FLORENCE — Justin Mack Sr. started his home health care business, 1st Palmetto Medical Services, in March 2021. He did so while also serving as assistant fire chief at Palmetto Rural Fire Department.
He first needed to find a place to run it, though.
Some of the spaces that suited his needs in Florence would have cost him around $2,500 in rent each month. That didn’t include utilities.
A friend of his, who had grown a business in the Gould Manufacturing and Business Incubator, had a solution to his problem. Mack was put in touch with Tressa Gardner, associate vice president at the Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing and Technology, a part of the the Florence-Darlington Technical College in Florence, which houses the Gould Incubator.
Gardner gave Mack a tour of the incubator that day.
Now, he runs 1st Palmetto and an ambulance service he purchased, Med Atlantic, out of the building.
“I owe it all to the incubator,” Mack said.
Gould and the Kelley Center for Economic Development, attached to Francis Marion University, provide an affordable space in the Florence area for businesses to start, grow and learn how to better operate.
Businesses from the Kelley Center have ended up in downtown Florence, which has experienced its own revitalization in recent years.
The suite Mack was looking at cost three times more than the office space he has at the incubator. He runs his two businesses from there and is working on getting more space.
One big boost is that the rent includes utilities, and the maintenance of them is in the hands of the SiMT, which saves businesses money and time.
Med Atlantic operated out of a building off Santiago Drive when Mack bought it.
There was barely enough room for two crew members and a secretary under the same roof, he said. There were security concerns in the area since people would start working early in the morning and get off late at night, when it was still dark out.
He said around-the-clock security was one of the biggest perks of being in the incubator.
“It was cluttered, no room to do anything, the facilities were outside, it was just bad,” Mack said.
Mack is working on getting another space in the incubator as he goes into his third year there.
He has access to the expansive parking lot of SiMT, where he keeps some of his ambulances parked.
Another perk of being connected to SiMT is getting potential employees through students. Mack will pay for his drivers’ and students’ EMT national certification classes while they work for him.
Gould has office spaces, conference rooms and loading bays. It had signed its 104th lease as of Sept. 12. Gardner said there are 15 companies on a waiting list for the incubator as of Sept. 12.
“We’re helping preserve capital, basically,” Gardner said.
Some businesses in the incubator include insurance, speech therapists and nonprofits.
It’s also home to the offices of the Florence Flamingos baseball team.
One of those insurance companies, Mack said, is the company he uses for his home health care company’s insurance.
“You ever have any issues, you got somebody, you can knock on a door and can sit down in an instant,” Mack said.
The incubator is a frequent host to local, state and federal resources, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business Administration. Mack said he learned about a lot of programs he wasn’t aware of that could support his businesses through these visits.
One of those local resources is William Barefoot, who provides business accounting and advisory services through his private firm. Barefoot moved his private firm out of the Kelley Center in August after being there for two years.
The Kelley Center is located in downtown Florence and has been the home of businesses that resided there, such as a dance studio and Influence Digital Agency. It also has a sister office in The Continuum in Lake City more focused toward growing already existing businesses.
Barefoot said the Center helped him better define, market and share his services with the area. They even helped make his logo, a lighthouse with his name in front of it. Besides providing a relatively cheap space in the downtown area, a valuable resource the Center offered was being able to provide feedback to his ideas.
“They played a huge part in getting my business off the ground,” Barefoot said.
The Kelley Center was formerly known as The North Dargan Innovation Center as a partner with the city of Florence from 2016 to 2019. It’s seen 23 businesses come and go since 2016.
Some of these graduated businesses still keep in touch with Rachel Lane, the Executive Director of the Kelley Center for Economic Development. She’s a Florence native and Francis Marion University alumna who worked with the city’s Downtown Development Department and saw the decline and rise of the downtown area.
“I really want to see all the small businesses that are here thrive,” Lane said.
Mack recommended Gould to a friend starting her business, who is now in it, as he now looks toward further growth of his own company. He’s even dipped into his savings to make it work. He said a lot more small businesses would make it if more incubators were available.
His dream is to eventually get his own space out in his native Darlington so he can assist Darlington County Emergency Management Services with transportation.
“I just want to help my people,” Mack said.
Reach Tyler Fedor at 843-998-3484. Follow him on Twitter at @tylerrfedor. Send tips to [email protected].
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