Induction Year: 2016

Joel Anderson

  • September 28th, 2021

Joel R. Anderson is director and retired chairman of the Anderson Companies, which include Anderson Media Corporation and its Anderson Merchandisers subsidiary, the country’s largest distributor and merchandiser of pre-recorded music and a major distributor of books; TNT Fireworks, the country’s largest importer and distributor of consumer fireworks; Anderson Press, a major publisher of children’s books and associated children’s products; Whitman Publishing Company, the leading publisher of books and related products for coin collections, and Books-A-Million, the country’s second-largest book retailer.

He also currently serves as a director of Billy Reid, Inc., Elite Medical, Inc., Purchase Activated Apparel Technology, Inc., Performance Healthcare Products, LLC, Publicvine, LLC, Partscycle, LLC, and A-Mark Precious Metals.

Together the Anderson Companies employ more than 17,000 people throughout the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and China.

Anderson was born and raised in Florence, Alabama where he attended the University of North Alabama. He has spent most of his life in the family-owned business established by his late father, Clyde W. Anderson, which evolved from a street corner newsstand.

Anderson has been an active civic and community leader, particularly in efforts to improve lives through education.

He has served his community as director and chairman of the board of Riverhill School and as a board member of the Riverhill School Foundation, as a director of the Shoals Chamber of Commerce and the First National Bank, as chairman and founder of the Florence Lauderdale Library Foundation, as chairman of the Shoals Literacy Council, as a director of the YMCA and the Florence-Lauderdale Industrial Expansion Committee.

He also has served as founder, chairman, and director of the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory and as a trustee of the Cardiovascular Institute of Philadelphia. He is on the board of directors of Trump Tower and serves as trustee and president pro tern elect of the University of North Alabama Board of Trustees. Anderson is a board member of the Alabama Bicentennial Commission. He also is a major supporter of the Salvation Army, the United Way of Northwest Alabama, the Florence City Schools Foundation, the Florence Library Foundation, the Children’s Museum of the Shoals, the American Heart Association, the New York City Police Athletic League, and is a charter member of the Norman Swarzkopf Society.

He was chairman of the 2005 Donald Trump Library Benefit Dinner, which raised more than $400,000 for the Florence-Lauderdale Library Foundation.

His philanthropic, civic, and humanitarian activities have been recognized by the Anti-Defamation League which honored him with its Distinguished Service Award on behalf of human rights, and by Brandeis University with its National Distinguished Community Service Award. In 2003 he was the first recipient of the 25 Year Club Frank Herrera Award, a prestigious national magazine industry award and in 2006 was named Shoals Citizen of the Year. Earlier this year, Mr. Anderson received the Lifetime Achievement in Innovation award from the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama.

He and his wife Carmen have a daughter, Kristen, and a son, Joel II. Mr. Anderson’s daughter Ashley has a son and two daughters.

Paul W. Bryant, Jr.

  • September 28th, 2021

Paul W. Bryant, Jr. is the son of the late Paul W. Bryant and Mary Harmon Black Bryant. He was born in Birmingham while his father served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He spent his youth in Lexington, Kentucky; College Station, Texas; and Tuscaloosa, Alabama – the towns where his father coached. He earned his degree in finance from The University of Alabama in 1966. Selected for Beta Gamma Sigma, he received the Financial Executives Institute of America Award for the outstanding student in commerce and business administration as well as the Alabama Bankers Association Award for the outstanding student in banking and finance. He also was elected president of C&BA students.

Bryant established two dozen operating companies and over 50 real estate ventures and syndicates. Currently, Bryant is president of the privately held holding company, Greene Group, Inc. which has operated a multi-state business engaged in reinsurance, finance, leasing, par-mutual racing, casino management, cattle ranching, aquaculture, catfish processing and distribution, fuel distribution, outdoor recreation, wildlife management, and concrete/aggregate construction.

In 2005, Bryant founded Bryant Bank. From its body of 6.500 member banks, the American Bankers Association presented its Revitalizing Youth Community Award for outstanding community service efforts to Bryant Bank in 2012. Over 10 years, Bryant Bank has grown to over $1.5 billion in assets, becoming the largest family-owned bank in the state of Alabama.

