Oran Smith:
Our guest today is one of the co-founders of Palmetto Promise Institute, Ellen Weaver. Thought we would reminisce a little bit and talk about the past and the future and all those kinds of things.
Ellen Weaver:
A little walk down memory lane. Thank you.
It’s great to be here. I should have brought some kind of meritorious commendation medal for you. You have been putting up with me for almost 10 years now at this point, and you’re still here to tell the story.
Oran Smith:
That’s true. That’s true. Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
It’s been a good decade.
Oran Smith:
Yes. Yes. Well, I think from us working together for so many years, we have a lot of common traits. I probably shouldn’t say that to you, to insult you at the very beginning, at the top of the broadcast, but one of this kind of an obsession about South Carolina. I think whatever it is, maybe Governor McMaster’s got a lot of it, but we certainly have some of it too, and that is just an obsession with this state and everything about it. We just adore everything about it, and sometimes we struggle with whether we want more and more people to come adore it with us or whether we’re happy where we are. But it certainly is a great state to operate in and defend. A lot of great people here to work with on these kinds of issues that we’ve called our own over the years.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah, no, it’s an incredible place, and I love the history, I love the accent, I love the people. It’s just an awesome place to call home, and we are incredibly blessed. One of my favorite history books, I think you actually turned me onto, by Walter Edgar, Partisans and Redcoats.
Oran Smith:
Oh, yes. Wonderful.
Ellen Weaver:
That just talks about, you know, the revolution may have started by those damn Yankees, but we finished it here in the south, especially our corner of the state, the upstate. The Battle of King’s Mountain and so many of the touchstone victories that were won in the revolution here. So yeah, this is a great state, a great place to call home.
Oran Smith:
Yes. Of course, it won’t come as any surprise to people to know that a number of those battles, strictly King’s Mountain, were all, not necessarily all South Carolinians, but all Americans. Those that were pro-Brit and those that were pro-independent, and we fought amongst ourselves for a while there. And sometimes you have to do, that sounds like a legislative session, doesn’t it?
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah, it sure does.
Oran Smith:
Fought amongst yourselves for a while, and then you came down to a great conclusion-
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah, circle the wagons, and at the end of the day, it’s all about freedom.
Oran Smith:
It’s all about freedom, all about us. Well, I wanted to think back a little bit about how we got started back in the day. I remember distinctly that I felt that I was at Palmetto Family Council at the time. I had a longing for a broader set of issues to contend with, and it just seems like we weren’t getting to where we needed to be on that. And I remember thinking, “Who would be a good face for this thing?” Because having somebody that was known and respected was where it started. And I remember I got on your schedule, and you were Jim Dement’s state director at the time, and came over and visited with you in the old Bank of America building, and we started talking about what a new policy entity might look like.
And I remember thinking, wow, she was really into that. Ellen Weaver was really into that whole idea of starting a new policy group, and then what? 12, 13, 14, 15 months later, here we are. What we were knocking around as a possibility was chartered and was a real thing. And I just thought that was purely a God thing and that you were able to persuade Senator Dement to throw in with us. And that was once we had him on board, we were off to the races.
Ellen Weaver:
No, that’s it. We could have never imagined in that first conversation that we’d be sitting here 10 years later talking about what has become the premier policy organization in South Carolina. It all started in that little office with that conversation. And I remember Senator Dement had fought a lot of hard fights in the Senate. And one of the things that has just always impressed me about him so much is that freedom has always been at his core. And he’s so consistent. And people here in South Carolina recognize that; they sent him back to the Senate in 2010 in overwhelming numbers, and he had always said he was only going to run for two terms. So that was his second term in the Senate. And he had built up so much, what I call political capital, goodwill. People, when he came home to South Carolina, treated him like a rockstar because, again, he said what he meant and meant what he said.
And so as I thought about, as a longtime staffer, felt very protective of him, and his legacy had worked hard for him for over 10 years at that point, and I was thinking about what he could do with his political capital that would make a long-term difference here in South Carolina. And it was clear to me that we have so many great things, as we talked about, so many advantages as a state that just a few good policy decisions could set us apart from the rest of the country for decades to come. South Carolina can lead a freedom revolution in America. It’s never going to happen in DC.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
And that’s what Jim came to realize too. It’s never going to be started in DC; it’s going to start from the grassroots up. And so when we first had that conversation, I’m a brainstormer, as you know, by nature anyway, but just the lights started going off.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
And then here we are.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
10 years later.
