Thrift: Building a Life

Identical twins Tom and Sam Thrift were born during the Great Depression on November 12, 1930, in Long Creek, South Carolina. They each weighed a mere two pounds, yet they thrived, growing up with seven other siblings in a home where J.B. and Maude Thrift instilled in their children the virtues of godly love and a respect for honest, hard work.

At age nineteen, the twins were drafted into the Army and stationed in Japan. As part of a military unit assigned to cleaning up a region devastated by the bombing of Hiroshima, they had the opportunity to learn about heavy equipment operations and large-scale earthmoving engineering.

After they returned to the States, Tom and Sam joined their brothers in launching successful businesses in lumber, pulpwood, hardware stores, road construction and commercial property development. While the makeup of family business partnerships evolved over the years, Tom and Sam always remained together, working as general contractors and building hundreds of miles of roads and interstate highways across South Carolina and bringing industries, shopping centers, manufacturing plants and warehouses to the region.

For all their success, however, the Thrift brothers have remained grounded, their feet planted firmly in the nurturing soil of family, faith and friends. This is their story.