Charles Watkins Adair

• October 4th, 2021

It’s a long way from Dora, Alabama to LaQuinta, California, but Charles W. Adair is no stranger to travel.

Born in 1923 to William Fred and Frances Esther Adair, he began his working life as a laborer in a blast furnace and along the way held a variety of professional and managerial positions with companies whose names are synonymous with Birmingham’s development as a 20th-century city.

Adair graduated from Bessemer High School in 1941 and went to work in the iron ore mines operated by U.S. Steel Corporation. Two years later, he found himself in the middle of World War II, serving for eight months in the Army Infantry before moving over to the Army Air Corps. While in the Air Corps, he served in the 20^th Air Force in the South Pacific as a flight engineer on a C-46 cargo plane.

When the war ended he returned to Alabama and attended The University of Alabama, where he received an accounting education and went to work in U.S. Steel Corporation’s steel mill.

His next move was over to Woodward Iron Company in 1948, where he held various positions in accounting and finance, and in 1966, was named vice president of finance and controller, positions he held when Woodward merged with Mead Corporation. He also was general manager of Longview Lime Division, Chattanooga Coke and Chemicals Division, and Roane Electric Division.

He was promoted to executive vice president of the Mead’s Woodward Division in October 1971 and a few months later was named president of Mead’s Iron and Metals Group and Group Vice President of Mead Corporation.

In 1982 he retired from Mead to become vice president and assistant to the chief executive officer at the Drummond Company, a mining and real estate development company with corporate headquarters in Birmingham. Presently, Drummond operates surface and underground coal mines in Alabama and a large surface mine near LaLoma in Colombia. In addition, Drummond operates Alabama By-Products Corp., a coke facility in Tarrant, Ala., where Adair went to work in 1983 as president and chief executive officer. Three years later he became executive vice president of administration at Drummond, before retiring from that position in 1989.

Drummond called again in 1994, this time asking Adair to handle the start-up duties at a real estate development in the California desert.  By this time the Drummond Company had moved into real estate development and golf courses, a ready-made position for Adair, who still plays frequently and shoots his age.

Adair was given the responsibility for planning and managing the operations of Rancho La Quinta Country Club in La Quinta, California (home of the ’96, ’97, and ’98 Skins games). Homes there range from $400,000 to $850,000 plus.

Adair now is a member of the board at Drummond Company and at Ford Tool & Carbide Company, Inc. He formerly served on the boards at Central Bank (now Compass Bank), AmSouth Bank-Birmingham, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, and Alabama By-Products Corporation.

He is presently on the board of Fellowship House, and has a long history of civic involvement, including serving on the boards of the Boy Scouts of Central Alabama, St. Anne’s Home, as president of the Regional Council on Alcoholism, as chairman of the Baptist Hospital Foundation, the United Way of Central Alabama, the Bessemer Committee of One Hundred and the Bessemer Chamber of Commerce. He is a former member of the Birmingham Rotary Club and a member and elder at Briarwood Presbyterian Church.

He and his wife, Martha Edd Chisenhall, have three children, seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Sam P. Faucett, III

• October 4th, 2021

About seven years ago, The Tuscaloosa News called Sam Faucett an emotional man, one who has “fire in the belly.” The News editorial was remarking on Faucett’s selection as Northport’s Citizen of the Year.

Faucett is a passionate man, passionate about his family, his community, health care, education, The University of Alabama, and golf.

Faucett was born in 1935 to Sam Palmer (Bill) Faucett Jr., and Gwendolyn Margaret Dyer Faucett in Northport.  He attended Northport Elementary School, then Tuscaloosa County High School, and in 1956 he earned his bachelor’s of science degree in finance from The University of Alabama. He also received a degree from the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin and the National School of Commercial Lending at the University of Oklahoma.

From 1949 through 1955 he worked at Adams Drug Store and at Faucett Brothers store, before spending a year at The Tuscaloosa Bank. Armed with his college degree, Faucett headed for New Orleans and took a job as an accountant with Shell Oil Company, gradually working his way up the ladder to the company office in New York.

A turning point came in 1962 when Faucett returned home and joined the City National Bank of Tuscaloosa, later known as First Alabama Bank and is now Regions Bank.

Starting as a loan teller, Faucett quickly became assistant vice president, vice president, and executive vice president, and senior loan officer at City National Bank, all within a span of 10 years.

In 1975, City National Bank became First Alabama Bank and Faucett was named president and chief executive officer of the Tuscaloosa bank. Eight years later he was named president of First Alabama – Western Region and made a member of the executive council.

