hell the Simple Truth product line. You’ll find it I was going off to college.” throughout the store in all of the aisles.” His father lost his job at TWA when SchlotWhen asked how he feels about quinoa and kale, he says he hasn’t acquired a taste man was in high school. He decided that he for quinoa yet. didn’t want to be like him — 51 years old and “But it’s interesting that kale turned out to laid off without a college education to fall be a superfood — I ate it all the time growing back on. up. It was cheap. My mom would put lots Because of his family’s hardships, Schlotof butter, kielbasa and potatoes in it, which man thinks giving back to the community didn’t make it that healthy, but I loved it.”M and helping people are key. He recently
Mike Schlotman:
Walt Dembiec: KICKING BACK AT PARKINSON’S WITH BOXING, MMA BY DAVID GIGNILLIAT PHOTOS BY LLOYD WAINSCOTT Karen Dembiec was looking for something new. Her husband, Walt, is one of nearly one million Americans living with Parkinson’s disease, which affects the nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine. Dembiec, a retired AT&T executive originally from New Jersey, has lived with Parkinson’s for the past 15 years, but things were getting tougher as the disease progressed. “The last few years had really slowed him down. Everything had been harder for him,” Karen Dembiec says. She had encouraged him to tried yoga and a few other exercise alternatives, but the results were negligible. Through an article in a local newspaper, she heard about the success of Rock Steady, a boxing program in Indiana that has helped Parkinson’s patients with regaining strength, flexibility and speed. She hoped to find similar opportunity in the Hilton Head Island area, but could not find a local affiliate Undeterred, she contacted several local gyms about the possibility of developing a specialized exercise program for Walt. John Juarez, owner of Riptide MMA in Bluffton, received one of those phone calls. He agreed to give it a shot. “He said he would be interested in working
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INTRIGUING with Walt,” Karen Dembiec says. “He was really the only one who called back and showed an interest.” Their workout partnership began in earnest earlier this fall, with Juarez, the strapping mixed martial artist, and Walt Dembiec, the 74-year old client, an unlikely yet perfect match. “He really enjoys it. Even though he’s tired (at the end of a workout), he looks forward to coming,” Karen Dembiec says. “He said, ‘It just feels good.’ It’s really the first thing that we’ve found that he really enjoys doing.” Juarez works out with Dembiec twice a week, putting him through sets of mobility exercises, squats and ladder drills, coordinated kickboxing with combos, punches and kicks. The lateral movement and reps of kicks and punches emphasize foot speed and agility. They also get Walt’s heart rate up, working on overall strength and stability. “He’s stronger. He’s more alert. People have seen where he’s started to where he is now, and it’s a huge difference. Night and day,” Juarez says. “It’s pretty neat how you can help somebody like that.” Juarez has spoken with Dembiec’s Parkinson’s support group about their experience. He hopes to offer similar Parkinson’s-targeted classes at Riptide in the future. “He’s inspiring people, so basically he’s helping people too like I’m helping him,” Juarez says. “That’s why I love my job, seeing him grow and change. It’s very rewarding and inspiring.” In the face of adversity and physical challenges, he has seen Dembiec rise to the occasion and improve his quality of life. And he believes others can do the same, regardless of the battle. “Just stay in the fight,” he says. “Just stay in the fight.” M
Sheila Morgan: BY KIM KACHMANN-GELTZ | PHOTO BY ROB KAUFMAN
A WOMAN WORTH LISTENING TO “I grew up in the most gorgeous place on earth,” Sheila Morgan says. “Water comes pouring out of the mountains and it’s just the cleanest, prettiest water. Well, of course I don’t know if it’s the cleanest, but I know it’s the prettiest.” Morgan is a natural storyteller, weaving anecdotes about her childhood in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and words of wisdom from her mother, like: “You can please some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time.” “My favorite one Mama used to say was, ‘Can’t can’t never could, but can can could if you would,’ ” Morgan says with a smile. “When I tell people that, they always ask, ‘Would what?’ and I say, ‘Try.’ ” Morgan’s motto, “Just try,” has pervaded her life, both professionally and personally. She has been a manager of a skating rink and a deli, a painter, a poet, a wife, a mother of two, and an accomplished seamstress and writer — often overlapping her professions, passions and responsibilities with a
