10/09/2026
"This work is very personal for me. I grew up in Greenwood, went to school in Greenville and then moved back.
I started out at the Genetics Center. Then I became director of memberships and special events at the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, and I was there for 12 years. While I was there, our executive director saw the need to give roots and wings to a new entity, which is now Discover Greenwood. When he did that, I felt like I was a good person for the job, so I applied and was hired on October 6th, 2006. I'm about to have my 20th anniversary!
The new Visitor’s Center building was known as the PALS building and when that organization closed, several retailers tried to make the location a viable business. Unfortunately, those didn’t work out and the building remained vacant for many years. The thought was maybe this wasn’t the best location for a business, but it would make a better visitor’s center. We started engineering studies on the building about three years ago, and here we are today!
This project was basically funded by the Capital Projects Sales Tax for Greenwood County. We received a Hometown Economic Development Grant from the Municipal Association of South Carolina for the engineering studies and then support from our community partners really made the project a reality. The city, the county, our local businesses and hotels have all supported this project and I can’t say enough about our partnership with the Arts Center. They allowed us to be housed in their building for nearly 20 years and we look forward to continuing to work with them for events and gatherings. It also made sense for Uptown Greenwood and Discover Greenwood to be under one roof since so much of our work overlaps with each other.
Seeing visitors come to Greenwood for whatever reason, and say this is more than they thought it would be, makes the work so rewarding for me. I think that is true for Greenwood. If we can get people here, we can show them that we're so much more than they thought we were."
Kelly McWhorter, Executive Director, Discover Greenwood