In 1988, he became chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Tuscaloosa’s First Alabama Bank. Meanwhile, First Alabama Bancshares was formed in 1971, the state’s first multi-bank holding company. The name was changed to Regions Financial Corporation in 1994. In 1988 Faucett was named president of the Western and Florida Regions, with a seat on the executive council. In 1997 he became president of Western, Florida, and Louisiana Regions, a position responsible for Regions banks in Florida, Louisiana, and Western Alabama.

In 2000, Faucett announced his retirement, but that was only one event that year that was significant in his career. He also was named Citizen of the Year and by the city of Northport. In 2005, Faucett was named to Tuscaloosa County Civic Hall of Fame. He served 12 years on the Northport City Council and as Mayor for a brief time. He served on the board of DCH Regional Medical Center for 25 years,  served on the President’s Cabinet at UA and the Capstone Health Services Foundation, and is currently on the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration Board of Visitors, the DCH Foundation Board,  the Tuscaloosa County Park and Recreation Board [PARA], and the Community Foundation of West Alabama.

His professional affiliations include serving as chairman, director, and treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, which in 2000 named him Entrepreneur of the Year.

He has contributed to the community not only his time but also made a $1.45 million donation to build a new Tuscaloosa County High School, which prompted the Tuscaloosa County Board of Education to name the facility the Sam P. Faucett campus of Tuscaloosa County High School and named the Faucett-Vestavia Elementary School for his mother and father

His philanthropic activities include service with the United Way, Association of Retarded Citizens, the American Heart Association, and Christ Episcopal Church.

He and his wife, Leslie Wood Faucett, whom he married in 1957, have two daughters, Margaret Faucett Phillips and Marsha Faucett Crow, and six grandchildren.

Elmer B. Harris

• October 4th, 2021

Elmer B. Harris says you can’t buy a step-by-step manual for achieving success, and you can’t find a secret seasoning for making something out of yourself. But for someone whose life is recognized marked by ambition, it’s surprising how Harris can whittle down his prosperity, notch by notch, success by success, to reveal one modest, bare-bones mantra — one he’s followed since he was a kid.

“Don’t ever turn down an opportunity,” he said. Not even when it’s flipping hot dogs and scooping sundaes.  Aside from his first job at the local Dairy Queen in his hometown, Clanton, a few more opportunities knocked on teenage Elmer’s door.  Clanton’s WKLF radio station was looking for help, so 15-year-old Harris signed up to be a DJ. He got the job, and there he played requests for “Hound Dog,” gospel, popular, reported the news, and learned how to be articulate. He introduced himself to worldly affairs and had constant interaction with all sorts of people from different backgrounds — an experience that helped him when he became a leader in business.

Born in 1939 to Alton and Lera Mae (Mitchell) Harris, he attended elementary and high school in Clanton.

While he worked at the station and at Dairy Queen, Harris squeezed in two other jobs.  He ran a printing press and also worked in a local machine shop.  A year or two after Harris graduated from Chilton County High School, a gentleman strolled into the shop and presented Harris with an opportunity.  He asked Harris if he wanted to be considered for Auburn’s co-op education program with Alabama Power Company.  Harris said yes and interviewed with Alabama Power the next week. For five years, he alternated spending three months studying electrical engineering at Auburn and the next three in Selma learning engineering, management, and leadership skills from the folks at Alabama Power.  “If you can learn how to manage and lead people toward their own successes,” Harris said, “your company will take care of itself.”  He believes a person should always find a way to say YES, not NO when needs and opportunities arise.

He graduated from Auburn in 1962 with a degree in electrical engineering and then earned his master’s degrees in engineering and business administration a few years down the road. He has received six honorary doctor degrees.  He stayed on with Alabama Power and over the years handled positions of increasing responsibility in the company, including being elected senior vice president, and then executive vice president and chief financial officer in 1979.  In 1985, he made a move to become the executive vice president of Georgia Power Company, a sister company. And when he returned to Alabama in 1989, he became Alabama Power Company’s President and CEO.  When he came back, he felt several things needed to be changed to increase employee initiative and decision-making, increase employee relationships with customers, enhance community and charitable activities, and minimize price increases.

While Harris was president, a lot of things changed.  On his first day, he “burned” all eight books of procedures and replaced them with “any employee is authorized to make any decision that is in the best interest of the company and its customers, bar none.”   He remembers back in the days of the late 70s and early 80s when Alabama Power had about a 30 percent approval rating with its customers. He attributed that mostly to the lack of direct communication and relationships between the company, elected officials, and its customers. In a bold decision, Harris cut about 50 percent of the supervisors and managers at Alabama Power, predominantly by using early retirements.  He wanted employees to be able to make immediate decisions and be able to give customers immediate answers.  The company’s approval rating climbed significantly into the 95-98% range.  There’s no substitute for personal relationships is another one of Harris’s philosophies.

