When Tom Mullikin came to the University of South Carolina in 1978, he really just wanted to get married. But his future bride wouldn’t marry him unless he finished college.
It seems a rather inauspicious start for someone who would go on to the South Carolina Honors College, an undergraduate degree in political science, a law degree and selection for the university’s highest alumni honor, the Algernon Sydney Sullivan award.
Looking back on his 40-year career in law and environmental protection, Mullikin says none of it would have been possible without his years at USC.
“Carolina changed everything about my life,” says Mullikin. “When I went, I was doing it just so I could marry my wife. I mean, it wasn’t about an education.”
It was about overcoming an obstacle to what he wanted — and Mullikin knew a thing or two about that before he even set foot on USC’s campus.
Born with two club feet turned backward, Mullikin had his first surgery on his first
day of life. Doctors thought he would never walk. But his efforts to prove them wrong
resulted in him participating in athletics all through high school and becoming a
mountain climber, reaching four of the world’s “seven summits.”
He also has SCUBA dived in every ocean.
He believes it was his rocky start that helps him successfully navigate the punishing trails of the world’s tallest peaks, where many people give in to the pain in their legs on the last stretch of the climb.
“People quit because it hurts,” he says. “I’ve made a lot of summits because my feet and legs hurt all day long. I think if you have a certain tolerance for pain, psychologically, it doesn’t hurt you.”
Mullikin has also taught classes at Coastal Carolina University in the School of Coastal Environment and at USC in the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management and the Joseph F. Rice School of Law.
Just as his previous role as environmental lawyer — working for the United Nations, private corporations and other entities — took him to exotic locations around the world, his love of the outdoors jibes well with his new role as head of the state agency responsible for protecting and managing natural areas, fish and wildlife of South Carolina.
Such diversity is right up Mullikin’s alley. As a lawyer, he drafted chemical laws for the Republic of Moldova, made recommendations for Sierra Leone’s proposed constitution and recommended legislation for the government of Fiji aimed at protecting its mineral resources. He participated in the U.S. prosecution of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four 9/11 codefendants and served as an international legal officer and trial counsel with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps. His military career was equally eclectic as he served in both the Army Reserves and the S.C. State Guard.
“People quit because it hurts. I’ve made a lot of summits because my feet and legs hurt all day long. I think if you have a certain tolerance for pain, psychologically, it doesn’t hurt you.”
He credits one semester at USC with changing the trajectory of his life when the biology premed major decided to take some political science courses. He had classes led by South Carolinians Lee Atwater, who would go on to become a top Republican political strategist, and Don Fowler, who would go on to lead the Democratic National Committee.
“I mean, how do you get better? The next semester I was taking international studies, and the area of the world I was focusing on was the Middle East. My oral project was on Saudi Arabia, and they brought in John Carl West, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia.”
It was working in the office of U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, who authored the measure creating NOAA, that turned him on to environmental policy.
“I realized early if I just go do this environmental remediation, people would pay me pretty good, and it took me around the world.”
And the journey started when he was an undergrad at USC, which set him up for a career and then some. Virginia Ann, the woman who wouldn’t marry him unless he went to college, held up her end of the bargain — and earned a law degree from USC herself. All four of their children graduated from Carolina as well.
“USC absolutely changed everything about my life,” he says. “It gave me all the tools I needed — both as an undergraduate and in law school — to do everything that I wanted.”
