Industry: Education

Samuel Paul Garner

  • October 26th, 2021

Samuel Paul Gamer, Professor and Dean Emeritus of the College of Commerce and Business Administration at The University of Alabama, is recognized as a leader in the educational aspects of international business, with special attention to its accounting relationships. Even though he retired in 1971, he has remained an active participant in professional organizations throughout the world. His colleagues have said he is probably one of the best-known living academicians in America, Europe, and Asia.

During all of his fifty years of travels in pursuit of knowledge of the international aspects of business management and in attendance at numerous professional meetings, Paul Garner’s goal has been to inform people about The University of Alabama and its academic programs. His public relations efforts have earned him the unofficial title of The University of Alabama’s “Ambassador to the World.”

Samuel Paul Garner was born in Yadkinville, North Carolina (near Winston-Salem) on August 15, 1910. He was the oldest of the seven children of Samuel W. and Ila Jane (Hoots) Garner. His father owned and operated a large country store before opening a Yellow Cab Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1921.

Paul Garner’s early education consisted of a combination of private tutorage and attendance in one-room schoolhouses. After the seventh grade, he attended Mineral Springs High School from which he graduated in 1927 as valedictorian in his class.

For twelve months after graduation, the young man worked full-time for his father’s taxi business and banked his savings in order to attend college. His savings, plus loans and a four-year tuition scholarship, enabled him to enter Duke University. In 1932, he graduated (Phi Beta Kappa) in the top ten of his class with an A.B. in economics (with minors in languages and physics).

Paul Garner’s interest in other countries and other cultures had been kindled by a sixth-grade geography teacher. Thus, the twenty­ one-year-old college grad­uate used the $500 he had managed to save from the many jobs he held during his college years to finance a graduation trip to Europe. This first venture abroad was the forerunner of sixty other trips he would take to ninety-five countries in years to come. But the ensuing trips would be primarily for business and to make contacts for the University.

Another scholarship enabled him to return to Duke University in September 1932 to work on his master’s degree, which he received in 1934. After serving as an instructor at Duke for the academic year 1934-35, he was an Assistant Professor at Mississippi State University for two years.

Between 1937 and 1939, Paul Garner served as an Instructor at the University of Texas while earning his Ph.D. During these two years, he not only completed his course work, passed his preliminary exams in four disciplines, and his oral comprehensive, but also almost completed his dissertation.

In 1939, he accepted the offer of Dean Lee Bidgood to become an Associate Professor of Accounting at The University of Alabama. By the fall of 1940, Paul Garner had finished his dissertation and was awarded his Ph.D. By 1943, he had been promoted to Professor. In 1949, he was named to succeed Chester Knight as head of the Accounting Department. In 1954, he became the second dean of the College of Commerce and Business Administration when Dean Lee Bidgood retired.

During his tenure as dean (1954-1971) Dr. Garner led the College to new heights through the example he set as a researcher, a writer, an administrator, a leader in professional organizations, and in interaction with the business community. He encouraged faculty members in these areas as well as in the development and expansion of activities in the College, such as the Ph.D. program.

During his years as an academician and administrator, Paul Garner has written more than fifty professional articles which have appeared in more than forty-nine publications involving at least twelve languages. He has also authored or co-authored seven textbooks. His revised dissertation, The Evolution of Cost Accounting to 1925 (first published in 1954) has been translated into Japanese and Chinese and was in 1991 called a significant milestone in inter­ national accounting literature (see The Costing Heritage: Studies in Honor of S. Paul Garner, published by the Academy of Accounting Historians, Harrisonburg, Virginia, 1991.) In recognition of Dr. Garner’s outstanding contribution to accounting research and education, the faculty of the University’s Culverhouse School of Accountancy voted unanimously in 1990 to call the school’s Center for Current Accounting Issues, “The Paul Garner Center.”

Over the years, Dr. Garner has been the president or a ranking officer in virtually all of the major accounting organizations. He has also held the presidency of major academic groups such as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (the accreditation body for business schools in the United States).