In the early 90s when Harris was president of Alabama Power, one of the biggest opportunities for the state fell onto his plate.  He remembers when he, Governor Jim Folsom, Jr., and his ADO Director Billy Joe Camp, first got wind that Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart was looking for a place outside Germany to open a plant. The company announced they had selected 200 potential sites around the globe and Alabama wasn’t one of the chosen. When Folsom asked Harris if Alabama should try to get Mercedes to come, Harris said yes.  He told Folsom the state had to be aggressive, put a team together, start setting goals, and stand behind every commitment made, even if when it became uncomfortable.  Alabama was the only candidate that made every deadline and parameter Mercedes set, and when it came down to the wire, Alabama offered Mercedes a controversial (at the time, but not now) $250 million incentive package and won the plant.  That’s another one of Harris’s philosophies:  When an opportunity comes up, you do what you have to do to be competitive and win in an honest ethical manner.

Throughout his professional life, Harris has made charity part of his career. He founded the Alabama Power Foundation, the largest corporate foundation in the state, and funded it at over $150 million dollars.  The foundation has given nearly $100 million to Alabama charities and institutions. He also founded the Georgia Power Foundation when he was Georgia Power Company’s executive vice president.  He has held leadership roles at many civic and nonprofit organizations and served on the board of directors for well over twenty-five corporations and entities, including Mercedes-Benz US International, Southern Company, Samford University, the Business Council of Alabama, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, the Boy Scouts of America and Nature Conservancy.   Harris is a graduate of the Air Command and Staff College as well as the Air War College.  He served twenty-five years in the military as a command pilot flying the latest jets in the Air Force inventory and achieved the rank of Colonel in the Air Force and Brigadier General in the Alabama Air National Guard.  He retired from the Air Force when “the Power Company started interfering with my pleasure.”

Continuing his long history of international and economic development activities, Harris serves as Honorary Consul General of Japan. He is married to Glenda Steele Harris.  They have two children, Lori Harris Elmore and Tommy Harris, and six grandchildren.

Raymond B. Jones

• October 4th, 2021

Ray Jones’ life’s work has grown straight up from the soil, with roots deep in the land where he was raised.

Raymond B. Jones, Sr. was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 23, 1935, to engineer Carl T. Jones and his wife Betty. Carl had been forced to leave his home in Huntsville, Alabama because of the depression and found work in Tennessee.  In 1939, he moved his family back to Madison County to attempt to revitalize the struggling family engineering business and to farm and raise cattle. He moved his wife, Betty, his son Ray and young daughter Betsy onto a worn-out 2,800-acre farm that he had purchased with his brother Ed as a backup in case their engineering business failed.

It was in 1939 that 4-year-old Ray would first see the farm that he would tend all of his life.  As a young man growing up on the farm, Jones tilled the land and herded cattle from before the sunlight shone on the valley until after it had gone away, and each day it bloomed in him a passion for the earth and its bounty.

Interest in agriculture and cattle-raising saw Jones off to Auburn University to study animal science.  To make money for tuition, he hatched and raised pheasants to sell to restaurants.  After Jones earned his degree and completed his military obligation he returned to Jones Valley in 1957 to manage the farming operations.  Over the next decade, the farm flourished.  The farm tripled the population of cattle and expanded its acreage with the acquisition of two other farms in Jackson and Marshall Counties.

During this time the farming, real estate, and engineering enterprises had come a long way, but Ray had stayed close to his roots.  In one of the most pivotal moments of his life, Jones became president of the family’s engineering firm with the untimely death of his father in 1967.  This necessitated his having to run the farms in three counties as well as the consulting engineering business.  Founded in 1886 by Jones’s grandfather, G. W. Jones & Sons Consulting Engineers still performs engineering design on a multitude of municipal projects.  Roadway, water, wastewater, and airport design, as well as land surveying services, are offered by the firm.  Huntsville’s International Airport was designed by the firm and is named for Ray’s father – Carl T. Jones.  Following the death of his father, Jones continued to run and expand the farming, real estate, and engineering businesses for the next thirty-five years.  Jones continues to be the CEO of G. W. Jones & Sons Consulting Engineers and G. W. Jones and Sons Farms.

In addition to the engineering and farming businesses, Jones has been involved in many other enterprises.  He is president of the North Alabama Mineral Development Company, president and CEO of R. B. Jones and Associates,  president of Valley Bend at Jones Farm shopping center and is involved in other real estate endeavors ranging from apartment complexes to subdivision developments.

Still, though, Jones’ roots and heart tell him he’s first a farmer, second a businessman. Over the years he has served as president of both the Madison County Cattleman’s Association and the Alabama Cattleman’s Association. A Huntsville Times article entitled “Foremost a Farmer,” describes Jones as a farmer – humble, wise, and unpretentious. “He knows about the uncertainty of tilling the land and he has respect and even reverence for the unpredictable whims of nature. Once a man has that knowledge he can never forget his tiny tentative place in the vast natural universe.”