never-simmering energetic fire. “I just can’t sit still,” she says. Morgan, her husband and 5-year-old son, Shane, moved to Hilton Head Island in 1982, and she and her husband managed Plantation Deli. She also made quilts and sold painted cheese boxes on the side, which didn’t leave her with a lot of spare time. But when she heard about a seamstress position open at The Porcupine, she was intrigued. “I had never done alterations before, and I told Avis (owner of The Porcupine) that. She said to bring in a dress I had done and I guess she liked it because she said, ‘I’ll give you a try,’ ” Morgan says. Reflecting back on that time, Morgan said, “You know how you look into your brain and ask questions? Well, I guess [during that time] I looked into my brain and it said to give it a go.” Thirty years later, Morgan is still a popular tailor an extensive client list — and she’s added author to her ever-growing list of accomplishments. “I always wanted to write but never thought I could … until now,” she says. M January 2016 67
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Marion Conlin:
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BY KIM KACHMANN-GELTZ PHOTO BY W PHOTOGRAPHY
THE ETERNAL LEARNER Hilton Head Islander Marion Conlin has worn many hats. She’s a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and the author of a cookbook. She’s the former program director of World Affairs Council of Hilton Head. And, even at nearly 90 years old, she’s not slowing down. Conlin says her travels and experiences have helped shape her global perspective — but she credits her mother and her first-grade teacher with sparking her curiosity about the world. “She taught me the eternal love of learning,” Conlin says of her teacher. “And my fabulous mother taught me to live with self-confidence. Whenever I’d ask her what to do about something, she’d say, ‘You’ll make the right decision.’ Even today when I face a decision, I consider all the angles. She gave me the confidence to do so. Those critical thinking skills served her well as program director of the 900-member World Affairs Council, where she planned
lectures by world-renown figures She says that in her lifetime, she believes the two greatest statesmen are former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. “Clinton brought the woman’s touch to issues that required good brainpower and good heart,” she says. “I also liked Zbigniew Brzezinski. He has objective sense about hard, controversial issues and steers away from politics … Statesmanship is a craft, not a political appointment. It should be based on the knowledge and understanding of foreign affairs and the skill to balance powers to accomplish good, not world domination.” But Conlin says the U.S. should not try to accomplish good by becoming the world’s police force. “I’d like to see us exercise compassionate leadership,” she says. “If I could give one piece of advice to the president, I’d say to avoid reacting to issues militarily. The next
president needs to practice more equanimity — the ability to foster cohesion in our executive and legislative branches and foreign affairs.” Conlin’s time abroad also helped influence her take on foreign affairs. She studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, a treat for a woman who grew up making do with what she had during the Great Depression. “I grew up in the Depression era; we had to be resourceful,” she says. “My family had a garden. I picked my own vegetables and made my own vegetable soup and fell in love with cooking.” Conlin, who remarried this year, says she always tries to appreciate everything life gives her. “Gratitude is the best system of living,” she says. “If the situation looks grim, remember something you’re grateful for. This will turn your head around. M
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Brian Thiem BY BARRY KAUFMAN PHOTO BY ROB KAUFMAN
WRITER DOESN’T HAVE TO MAKE UP THE DEATH-DEFYING SITUATIONS THAT PEPPER HIS NOVELS. HE LIVED THEM. If you happen to catch Brian Thiem out on the golf course or riding his Harley around Sun City’s Riverbend neighborhood, ignore that far-off look in his eye; he’s just thinking about murder. Don’t worry, though, that’s his job. The author of the novel “Red Line,” Thiem is currently wrapping up work on his second novel, “Thrill Kill.” With most of the heavy lifting done on his sophomore novel, the recent transplant to the area is starting to pull from the ideas swirling around in his head to create the third in his series of novels about homicide detective Matt Sinclair. But unlike most authors, Thiem doesn’t have to invent his character’s adventures out of whole cloth. He lived them. “I worked for many years as a uniformed officer; I worked in special operations u dercover in vice and narcotics, buying drugs for a living and picking up prostitutes — all that kind of good stuff,” he said. “When I’m writing a car chase, my resting heart rate goes from 70 to 130. I can go back and draw on what a car chase is really like, so my fingers are slipping off keyboard as I write. It’s becoming so real as I go back and relive some of this.” Thiem’s law enforcement pedigree is one many other authors would kill to write. For 25 years, he worked in various duties in the Oakland Police Department, including commander of the homicide department in
