Meet 3 Locals Who Are Changing the Lowcountry in 2026

Much like the tides, change never stops in the Lowcountry. Get to know a scientist, a civil engineer and a planning and development director who are helping define what that change will look like.

Story by Barry Kaufman
Photography by Lisa Staff

In a place like the South Carolina Lowcountry, change is as inevitable as it is constant. Even before the first human footprint was pressed into the pluff mud, this area was undergoing daily metamorphosis with tides creating and erasing creeks, streams and islets from wrinkles left in the Earth by glaciers.

That pace has only accelerated over the last half century as developers began coaxing this land into community. Each home, business, golf course and house of worship put its mark on the landscape.
Spurred on by development, the landscape continues to shift. An argument could be made either way on whether this helps or hurts, but as long as there are people guiding that growth in the right direction, we can feel at peace with our surroundings. As the next wave approaches, meet three locals helping shape it.

Stan Rogers

This scientist brings a lifetime of river knowledge to safeguarding Bluffton’s waterways.

Since its inception, the May River Watershed Action Plan Advisory Committee, known to most as WAPAC, has welcomed Bluffton residents who want to play a part in preserving the river’s pristine beauty, water quality and shellfish. Many have answered the call over the years, each contributing time and talent. But only a handful of members bring the perspective Stan Rogers offers as both a longtime member and now its chair.

“I grew up in Hampton County, but Bluffton was my backyard,” he said. “During the summer I grew up on the river, fishing and shrimping and doing all that fun stuff.”

Informed by a love of the water cultivated on sunny summer days, Rogers pursued a career in fish and wildlife biology at Clemson University. After earning his undergraduate degree, he worked as a consultant, helping private landowners and industry manage their land.

During this time, he was fortunate to land a contract and eventually his first federal position with the Air Force. As one of the largest landowners in the country, with more than 25 million acres in its portfolio, the Department of Defense regularly seeks experienced wildlife management professionals. The government job took Rogers to Colorado, where he worked with Air Force Space Command as a biologist and program manager, helping ensure compliance with environmental laws across the continental United States, Hawaii, Alaska and abroad. A later move brought him to Washington, D.C., where he worked for nearly a decade with NOAA and agencies around the world to help enforce the Endangered Species Act.

After 12 years in the mountains of Colorado, this Lowcountry native was finally back on the water with NOAA. That return only underscored how much he missed the rivers of his youth.

“In my life journey, it was a question of, ‘How can I get home?’” he said. “Then here came this amazing, perfect job, and in 2019 I was lucky enough to move back to Bluffton. That has been a dream come true.”

That dream job was working for NOAA, managing Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary, 12,000 acres of protected ocean about 40 nautical miles from Tybee Island, where right whales, dolphins and sea turtles find refuge. Along with year-round opportunities for fishing, diving and boating, the sanctuary supports important marine research, education and outreach.

“We do surveys, research and long-term monitoring of offshore habitats, along with compliance work,” Rogers said.

His work at Gray’s Reef brought him home, and he immediately set out to give back.

“When I moved back to Bluffton, one of the first things I wanted to do was get involved,” he said. “Lo and behold, I saw an announcement that they were looking for members for WAPAC.”

The seven-person committee, made up of citizens with backgrounds in wildlife, fisheries or watershed management, advises the town on rainfall and weather patterns, stormwater management and development, all with the goal of preserving the May River’s natural beauty and important shellfish, including oysters. Having grown up on the river before spending decades in fisheries and wildlife management, Rogers chairs the committee with both experience and heart.

“What makes Bluffton and the Lowcountry so special? It’s our communities, our culture and our people, but the rivers, estuaries and salt marshes are the backdrop to all of that,” he said. “I’m really proud to contribute to the strategic plan through WAPAC and advise the Town of Bluffton on smart growth.”

Just do one little thing

No one needs to tell Stan Rogers that Bluffton’s recent history has been one of explosive growth. Coming from Hampton County as a child, he remembers the one-square-mile town of two-lane roads Bluffton once was. Returning as a seasoned wildlife management professional gave him a different perspective on that growth.

“Every time I came back, there would be something new,” he said. “You look at U.S. 278. It was a two-lane road, and now it’s four lanes and a bridge. All kinds of things happened over time. All this progress makes our community thrive, but on the natural resource side, there are tradeoffs.”

He credits the Town of Bluffton’s strategic plan with guiding development thoughtfully while respecting the natural environment. But he adds that residents still have a role to play.

“People love the place they live and want to keep it natural, vibrant, clean and healthy,” he said. “As our community grows, there’s more opportunity for action. Even little things matter. Picking up that bottle floating by while you’re out on the sandbar. If everyone does something small, collectively we do something big. Everyone can do their own part.”

Jeff Netzinger

This civil engineer applies science and strategy to protecting Hilton Head Island’s shoreline

No one needs to tell the Town of Hilton Head Island how drastically the landscape can change. As an island that some geologists would describe as more of a sandbar than an island, Hilton Head has been under constant siege from erosion since the Holocene Epoch. But when you have found a place as special as this to call home, preserving every square foot becomes essential.

Seeing this wave coming, the Town took the prescient step of beginning regular beach renourishment in the 1990s. Spreading millions of pounds of fill sand from offshore sources onto local beaches helped protect them from wave action, allowing continued enjoyment for residents and visitors. A second major renourishment was completed in 2006, bookended by smaller fills and restorations in the years before and after.

When the Town revisited beach renourishment in 2025, responsibility for overseeing the project fell to Engineering and Public Projects Director, Jeff Netzinger.