Oran Smith:
Yes. Just phenomenal. And not having worked with the senator very much, I was from the same neck of the woods as he was and had bumper stickers on my car, but was not involved with him very, very closely. And what I really tried to understand was how selfless he is and how his ability to cast policies in terms and in ways to make people understand them and to speak almost in word pictures where people can grasp it and say, yeah, I think that’s something that we need to do. I don’t think he has really any idea what a genius really he is in that way. Everything is sort of, “Aw, shucks.” And, “I probably borrowed that somewhere.” He never, never allows any praise, which that was a great experience to learn from the master in that way.
Ellen Weaver:
He’s such a great communicator, but like you said, maybe one of the most humble people that I have ever met. And I really think that that’s his defining virtue. And I think that that really is the foundation of great leadership because with humility comes courage. You realize that there are going to be people who think you’re the second coming, and there are going to be people who think you are Satan incarnate.
Oran Smith:
Yes. He had both.
Ellen Weaver:
And he had both. And he never let either extreme turn his head. He always was very grounded in who he was and why he believed what he believed. And it was always about the ideas. It was never about him. And so when I think back on the opportunity I had to work for him for 12 years, and just to absorb that on a daily basis, I just pray that I can aspire to be half of the public servant that he was because he is just an incredible man and an awesome mentor.
Oran Smith:
That’s for sure. I love the way, from the very beginning, he encouraged us to talk about federalism and the laboratories of democracy that states were. And I think sometimes we were very happy to be dealing with state matters because the national situation was so insane, and there were plenty of people already working in that arena. But just a number of times, I think in those early years, we would have an idea to do something that we considered relatively simple, but the reception we got was maybe outsized for that. When we decided, let’s see the difference — and I think this is going to turn a light on —let’s see the difference between South Carolina and Florida on some standardized test scores and other measures of academic strength or lack thereof. And when we found out that maybe the first paper we ever published that South Carolina had been ahead of Florida, do I remember that right?
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Oran Smith:
Yeah. Ahead of Florida.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. In 1998.
Oran Smith:
And then all of a sudden, America’s report card, the NAEP scores as they come out, were drifting to the point where Florida’s special education students were performing better than our average, in gains at least. And that seemed to be a call for change in education that came very early, and education was always a part of what we did from day one. And I think that’s come to fruition. But in those early years, I remember, and no one will know this but us. The name that we inherited when we first started the organization we thought was quite bizarre. We were originally, very briefly, maybe for about a day, known as the Palmetto Fort Foundation. And I remember when you and I looked over the tax exemption letter and thought, what in the world does that mean? And eventually, we figured out that it had to do with the siege of Charleston —
Ellen Weaver:
That’s right.
Oran Smith:
— and the posting of the colors in Charleston. And that we were going to, I guess, reenact what happened at the Palmetto Log Fort. Great symbolism, but we thought that maybe something a little more aspirational worked better. And that’s eventually where we settled on Palmetto Promise because we wanted to realize the promise that one generation has to another.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. No, absolutely. And this state is full of promise. And going back to what you were talking about in terms of federalism, I think we talked early on about competitive federalism and the idea that when states compete, America wins. And I think that nowhere is that more true than in the education arena. And you’re absolutely right; that very first report that we ever published looked at the suite of reforms that Florida enacted that really turned around education in Florida. They are now leading the country in many areas in terms of growth and opportunity for their students for parental choice. We see that parents in Florida are grasping that opportunity every single chance that they get. And that as a result, public education in Florida is thriving.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
And so, back to that initial report, I think it’s such a great roadmap for where South Carolina can go. And it is interesting. When we first started working in that space, could have had no idea where this ultimately was going to land.
Oran Smith:
Yes, “The Hope Plan.”
Ellen Weaver:
Yes. I remember “The Hope Plan.”
Oran Smith:
All these warm memories of “The Hope Plan” and “The Top 10 Ways to Supercharge Education.
Ellen Weaver:
Yep. Absolutely. Yep.
