Commerce agency gets interim manager

Former stockbroker will be department’s third chief of staff since January 2003

By JIM DuPLESSIS

jduplessis@thestate.com

A retired stockbroker who moved to South Carolina six years ago and joined Gov. Mark Sanford’s staff last fall has been named interim chief of staff for the state Commerce Department.

Charles H. Maguire III will replace Aiken businessman Tim Dangerfield, who is stepping down next week. Maguire, 62, will be the third chief of staff since Sanford took office in January 2003.

Joel Sawyer, Gov. Mark Sanford’s spokesman, said Maguire spent 35 years before retiring from Merrill Lynch and was from Ohio.

Beyond that, he could provide no further background or a photo.

The Commerce Department provided a one-page sheet with written statements from Dangerfield and Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor. It also did not have biographical information on Maguire or a photo of the person who will manage the governor’s cabinet agency responsible for recruiting jobs to the state.

Maguire joined the governor’s office last September as a senior adviser, and Sanford appointed him cabinet director in February.

“He and I have gotten to know each other very well,” said Sanford via a telephone hookup he arranged from Kuwait with S.C. reporters.

“He has quite a bit of managerial experience, given what he did at Merrill Lynch,” Sanford said. “He will do very well over there.”

A search of articles on LexisNexis show Maguire joined Merrill Lynch in 1969 and managed its Cincinnati office in the 1980s and 1990s. He moved to South Carolina in 2000, becoming manager of its Charleston office before retiring here.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cincinnati College, now the University of Cincinnati, and has four children, according to a 1993 article in the Cincinnati Business Courier.

Sen. Tommy Moore, D-Aiken, who is challenging Sanford in the Nov. 7 general election, declined to comment, saying he didn’t know enough about Maguire.

Moore did say Sanford needs to get Commerce under control.

“Attracting new business and more jobs to the state is challenging enough without continuing turmoil in the agency responsible for doing the job,” Moore said.

Patrick Norton, spokesman for the S.C. Democratic Party, criticized Sanford for choosing someone with no economic development experience at a time when the state has the nation’s third-highest jobless rate.

“Sanford could have picked any of a number of experienced, qualified economic development leaders in our state,” Norton said, “but instead he chose one of his buddies.”

Sawyer said the primary role of Commerce’s chief of staff is management.

“C.H. has over three decades of management experience,” Sawyer said. “It’s to his credit he came out of retirement and offered to do what he could do to help out.”

Maguire was out of the country on vacation and could not be reached. Dangerfield was out of the office and could not be reached.

Taylor, who returned to Columbia from a trip to Canada Wednesday afternoon, said in a telephone interview that Dangerfield told him of his plans to resign two or three weeks ago.

“I really don’t know why we didn’t announce it at that time,” Taylor said.

Asked when he planned to begin or complete a search for a permanent chief of staff, Taylor said he doesn’t have a timetable.

“C.H. might be the permanent chief of staff,” Taylor said of Maguire, whom he has known for about a year.

Taylor said Dangerfield is leaving to spend more time with his family.

Commerce has seen several top-level changes since Sanford took office in January 2003.

• Sanford appointed Charleston businessman Bob Faith as Commerce Secretary in January 2003.

• Faith left the chief of staff job open until summer, when he hired Joe James.

• James spent only four months on the job before Faith replaced him with Dangerfield in January 2004.

• Faith resigned in February, and Taylor took office in March.

Staff Writer John O’Connor contributed to this report. Reach DuPlessis at (803) 771-8305.