SCICU elects Sonoco VP as board chair and taps six new trustees

SCICU elects Sonoco VP as new board chair and taps six new trustees. — (L-R) Jerry Cheatham, new SCICU Board chair, presents Russell Cook, outgoing chair, with framed artwork of Wofford College’s iconic Main Building. Cook is a 1983 graduate of Wofford College.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU) is proud to announce the election of Jerry Cheatham, a long-time advocate for education in South Carolina, as its new chair of the board of trustees.

Cheatham succeeds Russell Cook as board chair. Cook, managing director of Comporium Ventures, led SCICU during the leadership transition from retiring President and CEO Mike LeFever to Dr. Jeff Perez as SCICU’s new president and CEO in 2018. Cheatham served as chair of the executive search committee.

Cheatham, SCICU’s new board chair, is staff vice president of finance (Industrial North America) for Sonoco (Hartsville, S.C.). He also is a member of the board of trustees for Coker University, one of the 20 member colleges and universities in SCICU. In addition to his higher education advocacy, Cheatham is substantially invested in K-12 education in South Carolina’s Pee Dee region, serving as the president of the Darlington County Education Foundation.

SCICU trustees also elected the following S.C. business and education leaders to the board:

Scott Hagler, Midlands market president – Security Federal Bank (Columbia, S.C.)
Annie Ham, vice president of marketing – McCall Farms (Florence, S.C.)
Spencer Jordan, Ed.D., executive director – S.C. Independent Schools Association (SCISA, Orangeburg, S.C.)
Robert McKie, cybersecurity technology consultant – Dominion Energy (Columbia, S.C.)
Brent Weaver, vice president for government banking – Wells Fargo (Columbia, S.C.)
Sharon Williams, associate director – Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough Center for Professionalism at the USC School of Law (Columbia, S.C.)

The following outgoing trustees are recognized by SCICU for their invaluable advocacy on behalf of S.C.’s leading independent colleges and universities:

Henry Barton, vice president of government affairs (retired) – Duke Energy (Greenwood, S.C.)
Tushar Chikhliker, attorney / member – Nexsen Pruett (Columbia, S. C.)
Jim Reynolds, CEO – Total Comfort Solutions (Columbia, S.C.)
Daniel Sanders – president (retired ) – ExxonMobil Chemical Company (Greenville, S.C.)
Ed Zeigler – president and CEO – Craig Gaulden Davis (Greenville, S.C.)

As chair of the SCICU Council of Presidents, Krista Newkirk, president of Converse College, will serve as vice chair of SCICU’s board of trustees.