Industry: Consumer Services

Col. W. Tandy Barrett

  • October 4th, 2021

Some people are born leaders. Col. William Tandy Barrett was one of those. He was a military leader, a leader in the laundry business, and a civic leader.

Barrett was born in Russellville, Alabama, in 1901 and moved to Tuscaloosa in 1915. During his high school years, he was an all-around athlete and as a senior, he was captain of the football team. He graduated from Tuscaloosa High School in 1919 and entered The University of Alabama to study business management.

He worked his way through college, graduating in I 924. Many years later he said, “Nobody knew me or saw me much. I held two jobs. I ran to work and I ran to class. I had to work for a living, and I found out then I could do it.” He often singled out Dean Lee Bidgood and Dr. H. H. Chapman, professor of business statistics, as men who made a difference in his life. In gratitude, he later established the Colonel W. Tandy Barrett Scholarship in the College of Commerce and Business Administration.

Colonel Barrett enlisted in the Alabama National Guard in 1923 at the age of 23. He received his commission in 1924 while training as a cadet in The University of Alabama ROTC program and advanced to the grade of captain by 1929, when he assumed command of Company D. He commanded the company for over 11 years, including its call to active duty in 1940. He was then assigned to the staff of the 3rd Battalion, 167th Infantry, in 1941; was selected as part of the cadre for the formation of the 84th Infantry Division in 1942, and then became commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 333rd Infantry Regiment. He was involved in the unit’s training and led it into action in Normandy and into the German heartland, where his battalion engaged the enemy from October 1944 to January

1945 including the Battle of the Bulge. Upon his return to Tuscaloosa, he rejoined the Alabama National Guard as executive officer of the !6th Infantry regiment. In 1950 he was promoted to colonel and transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve where he was assigned to the command and general staff college program from which he retired in 1960. In 1965, Colonel Barrett was presented the Gold Medal of Merit by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In 1983, Colonel Barrett was presented the Alabama Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor the State Military Department awards.

Before World War II, Barrett worked for Perry Creamery. In 1946, upon his return to Tuscaloosa, he and his good friend Ernest “Rainy” Collins converted the Northington General Hospital laundry into a commercial operation. The business grew into West Alabama’s largest laundry with eight outlets in Tuscaloosa and Northport. He was dedicated to his profession and served as a board member of the American Institute of Laundering, president of the Alabama Institute of Laundry and Dry Cleaning, and vice president of the Southern Laundry Association. He was a director of the Tuscaloosa Chamber of Commerce and president for two terms. He received the rare honor of being named the chamber’s Member of the Year in two consecutive years, 1977 and 1978. Colonel Barrett was chairman of the Tuscaloosa County Industrial Development Authority from 1974 to 1978 and also served as president of the Industrial Development Board of the city of Tuscaloosa. He was a member of the Tuscaloosa Housing Authority Board. He was past president of the Tuscaloosa Exchange Club, director emeritus of City National Bank of Tuscaloosa, and director of Central Bank of Tuscaloosa. He was a Mason, a Shriner, and a member of First Presbyterian Church. Barrett also served on the boards of various clubs and philanthropic organizations.

In addition to his civic activities, Colonel Barrett was an avid sportsman and served as secretary/treasurer of the Dollarhide Hunting and Fishing Club for 40 years. Colonel Barrett, who was married to the former Mattie Winn Nicholson of Centreville, passed away in 1992 at age 91.

Fred Hahn

  • October 4th, 2021

When Fred Hahn was growing up, he was known to have a pretty good fastball, a talent he parlayed into pocket money in semipro baseball until he threw his arm out by pitching three games in three days.

So Hahn turned his attention to business, and in so doing over the years created, expanded, and sold multiple companies throughout the Southeast, building a far-flung business empire that stretches from the Gulf Coast to central Kentucky.

Now, at age 80, Hahn focuses much of his time on First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa, where he serves as deacon; the Helen Hahn Hospice House, named for his wife, and the Hahn-da-rosa, a sprawling, 1000-acre spread in Hale Country that has been recognized as a TREASURE Forest Award winner for southwest Alabama.

And like many successful businessmen, Hahn insists that most of the credit for his business success goes to his faith, his wife, his family, and friends.

“All the children and my wife have been very instrumental in the growth of the company,” Hahn said.

Hahn attended Mississippi College in Clinton and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1952. He spent his first 10 years after college working in sales and public relations with the Illinois Central Railroad.

Hahn then settled in Tuscaloosa in 1963 and started a small trucking company named Service Express, Inc. Hahn’s emphasis on the family’s involvement began there where his wife worked alongside him.

