A post from the Lessons in Leadership series featuring Jim Leventis.

Being a Leventis child provided a unique perspective on life and living. One given? Regular attendance at Rotary meetings.

While most kids spent their school holidays at Columbia Mall or the roller skating rink, Jim’s daughter Laura remembers attending many Rotary meetings as a youngster. Jim’s wife Laura laughed recalling how each of the Leventis children did and saw so much at a young age. “They would have family night at the Rotary and all the kids would go,” she recalled. “But as they got older, if they had a school holiday, Jim would say ‘Come to Rotary with me.’ He would introduce them to everyone. That was really the biggest aspect to his mentoring — he would expose the children to everything.”

The Leventis children — James, Laura, Todd and Cristina — were hard workers and, like their father, served as members of the school safety patrol. Jim encouraged all four children to serve on student council, participate in scouts, and many other activities. Further, they were expected to attend each other’s activities in support of each other. So the girls frequently went to Boy Scout events, basketball and baseball games, and the boys enjoyed many a ballet performance.

The children believe their father’s goodhearted nature and lifetime of curiosity have made him one connection away from almost anyone in the world. They all remember growing up just assuming that everyone walked up to the newest person in the room and introduced him or herself. It was not until years later, when they had spent time away from home, that they realized their father had a special talent.

For years the children watched their father seek out people — people who didn’t feel quite connected yet. He would talk to them and, after a few minutes, he’d find a connection. It was a gift Jim learned from his father, and one he shared with his own children. “It’s interesting to meet people and get to know them,” Jim said. “You find out what makes them so interesting and where they’re going. It’s so simple; it’s conversation.”

Jim impressed on his children the value of reaching out to others, by introducing yourself and taking the time to have meaningful conversations. The reason? You never knew what impact the simple act of kindness — of meeting and talking to someone — could hold. Many a dinner conversation involved a running list of all of the new people he’d met that day, of things that were happening in the community.

When the children were in high school and college, Jim would mail them articles of what was going on in the community and around the world. He would send a story about a new female CEO or about some other woman who had done something great to his girls. He’d say, ‘See, you can do anything.’ Then he’d send the very same article to the boys and say, ‘What are you doing? The women are taking over!’

Despite the good-natured ribbing he sparked between the Leventis girls and boys, they knew their father’s intentions were pure. “When Dad speaks with someone, there is no motivation beyond a desire to know who this person is and what they’re interested in,” shared daughter Laura. “The way the relationship or the connection usually played out is, years later, somewhere down the line, he’d say ‘I used to know a guy who did something or I met somebody once…’ and then he’d call them up. When we traveled, Dad would actually pick up the phone book to see if there were any Leventis’ in whichever city we were visiting. If there were, he’d call them up!”

During a recent conversation with one of Jim’s contemporaries about the next generation of up and comers, the banking colleague made note of a growing vacuum in the business world. “He said ‘You know what? They just don’t grow Jim Leventis’ anymore.’ How do we get more people involved in community service?” Jim wondered aloud. “It would be good if this kind of community involvement was something more businesses encouraged.”

And with that Jim prepared for a busy afternoon. He knew just who to call to make sure the right people started working on the problem, today.

Lessons in Leadership is a series on First and Main, the blog of First Community Bank in South Carolina. The series chronicles the experiences and insight of Jim Leventis, one of First Community Bank’s founders. In addition to distinguished professional careers in finance and law, Mr. Leventis is well known for significant contributions to his family, community and the Columbia business arena.

Along with eleven banking offices in the midlands of South Carolina, First Community operates First Community Financial Consultants, a financial planning and investment advisory firm, and Palmetto South Mortgage, a mortgage division, located in Columbia, South Carolina.

A post from the Lessons in Leadership series featuring Jim Leventis.

From 1974-1976, Jim’s law practice began to gain traction. With additional partners coming on board, Jim was more at liberty to focus on nurturing the growth of his hometown. While his value of community service began in his youth, now that he himself was a father it took on renewed importance.

“I wanted to impact where people lived, worked and played,” he said. “I thought it was important the community have things that were meaningful to people. If the kids wanted to go play tennis, there should be someplace they could do that.”

Throughout her youth, Jim’s daughter Laura remembered her father coming home for dinner on weekday evenings. At a time when most fathers were relaxing, Jim was preparing to work.  “A few hours after dinner he’d say, ‘Now I’m going to my real job,’” she recalled with a laugh. As his family wound down for the evening, Jim would spring back to the law office to work, most likely because he’d spent many hours of the workday at community-related meetings. The tactic he’d applied in New York City to best the well-heeled Ivy School grads also helped him make significant accomplishments in work and community service life — all while enjoying his growing family.

As those around him marveled at how he managed to get so much done, he quietly kept at it working long days and nights. The reason why, he recalled, was simple. It was how he was raised. Not only did he get things done, he backed every task with accountability.

