Ronnie Andrews ’81 was 13 when his grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It was a time when people didn’t use the C-word, much less say breast cancer,” says Andrews. He knew that college would put a huge financial strain on his family, but he looked at his grandmother after her first round of chemotherapy and vowed to be the first in his family to go to college and study toward a cure for the disease.

A Wofford football scholarship provided the first step toward a career in molecular diagnostics and a life of philanthropy honoring his grandmother.

“I know my grandmother was on her knees every single night,” says Andrews, who was told he was too small to play college football then tore his ACL during high school. “Wofford was the only team that remained loyal to their offer. I learned then that integrity matters. Wofford honored their promise to a young kid, and I’ve never forgotten that.”

A self-professed science nerd who is still thankful that he was required to take humanities classes at Wofford, Andrews majored in biology and chemistry but learned quickly while doing a pre-medical internship that a career on the patient-care side of medicine was not for him.

“The ER and pathology were my first rotations. I almost passed out the first time a bleeder came in, and I got sick at the sight of my first cadaver,” he says. “I still loved science, but I didn’t know that I wanted to be that close to it.”

Andrews didn’t recognize it at the time, but he possessed a combination of energy, passion, business acumen and emotional intelligence that would serve him well on the business side of science.

"He’s called the Forrest Gump of the molecular diagnostic world,” says Toni Andrews, Ronnie’s wife and business partner for the past 33 years. “Opportunity happens when he’s around.”

Andrews learned the ins and outs of genetic testing with Roche Molecular Diagnostic Corp. during the early years of the HIV epidemic. He then leveraged that knowledge and took a risk, leaving Roche to start Clarient Diagnostic Services Inc., a medical device manufacturer that he turned into a comprehensive cancer diagnostic services company.

“At Clarient, we were early pioneers doing molecular tumor mapping for women diagnosed with breast cancer,” says Andrews. The pace at which scientists were learning about DNA and cancer was astounding, so he created a company that offered real-time delivery of this cutting-edge knowledge to community doctors on the front lines of patient care.

“No two cancers are the same,” says Andrews, talking with his hands, describing the way humans make and eliminate cancer cells using Los Angeles highways as part of the analogy. “When we talk about personalized medicine, cancer is the ultimate frontier.”

While with Clarient, Ronnie and Toni Andrews rang the NASDAQ closing bell. A few years later, the company was named the best company to work for in health care. After Clarient sold to GE Healthcare, Andrews led the genetics sciences division at Thermo Fisher Scientific as president, following a merger with Life Technologies. As a scientist and wine lover, he started exploring the wine business and founded Vinome, a company that analyzes DNA and taste preferences to match individual palates to select wines. He also founded The Bethesda Group, a company focused on helping organizations in the molecular diagnostics and genomics industries. He sits on the boards of directors of several companies in the oncology field, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s CancerLinq program.

“My wife is my partner in everything,” says Andrews. That includes his love for and commitment to Wofford. “We’re both passionate about our faith and our family, about oncology and about Wofford College. She didn’t experience what I experienced at Wofford, but Wofford adopted her, and she gets in there and works for the Terrier Ball each year as hard as anyone.” Now their son, Rhett, is a member of the Wofford Class of 2020, continuing the Terrier tradition.

“In my grandmother I saw a heart for others. I learned that from her, but Wofford helped me develop that on a bigger scale,” says Andrews. In gratitude, Ronnie and Toni have established an endowed scholarship for a kicker on the college’s football team. He also serves on the college’s board of trustees, elected in 2018.

By Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington ’89