Leadership

In his role as founder and Executive Director of ArtsUp SC, Mike brings together a unique blend of artistic vision, nonprofit leadership, and entrepreneurial experience cultivated over a span of almost four decades as a trial lawyer and arts advocate.

A passionate supporter of the arts, Mike has served on several nonprofit boards, including Ballet Spartanburg, and is the owner of Ridge Gallery, a Spartanburg-based gallery that regularly exhibits work by local artists. He is also an accomplished artist himself—working primarily as a professional photographer with a focus on dance and special event photography.

In addition to his arts leadership, Mike is the founding partner of Ethridge Law Group (ELG), a litigation firm serving clients across South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. With almost 40 years of experience as a trial lawyer, Mike has built a reputation as a skilled litigator and trusted advisor in civil and commercial litigation.

Mike has also been a leading voice in the movement to improve attorney well-being. He is the founding chair of the South Carolina Bar’s Attorney Wellness Committee, a frequent speaker at legal conferences nationwide, and a past advisory board member of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs. His photography exhibit Convergence– exploring the intersection of art and lawyer well-being–has been showcased at numerous bar conventions and legal gatherings.

Mike’s contributions have been recognized by a variety of professional organizations. He has been the recipient of the American Bar Association’s Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award, the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s Professional Service Award, the South Carolina Bar’s Outstanding Achievement Award, and the South Carolina Lawyers Weekly Leadership in Law Award. In 2018 Mike received special recognition by the South Carolina Supreme Court for his pioneering work in attorney wellness.

Mike holds degrees from Mississippi College (1982), the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (1985), and the University of Georgia School of Law (1988).

Erin O’Neil Taylor is an avid performer, teacher, and musician. She earned degrees from Radford University (B.M. in Music Business) and Converse University (M.M. in Music Education) and now teaches middle and upper school musical theater at Spartanburg Day School. A hybrid native of New Jersey and West Virginia, Erin hopped around the Southern states before choosing to call Spartanburg home. Erin has worked on the administrative, performance, and educational sides of the theater (Asheville Lyric Opera, Opera Roanoke) and loves everything that goes into making a production run! As a performer, she has traveled with choruses around the United States and competed as far as Yekatrinburg, Russia. In 2015, she had the opportunity to apprentice for the IBLA Grand Prize Music Competition in Ragusa Ibla, Italy. Since moving to SC, you may have seen her performing with Spartanburg Little Theatre, Gaffney Little Theatre, Centre Stage, Proud Mary Theatre Company and Converse Opera Theatre. Though she wouldn’t classify herself as a dancer anymore, one of Erin’s favorite hobbies is “dancing it out”. When she’s not singing or rehearsing for a production, you can usually find Erin walking around downtown with her two friendly Huskies, Zeke and Aurora, and her husband, Austin–or trying to rescue every animal she sees!

Shawn Watterson recently retired from a career in higher education, which included positions with Boston College, Sherman College of Chiropractic, USC Upstate, and most recently Spartanburg Community College. She held various roles in program and event management, outreach and community partnerships, financial management, and grants management, writing and compliance.

Shawn holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the College of Charleston and has participated in a variety of professional training programs.

Shawn is active in the community, contributing her time and talents to community projects and events. In her leisure time, she loves spending time with her husband, three sons and grandson. She enjoys traveling, and being outside gardening or hiking.

Betsy Weiner is a photojournalist by training beginning with a stint in the US Army during the film years. Photography played a critical role in her life for the next 40 years, weaving in and out of careers like the law, card dealing and the federal civil service. She spent four tours in Iraq when digital photography was in its infancy and parlayed that into a career with newspapers in California. She taught for four years  at a community college in California before coming to South Carolina where she landed at Spartan Photo Center.

Her Africa adventures in Morocco, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa began as a plan developed with her two fellow photographers Theresa Gingras and Jan Louy. The three rented a truck and four five weeks las may and June drove throughout central Africa exploring tribes, animals and having the time of their lives.

She looks forward too her next adventure in Alaska. Or Iceland. Or wherever the wind takes her.

Christopher Vaneman is Dean of Converse University’s School of the Arts, where he oversees graduate and undergraduate programs in Music, Art, Design, Creative & Professional Writing, Theater, and Dance, and directs the Carlos Moseley Chamber Music Series. He is also Converse’s Associate Professor of Flute, and in that role he was the 2013 recipient of the institution’s Brown Award for teaching excellence. As flutist of the chamber groups Echo and Ensemble Radieuse, Chris played on four continents and all over the country, premiered dozens of new pieces, and collaborated on scores of original arrangements for the flute-guitar duo as well as the flute-oboe-piano trio. He is a past President of the South Carolina Flute Society and has performed at many international conferences of both the National Flute Association and the International Double Reed Society.

Chris holds three degrees, among them the Doctor of Musical Arts, from Yale University, as well as a bachelor’s from Eastman; he spent a year as a Belgian-American Educational Foundation scholar in Brussels, and studied as well at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Nice (France) Conservatoire. He has written program notes and CD liner notes for artists around the country (the Tokyo Quartet used his notes for its cycle of the Beethoven Quartets at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center) and has spoken at national conferences of the College Music Society, among other organizations. His wife Kelly is Professor of Oboe and Musicology at Converse and performs regularly with the Spartanburg Philharmonic, and both of them sing in the choir at Church of the Advent. His limited free time is divided more or less equally between walking his dog and making craft cocktails.