“You can compartmentalize many things in life but they’re all linked together by a simple philosophy,” he said. “Self respect — doing what you say you’re going to do — that’s a basic belief you’re either raised with or you’re not.”

Jim’s father, Chris, also taught him that the most responsible people don’t ask people to do things for them. Rather, they ask what they can do for others. Chris shared and lived the lesson throughout Jim’s life.

“He taught us to work for the good of the community. We served in Rotary Club, on the board of the local boy scouts or on the school board,” recalled Jim. But Chris drew a distinction between public service and public office. “He didn’t like me running for public office. He felt public office wasn’t motivation for doing something for the community.  He liked public service. He taught us to work for our community, volunteer, do something and make things happen.  And, if you do a good job, they’ll ask you to do something else.”

Jim takes the oath of office for Richland County Council in 1977.

When Jim ran for Richland County Council, he did such a good job he kept his seat from 1976-1984, serving as chairman three times. Jim’s vision for leadership included himself as well as every other member on the council.

Jim’s wife Laura recalled, “When he was on Richland County council, he really guided them because he was the chairman. But actually, he wasn’t the chairman every year. He decided they ought to rotate the chairmanship every year. He didn’t feel he should be the head of it all the time.”

During those years the council reached many significant accomplishments including major renovations to Richland Memorial Hospital and the relocation of the main branch of the Richland County Public Library from a tiny, cramped Sumter Street location to its spacious, airy Assembly Street building.

Jim was not only deeply involved; he was known to be deeply committed to improving his hometown in whatever way necessary. While Jim was getting things done and running from meeting to meeting, more people began to recognize and know the tall, earnest man who seemed to be everywhere. One group of people who paid particular attention? The board of Richland County School District One.

“The school board asked him to run,” Jim’s wife Laura recalled. “They used to see him at all the meetings, so he really knew what was going on. They knew he had four children, was educated in law and finance, and that he had a lot of experience.” When the board sought him out to become involved, he did so willingly, serving later as vice chairman.

Those experiences of working for Richland County were a strong foundation for a career in public service — one that spanned decades and still continues to percolate today even in his well-earned retirement.

“Public service exposes you to a new atmosphere,” he said. “It’s a mixture of a lot of people with different backgrounds — business interests, shopping interests, community interests. It’s a broad involvement with a lot of people. That makes it both interesting and fulfilling. Plus, you have the chance to develop camaraderie and fellowship with those around you.”

Just as Chris taught young Jim the value of public service, Jim was teaching his own young, growing family that they, too, were part of something far bigger than the Leventis family.

Lessons in Leadership is a series on First and Main, the blog of First Community Bank in South Carolina. The series chronicles the experiences and insight of Jim Leventis, one of First Community Bank’s founders. In addition to distinguished professional careers in finance and law, Mr. Leventis is well known for significant contributions to his family, community and the Columbia business arena.

Along with eleven banking offices in the midlands of South Carolina, First Community operates First Community Financial Consultants, a financial planning and investment advisory firm, and Palmetto South Mortgage, a mortgage division, located in Columbia, South Carolina.

A post from the Lessons in Leadership series featuring Jim Leventis.

When Jim Leventis left Genway in 1974, he was closing one chapter of his life and opening another. While life would lead him back to his hometown of Columbia, this next chapter turned out to be as adventurous as his life in both New York City and Chicago.

“In 1974, Jim was thirty six years old,” recalled Laura Leventis, Jim’s wife. “Our son, James, who was one year old, and I had already moved to Columbia so Jim was commuting to Chicago. When our daughter, Laura, was born in 1974, Jim left Genway for good.”

Jim’s pluck and never-met-a-stranger demeanor would come in handy as he founded a new law practice — Leventis, Scott & Dickson — ten years after graduating from the law school at the University of South Carolina. Being a Columbia boy from birth meant Jim had extensive contacts — from Richland One schools including Hand and Dreher, Boy Scouts, Boys State, the University of South Carolina, Sigma Nu fraternity, and, later, the USC law school. In fact, he says today, if someone calls him Jimmy he knows they’ve known him a very long time!

“A lot of people were surprised when we came back to South Carolina,” Jim said. But those people likely didn’t understand the Leventis heart and mind. “In a big city, you’re living to work,” he said. “I wasn’t going to be satisfied with just making money. I wanted to make a difference in my community.”

Jim credits his strong desire to work for the good of all to his immigrant father, Chris. “He used to say a community is a resource for families. We live in this whole town, not just in this house on this corner,” he said. Chris Leventis believed and taught his own children that the success of their community wasn’t just up to the mayor or elected officials. “He taught us that you have to make sure your town is growing and make sure all of the right things are happening,” he recalled. “Don’t talk about it if you’re not doing something about it.”

