Johnson returns to Gilbert Construction as CFO

FLORENCE — When Mary Jane Baber Johnson left Crozet, Va., in the early 1980s for more fertile ground in South Carolina, Crozet got its first stoplight.

Although the picturesque town of 2,820 near Charlottesville has grown, Johnson decided to plant her roots in Florence.

But she has returned to Crozet on occasion to marvel at the stoplight.

Johnson has been the chief financial officer at Gilbert Construction Co. for six years. Gilbert is a general contractor that specializes in commercial and industrial construction in an 80-mile radius from Florence.

Among others, Gilbert has built the Center for the Child and the Nursing Center at Francis Marion University, an expansion at All Saints Day School, First Federal and Carolina banks, the Morning News building and press facility and several area churches.

“We get a lot of repeat business,” said Johnson, who started at the bottom at Gilbert and worked her way up. “I have learned a lot since I’ve been here.”

Johnson joined Gilbert after graduating from FMU with an undergraduate degree in math in 1987. She was an assistant to then-CFO, Kathy Knight, for five years.

She took a break when her children were born, working for a local certified public accountant and doing bookkeeping work at home before Gilbert CEO Austin Gilbert called her when Knight retired.

She jumped at the chance to return to GCC because she likes the people she works with.

“It’s like a small family here,” she said, noting the company employs about 20 people. “I’m also a problem solver, and that fits in well with being a CFO.”

Johnson’s expertise hasn’t gone unnoticed by Austin Gilbert, who founded the company in 1975. GCC is housed in his maternal grandmother’s house along Coit Street.

“I’ve know Mary Jane since she was around 18,” Gilbert said. “She helped work her way through college by keeping our children.

“She’s always been the same. She has a good work ethic. Her integrity is impeccable. I think that’s one of her strongest points. She is also an attentive mother, devoted wife and a wonderful employee.”

Gilbert started the company after building houses in Garden City.

“I was working as a laborer there, and I always liked it,” Gilbert said. “I attended Clemson and went to the school of building construction.”

Gilbert and his wife worked together in the early days. She kept the books, and he took care of the job sites.

That was when he ran into Johnson.

“Mary Jane’s a wonderful person, and I have the absolute highest regard for her,” he said. “She’s a shining example of the exemplary students that Francis Marion produces.

“We have another FMU graduate, too. Scott Keefe graduated not that long ago. Both he and Mary Jane are part of the benefit that a university like Francis Marion can have for the area.”

Johnson says math has always been her strong point. She was exceptionally good in algebra.

But that didn’t exactly mean she would be a good tutor for her 16-year-old son.

“They don’t teach algebra the way they did when I was coming along,” she she said with a laugh. “That’s why I had to get a tutor for my son.”

When she’s not attending functions at South Florence High School for her son and 14-year-old daughter, Johnson enjoys cooking desserts. She likes cakes and cookies, but has been on a muffin kick lately.