Oran Smith:
That was another one of our missiles that we launched.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah, how about “Fund Students, Not Systems.” And we’ve started that work here in South Carolina and still work to finish in terms of tying dollars directly to students, getting dollars down into classrooms and out of programs and bureaucracy. We took some great steps in the legislature, as you know, this year to start that process.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
But we’ve been talking about that for a long time. And so I think working here at Palmetto Promise has increased my sense of urgency about what needs to happen, but yet also given me maybe a more realistic timeline horizon for how long it takes to get things done, how long it takes to turn the Titanic.
Oran Smith:
And here’s probably confession time because we would talk about an issue, and we were both very excited about issue X, and I was thinking in terms, well, I think we can get this done before the end of this two-year legislative session. And you were more like, well, I thought we were going to get this done by the end of the week.
Ellen Weaver:
We have so many more issues to get done. We don’t have time to waste.
Oran Smith:
So I always felt sometimes that maybe I was the slowpoke because I was saying sometimes the legislature moves at glacier-like speed. But thinking about the legislature, I think the legislature that we were working in, in 2013 was very different. Maybe I’d cast that the opposite way. The legislature that is going to be sworn in the same day you will be (or roughly the same time) in 2023 will be the 125th — for those nerds like me who count them. The 125th General Assembly 2023-2024. It is the 125th General Assembly, 2023-2024. So the legislature now is different from the one we started with. We had a handful of folks that were interested in policy and interested in federalism and interested in reform. But we had a lot of folks that, frankly, were just happy with the way things were. But take a look at the election results, the primary results, the general election results, and you were on the campaign trail every day. Were you sensing a true groundswell that the future legislatures were going to be different from the former ones?
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. No, absolutely. The energy amongst grassroots South Carolina is palpable. I think they are just disgusted with what they see coming out of Washington, and they know that the chance to really make a difference is here in South Carolina. And so I think you see that level of urgency amongst the lawmakers who were elected and will be sworn in. And you and I have talked many, many times about how different it is, especially the South Carolina Senate.
Oran Smith:
Wow.
Ellen Weaver:
Yes, I mean, night and day different from 2013.
Oran Smith:
It used to be the graveyard.
Ellen Weaver:
Yep.
Oran Smith:
Even as late as 2019, it was still the Gressette graveyard. I always throw in free South Carolina history here, but Marion Gressette was the gentleman who controlled the South Carolina Senate, chair of the Judiciary Committee. Rembert Dennis was chair of the finance committee. And between the two of them, the House could have all kinds of wonderful ideas, but the Gressette graveyard made sure that those bills didn’t have a chance. And still, the old Gressette graveyard was still operating when we were working on some of those early issues. And then 2020 comes, and all of a sudden, there are 30 Republicans.
Wow, that has been transformative. And you’ve got to hand it to the Senate. They’ve really taken the mantle of conservatism and an energetic version of it. They seem to have an agenda; they’re making a list and checking it twice, and pushing things through. So good for them. Now the house is like, well, wait a minute, what has happened here? We were the reformers. We were the aggressive ones. So having a conservatism contest that’s taking place across the lobby, that sounds like a pretty good thing.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah.
Oran Smith:
Trying to out conservative each other.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. No, it really is. And I think it’s a dynamic that has existed in some of our fellow southeastern states for a while, but having it here finally arrive, finally break upon the shores of South Carolina is wonderful. And when I think about the opportunity that we have to take an education system that has been holding students, teachers, and parents back for far too long, I’m really excited about the team that we have in the Senate, in the House, in the governor’s office, to actually move these big ideas that we have known for decades that we need to take forward.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
So I think we have a great team in place. And a lot of that starts with the General Assembly.
Oran Smith:
Yes. Well, I think the only thing that we have had missing until now is someone that was bossy.
Ellen Weaver:
I don’t know anybody who’s bossy. So, next! I call it assertive.
Oran Smith:
Exactly!
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. Yeah.
Oran Smith:
It is a marvelous memory from when we were forming Palmetto Promise. I called up, let’s just say it was a member of Congress, and I said —
Ellen Weaver:
Not Jim Dement.
Oran Smith:
Not Jim Dement. “Jim Dement, Ellen Weaver, and I are working to form this new policy group,” and they said, “Ellen Weaver? Wow. She’s bossy, isn’t she?” And I said, “Well, yeah, that’s been my experience. But I really like it. It’s kept me from having to be bossy.”