Jones has received many awards for his business and civic leadership as well as his success and influence in the field of agriculture.   He received the “Distinguished Service Award” from the Huntsville Madison County Chamber of Commerce in 2002.  He has served on the board of trustees of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee for the last 23 years.  In 1999, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  He is currently serving as Chairman of the University of Alabama Huntsville Foundation.    Perhaps the most prestigious recognition in agriculture was when he became the first and still the only Alabamian to be awarded the “Sunbelt Farmer of the Year” in 1996.  He was surprised when he won, but no one else was.  The chairman of the award’s judging team said Jones “demonstrated all that is good about American agriculture.  He has built an outstanding beef cattle operation, relying on the heritage of his forbearers, who were pioneers in this area of Alabama.”

Today the legacy of the G. W. Jones & Sons family is being shared by Ray Jones and his wife Libby with their children.  Daughter Lisa and her husband Mark Yokley are both registered engineers.  Mark is the current president of the firm.  Daughter May and her husband Mike Patterson are involved in the firm.  May is a realtor; Mike is a CPA and Chief Financial Officer for the firm.  Son Raymond B. Jones, Jr. and wife Kristy are active in the firm.  Raymond is a realtor and runs the cattle operations.  Kristy is a licensed insurer.  The 121-year-old firm that started with his grandfather continues through Jones and his children.

Jones related this quote in an interview for a newspaper article some years ago.  “We are, all of us, the recipients of the courage, hard work, and vision that has come down to us from our forefathers.  Our duty is to build on that heritage while invoking the blessings of our heavenly Father and always giving thanks to Him for the privilege of living in this great land that we call America.”

William A. Williamson, Jr.

• October 4th, 2021

William A. (Billy) Williamson, Jr., in his teen years, had visions of being a successful cattle farmer. After buying a pair of calves for a class project, nurturing them for a year, and selling them for less than he paid for them, he figured that maybe his skills lay in another direction. Instead of going to Auburn as he had planned, he enrolled in the business school at The University of Alabama and graduated with a degree in management.

Upon returning to his hometown of Montgomery in 1958, where he still lives when not in the mountains of Highlands, N.C., he embarked on his business career in the warehouse of Durr Drug Company. The company, founded as a grocery store in 1896, was known as Gay, Hardy, and Durr. In 1905 the company was incorporated as Durr Drug Company, a distributor of pharmaceuticals, hospital equipment, and supplies as well as health and beauty aids.

As he learned the business, Williamson worked in several capacities: data processing manager, company secretary, and treasurer, and vice president of operations until he was elected president and CEO in 1974 and chairman and CEO in 1981. Under his leadership, the company became public and sales grew from approximately $40 million to more than $1 billion in 1992, when it was acquired by Bergen Brunswick.  When asked what he thought made the company unique, he replied, “A strong employee work ethic, high company morale, and a dedication to quality customer service.”

Prior to the sale of the company, the decision had been made to endow a chair of business ethics at The University of Alabama Culverhouse College of Commerce. Led by Williamson and Eddie Adair, company president, contributions from the company’s management team, its board of directors, and friends of the company made the chair a reality.

After the company was sold, Williamson resigned and pursued other business interests, working with Cordova Ventures (a venture capital firm), buying a publishing company that focused on wing shooting and fly fishing books, and along with others, purchasing a restaurant franchise. In 2002, Williamson and his son formed Whetstone Capital, a private investment company managed by his son.

Currently, Williamson is on the board of directors of Genesco, Inc., a specialty retailing company on the New York Stock Exchange. He is a past chairman and member of the board of directors of Jackson Hospital and is a member of the national board of Kairos Prison Ministries, a member of the Montgomery YMCA Metro Board, and the Board of Visitors of the University of Alabama Culverhouse College of Commerce. He is a member of the Chief Executive Organization.

Past board memberships include AmSouth Bankcorporation, Dunn Investment Company, co-chair of the River Region Tocqueville Society, Central Alabama Community Foundation, and president of the National Wholesale Drug Association.

Community Memberships have included the Montgomery Lion’s Club, the Men of Montgomery, and the Steering Committee of the Montgomery Chapter of Young Business Leaders. He was a member of Leadership Alabama, class of 1992-93, and in 1993 he received the Golden Hawk Award from Huntingdon College’s School of Business.

Active in church work, he is a former senior warden and Cursillo lay rector. He is currently a member of Christ Church XP, an Anglican Parish.

He enjoys outdoor activities including golf, fly fishing, bird hunting, clay, and skeet shooting, and training his own retrievers. He and his wife Pat have two children, Virginia Paige and William A. III, better known as Buster, and three grandchildren.