a city known for danger. “One year we had 175 murders in my unit. One night alone, we called it Bloody Monday, we had six unrelated murders in one night,” he said. While serving in the Oakland Police Department, Thiem was also an Army reservist, and in 2003 he was called to active duty for Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. He spent a year in Iraq as the deputy commander of the Army criminal investigation group and the officer-in-charge of the war crimes investigation team investigating the atrocities and human rights violations of Saddam Hussein’s regime. So when it came time to put pen to paper, he had a wealth of experience to draw from. “The great thing about writing is I get to … change things,” he said. “In the real world, you have cases like this one that went
unsolved my entire career. It was solved as a cold case.” The cold case in question centered on a dead woman’s body, found stuffed in a bag found hanging in a tree. Thiem investigated the murder early in his career in Oakland, and his remorse at never cracking this particular case hangs heavy in his words. By way of catharsis, he found a way to work the case into his second novel. “If I could have changed facts when I was investigating, it could have been like this case. Exciting and sexy; the good guy would solve it in the end and the bad guy would go to prison.” We can be thankful then, that at least in the case of novels and the novelists who get a second lease on life in writing them, the good guy sometimes wins. M
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Herbert Ford BY EDWARD THOMAS | PHOTO BY MARK STAFF
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME Scampering along the mostly dirt roads of Hilton Head Island in the 1950s, young Herbert Ford could never have imagined that one day he would be setting up threat vulnerability and risk analysis programs to help protect American interests at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. But that is part of the fascinating and largely classified life story of this native islander who has returned to embrace new opportunities on his beloved island overlooking the green salt marshes of Broad Creek. The middle son of 12 children raised by Clarence and Mary Ford on a small farm overlooking the creek's headwaters in the
mid-island Hilton Head neighborhood still called Chaplin by native islanders, Ford has many fond memories of a community life that has long since disappeared. "Our home stood across the road from where Grant's Mini-Mart is today," recalls Ford, whose father raised vegetables and other crops, tilling the fertile, soft sandy soil with a horse and plow. "Our family would harvest the crops and cart them to Charlie Simmons for transportation across the inland waterway to be sold at markets in Bluffton and Savannah." Ford's memories include a wood burning stove in winter and lots of mosquitoes on hot, muggy mid-summer
days when the offshore breezes were still. Back then, the midsection of Hilton Head consisted largely of numerous small family farms that spread like a patchwork quilt across much of present-day Shelter Cove Towne Centre and across Chaplin Public Park, all the way to Folly Field Road. It was a bountiful playground for Ford and his close friends, James Grant and Anthony Brown. On many warm days, the three would finish their chores and take off up the road to go crabbing along the creek or play baseball at Blue Jay Field. Grant remembers Ford as "studious, but also a pretty darn good shortstop," while Brown recalls him as a sharp dresser, especially on Sundays at St. James Baptist Church. Both remember him as soft-spoken, loyal and "really smart" in school. In fact, the three buddies plus Annie Lou Holmes competed earnestly from the first grade onward to be at the top of their class. It was Ford, however, who finished as valedictorian for the class of 1971. It was the first graduating class in the newly integrated H.E. McCracken High School in Bluffton. Ford credits his academic zeal to the tone set by Ernestine Jones, an English teacher who traveled with daily devotion from Savannah to Hilton Head and Bluffton's all-black public schools. "We still keep in touch after all these years," says Ford, who retired from a 29-year CIA career that earned him a Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal "for distinctly exceptional achievements that constituted a major contribution to the mission of the agency." It was academic excellence and love for learning new things that initially earned Ford several college scholarship opportunities, as well as the attention of Ben Racusin — a former senior officer with the CIA who had retired to Hilton Head and was later elected as the island's first mayor. Racusin set the wheels in motion for Ford to join the CIA, setting him off on a career covering three decades and including highly sensitive tours to Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Asia. As someone who has spent most of his professional life being watchful of the dangers to America, Ford understands the sensitivity many Americans feel about current circumstances in the world. But he believes strongly in the importance of keeping our nation's doors open. "Embracing diversity is critical to sustaining a bright future," Ford said. M January 2016 71
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Melissa Azallion:
INTRIGUING BY KINGSTON RHODES PHOTO BY MARK STAFF
