Induction Year: 1996

Marshall B. Durbin

  • October 25th, 2021

Marshall B. Durbin, Sr. was the sort of business visionary blessed with the ability to turn his dreams into the reality of accomplishments. Born to O.C. Durbin and Ola Culp Durbin February 27, 1901, in Chilton County, Alabama, Marshall Durbin, Sr. passed away in November of 1971, leaving behind him then four brothers, five sisters, a widow, a son, and what is now one of the top poultry companies in the United States, with facilities in three states, markets as far-flung as Russia and the Far East, annual sales of about $200 million, and more than 2,200 employees.

To gain a more complete understanding of Marshall Durbin, Sr., it helps to turn the pages of history back to the late 1920s, when the enterprising young Alabamian – whose formal education ended at third grade – moved off the family farm to the big city of Birmingham to enter the real estate business. But the stock market crash of October 1929, followed by the Great Depression, led him quickly to the conclusion that this would not be the most profitable course to follow. Reviewing his options, Mr. Durbin decided that regardless of economic conditions, “People will want to eat.” So, in 1930, with $500 in funds borrowed from his bride (the late) Eula Sims Durbin, he established a retail fish stand. Two years later, he added poultry – and a second stand.

From those small retail stands Marshall Durbin Companies grew into its present-day status as a vertically integrated company, complete with its own hatcheries, breeder flocks, contract growers, warehouses, processing plants, cooking plants, feed mills, fleet, and distribution facilities. The growth in Marshall Durbin, Sr.’s business was mirrored by that of the Alabama poultry industry, which today has a major impact on the state’s economy. By producing more than 882 million broilers, it provides employ­ment for some 55,000 Alabamians and income for almost 4,000 farmers – and has a total industry impact of almost $7.5 billion.

During his years of industry leadership, Mr. Durbin actively supported organizations that would contribute to its growth – and the growth of his state. For example, he was a co­founder of the Southeastern Poultry and Egg Association, served as president of the Alabama Poultry Processors Association, and was co-founder of the Alabama Poultry Industry Association. On the national level, he was a co-founder of the National Broiler Council and the first president of the National Broiler Marketing Association, plus he served 15 years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of American Poultry Industries.

“His principal business philosophy was hard work and lots of it,” remembers Marshall B. Durbin, Jr., who succeeded his father as head of Marshall Durbin Companies after working in the business with him for many years. “In the early years, he would be on the streets making per­sonal calls to hotels and restaurants at 4 a.m. – calling on the chefs in person. There was a lot of competition, and often the company that got the business was the first one there.

“He always tried to be the first one there.” Another place he came in first was in his belief that chicken could be a viable business in the South. In the pre-World War II era, the Midwest seemingly had a lock on the market due to the producers’ proximity to ample supplies of corn and grain. Mr. Durbin worked long and hard to help convince railway com­panies to move to larger rail cars and con­currently reduce rates, selling them on the argument that by the reduction they could increase volume, and profits. This led to a shift in agricultural economics, with the South producing more chickens and the Midwest focusing its efforts on growing more corn and soybean to feed those chickens. He also led the way in promoting the nutritional value of chicken; it was at his urging in the early 1960s that the National Broiler Council initiated, with Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and the Cling Peach Association, a joint advertising program centered around this theme and aimed at women’s magazines.

Marshall Durbin, Jr. also remembers his father, who over the years furthered his education with such readings as Plutarch’s Lives and Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization, as a fair man. “He was a good leader – a fair leader. I remember him as stern but friendly. Of course, as happens in most businesses we sometimes disagreed on how things should be done because of the generational differences. But I can remember that for a while after he died when I had a problem, I would still find myself getting up and going into his vacant office to ask for advice … by then I had learned that his counsel was generally right.”

The son says he believes his father, who in his later years found time for fishing and always reserved his Sundays to take his granddaughters to the zoo and then out for hamburgers, would most like to be remembered for the way he helped set the course for the poultry industry in not only Alabama and the Southeast but in the United States.

