Clyde Hincher
By Jeff Kidd
Clyde Hincher made a second career for himself as an accountant and tax preparer. He still thinks like a teacher, though. So if you ask him what makes him most proud about his work as vice president of finance at the Technical College of the Lowcountry, he’ll tout the school’s academic mission.
“You had a lot of students who I saw that came in and lacked confidence and didn’t know if they were smart or not, and they found out they really could do it,” said Hincher, who worked at the technical college from 1988 until he retired in 2010. “The nursing program at our college was a total inspiration to me. I’ve been to the hospital many times and seen our former students working there. It’s gratifying to see them doing something so important with their careers.”
Hincher grew up in North Carolina, majored in education at Western Carolina and came to Beaufort in 1967 after a friend told him about an opening for a math teacher at Beaufort Academy. The private school on Lady’s Island was just a year old at the time, and Hincher made friends with many of the longtime Beaufort families that helped launch it — the Trasks, Grays and Webbs among them.
“The closeness between students, faculty and parents was probably the big thing I remember,” Hincher said. “It’s been amazing. The contacts I made then went with me for the rest of my life.”
Hincher worked 13 years at the school in three stints, with interruptions to get his masters in mathematics and to work one year at a high school in Ronda, N.C.
Though he loved his work in the classroom, teaching didn’t pay the salary he wanted for his young family. So Hincher enrolled in accounting classes at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and planned to start a side business as a tax preparer.
“I got far enough into it that I sat for the CPA exam,” Hincher said. “… At that point, I was pretty much committed. If I wanted to be a CPA, I had to go with a company for two years and get certified.”
He set teaching aside and took a job with Robinson Grant and Co., where he did general accounting and began to specialize in tax preparations. “People are afraid of accounting and afraid of taxes and afraid of doing their own returns,” Hincher said. “… I just look at it as a challenge and something that I could do to help people.” After six years at Robinson Grant, he went to work in the technical college’s finance department and spent 16 years as the school’s vice president of finance. He said the most transformative event of that time was the S.C. Education Lottery and the LIFE Scholarship program it helps fund. The 2002 law that created those programs brought an influx of students to the state’s technical colleges.
“What I saw is that it provided a lot of opportunities for students whose education options might have been limited,” Hincher said. “… We really did a lot of good for our community.” In retirement, Hincher still works the tax season and keeps books for a handful of clients, but he makes time for other activities, too. He volunteers with his church, the Parish Church of St. Helena. Hincher also tinkers in his garage on Ford Mustangs and has restored a 1966 convertible he has owned for years. “Basically, that’s my main hobby, and my source of exercise,” Hincher said.