Although Bryant never served in the military, he is a lifelong scholar of American military history and active in battlefield preservation. He is a founder of the Civil War Trust in Washington D.C. and personally underwrote the merger with the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites that created the modern Civil War Trust. Acknowledged by the National Park Service and leading conservationists as the foremost American heritage land preservation organization, the Civil War Trust is known to be the largest and most effective non-profit devoted to the preservation of America’s battlegrounds. Bryant is Chairman Emeritus and the longest-serving member of the organization’s Board of Trustees. The trust has over 50,000 members and more than 250,000 supporters throughout the country. Collectively, it saved 41,000 acres of battlefield land in over 120 states during Bryant’s board tenure.

He established the General J.C.C. Sanders Memorial at The University of Alabama honoring alumni who served the Confederacy. He has also commissioned two books by Delbert Teed honoring Alabama alumni who served in World War II: When Winning Was Everything: Alabama Football Players in World War II and All of Us Fought the War.

For his philanthropic efforts, Bryant became the inaugural recipient of the Racing Commissioners Humanitarian of the Year Award by the organization of State and Canadian Racing Regulatory Commissions.

Mr. Bryant was Chairman of the Crimson Tide Tradition Fund, the organization that preceded the Crimson Tide Foundation. Thereafter, he has been chairman of the Crimson Tide Foundation since its inception.

From 2000 to 2015, he was a member of the Board of Trustees of The University of Alabama System. During these years, he served three successive terms as President Pro Tempore. Throughout his time on the board, he was a member of the Physical Properties Committee including nine years as chairman, during which more than 360 physical properties projects were completed with a total value exceeding $2 billion. In addition, he chaired the committee that hired Dr. Robert Witt, past President of The University of Alabama and retired Chancellor of The University of Alabama System.

Bryant has been married for 50 years to UA classmate Cherry Handley Hicks Bryant. They have three daughters: Stella Gray Bryant Sykes, Mae Martin Bryant Murray, and Anna Laurie Bryant McKibbens, all graduates of The University of Alabama, and three grandchildren.

Samuel Di Piazza

  • September 28th, 2021

Birmingham native Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr. retired as chief executive officer of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited in 2009 and shortly thereafter joined the Board of Trustees of Mayo Clinic, the highly regarded health care institution, which he now serves as Chairman of the Board. Between the two positions, he served as Vice Chairman with Citigroup’s Global Corporation and Investment Bank.

DiPiazza graduated from The University of Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and earned a Master of Accountancy degree from the University of Houston. He joined PwC in 1973 and became a tax partner in 1979, the youngest partner in the firm’s history.

He served as a leading tax partner with PwC, specializing in mergers and acquisition, the financial services industry, and international tax. He led the Birmingham and Chicago offices before being named Midwest Region Managing Partner in 1992. Two years later he became the Regional Managing Partner of the New York Metro Region as well as Client Service Vice Chairman. Two years after that, he was named the Vice Chairman of tax services in the U.S. firm, and when PriceWaterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand merged in 1998, he was named the Americas Leader for Tax and Legal Services of PwC. Again, in two years, he became the first elected Chairman and Senior Partner of the U.S. Firm and PwC, an organization of 30,000 people and 2,200 partners.

Two years later, DiPiazza was elected as the Global CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers international and served as its Global CEO for eight of the first 11 years of existence.

Under this leadership, PricewaterhouseCoopers experienced record revenue and growth. In his last full year of leadership, PwC reported more than $28 billion in revenue with operations in 147 countries and more than 150,000 employees.

DiPiazza has been very active in civic affairs. He is on the Board of Directors of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and is a member of the Board of Executive Committee of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. He is a trustee and a member of the Executive Committee of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund of New York City, Seton Education Partners, the United Nations Global Compact, and also serves as a trustee of the USA Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.

He has served as a trustee of the London-based international Reporting Foundation as well as the U.S.-based Financial Accounting Foundation. He has served as the past Global Chairman of Junior Achievement Worldwide, past president of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of New York City, and a past member of the Board of Trustees of the New York City Ballet.