Perhaps Marshall Durbin, Sr.’s most significant legacy in that regard stemmed from his tenure on the United States Department of Agriculture National Advisory Committee in the middle 1960s. At the time, the USDA was in the process of introducing a proposal to impose production quotas and price controls on the poultry industry. Having seen what a detrimental effect similar policy measures had wreaked on the cotton industry; Mr. Durbin used his membership on the National Advisory Committee to position himself in the leadership of the opposition to quotas.

The result of those months of work in Washington, D.C., are still felt today. Thanks to the efforts of Marshall Durbin, Sr., and those who worked with him, no lids were imposed on poultry production, and unlike King Cotton, long ago dethroned in the world market, the poultry business has grown exponentially. For example, when Mr. Durbin went to Washington to first battle for this cause, the United States was producing 2.3 billion chickens annually, while in 1995 some 7.3 billion birds were produced. And over the years, Alabama has been the beneficiary of much of this growth – as is evidenced by the fact it is now the third-largest poultry-producing state in the nation.

Even 25 years ago the relevance of Marshall Durbin Sr.’s national policy work in D. C. was well known. As then said by the Southeastern Poultry Times, “His influence there was credited with helping to keep the poultry industry free of production and price controls and today the poultry industry is among the remaining ‘free enterprise’ industries of agriculture.”

Around the state, his efforts were also well recognized, as evidenced by his 1969 induction into the Alabama Poultry Hall of Fame. And upon his death in 1971, the trade magazine Broiler Industry drew upon the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson to best capture the industry leader’s accomplishments, writing, “if, as Emerson said, ‘an institution is lengthened by the shadow of one man,’ then Marshall Durbin, Sr. was such a man . . . he was a man who always knew where he was going, and how he was going to get there – a true natural leader . . . He was one of the best-integrated broiler operators in the United States.”

But perhaps the final tribute to Marshall Durbin, Sr., is that he gave his vision the roots to continue to grow.

Frank L. Mason

  • October 25th, 2021

In 1947, Mr. Sam Mason was having a hard time making a go of things with his business, Southeastern Tool & Die Company. Aluminum window screens were still new then, and the firm that originally only manufactured tools and dies had added three-screen parts to its production line, right as Mr. Mason’s health was beginning to fail.

“At that time,” recalls Frank L. Mason, “I really had not thought too much about starting with the company … It was more an effort to help my father. He’d helped me all his life.” So, the loyal son laid aside his mechanical engineering studies at The University of Alabama to go into business with his father. It was the first of a lot of smart business decisions the 1982 Alabama Small Business Person of the Year would make in his career.

Frank L. Mason was born May 7, 1924, to Sam Mason and Ruth Jacobs Mason in Birmingham, Alabama. He completed three semesters at The University of Alabama before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, where he completed flight training immediately prior to the end of World War II. Shortly after he went to work with his father, the company was incorporated on April 1, 1948, just five days after Frank Mason had wed Bess Powell Cooper. He received 25 percent of the stock at that time, and the business was incorporated, going on to change its name to the Mason Corporation in 1969.

Today Frank Mason is chairman of the board of his firm, which now manufactures aluminum building products for the home improvement industry, as well as some commercial building products. The Mason Corporation home office is still located in Birmingham, but the concern has grown to include locations in Dallas, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Edison, New Jersey. The latest stats on the company show that it has more than 400,000 square feet in total building area, more than 180 employees at eight locations, and offers some 3,000 market items.

Over the years Mr. Mason’s entrepreneurial expertise prompted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to put him on its board of directors and its Small Business Council. A strong advocate of sharing profits with employees, he served a stint as chairman of the Profit Sharing Council of America, an organization of companies that have profit-sharing plans. He just recently stepped down from that body’s board of directors and served as a director for the Alabama Profit Sharing Council. Profit-sharing, Frank Mason says, is one way of showing the employee he or she is important, and it makes good business sense. “With profit-sharing, you’re really following with deeds what you’re saying with words … it’s a matter of mutual interest and welfare of the company,” he says. And Mr. Mason did indeed back up his words with deeds: his company began profit-sharing as soon as it got on its feet in the early 1950s.