Ellen Weaver:
That’s right. Got to get things done.
Oran Smith:
And we’re getting “bleep” done. We’re getting things done.
Ellen Weaver:
Yes.
Oran Smith:
So, again, thinking back to some of those early years and folks that were somewhat, not unknown, but,I think maybe we had a little bit to do with making stars out of them. And I think of Rebecca Gunnlaugsson being one. Dr. Gunnlaugsson had been the chief economist for the State Department of Commerce. And she turned out really to be the only person I think that existed on the planet that could get our ideas turned into numbers. And, of course, our ideas when — like they say — “All right, let’s just run the numbers and see how it comes out.”
And it was a little risky for us because we had some ideas about school finance. That our schools were not underfunded, they were really more misfunded. We also had some ideas about the income tax, the property tax and the sales tax. They were out of whack. And what would happen if you adjusted each one of those? What would the outcome be? And we sweated a little bit there because we weren’t sure how the numbers were going to come out, but we knew we had the right person to tell us what the numbers really meant. And I honestly believe Dr. Rebecca Gunnlaugsson, there wasn’t anybody else around that was going to be able to test our theories and tell us if they held any water or not.
Ellen Weaver:
And to really pull people back to the big picture, to make data actionable, because she just has such a gift for taking this incredibly complex data and making a story out of it that your average person can follow, because you know the temptation, whether you’re talking about tax reform, education, finance, these really complicated issues, the media does their very best to boil it down to an “us versus them” winners and losers scenario.
Oran Smith:
Winners and losers. Yeah.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. So they kill reforms out of the cradle because it’s this narrative that you can’t counteract. And that’s what’s so brilliant about so much of the work that Rebecca does is that she pulls this incredibly deep and complex data up to a 30,000-foot view story that people can understand and relate to.
Oran Smith:
Yes. Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
Especially lawmakers. Lawmakers have information coming at them every possible way. And so to be able to take incredibly complicated topics and turn them into something that they can get their arms around is a gift. And Rebecca certainly has that gift.
Oran Smith:
She has the gift. I remember her telling us that she had asked X agency to provide some data. And the response, and she probably heard this a lot, was, well, no one’s really asked for that kind of data before. Well, of course not. Because it was complicated. It was not something you could do in Microsoft Excel on a weekend. It was incredibly complex. And she had to discover those relationships between the data and then developed it into a gorgeous presentation. And I think that was a good symbol of where we were headed. Because we wanted to be in-depth, but we wanted to have what they call now infographics. We wanted the ability to paint a picture with that data.
So when you are on the campaign trail, probably the hardest thing for you to be able to do in a soundbite, though I think I heard you do it a few times, was explaining to the people of South Carolina whether or not our schools were underfunded or not. And I don’t know how long your answers were for those debates, but they were short.
Ellen Weaver:
Yes.
Oran Smith:
But given a little bit more time, how would you describe that to the average South Carolinian out there who’s looking at school funding and trying to make sense of it?
Ellen Weaver:
Well, first of all, it’s incredibly complicated. For decades, we’ve had one of the most complex funding formulas. We call it a spider web at Palmetto Promise.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
One of the most complex funding formulas in the country. And you have all these different streams of money that are coming in, federal, state, local, the bond expenditures that aren’t even included in the per pupil revenue. And so you have all of these sources of money, and typically they are not tied to the needs of a student. And at the end of the day, I think we have to step back and say, what is the whole point of this education system? Is it to build a bunch of Taj Mahals? Is it to have a really great football field? Or is it to actually make sure that our kids can read and write? That we’re paying our teachers a competitive wage to actually attract high-quality people into the profession? So, these are just fundamental questions that we have to ask. And most South Carolinians have no idea that we are spending upwards of $11 billion a year on education. And again, that’s not the capital expenditures, that’s just the federal, state and local revenue streams.
Oran Smith:
No buildings in that.
Ellen Weaver:
No buildings in that. And so that comes out to almost $16,000 on average per student. And that varies from one district to another. We have our lower districts that are maybe around $11,000 a student up to over $25,000 a student.
Oran Smith:
At the school level.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. And the crazy thing is, is that for that disparity between districts — when you’re looking at our highest revenue per pupil district, and our lowest revenue per pupil district, at similar high levels of poverty, both rural communities — there is no difference in outcomes. So for $15,000 of difference, you can’t provide a child in poverty in a rural community a better education. It doesn’t make any sense at all. You have to ask, how is this money being spent? And those are the hard questions that we’re going to have to get in there and ask.