DiPiazza serves on the Board of Directors for a number of businesses, including AT&T, Jones Lang LaSalle, ProAssurance, and the Culverhouse College of Business Board of Visitors. He was honored as Accountant of the Year by Beta Alpha Psi Society and has received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the INROADS Leadership Award.

DiPiazza has been widely interviewed by the media and is a frequent commentator on issues of corporate reporting, transparency, and anti-corruption.

He and his wife Melody have two children, Amy and Jason, and six grandchildren.

Beverly Phifer

  • September 28th, 2021

Beverly Clarkson Phifer is the chief executive officer of Phifer Incorporated, a family-owned business founded in Tuscaloosa in 1952 by her father, Reese Phifer. Phifer Incorporated is an industry leader in the manufacture of wire and highly advanced synthetic fabrics used in insect screens, solar control fabrics, drawn wire, engineered products, and designed fabrics industries. Under Phifer’s leadership, the world’s largest producer of aluminum and fiberglass insect screening has capitalized on its wire drawing and textile weaving expertise.

Phifer has led the privately held company through many expansions. The scope of Phifer Incorporated has expanded from the original product – aluminum insect screening – into a multitude of wire, fiberglass, and specialty textile fabrics. Some of the precision woven products manufactured by Phifer Incorporated are actually called “Technical Textiles.”

The company’s primary manufacturing and corporate offices are located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Additional warehouse, production or subsidiary operations are in Fayette, Alabama, California, Italy, India, and Asia. Phifer Incorporated exports all products worldwide and has a full international sales and traffic staff.

Phifer Incorporated has been at the forefront of environmental stewardship and is a leader in the manufacture and sale of energy-saving sun control fabrics for both the residential and commercial markets. The company has no less than 20 branded products that offer a broad range of options to reduce solar heat gain, preserve interior surfaces and materials, improve the quality of home and work environments and protect natural resources by conserving energy. Phifer Incorporated has also introduced lines of sun control fabrics and designed fabrics for outdoor furniture that are 100 percent recyclable.

In 2002, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management nominated Phifer Incorporated for the Governor’s Conservation Achievement Award, and the Alabama Wildlife Federation selected the company as the Air Conservationist of the Year. Phifer Incorporated was the first manufacturer in the industry to achieve GREENGUARD  certification.

Phifer Incorporated employs approximately 1,200 people in Tuscaloosa. When jobs and business were being lost in the outdoor furniture and fabric industry due to a large part of the customer base moving their plants to China, Phifer made the decision for the company to manufacture a raw material in China and ship this raw material to Phifer Incorporated in Tuscaloosa. This gave the Tuscaloosa plant a competitive advantage and resulted in the continued growth and hiring at the Tuscaloosa plant.

Phifer’s interests include numerous worthy causes, such as the West Alabama Food Bank, the Salvation Army,

Temporary Emergency Services, the Soup Bowls, the Good Samaritan Clinic, the Red Cross, the West Alabama Promise Neighborhood, and Christ Episcopal Church’s Lazarus Ministry.

Phifer is a member of The University of Alabama President’s Cabinet, the Museum Board of Regents, the Denny Society, the Women of the Capstone, and the Board of Visitors for the Culverhouse College of Commerce.

Phifer has recently married Frank Wingard and they both continue to work in their respective family businesses and make their home in Tuscaloosa.

William Stender

  • September 28th, 2021

William H. Stender, Jr. is co-founder and retired chief executive officer of CAS, Inc., in Huntsville, a leading provider of systems engineering and technical assistance for a wide range of military applications, principally to the U.S. Department of Defense and similar or related agencies.

Stender entered the United States Army in 1964 as a Second Lieutenant at Ft. Bliss, Texas. During his 10 years in the military, he served in the Army Rangers and in Army Air Defense in Infantry units in Germany, Alabama, Texas and Vietnam.

After 10 years in the military, he joined IBM in Huntsville as an Advisory Engineer and five years later, in 1979, along with a partner, put his military background to use and formed CAS, Inc., a company specializing in weapon systems analysis, where he served as chief executive officer until 2006 when the business was sold to EDO Corp.