GIVING A WORKFORCE A VOICE When your friends, colleagues and even your professional adversaries describe you as respected, balanced, insightful, trustworthy, discerning and exceptionally professional, you must be doing something right. Melissa Azallion has lived in Bluffton and Hilton Head Island since 2002, and has been earning praise and accolades ever since. She arrived in the Lowcountry from Shadyside, Ohio, a tiny town with no stoplight that sits alongside a steep slope literally overlooking the Ohio River. Her parents, Hub and Georgia Green, had already retired to Hilton Head. As a single mom with a toddler, she was starting a new life. She had finished law school and opened a practice, but had a skill set, focusing on labor relations, employment and immigration issues, that most attorneys consider limited in financial potential "I got into affirmative action issues, processing immigration papers and equal employment opportunity work in a part-time capacity
while paying my way through law school," Azallion says. "It led me to see a bigger picture of life and expanded my boundaries." Azallion says that when she joined the Nexsen Pruet law firm in fall 2002, there were few attorneys doing the kind of law she had experience with. " I knew I needed to work really hard to develop a successful practice here. That meant knocking on doors and meeting lots of different people,” she says. As it turned out, Azallion's refreshingly direct, easy-to-like style quickly attracted business clients who were also in need of her skills to help them find much-needed employees Azallion joined the McNair Law Firm in 2012 and now leads the firm's statewide immigration practice group, representing multinational corporations, universities, medical facilities and hospitality companies as well as individuals who need assistance with citizenship and labor issues. "Melissa is special," says David Tigges, Mc-
Nair’s chief executive. "She is a consummate professional who has helped facilitate foreign investment on behalf of businesses all across the Southeast. She is one of the few people in our region really proficient at what she does. Eric Esquivel, publisher of La Isla Magazine, has worked on numerous issues with Azallion says she is an invaluable resource to her clients and the community. "Melissa never sets over-expectations for her clients,” he says. “Her reputation is platinum for doing things with integrity. She is a hidden jewel who has helped the Lowcountry workforce immeasurably. Our community is in debt to her more than they will ever know." The consistent impression one gets of Azallion is a person of the highest. "It is the way she has always conducted her life, whether personally or professionally," says Matt Green, Azallion's younger brother and a commercial real estate developer in Bluffton. "I couldn't imagine a better sister or be more proud of her." M
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Vicki Wood BY ROBYN PASSANTE PHOTO BY ROB KAUFMAN
PASSING THE TEST Vicki Wood took her first SAT at age 32, 10 years after she finished college. Surroun ed by nervous teenagers and clutching her sharpened No. 2 pencil, she completed the test as a personal challenge and a possible career move — and she hasn’t looked back. “There’s a science to it,” says Wood, an SAT prep course developer and instructor, of the dreaded college entrance exam. “If you had told me at 16 that I’d be taking the SAT over and over, I would have laughed. But once you get into these tests, you realize they’re puzzles. So it becomes fun to unlock the puzzle and see the pattern and help students do the same.” The former Michigan resident — who only took the ACT back when she was applying to colleges — was working as a customer service representative for PowerScore Test Preparation when she decided to secretly study for the SAT in hopes of becoming a PowerScore teacher. Though she scored in the top 7 percent of test takers that spring, PowerScore teachers need to score in the top 1 percent. Wood was crushed, and confessed to her boss what she’d been doing on the side. Her employer encouraged her to retake the test after first completing a PowerScore SAT prep course. She did, and three months later scored in the 99th percentile. “I’ve been writing and teaching SAT and ACT prep courses and books ever since,” says Wood, who continues to take the test periodically and is currently 40 points shy of a perfect score. “I’ve had a perfect score in reading and a perfect score in writing, but one missed question in math.” Her quest for perfection is about to get even tougher. “They’re changing the test on us in March, starting to align it more with Common Core,” Wood says. “So we’re cautioning students
to take the ACT this year instead of the SAT. We don’t want anybody to be the College Board’s guinea pig.” Enrollment is indeed down for Wood’s PowerScore SAT prep courses, which makes her happy. “There are significant changes to the test, the new one will be much more difficult, more curriculum-based,” she says. “The current SAT is more critical thinking-based, which is why the classes are so successful, because we can teach the students the patterns to use to answer them.” She and her colleagues at PowerScore have a handful of new practice tests and will continue to gather more as they’re released, analyzing the revamped test to come up with an overhauled prep course.
