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Health Sciences South Carolina Collaborative is founded

April 5, 2004

Health Sciences South Carolina (HSSC) was founded in April of 2004 in order to better enable its member organizations to participate in the opportunity to be active in the Centers of Excellence Endowed (CoEE) Chair program (now called SmartState®).  The creation of HSSC was spearheaded by Kester Freeman (Founding CEO of Palmetto Health) with the vision to be an inclusive, collaborative, public-private partnership bringing together universities, health systems and other partners committed to the use of health science education and research to drive economic growth and improved health status throughout the state.  Kester served as the founding Chairman of the Board of HSSC, which was comprised of representation from each of its founding members; the Greenville Hospital System (Frank Pinckney, CEO), the Medical University of South Carolina (Dr. Ray Greenberg, President), Palmetto Health (Kester Freeman, CEO), and the University of South Carolina (Dr. Andrew Sorenson, President). Each organization committed to provide $2,000,000 per year in funding or in-kind resources to sponsor CoEE (now SmartState®) Centers for 10 years.  Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System (Dr. Ingo Angermeier, President and CEO) and Clemson University (James Barker, President) soon followed in becoming HSSC member organizations with similar commitments.  Dr. Andrew Sorenson was the founding Vice Chairman of the Board of HSSC.  HSSC’s first Executive Director was Judy Cotchett Smith, who was instrumental in creating the team that resulted in HSSC obtaining its first major grant, a $21M three-year grant from The Duke Endowment in August of 2006.  Dr. Gordon Baylis was HSSC’s initial technical director and was instrumental in founding HSSC’s first sponsored CoEE Center and Chair (Brain Imaging).  He also helped administer HSSC’s grant program.  Dr. Jay Moskowitz became the first President of HSSC, succeeding the leadership of Judy Cotchett Smith in July of 2007.