And I think at the end of the day, the key question, the North Star of everything we do has to be, “How does this help students?”
Because we have far too many conversations that are about the adults and their agendas and the vendors and their agendas, and far too few conversations about what are we doing to put parents in the driver’s seat to make sure their kids can get the education they need wherever they live, whatever their zip code.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
And so I’m really excited about the opportunity as superintendent to lead those conversations, to convene those conversations. And certainly not to be the only one in the room doing the talking. Listening.
And that’s been one of the greatest opportunities, again, in this campaign, is just listening to people and hearing their concerns, and then being able to take that back to my work here in Columbia and translate that into action in partnership with the governor and the General Assembly.
Oran Smith:
Well, I think the General Assembly’s going to figure out pretty quickly that you have an ability to get people to work together, people that don’t, may not like each other. I’ve been in a number of rooms where we’ve had that experience and thought that we were probably going to have blood on the floor before it was over, but we came out with some agreements that we really didn’t expect. And some cases, particularly on ed finance, because a lot of it’s just common sense and you had to rally people behind the idea, and then all of a sudden, it’s a budget proviso everything we wanted, maybe someday statutory law.
Ellen Weaver:
Yes. That’s the next step.
Oran Smith:
I’m probably asking you too early, but if you could, Madame Superintendent, getting that in the statute would be great.
Well, the one negative about your exceeding to the Office of State Superintendent is you won’t be the President & CEO of Palmetto Promise anymore. What do you see as the future of Palmetto Promise if you can cast your vision forward and see where you think some opportunities might lie?
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, there’s no question that the state has got to have an organization like Palmetto Promise that is doing exactly what we were talking about earlier, which is taking these incredibly complicated issues that often live in government bureaucracies and silos, and translating them into information that average voters and lawmakers can actually take action on. And so, as I think about the opportunity for Palmetto Promise to really continue to dig in on some of these bread and butter issues, these are kitchen table issues that are impacting families as we speak: our energy prices, our healthcare bills, our children’s education, so many of the other quality of life issues that we’ve talked about like how our judicial system operates. These are real issues that touch real people.
And at the end of the day, that’s why — and I keep saying, “at the end of the day,” I got to get out of that habit. I don’t know where I p icked that up.
Oran Smith:
Is Mark Sanford on the same campaign trail?
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. I’m like, what is happening right now?
But anyway, I just think there’s so much opportunity to connect policy to the people that it impacts. And that’s why I think you and I both love this space so much, is that at the end of the day, policy is not just about abstract numbers and ideas, it’s about helping real people live their best life, reach their full promise, their full potential.
Oran Smith:
So you’re saying we need to go beyond policy?
Ellen Weaver:
Yes. We have got to go beyond policy. It’s almost like, gosh, that’d be a great name for a podcast.
Oran Smith:
Yes.
Ellen Weaver:
But as I think about Palmetto Promise’s future, I just think continuing the momentum and the energy that we’ve been able to build over the last 10 years. And there’s no question it’s been a team effort. So finding someone who has that passion for South Carolina being the very best it can be, leading the way for the rest of the country, and making those few good decisions that we know can put us in the catbird seat when it comes to competition with our neighbors. Because again, we may be an in-migration state, the southeast in general, we see a lot of people moving here, but-
Oran Smith:
A lot of foreign license plates.
Ellen Weaver:
A lot of foreign license plates, yes. But we see our neighboring states, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, moving to modernize their tax system, their infrastructure, their education system, and South Carolina can’t get left behind.
Oran Smith:
And two of them either modified or basically got rid of certificate of need, which is another one our causes.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. So that’s why Palmetto Promise Institute, I think, has a vital and bright future here in South Carolina.
Oran Smith:
Yes, absolutely.
I don’t know if, as you’re looking to the new position at the department, are there some back-of-the-envelope ideas or thoughts that you have going in for how you would like to see the department run. I realize some of these things you would have to kill me to tell me, but things that you are willing to say publicly about your mindset. Some of your — not necessarily goals, even though those would be wonderful as well — but as you’re going into that office, and I understand that, as we are speaking together in the coming days, you’ll be having lots of meetings to figure out exactly who is doing what, and maybe to assess whether the right folks are in the right seats and these kinds of things. But as you’re looking very excitedly toward the new position, what are some thoughts?
