In 1978, newly minted high school graduate Russell Stall left Greenville, S.C., determined never to return.
“It just wasn’t a place I wanted to live,” Stall told members of the Savannah Downtown Business Association Wednesday. “It wasn’t cool. It wasn’t progressive.”
So, after earning a bachelor’s degree from Washington and Lee University and a master’s in business administration from Emory, the management consultant and founder of ResearchWorks, a strategic marketing firm, settled with his family in Atlanta.
It didn’t take long, however, for Stall and his wife to realize “the big city” wasn’t where they wanted to raise their two sons.
And so, after 16 years away, he did what he swore he would never do.
He went home. And, in the process, helped Greenville re-invent itself.
“The Greenville of today looks nothing like the town I left in 1978,” he said, pointing to a renaissance that had its roots in “Vision 2005,” a strategy put forth by former Greenville Mayor Max Heller in 1987 and since updated to “Vision 2025.”
Stall is executive director of Greenville Forward, a nonprofit corporation created to be the primary shepherd, facilitator and catalyst for the vision. As such, he has become one of the most vocal cheerleaders for his hometown project, which he wryly calls “a 40-year overnight success.”
“It’s fairly easy to develop a vision,” he told the group. “Turning that vision into reality? Not so easy.”
Greenville’s is a story of a community transformed through communication, leadership, buy-in and accountability, Stall said.
“Greenville is great today because this is a community that believes in itself, a community that’s just nervy enough to think it can achieve what it sets out to do.”
What it has accomplished so far is impressive. A sampling:
• A revitalized and vibrant downtown with free on-street parking and such main street anchors as the Hyatt Regency Greenville, whose lobby is actually a city park. Greenville is the smallest city in the country with a Hyatt Regency property.
• A downtown minor league baseball park that drew more than 300,000 last season.
• An old rail line converted to a tram trail and recreation attraction.
• The first downtown neighborhood school and every Greenville County school rebuilt in the last 10 years.
• A center for the performing arts.
• The attraction of a low-cost airline — Southwest.
• The development of Reedy River Falls Park and a comprehensive county parks development plan.
Much of what Greenville has done and is continuing to do could translate to other cities its size, Stall said, but it takes real commitment and constant vigilance.
“At Greenville Forward, we wake up every morning thinking about where Vision 2025 is, where it’s going and what we can do to help get it there.”
For more information on Greenville Forward and Vision 2025, go to www.greenvilleforward.com.