He has been on the National Advisory Council for the Small Business Administration, chairman of the Employee Benefits Committee for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and served as the second-ever chairman of the Business Council of Alabama, as well as on its board of directors. He was a member of The University of Alabama College of Commerce and Business Administration Board of Visitors. And the list goes on.

As president of the board of directors of the Alabama Chamber of Commerce, he has been a leader in the state’s push to become a player on the global business scene, stressing teamwork as the necessary element for success in such ventures. “If Alabama is to reach its full international development potential, it will be because we have all worked together to make it happen,” he was known for saying at one point.

In 1980 he was singled out by the Women’s Committee of 100 in Birmingham as the Citizen of the Year and earned his Small Business Person of the Year honors soon after that. At one point he was the member representing small businesses on the Labor and Agriculture Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Two times he chaired the Alabama delegation to the White House Conference on Small Business, once in 1980 and then again in 1986. He is currently vice president of the Treasure Forest Landowners Association of Alabama, president of the Alabama Farm Owners Association and serves on the board of Canterbury United Methodist Church in Birmingham.

Over the years as he combined his business interests and natural bent for leadership, Frank Mason found himself drawn to the political arena. He became one of the first two Republicans elected to office in Jefferson County, Alabama when he won the race for justice of the peace in 1956. In 1958 he was the first Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress from Jefferson County. Then, in 1976 he served as an alternate delegate pledged to (now) former U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the Kansas City National Republican Convention; and was a delegate, again pledged to Reagan, at the Detroit Convention in 1980. He served his state in the very visible position of member, and then chairman of the State Ethics Commission during the first half of the 1990s.

Remembering his early years in the business of politics, he says he did not run for justice of the peace because he coveted the position, but because, as a Republican, he believed voters in the heavily Democratic Alabama should have a choice. They agreed; he won. That victory spurred him on to his other efforts.

“I think that small business has some real assets to bring to the political process,” says Mr. Mason. “It’s easy for people passing laws and regulations to overlook the impact of them … A person who has had to mortgage his house to meet a Friday payroll looks at spending differently than if he has never had that experience. So, I think there is validity to the small business perspective in managing government.”

Although retired from day-to-day participation in the management of the business that became his life, Mr. Mason has not retired in the traditional sense. He spends his time now on a farm of some 3,000 acres in North Alabama, where he is involved in efforts to enhance the wildlife populations of the area, and where he works about 80 head of cattle, planning to expand even more in that area. He says he enjoys meeting new people who share these interests he is able to devote more time to now, as he enjoys using talents and skills entirely different than those called for in the metal and building products industry.

Asked how he would like to be remembered, Frank L. Mason does not have to ponder long on his answer.

“I guess being remembered as a person of integrity would be about the best thing you could think of,” he says.

William H. Mitchell

  • October 25th, 2021

Bill Mitchell’s roots run deep in Florence, Alabama, but his influence has branched out over the entire state.

William H. Mitchell was born on February 1, 1921, to William H. Mitchell and Celestine Martin Mitchell. His great-grandfather was a Scotch-Irish immigrant who pastored the Presbyterian church in Florence from 1843 to 1850; his grandfather served as probate judge, a 19th-century legislator, and still later as the state tax commissioner; and his father practiced law in the city. But while his heritage is proud, Bill Mitchell’s own efforts are what have written a place for him in Alabama history.

As a youth Mr. Mitchell attended Florence City Schools, going on to matriculate at Davidson College. After completing his undergraduate liberal arts education, he joined the United States Army, serving his country in the North African and European theaters of operation during World War II and earning a non-combat Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster and a Legion of Merit award. Returning to his home state, he completed his degree in the law at The University of Alabama, receiving it along with membership in the Farrah Order of Jurisprudence. His formal education complete, he returned to Florence to practice law from 1946 to 1958, with bride Ellie Richardson by his side.

