Lowcountry Economic Network - Beaufort, South Carolina

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Henry “Hank” Johnston

Hank Johnston is a native of Mississippi and received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Mississippi State University. He was the school’s commencement speaker in 1993. The commencement speaker the year before was the noted author John Grisham, and the year before that, President George Bush.

Johnston spent 20 years with Ross Perot’s EDS, retiring in 1993 as Corporate Vice President and Division President of a $450 million division. He was one of ten EDS officers transferred to Michigan when General Motors acquired EDS, and managed 4,000 systems engineers.

Prior to going to EDS, he worked on the Apollo Saturn program with IBM and was the project leader for the flight program for the first manned moon rocket launch.

After retirement, he moved to Bluffton in 1996. He was elected to the Bluffton Town Council in December 1998 and served as the Mayor Pro Tempore for two years before being elected Mayor in December 2000.