Wood, who estimates she’s taught about 600 Lowcountry students how to do their best on the SAT and ACT, guarantees at least a 300-point increase in test scores after her courses, and has seen as high as a 590-point increase from one Hilton Head student. She has also written a Hilton Head-based children’s book, “Dinner on the Docks,” about a cat anticipating her feast from shrimp season’s opening day. She didn’t manage much marketing for the book, as she and her husband have been busy with their 5-yearold twins. “I started them early with SAT vocabulary words,” she says with a laugh. But alas, the vocabulary portion of the test is also changing. “I guess it was all for naught,” she says. M
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David Leighton BY DAVID GIGNILLIAT | PHOTO BY MARK STAFF
BUILDING A MODERN NAVY The modern U.S. Navy has a bit of its own living history here on Hilton Head Island in retired Cmdr. David Leighton. During a decorated Naval and civil service career, Leighton worked for 26 years with Adm. Hyman Rickover, described by The Washington Post in a 1979 article as the “czar of nuclear propulsion” and the “father of the nuclear
Navy.” Rickover’s numerous achievements include the creation of the USS Nautilus, the world’s first working nuclear-powered submarine. Serving on active duty for 64 years, longer than anyone in Naval history, Rickover and his team were chiefly responsible for buil ing the U.S. submarine fleet and nuclear-powered ships for 30 years starting in the early 1950s.
“I was just delighted to have the opportunity to work with him,” says Leighton, who now lives on Hilton Head. “ I admired his work and learned a great deal from him. And I tried to do good work myself, and I was very happy to have had that opportunity.” Leighton graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1945, following in the footsteps of his father, Adm. Frank Leighton “My interest in the Navy was from my father. I admired him tremendously, and wanted to be like him,” he says. He later received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT in 1948, and was the first student ever to earn an MIT master’s degree in nuclear engineering as a Naval officer in 1953 From 1952 to 1980, Leighton served with Rickover in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, where he helped to design and construct nuclear-powered naval warships. “We accomplished one heck of a lot. I wanted the opportunity to work on nuclear power and did so,” says Leighton, who retired in 1992. “I’m very proud of the work we did.” The Leighton science legacy continues in the next generation, as his oldest son, Tom, is a professor of applied mathematics at MIT and the CEO of Akamai Technologies. His youngest son, David Jr., is the head of the science department at the University of Notre Dame. M January 2016 75
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Carlton B. Dallas BY BLANCHE SULLIVAN | PHOTO BY LLOYD WAINSCOTT
MASTERFUL SPEAKER, CONNECTOR, TRANSFORMER When highly successful people are asked to share the secrets to their success or describe how they got their start, their anecdotes of their early days don’t typically involve hoping for failure. Carlton B. Dallas, who boasts an impressive petroleum industry and speaking career that has spanned 34 years, 19 moves and more than 50 countries, came from a humble beginning. Dallas, a North Carolina native, began his collegiate career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a solid student and played a little football until he hit a financial bump in the road and
returned home. “It was the ’70s and people were ‘finding themselves,’” he says. “I ran out of money and thought I would find myself too, but my parents had other ideas.” With his parents’ encouragement, Dallas inquired about job openings at a local Crown Central Petroleum convenience store. He prayed that there were none, but there were and his magnetic personality quickly secured him an interview. His potential employer required candidates to pass a polygraph and Dallas prayed he would fail it — he didn’t. Dallas accepted a position as a third-shift clerk and, instead of