Jim is grateful for the many opportunities his law practice afforded him. Chief among them was the ability to tend to any number of very interesting community service irons he had in the fire. As his law practice grew to include his brother George and other young attorneys, he pursued many efforts and accomplishments that still reverberate in our community today.

For a man with a wife and young children at home and a fledgling law practice downtown, the amount of community work he managed to accomplish was a feat that did not go unnoticed. “People always asked me, ‘How do you do it?,’ ‘When do you work?’, ‘How do you make a living?’, he recalled.

To Jim the answer is quite easy. “It helped having people who believed in me.”

Lessons in Leadership is a series on First and Main, the blog of First Community Bank in South Carolina. The series chronicles the experiences and insight of Jim Leventis, one of First Community Bank’s founders. In addition to distinguished professional careers in finance and law, Mr. Leventis is well known for significant contributions to his family, community and the Columbia business arena.

Along with eleven banking offices in the midlands of South Carolina, First Community operates First Community Financial Consultants, a financial planning and investment advisory firm, and Palmetto South Mortgage, a mortgage division, located in Columbia, South Carolina.

A post from the Lessons in Leadership series featuring Jim Leventis.

In 1969, the country was buzzing with possibilities. The Apollo 11 astronauts landed — then walked — on the moon. Pringles and Sesame Street were born. There was a small concert called Woodstock and the huge break-up of a band known as The Beatles.

It was during this tumultuous year that Jim Leventis left New York City and the comfort of a job going very well as assistant vice president of First National City Bank. He journeyed to yet another world away from his hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. His life brought him now to Chicago where he and a handful of friends had an idea to teach General Motors car dealerships how to rent and lease cars and trucks rather then simply just sell new ones.

“We were introducing a new product at Genway,” Jim said. “The idea was if we did our job and serviced the cars for them, we’d know how good the car was and we’d know its repair history.” The group of men suspected that buyers who couldn’t afford to spend $4,000 on a brand new car, might be interested in a good used one at a lower price point.

Unfortunately, the General Motors dealerships believed they were not in business to rent or lease cars; they sold them. The dealers’ coolness to the start-up nearly turned the company’s good fortunes to dust. While Jim once traveled the globe and ran six regional offices with 175 employees, General Motors decided the company was a nonstarter and began to try to sell Genway. It was during these trying months that Jim met one of his lifelong influences, an English accountant named Derek Draycott.

Derek Draycott came to Genway when the company was floundering. With Jim as the treasurer, the two men worked together closely to trim excess and shape up the company’s balance sheet to make it more attractive to a buyer. In fact, Derek was the wellspring for one sage piece of advice Jim shared with countless others over the years — There are only two emergencies in life: profuse bleeding and a lack of oxygen.

“Derek taught us a lot of fundamentals. He said we should call on people and discuss their business with them. Don’t sit around the office all day waiting for the phone to ring,” said Jim. Derek also held the years of expertise to offer the young men personal guidance. “He said we really needed life plans,” said Jim. “It was just like when we loaned people money for businesses. We looked at their business plan to make sure they could pay it back. We needed that for our lives so we’d know where we wanted to go and how we were going to get there.”

Jim took Derek’s advice to heart and began crafting a 20-year plan in five-year cycles for the next two decades. Almost as soon as Jim’s planning began, his life changed again. “One thing about plans is you can’t get stuck on them,” laughed Jim. “They aren’t make or break kinds of things,” he said. “Sometimes life gives you a new direction.”

Jim’s “new direction” was an attractive, soft-spoken woman named Laura Todd. In fact, in a career in which he enjoyed tremendous opportunities, highly placed administrative roles, elected public offices and countless honors, Jim quickly states his proudest personal moment in life has absolutely nothing to do with business. It was the moment Laura Todd agreed to become Mrs. Leventis.

Jim set about modifying his plan to now include a family. His sketches for the future began at the age of 34 and continue unabated today even in retirement. “Every day of your life should contribute in a meaningful way to the vision you have for your life as a whole,” said Jim.

As he reviewed the crisply, hand written spreadsheet detailing the hopes and dreams he held as a young married man and soon-to-be father, Jim paused and added a profound piece of advice. “It’s easy to get caught up in an activity trap and the busy-ness of life. Without a plan you may find you’re working hard climbing the ladder of success. The problem is: you may discover that ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”

Lessons in Leadership is a series on First and Main, the blog of First Community Bank in South Carolina. The series chronicles the experiences and insight of Jim Leventis, one of First Community Bank’s founders. In addition to distinguished professional careers in finance and law, Mr. Leventis is well known for significant contributions to his family, community and the Columbia business arena.

Along with eleven banking offices in the Midlands of South Carolina, First Community operates First Community Financial Consultants, a financial planning and investment advisory firm, and Palmetto South Mortgage, a mortgage division, located in Columbia, South Carolina.