The Business Case for Child Care in South Carolina

Jack McBride is the CEO for Contec, a manufacturing company in South Carolina that creates contamination control products. Contec is a big believer in zero-to-three supports. As a business owner, McBride recognizes that child care is both a short-and long-term solution. In the short-term, lack of access to reliable child care affects parents’ ability to show up to work. In the long-term, reliable quality child care affects the future workforce. “If we don’t have good quality child care, they aren’t going to be ready to learn. The jobs that are growing in our country are more sophisticated,” said McBride.

Contec leads by example and supports a program called The Basics for its employees. The Basics is a public health approach that raises awareness and engages families around early childhood development. The program provides resources for parents and caregivers as well as toolkits for organizations.

McBride is a long-time board member of Ready Nation and the Mary Black Foundation, two organizations that have active initiatives around early childhood education and development. On the public-facing side of this work, McBride uses his experience as an employer to advocate and speak on panels highlighting the business case for quality child care. McBride uses his story and platform to connect with other business leaders and the community.

McBride is also using his experience as a frontline employer during the pandemic to elevate the child care conversation. Early in the pandemic, while South Carolina had shelter-in-place orders in effect, Contec’s orders were up 300 percent, but 70 percent of his workforce could not work remotely. As a short-term solution, McBride provided a 20 percent bonus for the first three months to thank the company’s frontline workers. Contec also allowed employees to swap shifts with each other to accommodate changing child care needs. Additionally, Contec created its own paid leave program for employees who have been with the company for six months or more. Employees were eligible for six weeks of emergency child care leave, paid at 66 percent of their salary, during the pandemic.