It was then he began his active career in banking, as president and chief executive officer of the First National Bank of Florence. (He had served as an inactive vice president of the concern, now SunTrust Bank, Alabama, N.A., from 1954-1958.) Over the years the bank’s assets grew from $23 million to more than $276 million at the time of Mr. Mitchell’s retirement in 1985, making it at that time the largest independent bank in North Alabama. He is modest about the role he played in the bank’s good fortunes.

“Any success we’ve had can be attributed to the general growth of the area, the good management that began well before I joined the bank, and to the confidence the public has in the bank,” he commented in a May 1978 interview with Alabama News Magazine upon his election as president of the Alabama Bankers Association. “We advertise that we’ve got deep roots in the community, and we try to be involved in all parts of community life.”

For Bill Mitchell, that involvement meant serving on the Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital Board of Governors, as chairman of the Muscle Shoals Regional Library Board, president of both the Florence Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Florence Chamber of Commerce, president of the Florence Rotary Club, chairman of the Lauderdale County chapter of the American Red Cross, vice president of the Lauderdale County United Fund, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama State Chamber of Commerce and the Alabama Department of Archives and History Board of Trustees. At First Presbyterian Church in Florence, he has served as a ruling elder, trustee, Sunday School teacher, and superintendent.

He also backed up his belief in education with his volunteer efforts as a member of The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees, a charter member of The University of Alabama College of Commerce and Business Administration Board of Visitors, vice president of The University of Alabama National Alumni Association and as a member of the University of North Alabama President’s Cabinet. Combining his strong religious beliefs with his support for education, he also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), and as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Presbyterian Home for Children.

Bill Mitchell’s community recognized his business, volunteer, and philanthropic efforts, showing its pride by awarding him the first-ever Chamber of Commerce of the Shoals Lifetime Achievement Award. In comments at the awards ceremony in 1988, then WOWL-TV Board Chairman Dick Biddle said, “From his former position as president of the First National Bank of Florence, Bill has been constantly in the forefront of matters pertaining to the economic well-being of the Shoals. He is privately credited with being the one that brought together the board of directors of TV A and Reynolds Metals Company, resulting in a compromise that allowed Reynolds to continue to operate in the Shoals.

“Bill has been a very private man. Many of his deeds have gone unnoticed. He is dedicated to his family, his profession, and his community. And Bill carries on the tradition of an illustrious family of Shoals Mitchells.”

Others also recognized Bill Mitchell over the years. He was named the Florence Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow, enrolled in the Florence Exchange Club Book of Golden Deeds, named Citizen of the Year by the Florence Civitan Club, and received a Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1983. That award was presented by Dr. John C. Wright of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who noted about Mr. Mitchell, “his acts to facilitate the building of the economy through his banking career and related service, concern for the welfare of mankind through community and broader service, concern for religious convictions … concern for the intellect.”

When Mr. Mitchell looks back over that banking career, he is able to say the biggest change he experienced during his tenure as First National’s president and as an active member and leader of the Alabama Bankers Association was when the nation’s banking industry was deregulated in the late 1970s. “Banking was a protected industry when I started out,” he remembers. “Everybody in our market paid the same for deposits and charged the same for loans … if one word characterizes the whole industry, that word would be ‘change.’ ”

And Bill Mitchell has seen change in his beloved Florence, as well. During his life, the counties of Lauderdale and Colbert merged their chambers of commerce to foster economic expansion, meaning closer ties between the cities of Sheffield, Muscle Shoals, Tuscumbia, and Florence. But that did not change Mr. Mitchell’s approach to doing business, which centered over the years around the ability to develop lifelong relationships. “I have never met a person who I did not learn something from and who did not mean something special to me,” he says. And it is those relationships that drove his desire to help his city and his state. “I basically just like people and feel that if an individual is going to spend time in a community he should help that community,” he says.

