Gov. Mark Sanford said Friday he is changing one of his appointees to a new state board charged with helping to find funding for start-up companies in order to include someone from the Upstate.

Originally, no Upstate residents were among six appointees that Sanford and three lawmakers put on the seven-member board.

But Sanford said Friday he asked one of the three people he had appointed earlier -- W. Leighton Lord III, chairman of the Nexsen Pruet law firm in Columbia -- to step down, and when Lord agreed, he invited Greenville businessman John Warner to join the board.

The Upstate should have a representative on the board because it's the "epicenter of business in South Carolina," Sanford told The Greenville News on Friday.

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"I think that more IPOs (initial public offerings of stock) have been done out of the Upstate than any other region of our state," the governor said. "I think that in terms of new ventures and new start-ups, there's more of that in the Upstate than any other part of our state."

Warner said he is considering the offer and will take the weekend to make sure he doesn't have any conflicts of interest. "There's nothing I'm involved with today that I believe is a conflict," he said.

Warner is founder and chairman of InnoVenture, a conference held in Greenville each year designed to match startup companies that need funding with venture capital companies looking for investment opportunities.

Warner was among the Greenville businessmen who objected to the board's original makeup during interviews with The Greenville News on Tuesday.

Sanford said he didn't realize that no one from the Upstate was among the original six appointees until The News reported it on Wednesday.

"When I did learn something that didn't make sense, we immediately took measures to correct it, and that's what we'll always do as an administration," Sanford said.

The board is charged with implementing the Venture Capital Investment Act, which offers tax credits to banks and insurance companies in hopes of raising up to $50 million for startup companies.

The law gives the governor three appointments to the board, and one each to the president pro tem of the Senate, the speaker of the House, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Sanford said an aide who handles his appointments to various boards and commissions thought the Upstate was already represented on the board when she recommended the governor's original three appointments.

Sanford said the aide assumed that Rep. Dan Cooper of Piedmont, the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, would appoint someone from Anderson County or the Interstate 85 corridor. As it turned out, Cooper picked Tom Persons of Columbia, a retired AT&T executive who heads the South Carolina Technology Alliance.

Sanford said his aide also believed that Greenville businessman Hayne Hipp was already on the board.

David Wilkins of Greenville, the former speaker of the House, in 2004 had talked with Hipp about serving on the board and wrote a letter appointing him. But Hipp said Friday he declined the appointment after initially considering it.

"I think I felt like I had a conflict of interest at that point," Hipp said. "I was running for County Council, and I was actively running a business."

Wilkins moved to appoint Hipp in the summer of 2004 after the Venture Capital Investment Act passed the Legislature the first time. After that, the law was part of a Supreme Court challenge, and last year lawmakers passed a new version.

Hipp said Friday that if the Governor's Office thought he was already on the board, "Then that's certainly an honest mistake on their part."

Sanford's other appointments are Chad Walldorf of Sullivans Island, co-founder of the Charleston-based Sticky Fingers restaurant chain and his former deputy chief of staff, and Stephen Alan Imbeau, an allergist and investor from the Pee Dee.

Rep. Bobby Harrell of Charleston, Wilkins' successor as speaker of the House, appointed Steve Swanson, founder and chief executive of Automated Trading Desk, a Mount Pleasant company.

Sen. Hugh Leatherman of Florence, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, appointed Michael Space, director of finance and information technology at Roche Carolina Inc. in Florence.

Sen. Glenn McConnell of Charleston, president pro tem of the Senate, has not announced an appointment. He could not be reached for comment.