Hilton Head Business

HOW A LOCAL CUSTOM SHOP SET A WORLD RECORD AT BARRETT-JACKSON IN SCOTTSDALE.

When Lot No. 1103 rolled up in front of the auction stand at Barrett-Jackson Auction Company in Scottsdale, Arizona, no one knew history was about to be made and a world record would soon fall.

There's a good reason Chinese proverbs are often quoted: “Choose the work that you love, and you won't have to work another day” especially rings true when it comes to entrepreneur Andrew Summers. A native of Edinburgh, Scotland, Summers spent 20 years in asset management with London-based Morgan, Grenfell & Co. and Morgan Stanley. He co-founded Silchester International Investors in 1994 and retired in 2006.

On Sept. 4, 1996, 40 children walked through the doors of the newly opened St. Francis Catholic School. Today, those students — and the hundreds who have followed in their footsteps — are reaping the rewards of a faith-based education rooted in traditional Catholic academic excellence.

As my regular readers know, every January I go out on a limb and make my 10 predictions for the coming year. But, before I take a crack at 2017, it is only fair to grade how I did with my predictions for 2016.

Socks Appeal: THE UNLIKELY STORY OF HOW A TRANQUIL SEA ISLAND FOSTERED HIGH-OCTANE ACTION SPORTS BRAND FUEL CLOTHING CO.

We’ve all seen the Fuel logo, plastered on bumpers and rear windows of mud-caked trucks and salt-battered Jeeps winding their way around Lowcountry roads from one adventure to the next. We’ve seen Fuel-branded hats, shirts and socks — so many socks — on the heads, backs and feet of the Lowcountry’s many eternally young fun junkies.

As we write this in the final days of 2016, investors are asking themselves how a year that started so grimly ended up … well, not all that badly. The year began with the worst 10 trading days ever to start a year. Even after a month-end rally, the Dow lost 5.5 percent in January 2016, driven by fears of a slowdown in China and plunging oil prices, and the NASDAQ fell nearly 8 percent. Then in June, the experts got the Brexit vote wrong, and markets once again reacted violently; U.S. stocks fell more than 3 percent following the vote, with the Dow losing 610 points — its eight largest point loss ever — erasing the year-to-date gains in an instant. Finally, on the evening of the election, stock market futures crashed more than 750 points before recovering and beginning a powerful “Trump rally” in November and December. Now it’s time to look ahead. Here are a few items of interest to us as we plan for 2017 and beyond.

The 2016 election cycle sent both Democrats and Republicans into disarray. The political landscape in the U.S. has been thrown into a new configuration, and as goes politics, so goes our economy. As I have said before, “Economics may be the dismal science, but it all comes down to the study of human behavior.”    

Many are unaware that today's United Way of the Lowcountry, the nonprofit organization that has been doing significant work on Hilton Head Island and in Bluffton, as well as the rest of Beaufort and Jasper counties, boasts a heritage that dates to the late 1800s.

Its 130-year legacy includes many years known as Community Chest. Under that name, the organization provided some of the most successful community service initiatives of that era — helping the homeless and feeding food-deprived families during the Great Depression of the late 1920s and ’30s.

ENTREPRENEUR BILL WINANS BUILT HIS EMPIRE ONE OUTRAGEOUS PARTY AT A TIME.

We’ve all been there.

You want to throw an absolutely epic party for a few hundred of your closest friends that will include, but not be limited to: a live pirate ship, a complete sports bar fabricated onsite, go-kart races, Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics and Hollywood-quality set pieces. And possibly a live-action samurai stunt show.