Always one to take advantage of an opportunity, in 1968, Hahn formed Tuscaloosa Warehouse, Inc. and followed that by taking over Indec, a waste handling company, in the early 1970s. His foresight, creativity, and concern for the environment helped him establish and reorganize several different types of waste disposal facilities for both hazardous and solid waste. About that same time, in 1970, Hahn became an agent for United Van Lines in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and sold that company in 1977.

In 1979, he sold Indec to Waste Management, Inc., the leading firm in the field, and Hahn and sons Philip and Gregory formed Seapac, Inc. in Mobile. Seapac packages, re-packages, warehouses and distributes large shipments of chemicals overseas. The company includes a paper converting division. Philip Hahn developed and manages the packaging plants, and Gregg Hahn developed and manages the paper converting plants.

Throughout the 1990s, Seapac opened divisions in Baytown, Texas, Atlanta, Bastrop, La., Eddyville, Ky., and St. Mary’s, Ga.

With his sons operating and expanding Seapac, Hahn turned his efforts to Tuscaloosa Warehouse and Industrial Warehouse Services Trucking Company.

In 2005, Hahn’s companies employed about 450 people and today employ nearly 350.

Mississippi College, a Baptist University, has had a guiding influence on Hahn, and his alma mater and his church have a special place in his heart. “My church work and my faith are very strong with me,” Hahn said.

He is a member of the board of trustees at Mississippi College where he has been active on the university’s financial committee, a member of the DCH Foundation Board, and the Hospice of West Alabama. He is a member of the United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Society.

Hahn believes very strongly in the mission of Hospice and helped raise money for the facility named after his wife, a decision his sons and daughter made to honor their mother.

“He cares deeply about others and is always there to give of himself and his resources to those in need,” said Leroy McAbee, a Tuscaloosa businessman who nominated Hahn for the Alabama Business Hall of Fame.

Hahn has also been a member and officer of the Birmingham Traffic and Transportation Club, West Alabama Traffic and Transportation Club, Toastmasters Club, Alabama Industrial Association, The Boys Club of West Alabama, Boy Scouts of America, the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, the Industrial Development Authority, the Business Council of Alabama, and the Tuscaloosa Country Club.

Authur George Gaston

  • September 20th, 2021

Eleven-year-old Arthur George Gaston believed in himself.

He was going to do something. He was going to be somebody. In some communities, such optimism might have been common in young boys his age, but in a poor, black community in turn-of-the-century Alabama, optimism about the future was an understandably rare commodity. Young Art Gaston, however, was a rare young man.

He was born in Demopolis, Alabama, on July 4, 1892. His father had died when young Gaston was only a few years old, and his mother had had to seek work in the city. Consequently, Art was reared by his grandparents, Joe and Idella Gaston, both of whom were former slaves. By farming and holding extra jobs with the white people in town, they had managed to buy a small farm and build with their own hands the log cabin in which their grandson was later born.

As self-reliant as his grandparents and as unafraid of hard work, eleven-year-old Art began his first business venture in his own back yard, charging neighborhood children a button each to ride on the old barn door swing that his grandfather had set up for him in a nearby oak. Business was unbelievably good, and before long Art had several cigar boxes full of buttons. He had also learned his first business lesson: find a need and fill it. He would remember that.

Later that year he moved to Birmingham where his mother, Rosie Gaston, now a cook for a wealthy white family in town, enrolled him in the Tuggle Institute, a school for black children in the hills of north-west Birmingham. Granny Tuggle, who had started the school in 1908, was a former slave who knew firsthand the difficulties her young charges would face if they were thrust into the world without a sense of responsibility and at least a rudimentary education. Granny liked Art Gaston and she worked him especially hard. During his years at the Institute, he learned to organize his time between his studies and the many odd jobs he picked up on the side. By the age of 18, he had completed the tenth grade and had learned from experience the difficult time blacks had finding anything but the most menial employment.

Determined to secure something better for himself, Gaston joined the Army. Already a seasoned soldier by the time the U.S. entered World War I, he served in France as a Regimental Supply Sergeant and was decorated with his entire unit for “valor beyond the call of duty.” Having served his country well, Gaston hoped, as did thousands of other returning Negro soldiers, that a grateful nation would offer them opportunities never available to blacks before. Disappointed to find that nothing had changed, the self-reliant Gaston supported himself as a laborer while he began to create opportunities of his own.

He noticed that the black community frequently collected donations at funerals to help pay burial expenses. Deciding that burial insurance would be both helpful to the community and profitable, he launched the Booker T. Washington Burial Society in 1923. It was a daring venture for a young man with little capital, but the idea was sound, and by the end of the year, the young entrepreneur had to hire additional agents to handle his burgeoning business.