Services provided by CAS include system engineering and analysis support for theater missile defense, air defense, aviation, and land-combat missile systems. When the company was sold, it had 1,000 employees operating in 13 states and on military bases worldwide. CAS reported revenue for the 12 months ended March 31, 2006, of $184.3 million.

Stender, a graduate of Brown High School in Atlanta, received his Bachelor of Science degree from Georgia Tech in 1964 and his master of science from the University of Texas-El Paso in 1971.

He has been heavily involved in all aspects of missile system development, management, acquisition, and deployment,

directing studies of the sophisticated Patriot missile system, Hawk, Army TACMS, and other missile systems for the United States and its allies. He was part of the testing program for Patriot and Sgt. York and also directed the development of simulations in the areas of radar detection and airborne target intercepts.

Stender has served in many civic leadership roles throughout the Huntsville community, including serving as chairman of the March of Dimes annual drive; chairman of the Hospice Huntsville annual benefit drive, chairman of the capital fundraising campaign for the National Children’s Advocacy Center, chairman of the Huntsville Library Foundation and the Huntsville Hospital Foundation annual golf tournament.

He also served on the board of directors for the Madison County United Way, the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce, the Huntsville Rotary Club, the Culverhouse College of Commerce, the Association of the United States Army, and president of the Huntsville Association of Old Crows.

In 2000 he served in a volunteer capacity as interim Chief Executive Officer of the United States Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville and later served as the Chairman of the Alabama Space Sciences Exhibit Commission.

Since his retirement, he has served as chairman of the Huntsville-Madison County Veterans Memorial Foundation, which raised $5 million to date to build a memorial to recognize all veterans of the United States armed forces.

Stender was selected Small Business Executive of the Year by the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce and Small Business Person of the Year for the state of Alabama by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Stender, a native of South Carolina, also is the author of Master Switch, an espionage novel that explores the terrifying consequences of a breach of security that puts the United States forces and Israeli defenses at risk.

He has four children and 19 grandchildren.

Robert Witt

  • September 28th, 2021

Robert E. Witt recently retired as Chancellor of The University of Alabama System, a position he held since 2012. Before becoming chancellor, Dr. Witt led The University of Alabama through a nine-year period of growth that included a dramatic increase in student enrollment, an upward surge in student quality, and a building construction program that changed the face of the campus and its surroundings.

Witt holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Bates College, an MBA from Dartmouth, and a Ph.D. in business administration from Penn State.

The Connecticut native came to The University of Alabama in 2003 following an eight-year tenure at the University of Texas-Arlington where he was responsible for a dramatic turnaround. Witt joined the business school faculty at the University of Texas, Austin in 1968 and rose through the ranks as chair and associate dean. He was named the Zale Corporation Centennial Progressor in Business in 1983. Two years later, he was named to the Mortimer Centennial Professorship in Business and that year became acting dean of business. In 1985, he was named dean, a position he would hold for nine years at a business school ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top seven schools of business in the world.

In 1995, Witt went to UT-Arlington as interim president and was named permanent president in 1996.

As chancellor of The University of Alabama System, Witt was responsible for The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and The University of Alabama in Huntsville, as well as the UAB Health System. Collectively, the UA System has an economic impact of over $8 billion annually on the state of Alabama

Witt’s civic work has been equally impressive and significant. He served as chairman of the Council of Presidents of Alabama’s colleges and universities and was a member of the Governor’s College and Career Ready Task Force.

He is a member of the Alexis de Toqueville Executive Committee and is chairman of the United Way of Tuscaloosa 2016 Campaign.

He is a past chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, a member of the Tuscaloosa County Industrial Development Board, and the Black Warrior Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Witt has also been lauded for recognizing the role athletics can play in bringing visibility and prominence to a university. Under Witt’s leadership, the University hired football coach Nick Saban who was brought six national championships to Alabama in the past 13 years.

Witt is no stranger to hall of fame inductions. In 2015, he was inducted into the Tuscaloosa County Civic Hall of Fame, following his 2011 induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor which consists of 100 living Americans elected on the service to the state. Most recently, he was inducted into the National Collegiate Wheelchair Basketball Intercollegiate Division Hall of Fame for his support of adaptive athletic programs.

Dr. Witt and his wife, Sandee Kirby Witt, have 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

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