One of the best things a student investigating career options can do is to get an internship. Brayden Sherman started early and landed his first internship while in high school.
Sherman’s parents wanted to live close to the mountains, so they moved from the Naples-Fort Myers, Florida area to Anderson. Being in the fast-growing South Carolina Upstate was a plus for Brayden, who has a passion for researching business and economic growth.
While in his sophomore year of high school, Sherman contacted a local real estate firm. After briefly working at a fast-food restaurant, someone at the firm contacted him, leading to a paid internship where he’d eventually learn about the world of commercial real estate.
“I worked on that outside of school hours and had a meeting with them once a week,” Sherman said. “Essentially the whole job was talking to the different retailers to see if we can connect them with sites locally and get them into the market. Through that, I got a huge passion for commercial real estate and development. I even got some deals I helped put together. I didn’t officially put them together because I was not yet licensed, but I connected the chains, talked to the agents who were seeking tenants, and was involved in connecting different tenants to agents and property owners.”
When Sherman was looking for a college, he liked that Anderson University is a Christian university and fell in love with the beauty of the campus. Since becoming a student at the Anderson University College of Business, Sherman has had internships that align with his career aspirations.
“I’ve been an Intern at Anderson County Economic Development for close to two years now and was also at the local Chamber of Commerce for close to half a year,” he said. “These internships have provided me a great balance between being at a nonprofit organization such as the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce, a government entity such as economic development, and the private commercial real estate sector.”
“Brayden is an asset for Anderson County Economic Development. His substantial network of commercial entities is phenomenal,” said Anderson County Economic Development Director Burriss Nelson. “He has been very helpful to us in tracking and sourcing retailers that have recently committed or established operations in the county. He is tireless—no—relentless in his efforts. He may well be one of the hardest working interns I have had the pleasure to work with in this office.”
Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns stated that Sherman has contributed a lot through his internship at Anderson County Economic Development.
“Brayden does a lot of research on companies and commercial operations that might be a good fit for Anderson County,” Burns said. “He keeps up with business activity in Anderson County. He’s probably the best source of information on what is happening in the commercial, retail, and industrial markets in Anderson County… He is ‘whip-smart’ and an absolute pleasure to work with.”
Sherman’s love of research led him to establish a Facebook group, which has surpassed 20,000 members—not a small feat considering that the city of Anderson has around 30,000 inhabitants within its city limits.
Sherman, a finance major, said, “I got into liking doing the research back when we were looking for a place to move to, and after we moved here I kind of wanted to continue research of a similar regard. So that resulted in me starting that group on Facebook back in early 2019… Originally this was supposed to be my way to personally keep track of my research results online. Maybe some people would join it and enjoy this new business research as well.”
A lot of the posts in his Facebook group, “Anderson County Business Development,” are about new businesses locating in the Anderson area, business expansions, as well as buildings and sites becoming available for commercial real estate development. Also, after the area was hit by Tropical Storm Helene, group posts included information about resources available to residents who were impacted.
Brayden Sherman posts commercial business updates in “Anderson County Business Development” on Facebook, with additional pages on other platforms such as Nextdoor and X (Twitter) for people not on Facebook.
Additionally, he’s active on LinkedIn and serves in the South Carolina National Guard.