April 20, 2006 | Read Time: 4 minutes
When Carol Burdette gets out of bed at 4:30 a.m, she checks the local paper to see if anyone is calling for the ouster of the mayor of
Pendleton, S.C., population 3,000. Then she prays, asking specifically for grace and tact. “I want to be able to say the right things to folks” as the day wears on, she says. By 6:30, she is off to the United Way of Anderson County, in the nearby town of Anderson, to see how the charity’s doing.
Ms. Burdette has reason to obsess before sunrise about the city and the United Way: She’s in charge of both of them.
As the part-time mayor of Pendleton, a bedroom suburb of Clemson in the state’s northwest section, Ms. Burdette is entrusted with handling the budget and running the monthly Town Council meetings, for which she receives $6,000 per year. By day, she is the president of the countywide United Way, where she makes an extra point to always put in a full day’s work.
“I come in early to get extra work done, so I don’t feel like I’m cheating anyone,” says Ms. Burdette, who is paid $70,000 per year by the United Way.
Working two executive jobs simultaneously can be exhausting, Ms. Burdette says. Beginning with the early wake-up call, her day moves in parallel rhythms — one set for each job. She’ll walk several miles most mornings after waking up. But from 6:30 until around 9:00 or so at night, her day belongs to the citizens of Pendleton and to the United Way.
Ms. Burdette says she works around 70 hours per week. About half the nights of the week include meetings for one or both jobs. Work often spills over into meals.
“The next two weeks are booked for lunch,” she says, looking at her calendar. “It’s a miracle I don’t weigh 300 pounds. And the clock doesn’t stop on Fridays.” There are weekend town cleanups, volunteer luncheons, and official functions that require her presence.
A Love of Politics
She signed on for the whirlwind of twin careers early on in her work life, while employed at the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism. After hearing Ms. Burdette offer her opinions on town politics, her roommate persuaded her to run for Town Council in 1987. Ms. Burdette, now 46, served on the Town Council for 10 years before being elected mayor in 1997. She has since been re-elected twice.
Politics was “a first love,” one cultivated as she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Southern Wesleyan University, in Central, S.C. “I really wanted to become involved in a service-oriented job, to give something back,” she says. Ms. Burdette began making her mark on Pendleton by starting beautification projects, such as organizing local cleanup days and tree plantings.
But soon after being elected to the Town Council, Ms. Burdette became a volunteer for the United Way and other local charities. Her involvement with them led to a new career.
She became the regional director of the American Heart Association and ran the Anderson County program of Keep America Beautiful, a national nonprofit organization based in Stamford, Conn., that encourages recycling and neighborhood cleanups.
Learning to manage her juggling act while in her 20s helped her focus on the two big jobs she holds today, says Ms. Burdette. “Being single and without children makes it easier too. That — and I’m a workaholic.”
But as she flies through her day, she says she has to remain mindful of the points where the jobs overlap, and where conflict might arise. Ms. Burdette says she has erected a firewall of sorts to keep her jobs separate. She avoids overseeing the town’s United Way employee fund drive, for example, instead directing her employees to handle it independently. Frequently, she’ll purposefully joke during meetings, “Today, I have my mayor’s hat on,” to let people know of her role of the moment.
Yet being at the nexus between charities and local governments can benefit both, Ms. Burdette says. Although she steers clear of gray areas, she says she is willing to use one of her positions to enhance the other, as long as she does not personally benefit.
“I can get appointments with almost anybody in the county because of my position as mayor,” Ms. Burdette says, adding that having such contacts helps the United Way because it lends the charity a more visible presence. “As head of the United Way, I can ask mayors and towns to do United Way campaigns. They might see me as a mayor, which might create legitimacy in their eyes. I see all that as beneficial to the community.”
