Board of Directors

The Center for a Better South is a 501c3 non-profit organization. All contributions to the Center are tax-deductible. Members of the board of directors include:

Andy Brack, the Center’s president and chairman, edits and publishes Charleston Currents and Statehouse Report, a weekly legislative forecast and syndicated newspaper column. In 2011, Brack was named a White House “Champion of Change” for his leadership through the Center in developing ideas for Gulf coast recovery following the 2010 oil disaster.  Brack, a former congressional candidate, also has a daily news service and communications strategy consulting business. Brack, a past president of the historic Rotary Club of Charleston, holds a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. He and his family live in Charleston, S.C.

Leo Fishman, board treasurer, is a retired tax lawyer who is former mayor pro tem for the Town of Kiawah Island, S.C. After serving two years in the U. S. Marine Corps, Fishman graduated from Harvard College (B.A. Economics, 1961) and the Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 1964). Later, he worked with local communities in the Southeast as an administrator in President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. After a lengthy law practice in Washington, DC, where, among his clients, he represented a variety of nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations, Fishman retired to South Carolina. Both he and his wife, Carol H. Fishman, are active in civic affairs

Molly Minnear is an Atlanta economist who holds an M.B.A. from Cornell University and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. She is a vice president with Charles River Associates, a leading global consulting firm based in Boston. With more than 15 years of experience in the economic analysis of business and taxation issues, Ms. Minnear has focused on the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for the past eight years. In addition to working with leading pharmaceutical and health care companies on intercompany pricing controversies, planning and documentation, she has conducted pharmaco-economic studies and outcomes research. She and her family live in Atlanta.

Warwick Sabin is publisher of the Oxford American, “the Southern magazine of good writing.” A 1998 Marshall Scholar with a master’s degree from Oxford University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas, Sabin has been publisher of the Oxford American since 2008. Previously, he served as vice president for communications at the University of Central Arkansas and associate editor of The Arkansas Times newspaper. He also was director of development for the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation in Little Rock and a communications director for U.S. Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.) in Washington, D.C. Sabin currently lives in Little Rock, Ark.

John L.S. Simpkins, board secretary, teaches constitutional law and other topics as a member of the faculty at the Charleston School of Law. A past associate director of the Richard W. Riley Institute at Furman University, he was in private practice in Washington, D.C., before joining academia. Simpkins has a law degree from Duke University and did his undergraduate work at Harvard University. He and his family live in Daniel Island, S.C.