COLUMBIA - One could be forgiven for wondering whether Fred Carter is a little loopy.

Carter, president of Francis Marion University, is serving one year as Gov. Mark Sanford's chief of staff. That job becomes a little higher profile during the next two weeks when Sanford attends Air Force Reserve training in Alabama.

With a life full of accomplishment. a wife and two children and a free home on the Florence campus of Francis Marion, why would Carter agree to rise every day at 4:45 a.m. and make the 90-minute drive to Columbia to serve Sanford?

"This is going to sound [like] Pablum," Carter says. "But why am I doing this? I really like this guy. This guy is a political scientist's dream."

"The other thing is," Carter says, "I'm still naive enough to believe that if we're ever going to change nonincrementally in this state, it's going to be with a governor that is as noninstitutionalized as this guy is."

At 52, Sanford's chief of staff has been a Marine, chairman of the political science department at the College of Charleston, a top aide to former Gov. Carroll Campbell, director of the massive State Budget and Control Board administration and president of Francis Marion University.

Every morning before dawn, Carter gets up, makes coffee, gets the newspaper and hits the road for Columbia. Every evening, he comes home, checks in at the president's office at Francis Marion and, if he's lucky, reads a bedtime story to his son, Luke.

Carter is on sabbatical from Francis Marion, a job and a school he loves. He's promised Sanford one year as chief of staff. He's got about 10 months left, and then it's back to school.

But in the meantime, Carter will bring his considerable experience as an administrator, aide and Marine to help a relatively inexperienced staff and a relatively inexperienced governor. Sanford was in Congress for six years, but his legislative experience is more limited than his two-coat, three-tie wardrobe.

Sanford's staff doesn't want to see the Marine side of Carter, says state Sen. John Drummond, D-Greenwood. As the former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Drummond served on the State Budget and Control Board for the eight years Carter was its director.

"Fred is the greatest problem-solving guy I've ever seen," Drummond says. "I always tell people, 'When you work with Fred, he'll work to get things done, but don't ever make him be a Marine again. Don't make him get the Marine out, because he can really chew.'"

If ever Carter were going to "get the Marine out," it would be during the next two weeks while Sanford is at Maxwell Air Force Base near Montgomery, Ala. Sanford, a first lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve, must complete his Reserve Commissioned Officer Training.

While Sanford is in the hands of the Air Force, his free time will be extremely limited. He'll have some time in the evenings to conduct affairs of the state. Carter said they have created a communication system to make it work.

Don't ask Carter whether he's going to be "acting governor" while Sanford is away. Carter says his job will not change all that much.

"The governor will continue to be actively involved in the management of every issue in this state that the governor should be involved in," Carter says.

As chief of staff, Carter is already responsible for much of the day-to-day operations of state government. In the next two weeks, Sanford and Carter will have conference calls at 10 each night.

Carter and Sanford both say previous governors have left for weeks at a time, usually for economic development missions or vacation. Both mention that Campbell once went on a three-week tour of the Pacific Rim, and the state did not fall apart.

The difference, of course, is that Campbell could have hopped a plane and returned to South Carolina at any time if need be. If Sanford tried that, he could be considered absent without leave. Still, Carter doesn't expect a problem.

His supporters say the state could do much worse than to have Carter in charge should a problem arise.

Carter has been widely praised for the reforms and changes he's brought to Francis Marion. When he arrived in 1999, the university faced fighting between faculty and administration, a dropping enrollment and a nearly empty endowment.

Carter "came to Francis Marion University when it was in tremendous turmoil between the administration and the faculty," says state Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence. Leatherman, who took over as Senate Finance Committee chairman, has the university in his district.

"Fred is such a great people person, a great communicator; he was able to put that behind the university."

One of the first things Carter did was re-establish a faculty presence in decisions affecting the university. Since then, the university has seen enrollment stabilize, and its faculty is recognized by the American Association of University Professors; it has been named one of the top small public universities in the country by U.S. News & World Report.

"He was quite instrumental in the renaissance" of the university, says faculty president Charlene Wages. "Particularly in today's climate of administration of higher education, there are more and more administrators who feel they should make the decisions. To have someone who's still willing to recognize the faculty's role is certainly refreshing."

As with most accolades, Carter dismisses the praise.

"I'm the guy that did the no-brainer thing by getting obstacles out of the way of the faculty," Carter says, dismissing the notion that he was instrumental in any renaissance at Francis Marion.

Carter has only been gone two months, Wages says, but his absence is noticeable.

"We miss him," she says. "He's a very hands-on president. He spends a lot of time on campus. It's not unusual to see him in a faculty member's office. We miss that camaraderie."

Carter assures his Francis Marion colleagues he'll be back, but for the next 10 months, he's going to continue to study his new boss and try to be of use.

Sanford, Carter says, "is a policy wonk that loves to conceptualize concepts and ideas. ... The sense is I'm supposed to deal with procedural stuff, but the governor is not that big on procedure."

Of course, Carter says he never thought Sanford had a chance of winning last year's primary or general election.

When the two first met before June's primary, Carter told Sanford as much.

"We still laugh about that conversation," Carter says. "I gotta tell you, though, he laughs a little harder than I do."