Board officers elected are Karl Folkens '78, an attorney in Florence, South Carolina,
as chair and retired banking executive Glenn McCall of Rock Hill, South Carolina,
as vice chair. Both will serve one-year terms.
ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA — At its June 10 meeting the Winthrop University Board of Trustees unanimously elected its officers. The board chose current Vice Chair Karl Folkens '78, an attorney in Florence, South Carolina, as its new chair. Voted in as vice
chair was retired banking executive Glenn McCall of Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Both will serve one-year terms.
Folkens has served 18 years on Winthrop's Board of Trustees, with four terms as board chair and six terms as vice-chair. He was first elected
to one of the Winthrop Alumni Association seats for a four-year term and is now in
his 14th year in the legislatively appointed seat for the 7th congressional district.
He also is a member of the Winthrop Foundation Board of Directors.
A past president of the S.C. Bar Foundation, Folkens also is a past chair of the S.C.
Bar Alternative Dispute Resolution Section, and a former member of the S.C. Bar House
of Delegates and the Supreme Court's Joint Commission on Alternative Dispute Resolution.
He was the Municipal Court Judge for the town of Timmonsville and president of the
Florence County Bar.
A founding director and past president of the Pee Dee Coalition Against Sexual and
Domestic Assault, he has served continuously on its Board of Directors for the past
29 years. He was a board member of the Pee Dee Mental Health Center, president and
board member of the Mental Health Association of Florence County and was a member
of the Board of Directors of the Mental Health Awareness Foundation.
Folkens is currently listed in The Best Lawyers in America and South Carolina Super
Lawyers, and has an AV Preeminent Rating (the highest rating available) from Martindale-Hubbell.
In addition, he is a licensed S.C. Real Estate Broker with Folkens Real Estate, LLC.
Folkens received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina School
of Law in 1980. He received his Bachelor of Arts in psychology with a minor in mathematics
from Winthrop.
Elected as vice-chair of the Board of Trustees was McCall, a retired senior vice president of Bank of America, where he led the consumer customer behavior analysis group. McCall was first appointed
to the Winthrop board in 2011 as the Education Superintendent designee. He was then
legislatively appointed to an at-large seat in 2014.
Throughout his 27 years in the financial services field, McCall specialized in strategic
planning, revenue growth, cost reduction, technology, operations management and analysis
of customer behavior to create tailored marketing campaigns and online banking services.
He completed 10 years of active duty in the U.S. Air Force and served 14 years in
the Texas Air National Guard. South Carolina Republicans elected McCall in 2008 as
their first African-American national committeeman, and he has risen in the ranks
to be named as one of two vice chairs for the 2016 RNC National Convention this summer in Cleveland, Ohio. He was previously the York County GOP's first African-American
chairman.
A one-time member of the Board of Directors of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental
Control, McCall also served on the Board of Directors for the S.C. Human Affairs Commission
and York County Chapter of the American Red Cross.
A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, McCall holds a bachelor's
degree in management information systems. His Master of Business Administration was
earned from Amber University.
In other board action, members:
* Voted to establish a Bachelor of Science in human development and family studies,
which is renaming the degree program formerly called family and consumer sciences.
* Honored retiring Athletics Director Tom Hickman, who finishes his tenure this summer
with his 27th year overall at Winthrop and his 20th year as Winthrop's director of
athletics.
* Recognized the service of Board of Trustees member Scott Talley, who did not seek
re-election, and Ray McKetty, outgoing chair of the Council of Student Leaders and
the student representative to the board.
For more information, contact Judy Longshaw, news and media services manager, at 803/323-2404 or e-mail her at longshawj@winthrop.edu.