treating his role as a simple job for a paycheck, took full advantage of his unique opportunity to run and learn a complete business at a young age. “I was responsible for revenues and margins, hiring and firing and more — all of the things I had studied in business school,” he says. Dallas continued his education, graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in management, and went on to study at Cornell University, the University of Chicago and The Young Executive Institute at the UNC Kenan Flagler School of Business. He also obtained 360-Degree Leadership Feedback/Development certific tion at the Center for Creative Leadership Research Institute. Throughout his diverse career, Dallas gained experience in marketing, management systems, sales, human resources, logistics and more. He fell in love with Hilton Head Island while attending a sales conference on the island and convinced Michele, his wife of 20 years with whom he has two sons, that Hilton Head should become the home for their next chapter. He retired in August 2010, but has shown no signs of slowing down. In addition to managing a robust speaking schedule and heading up Dallas International Trading and Solutions, which specializes in connecting investors, turning around businesses and transforming leaders, he is actively involved with a variety of other organizations and causes, including the Hilton Head Institute, the World Affairs Council of Hilton Head, the Don Ryan Center for Innovation, the Hilton Head Island Economic Development Corporation and the “Shark Tank”-esque Bring Your Business Idea to Life competition. M
Virginia Cutler THE BIRD LADY OF HILTON HEAD BY BARRY KAUFMAN PHOTOS BY ROB KAUFMAN The painted bunting, rightfully considered one of the most beautiful birds in North America, causes a stir wherever it alights. Recently, the media of New York City were agog at the sighting of one in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. The painted bunting may be a little more common here in the Lowcountry, but its appearance is nonetheless one that sticks with anyone who chances to see it. The same could be said for a bright yellow Jeep often seen traversing the island, adorned with a “Bird Lady” license plate. Many have seen it fleetingly, and nearly everyone who has remembers it. So who owns this remarkable vehicle? It should come as no surprise that this Jeep is property of the bird lady herself, Virginia Culter. Not only can Culter tell you where to spot painted bunting, she can tell you the best way to entice them into your backyard. (Hint: use millet). “It’s interesting to see what kinds of birds you can attract with different seeds,” Culter said. “My education was teaching. So I teach people to be successful in backyard feeding. I show them what works and why the big-box store bag of bird seed doesn’t.” That education generally takes place in Culter’s store of 21 years, Wild Birds Unlimited in Festival Centre.
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“Teaching is a big part of it because you can make so many mistakes,” she said. “We don’t get goldfinch until January, and they eat thistle. I have people who come in during the summer and say, ‘Well I bought a thistle feeder and didn’t see any birds.’ I tell them, ‘Well, if you’d have come here I’d have been able to tell you to put it on your Christmas list.’” But beyond the chance to educate customers, Culter sees each person that walks in the door as a fellow enthusiast in a hobby that first entranced her when she was just 2 years old watching birds through a window in Louisville, Kentucky. “I love working in a place like this because all the customers that come in want to come in. It’s not like when you have to pick out shoes to go with a dress for a party tonight. You don’t have to do it. They want to do it, and they enjoy it,” she said. Culter’s own joy of bird feeding is what brought her to the first
Wild Birds Unlimited store in Indianapolis, where she became a regular customer of the company’s owner, Jim Carpenter. When her husband, William, found himself downsized at 52 from American Harvester, he suggested she follow her passion. “He said, ‘Why don’t you go do that bird thing that you love?’ and I told him, ‘I don’t know how to do it,’” she said with a laugh. As luck would have it, the couple began looking through franchise books to find that Carpenter had started franchising his Wild Birds Unlimited concept. Since Culter’s second love is golf, a Hilton Head Island location seemed like the perfect fit And now, 21 years later, Culter’s Wild Birds Unlimited franchise is flying high, locals get to benefit from her expertise, and every once in a while savvy traffic watchers get to catch a glimpse of the bright yellow Jeep that belongs to the island’s resident “Bird Lady.” M January 2016 77
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