Real Estate/Construction
Education
Demographics
employment & economic development
Financial Services
MARKET FACTS Dear Reader, Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Columbia Regional Business Report’s Market Facts. When we came up with the idea of publishing Market Facts, we envisioned it as a tool for our readers to use when composing new business plans or updating existing ones. It was born at our Charleston publication out of our need to gather facts and data to support our own expansion. When we found out what a pain it was to find everything we needed, we had an epiphany: “Gee, somebody ought to publish this stuff!” Our vision is to grow this publication in the coming years and make it the sister publication to our annual Book of Lists. The combination of the listings of the largest companies in most of the major business categories in the Book of Lists with the statistics and other data presented in Market Facts in chart, graph and table format gives you a pretty good grasp on the region’s business community. I extend my best wishes to you in the year to come and hope Market Facts aids you in improving the performance of your business planning. I also want to recognize all of our advertisers for enabling us to provide this and other valuable resources for the region’s business decision-makers. And finally, I ask you to join me in giving our research department a big “high-five” for doing all this painstaking work so you and I don’t have to! Sincerely, Bob Bouyea Publisher, Columbia Regional Business Report
Contents Real Estate/Construction................................. 10 Education........................................................ 12 Demographics................................................. 14 Employment & Economic Development........... 16 Financial Services........................................... 19