“A lot of people have helped this area out, and I am just one of them.”

H. Taylor Morrissette

  • October 25th, 2021

Taylor Morrissette always thought of himself as “just a sugar peddler.”

He was that and more, say family and friends, that and more. H. Taylor Morrissette was chairman and chief executive officer of Colonial Sugars, Incorporated, from 1980 until the company’s acquisition in 1986 by Savannah Foods and Industries, Incorporated. Born September 29, 1931, in Mobile, Alabama, to John Marshall Morrissette and Marlite Taylor Morrissette, when he died September 29, 1990, he was survived by his wife, Vaughan Inge Morrissette; a daughter; three sons; his mother, his brother; and grandchildren.

Taylor Morrissette attended grade school and Murphy High School in Mobile, graduating from Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1949. In 1953 he received his bachelor’s degree from Spring Hill College, then served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army until October 1955.

“I remember Taylor growing up as a fun person to be with and as a fine high school athlete,” reminisces Edwin J. “Jerry” Curran, Jr., a Mobile lawyer and close Morrissette family friend. “While he was a college student at Spring Hill he worked with the City of Mobile Recreational Department as a coach with underprivileged children, and he loved that work.”

In later years Taylor Morrissette would tum his capabilities and resources to other civic efforts. He served as a trustee for his college alma mater and on the Board of Overseers for Sweet Briar College, the alma mater of his bride. He was a trustee for St. Paul’s Episcopal School and past president of the Mobile Touchdown Club and America’s Junior Miss, Incorporated, and a past chairman of the Rebel Chapter of the Young President’s Organization. He was also a director of the Alabama Sheriff’s Boys and Girls Ranches, a member of the Chief Executive’s Organization, and past international vice president of the Young President’s Association.

When Taylor Morrissette finished his military service in 1955, he went to work for Henderson Sugar Refinery, Incorporated, as a route salesman. In 1963 he was elected assistant vice president of the company, and in 1964 took the office of vice president in charge of sales. Three years later he became vice president of Southern Industries Corporation in Charge of Production and Sale of Sugar, serving only one year before being elected a director of Godchaux-Henderson Sugar Company, Incorporated. He became president of that company in 1969.

“Taylor referred to himself as a ‘sugar peddler,’ and there probably was never and may never be a better one,” says Jerry Curran. “It was not his personality, good looks, charisma, or intelligence, but his capacity for real friendship with people of all walks of life that, in my opinion, marked his success.

“The truth of the matter is that Taylor would have been successful at anything he undertook, but Taylor’s father, in his early years, had been connected with the sugar business, and I believe that it was somehow in Taylor’s blood.”

In 1973 Taylor Morrissette resigned his presidency of Godchaux-Henderson to accept the presidency of North American Sugar Industries, Incorporated, a division of Borden, Incorporated. In 1980 he acquired the assets of North American from Borden and went on to form a new corporation known as Colonial Sugars, Incorporated, leading it at one point to annual sales of more than $300 million.

“He was a giant in the sugar industry, highly respected by his peers,” remembers former U.S. Congressman Jack Edwards of Mobile. “He was also well-known in the banking field, having been chairman of the board of First National Bank of Mobile and chairman of First Bancgroup, Alabama, Incorporated.”

Other of Mr. Morrissette’s business affilia­tions included serving as vice chairman of the National Association of Food Research, as a director and treasurer of the U.S. Cane Sugar Refiners’ Association, as a member of the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange, as chairman of Marshall Biscuit Company, and as a director for Bedsole Medical, Morrison’s, Savannah Foods and Industries, and Addsco. He was also a director for AmSouth Bank, N. A., and the AmSouth Bank Mobile City Board.

“When Taylor moved from Godchaux­Henderson to Borden’s North American division, Borden had no real connection with Mobile, Alabama,” says Jerry Curran. ‘The sugar refinery was in Louisiana and of course, Borden’s headquarters were elsewhere.