“I’m a civil engineer, and I practiced in the private sector for 20 years before coming to the town in 2017,” Netzinger said. “My background is in transportation and stormwater. I didn’t have experience with the beach. Some folks here at the Town left, and I was available as an engineer. But I understood the concepts behind beach renourishment and the value of keeping beaches nourished from a resilience standpoint.”

Helping fill in the finer points of his knowledge was Christopher Creed with Foth-Olsen, the Jacksonville-based firm leading the renourishment project.

“I was fortunate that he was available to further educate me because Foth-Olsen has been helping us take care of our beaches for 35 years,” Netzinger said. “I’ve learned a lot. It’s remarkable how many times I’ve been asked to give presentations to various stakeholder groups, so I’ve become well versed in what’s been going on.”

As crews pump sand onto the beaches, working one stretch at a time around the island, Netzinger remains both on-site overseeing construction and out in the community helping residents understand the need for renourishment.

“In the private sector I wasn’t as directly plugged into construction because most of my work was done by the time plans were released, so this has been really rewarding,” he said. “You get a lot more job satisfaction when you actually see the results of those engineering efforts.”

Those efforts are paying off with beaches that protect the shoreline, attract visitors and provide habitat for the wildlife that calls Hilton Head home.

“These beaches are our first line of defense when it comes to storm surge and wave action, and they’re a fundamental component of our economy here on Hilton Head,” Netzinger said.

Our beaches are open

The numbers behind the Town of Hilton Head Island’s $47.5 million beach renourishment project are staggering. Across more than 46,500 feet of shoreline, workers will pump nearly 2.2 million cubic yards of sand from offshore sources. The work is staggered across five zones, moving at a rate of about 200 to 300 feet per day.

With so much activity underway, it’s easy to assume favorite swimming and surfing spots will be off-limits, but Netzinger wants to put those worries to rest.

“When people hear we’re renourishing the beach, they assume the entire shoreline is closed,” he said. “If you’re in Ohio planning a trip next spring and see a beach renourishment project scheduled, you might think that means the beach is closed and you should wait a year. That’s just not true.”

“It’s a moving operation that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and at any given point only about 1,000 to 1,200 feet of beach is closed,” he said.

Rest easy knowing that even your favorite stretch of sand will likely be closed for only a day or two and will reopen more beautiful than ever.

Rob Merchant

This longtime planner is helping Beaufort County prepare for change before it arrives

Everyone has a calling, but not all of them shout. For Rob Merchant, Beaufort County’s planning and zoning director, his penchant for planning only became clear after he had already earned a degree in industrial design.

“I always say it’s unrealistic for people to know what they want to do with their lives at 18,” Merchant said with a laugh. “I grew up in an urban, walkable environment, and before I was able to articulate why, I knew I really enjoyed that kind of place. I began to learn there was a whole field of planning, and that’s when I stumbled on a book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs.”

Jacobs’ influential work outlined how city planning could be about more than tearing down old things and building new ones, showing how thoughtful plans could benefit both the environment and the people who live there. Merchant was hooked and changed careers after earning a degree in planning. But in Pennsylvania’s rust belt, opportunities were limited.

“I wanted to move somewhere with more dynamic growth, so I moved here in 1999,” he said.

At the time, Beaufort County was just beginning its period of rapid expansion, and Merchant found himself with a front-row seat to the change.

“When you’re in a lower-growth area, you’re doing less planning and more grant writing and special projects,” he said. “In an area like this, the planning aspect really comes to the forefront.”

Working for Beaufort County, Merchant helped thread the needle of responsible development, balancing economic realities with environmental impact. He prioritized citizen input as the county advanced its comprehensive plan, implemented policies to protect valuable natural resources, improve the built environment and work more cooperatively with the county’s neighbors.

Today much of his focus is on resilience and anticipating what comes next.

“We want to be armed with information about sea-level rise, climate change and how those things impact our communities,” Merchant said. “That’s why resilience is built into our comprehensive plan.”

That information comes from many sources, including long-term data from Charleston Harbor and Fort Pulaski, showing more than a foot of sea level rise since the 1930s, as well as local observations of more frequent coastal flooding, with water sometimes overtopping the seawall at Beaufort’s Waterfront Park during tropical storms and king tides.

“Those events have consequences,” he said. “They start as nuisances, but over time they can create real public safety problems. Rather than seeing climate change and sea-level rise as a single catastrophic event, it’s more accurate to think of them as a series of small issues that add up.”

Rather than reacting after the fact, Merchant’s approach emphasizes planning ahead. His department is reviewing sections of the comprehensive plan, coordinating across county departments and preparing for a public review process in early 2026.

“The idea isn’t a full rewrite,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to see where course corrections make sense and where new policies may be needed.”

Future focused

As Beaufort County’s sustained growth collides with the realities of rising sea levels, Merchant knows his work will only become more complex. He is already looking ahead at ways to manage those challenges.

He is exploring ways to streamline the development review process, providing clearer and faster guidance to developers while maintaining the integrity of the comprehensive plan. Internally, he has helped to assemble a cross-departmental group to assess how proposed changes may affect county operations.

“The state of South Carolina is a good environment for planning,” Merchant said. “Local governments are required to update their comprehensive plan every 10 years and conduct a five-year review. We’ve done that work internally, and now we’re working with the planning commission, which is ultimately responsible for the plan and the review of each chapter.”

The next step will be public engagement in early 2026.

“This isn’t a comprehensive plan rewrite,” he said. “It’s a chance to see if course corrections are needed and to introduce new policies that reflect where we are and where we’re headed.”