President - Laird Minor
Laird Minor served in the US Army from 1970-73. He received his Bachelor of Music degree
from the Boston Conservatory of Music in 1977. He then earned a law degree from the
University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1980, and his M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh
in 1993 He practiced law with a law firm for 7 years as an associate and partner, and then
moved in-house with a bank in Pittsburgh, where he served as Assistant General Counsel and
Director of Mergers and Acquisitions. He moved to South Carolina in 1997 to work for an
independent sub-prime mortgage lender. He formed his own loan brokerage business in 2000,
from which he retired in 2017.
In that same year Laird was appointed president of the South Carolina Public Interest
Foundation, where he remains today. He has also served on the Boards of the Foothills
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Greenville County Historical Society, and the International
Chamber Music Series.
Chairman - Vincent Graham
A native of Georgia, Vince moved to South Carolina in 1989. His work combines lessons from history with modern advances in a construction career encompassing adaptive re-use, historic renovation, and the building and enhancement of traditional walking neighborhoods aimed at enhancing relationships.
Vince’s leadership experience includes non-profit service as a board member of business, transportation, housing, arts, religious, and environmental organizations at the local, state and national levels.
Whether architecture, urban design or governance, Vince is a passionate advocate for the human scale who advances foundational political principles of financial transparency and subsidiarity. A 1986 graduate of the University of Virginia, Vince lives in downtown Charleston.
Chief Counsel - James G. Carpenter
James G. Carpenter, Esq., has served as SCPIF’s principal attorney since its inception, and prior to that he handled most of Ned Sloan’s public interest litigation. In his thirty years of litigation practice in the state and federal courts, Mr. Carpenter has litigated cases involving government procurement, governmental violations of various state statutes and the South Carolina Constitution, and the Freedom of Information Act. He has argued numerous cases before the South Carolina Supreme Court and its lower courts.
Director - Evan Duke, D.M.A.
Evan Duke, D.M.A., has served on the board of directors for the South Carolina Public Interest Foundation since 2019. Currently, he is the President of Evan Duke Enterprises | Fractional Leadership Services. In this role, he provides Fractional COO/VP of Operations services for business owners and founders looking to exit their business.
In his free time, he loves spending time with his wife and their young son. From hikes with the family to occasional indulgences with different Star Trek Movies and TV Shows (such as TNG and DS9), he also is busy training his son to be a connoisseur of football, baseball, hockey, soccer, and basketball.