“After joining Borden, Taylor prevailed on them to move the executive, accounting and sales offices of North American Sugar to his hometown, which was a meaningful addition to Mobile’s business community.”

One of the Mobile newspapers recognized Mr. Morrissette in the unlikely venue of a political column, writing:

“Though he is one of Mobile’s most success­ful businessmen, he is ‘down-to-earth’ and refreshingly open to people and tolerant of divergent thought. At the same time, he is a man of principle. His decisions are based on what is morally right rather than monetarily expedient. If this writer were going to describe the traits which this city’s leadership most needed, Taylor would have every one of them. Would that we had more Taylor Morrissette’s.”

In 1981 Taylor Morrissette suffered a heart attack, which was soon followed by a rare digestive disorder that limited his activities and finally forced him to step down as president of Colonial Sugars in 1985, immediately prior to its sale to Savannah Foods.

“Taylor Morrissette died too young,” says Jack Edwards. “He had a marvelous career and so much yet to give when that illness finally claimed his life. But for those of us who knew him best, he was an enthusiastic civic leader, great husband, and father, and a person of tremendous courage who cared deeply for his fellow man.

“No matter how busy he was, no matter how serious his illness, he never lost his concern for others.”

An avid hunter and fisherman, Mr. Morrissette was a strong supporter of many conservation efforts. Son Harris remembers that as his father’s illness wore on, he would enjoy his outdoor pursuits through his family and that to this day his children share his old hunting camp.

“He was such a great father,” Harris says, the smile in his voice apparent. “I don’t think I really realized what a great daddy I had until I read some of the letters people wrote Mother after his death. He was a generous guy, a friend to everyone.

“He was a good boss, too – I had the opportunity to work with him for about six years. He was fair and a good leader. Everyone says he was a great salesman, but he was an even better manager.”

Jerry Curran says there are a group of Mobile friends who fished and hunted with Taylor Morrissette, who visited with him and shared some of his private moments, who that when they get together always seem to find a reason to remember and discuss their friend. He sums up their feelings.

‘Taylor was one of those unusual people who come along just once in a great while who is always with you and never forgotten.”

Taylor Morrissette died at his home, with his family and friends. He was only 59.

Goodwin L. Myrick

  • October 25th, 2021

Goodwin L. Myrick’s resume belies the fact that he has been a farmer all his life.

President and chief executive officer are the words that jump out at the reader and listed beneath those terms are so many organizations that one might overlook the second, and key, word in the first listing: Alabama Farmers Federation. But there is no overlooking Goodwin Myrick, or the influence he has had on business and agriculture in the state of Alabama.

Goodwin L. Myrick was born May 9, 1925, in Etowah County, Alabama, to Marion Myrick and Lillie Burgess Myrick. He grew up a farmer, tilling the family soil, and establishing his first dairy herd in 1944 with eight cows. Today, with more than 400 Holstein dairy cows and 700 head of beef cattle, his dairy, beef cattle and farm opera­tions encompass two farms and more than 2,000 acres in Etowah and Talladega counties. The farming operation is run through M&H Farms, a partnership between Mr. Myrick, his son Greg, his daughter Donna and her husband Tony Haynes.

Mr. Myrick began the executive side of his career by joining and progressing through the ranks of Alabama’s largest farm organi­zation, following in his father’s footsteps as president of the Etowah County Farm Bureau Federation. Later he was elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation, the predecessor organization to the Alabama Farmers Federation. He was then selected as a vice president of that organization, and later, in 1969, as first vice president – a capacity in which he served for some nine years. In 1978, with the support of a grassroots movement within the organization, he was elected president. The members of the Alabama Farmers Federation and Alfa Insurance Companies Group have confirmed that original vote eight times since, and Mr. Myrick is currently serving his ninth term.