With prospects for the future considerably brighter now, Gaston married his childhood sweetheart, Creola Smith, and asked his new father-in-law to join him in business. The partnership worked well, and before long the two were able to purchase a funeral home which they promptly renamed Smith and Gaston, Funeral Directors, Inc.

Then, in 1939 his father-in-law died, and within six months, so did Creola. Devastated by the loss of his family, Gaston devoted himself to his work in the years that followed. He listened attentively to the advice of other businessmen; he learned to digest a profit-and-loss statement and to keep a sharp eye out for sound investments. His sharp eye also landed on a young college graduate, Minnie Gardner, a particularly attractive and resourceful young lady who soon became his wife. Minnie turned out to be one of Gaston’s greatest assets.

From the beginning, Gaston’s businesses had suffered from his inability to find well-trained Negro clerical staff. To solve his own problems and to help his community at the same time, he started the Booker T. Washington Business College. Minnie took over the College’s management and under her guidance, the school grew faster than either the insurance company or the funeral home had in their infant years.

The pattern of Gaston’s success continued. By helping himself he had helped his community, and he felt an obligation to pass on what he had learned. “Study as hard as you can, save a part of everything you earn, and contribute to your community to the limit of your ability,” he told civics classes, church groups, anyone who would listen. ”The world does not owe you a living, only the chance to earn a living based on your merit.”

Gaston followed his own advice. The black community lacked first-class motels, restaurants, nursing homes, and pharmacies, so over the years, he built these and more. He founded a savings and loan association, a realty and investment corporation, a broadcasting company (WENN Radio), a fire insurance company, and he built a 1.5 million dollar building in Birmingham to house his enterprises. He served on the board of more than twenty-five local, state, and national civic organizations, and he founded and supported the A.G. Gaston Boys’ Club.

Respected by both black and white communities in Birmingham, Gaston was turned to repeatedly for leadership during the civil rights riots of the 1960s. Although his home was burned and his motel bombed, he remained a voice of reason. He appealed to all the citizens of Birmingham to “live together in human dignity as American citizens and sons of God.” Ironically, his moderate stand angered radical blacks, who wanted to expand the disorder, and conservative whites, who criticized him for providing financial assistance to civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., for whom Gaston had provided bail.

His sound leadership did not escape the attention of President John F. Kennedy, however, invited him to the White House for a state dinner. Nor have his contributions and achievements escaped the attention of many others. Gaston is a member of the Alabama Academy of Honor, the recipient of honorary doctorates from nine institutions in this country and abroad, including one from The University of Alabama; and “A.G. Gaston Appreciation Days” have been celebrated by Demopolis, Brighton, Birmingham, and Jefferson County.

The trip from a Demopolis farm to one of the leading citizens of Alabama was a long one, but A. G. Gaston more than realized his childhood dream. Overcoming poverty, prejudice, and limited education, he amassed corporate holdings in excess of thirty-five million dollars, and, along the way, he improved his community and the lives of the people in it, both black and white. His method was simple: He believed in himself, he believed in God, and he believed, as did George Washington Carver, in “the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is in the long run, recognized and rewarded.”

Joe W. Forehand, Jr.

  • August 17th, 2021

He retired in 2006 after a tenure highlighted by significant growth and strategic changes for the consulting firm. In 2000, he finalized Accenture’s split from Andersen Worldwide and successfully led its IPO and international rebranding campaign. As a result of the latter, within four years, Accenture was ranked among the top-50 global brands and #1 in its category.

While Forehand served as CEO at Accenture, the firm’s revenue grew from $9.6 billion to $13.7 billion, and added nearly 40,000 employees to its workforce. After retiring, Forehand served as a senior advisor on technology buyouts with the global private equity firm Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, also known as KKR.

During his time at KKR, he served as a board member of First Data Corporation, one of KKR’s largest sponsored transactions, for eight years, and had tenures as the Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO in that period. Furthermore, while at KKR, he served on the board of Aricent, a global design and engineering technology company, and was board chairman for a three-year period.

Forehand is devoted to Auburn University, his alma mater. He served on the Auburn University Foundation’s board of directors and investment committee and was co-chair of its successful – and record breaking – $1.2 billion capital campaign. Moreover, he established three professorships and 11 endowed scholarships at the school. He is a member of the university’s 1856 Society on the Founders’ Circle level and was inducted to Auburn’s Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame in 2018.

In 2001, he was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame, among many other honors and distinctions related to his leadership and contributions to the business world and community.

Raised in Alabama, Forehand graduated from Auburn University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering and was named an outstanding alumnus of the program in 1995. He received a Master of Science degree in industrial administration from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University in 1972 and named an honorary doctor of management in 2005. He was in the U.S. Army Reserves from 1971 to 1979 and was honorably discharged at the rank of captain.

He and his wife, Gayle, have two sons, Christopher and Kevin.

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