One of Fort Mill’s best known companies has a new leader. It didn’t have to look far.
A company known for getting people outside has looked within for its new leader.
Leroy Springs & Co. has announced that John Gordon will take over as president and chief executive officer. He will replace Tim Patterson, who will retire at the end of June.
Gordon will become the fifth president and CEO in the more-than-80-year history of the nonprofit company.
The Fort Mill nonprofit has more than 300 employees. It operates the Anne Springs Close Greenway, FLYERS afterschool program in area schools, the 400-acre Springmaid Mountain retreat and four golf courses in Fort Mill, Lancaster and Chester.
Gordon is now the company’s chief operating officer and executive director of the Greenway. He came to the Greenway in 2017 and since has overseen the construction of the Greenway Gateway and Domtar Forest Porch. The Clover native and Winthrop University graduate also spent time at Camp Thunderbird, the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte and Camp Cherokee.
“John came to us in 2017 with an already impressive portfolio of environmental, conservation and management credentials,” Leroy Springs Board Chair Ell Close said in a company statement. “He has proven himself to be everything we were looking for in a successor to Tim to lead this organization.”
Leroy Springs has been a pillar for recreation in Fort Mill for generations. The Greenway is known throughout the Charlotte region and beyond, and is a model for other sites like the York County-owned Riverbend Park planned on the Catawba River. Decades before the Greenway began, and before the town had its own recreation department, Leroy Springs ran youth leagues and recreation programs through what was then known as the Leroy Springs Recreation Complex.
Three years ago the company donated the complex on Tom Hall Street, now known as Fort Mill YMCA at the Complex, to the town in an agreement that also involved the Fort Mill School District and Upper Palmetto YMCA. That agreement also added the Fort Mill Aquatic Center.
Patterson oversaw that milestone transition, along with other recreation improvements since joining Leroy Springs in 2003 as general manager of Springmaid Beach Resort, a former company property in Myrtle Beach. Patterson oversaw that sale to benefit the endowment of the Greenway, a 2,100-acre natural space in Fort Mill. Donating the recreation complex was another move to focus attention and resources to the Greenway.
Patterson took on a 2012 capital campaign that generated $12.5 million. It resulted in the Comporium Amphitheater and Mary Warner Mack Dog Park in 2015. The Greenway Gateway and Domtar Forest Porch followed in 2019.
Greenway membership during his time there went from a few hundred people to more than 16,000 households and about 60,000 people in the Charlotte metro.
“Tim leaves Leroy Springs in much better shape than when he came here, and we all thank him for his steadfast leadership, tireless work ethic and wise decision making over the past 18 years,” Greenway founder and namesake Anne Springs Close said in a company release. “His work ensures a bright future for Leroy Springs and the Anne Springs Close Greenway in the years ahead.”
This story was originally published June 21, 2021 at 10:56 AM with the headline "One of Fort Mill’s best known companies has a new leader. It didn’t have to look far.."