Ellen Weaver:
The Department of Education needs to be a customer service organization. We are there to serve the local districts and schools who are on the front lines, educating children. We are there to serve teachers. And so many of the things that we do in terms of all the teacher licensure and many other things that we handle there at the department, professional development directly impact the lives of teachers. And most importantly, we’re there to serve students and parents. And I think for a long time, parents in South Carolina have maybe felt like they didn’t have a voice. We have a lot of professional associations doing a lot of professional lobbying here in the General Assembly, but who’s here speaking up for parents? And so I think as superintendent, that’s going to be one of my most important functions, is to always be pulling this back to why are we doing this? What are all these conversations about?
And it’s about equipping students to reach their full potential and putting parents in the driver’s seat to make the best decision they can for their students. So I’m excited. I’m excited about that opportunity. It also is going to come down to building a great team. Ronald Reagan, I think, said, “personnel is policy. So, making sure that we have great people in place who have the energy and the vision to realize that we can support great public education in South Carolina, but doing that doesn’t tie us to one way of doing things, maybe the way we’ve always done things. It’s okay to innovate, to change, to create new flexibilities for our schools, for our teachers to be the CEOs of their classrooms, for principals to be the CEOs of their schools. There is so much red tape that we could cut here in Columbia.
Oran Smith:
If there was any misnomer of your campaign effort, were people that would say, she’s trying to tell the districts what to do. I think you’d just rather give them some dough and then have them innovate.
Ellen Weaver:
Well, and the problem in general with government regulation is that we always regulate to the lowest common denominator. And you end up tying the hands of really great, innovative superintendents and teachers and principals who want to do great things for their kids. And if you gave them some leeway, they would.
Oran Smith:
Without telling them, sorry, there’s no money in that account, but we’ve got all this money in this other account that you’re not allowed to use.
Ellen Weaver:
Yeah. Go buy some technology that’s going to sit in a store room and nobody touch it.
It just doesn’t make any sense. So I think we have so much opportunity to build a really great high-functioning team at the department and to ensure that everything that we do there is aligned to serving our customers.
Oran Smith:
Yes. Well, one of our heroes when we first started working together was Phil Owens, who was Chair of the House Education Public Works Committee at that time. And I remember there was this really complicated issue that everyone had a passionate opinion about. A lot of disagreement, won’t say exactly what it was, but at one point, he called a meeting, got everybody in the room, and he said, “I want us all to think about what’s in the best interest of the child.” And within five minutes, everyone figured out the path forward. And then it became a really marvelous reform in our state. But just needed someone to say that and to remind everyone of that. And he was certainly someone who did that so well. And you’ve already done that so well, even in your campaign, and will as the next superintendent. Well, any last words for us as you’re transferring your flag from one battleship to another?
Ellen Weaver:
Well, how about, “I have not yet begun to fight.”
Oran Smith:
There you go!
Ellen Weaver:
We have a lot of work to do. And as I think through this retrospective we’ve just had, it’s wonderful to think back about the battles we fought, the difference that we’ve made. But it also just reminds me that reform is never finished, and success is never final, as Governor Bush always likes to say. And so we have so much opportunity in front of us, and as I think about handing the baton off to the next leader of Palmetto Promise, it’s bittersweet, but it’s also wonderful to think that as PPI enters a second decade of existence —
Oran Smith:
Hard to believe.
Ellen Weaver:
— there’s a new opportunity for growth and for reimagining what’s possible.
So I think that fresh perspective and fresh energy is going to be really exciting. And that said, I’m also incredibly grateful to know that you’re going to have a steady hand on the wheel. Your work there has been such an invaluable part of making the Palmetto Promise brand the trusted brand that it is.
Oran Smith:
Well, thank you. I’m just thrilled that I’m going to get to continue to do what I like to do, and that is write about things and talk about things. And this podcast is one of the new ways of doing that. So I’m very excited about that. And I think, given your drive and determination as we continue this nautical theme here. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.
Ellen Weaver:
Here, here.
Oran Smith:
Amen. Thank you for being with us today.
Ellen Weaver:
My pleasure. Thanks, Oran.