Since his first term in office, membership in the Federation has increased each year, growing from 223,000 members in 1980 to almost 400,000 today, making it the largest farm organization in Alabama and one of the largest in the nation. The Alfa Insurance Group has also seen an annual growth rate of 22.3 percent, expanding from a small, one-state operation into one of the strongest regional insurance groups in the United States. The Alfa Corporation, of which he is also president and chief executive officer, is now a publicly-traded insurance holding company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange and listed five times in one 10-year period by Forbes Magazine as one of the “200 Small Best Companies in America.” In 1991, the Corporation was recognized as one of the Top 50 small company stocks in the nation by U.S. News and World Report and has been honored five times in the 1990s by National Underwriter as one of the Top 50 insurance companies in the nation.

Mr. Myrick led Alfa’s growth and expan­sion efforts in many ways. Under his leadership several subsidiary corporations have been formed or have been changed or improved to the extent that all are now operating at significant positive profit levels, including Alfa Investment Company; Alfa Realty, Incorporated; Alfa Builders, Incorporated; and Southern Boulevard Corporation. Under his leadership, an insurance pooling agreement was implemented that essentially changed Alfa Corporation from a life insurance holding company to a multi-line insurance holding company, with subsequent significant operational and financial benefits to the entire insurance corporation. He has also established an in-house advertising agency, Creative Consultants, Incorporated, which handles all of the Alfa Insurance, affiliate companies, and Alabama Farmers Federation advertising and placement.

Over the years Goodwin Myrick has said that one of the keys to his corporate success has been his strong belief that the greatest assets of his companies are the people who work for them and the persons whom they serve, both farmers and insurance policy­holders. This philosophy played out into the concrete reality of a significant decline in the annual rate of personnel turnover. It went, for general employees, from approximately 52 percent at the time he became president to a current rate of about 11 percent at the headquarters office of the Alfa Companies in Montgomery, Alabama. For agents, on a statewide basis, the drop was even more dramatic: from about 85 percent at the time of Mr. Myrick’s election to a current rate of about 15 percent.

One of Goodwin Myrick’s first management decisions after taking the helm as president of the Alfa Group was to elevate the role of the human resources department, having it report directly to the president and centralizing all personnel functions of the several affiliate corporations and organizations. Compensation and benefits packages were unified, and he initiated an incentive pay plan that still involves all employees, from the entry-level hourly wage earner to top management.

Continuing to implement his philosophy to put people first and to make Alfa a leader in corporate America, Mr. Myrick led his companies to build and provide for their employees a state-of-the-art childcare facility, licensed for 120 children, adjacent to the corporate offices in Montgomery, one of the first of its type in the state. He has also been responsible for planning and implementing a corporate fitness center.

Today Goodwin Myrick sits on the boards of directors of Compass Bank of the South; of the Alfa Corporation and all Alfa Insur­ance Corporations and subsidiary corporations; the Alabama 4-H Foundation; and the Auburn University College of Agriculture Advisory Council, of which he served as the first chairman. He has led Alfa’s participation in United Way and other charitable causes and civic programs and has been responsible in recent years for the Companies’ contribu­tions to many of the state’s universities, in­cluding The University of Alabama, Auburn University, Troy State University, Tuskegee University, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has also implemented and expanded numerous individual scholarship programs, and under his direction, Alfa is a “Partner in Education” for two schools in the Montgomery County School System.

In 1990 Goodwin L. Myrick was named one of the 10 most influential men in the state of Alabama by Business Alabama Magazine, and in 1992 he was inducted into the Alabama Agricultural Hall of Honor.

And how would he like for history to remember him?

“I’ll tell you, “He once told the state’s capital city newspaper, The Montgomery Advertiser. “My Daddy had this reputation – if you wanted to do – Something good for the community, then don’t pass my Daddy’s house (by). He’d always help you.

“We want to build a better community, a better state. I don’t want to be listed as a negative.”

Goodwin L. Myrick need not worry. He will be listed as a positive – and a farmer.

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