He has traveled and lectured extensively throughout the United States and the world. He has developed hundreds of contacts with businesses and universities in the U.S.; and with foreign educators, students, businessmen, and government officials through his attendance at more than thirty world congresses. By cross­ indexing the names of his national and international friends, he has established a file of more than 5,000 people in over 125 countries.

Even in retirement, Dean Emeritus Paul Garner maintains correspondence with people all over the world. Businesses, faculty members, students, and other individuals still come to or call Dean Garner for advice about whom to contact to help them achieve their desired goals in our “global village.”

Dr. Garner has also been active in civic affairs almost from the first day he arrived in Tuscaloosa. For example, he has been a financial advisor to the City for five decades. He has served on the boards of at least four local businesses – something he always encouraged faculty members to do so that they would have working experience in the business world. He has served as a director of the Chamber of Commerce, as a member of the board of the YMCA, and (since retirement) on the board of FOCUS. He has also been an active member of the Alabama Export Council, and many other groups.

For his leadership, Dr. Paul Garner has received numerous awards and honors over the years. For example, in 1988 alone he received public service awards from the American Institute of CPAs and the Alabama Society of CPAs, and the Financial Service Award from the city of Tuscaloosa. In 1990, he was named the International Accounting Educator of the year by the American Accounting Association; and in 1991, he received the Presidential Citation of Distinguished Service from Beta Gamma Sigma. Previous honors have included the prestigious Dow Jones Award and Prize in 1976 and honorary degrees from Pusan National University (Korea) in 1966 and The University of Alabama in 1971.

Dean Emeritus Paul Garner is married to the former Ruth Bailey, whom he met at Duke University. They have three children and four grandchildren.

Thomas E. Rast

  • October 26th, 2021

Thomas E. (Tom) Rast – Chairman Emeritus of Johnson-Rast & Hays Co. of Birmingham – has said that he is an ordinary man who has had extraordinary things happen to him. However, his extraordinary success in real estate – as well as his extraordinary service to the community and to higher education – belie this modest self-description.

Tom Rast was born in Holt, Alabama, on February 28, 1920, to Sarah A. (nee Blake) and Lucian Holt Rast. He attended Barrett Elementary School and Woodlawn High School in Birmingham (where the family had moved in the early 1920s) before he entered The University of Alabama.

At the University, Tom Rast was president of his fraternity; a member of the “A” Club and of Scabbard and Blade; and captain of the 1940 boxing team. He earned varsity letters in boxing and track. After graduating with a B.S. degree in Commerce and Business Administration in 1943, he entered the armed forces. He served in the Pacific Theater from 1944 to 1946 when he was discharged with the rank of Captain, Transportation Corps.

Returning to Birmingham, the 26-year-old veteran formed Birmingham Automatic Laundry, Inc., with his brother Holt and James Dickson. He found running three launderettes unsatisfying. It could be said that Tom Rast’s career began in 1949 when he and his friend Abner Johnson each borrowed $1500 from Johnson’s mother-in-law and established Johnson-Rast Realty in Homewood. He found that he “loved to sell I liked to get people, sign them up and study their needs. It was very exciting – meeting the needs of people – and very fulfilling.”

The enthusiasm of Tom Rast and his partner soon generated the growth of the new firm. In 1955, Robert Hays joined Abner Johnson and Tom Rast to incorporate a separate insurance company – it was “a natural” for real estate people at that time because they could insure the houses they sold. The new company – Johnson-Rast & Hays – was a one-office business with about nine agents. Its major period of growth came in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the early 1970s, the company expanded into residential property development. (Before the development operation was phased out nearly a decade later, more than 1,000 acres and more than 2000 lots had been developed.) However, the company was “capital-poor.” Tom Rast and the president of Golden Enterprises “struck a deal.” The company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Golden Enterprises; and Rast, a member of the Golden board of directors. But in 1975, he and Robert Reed (who had joined Johnson-Rast and Hays in 1972) bought back their real estate company.

Johnson-Rast & Hays then developed a ten-year plan for concentration in commercial development and property management, commercial brokerage and residential brokerage, and the phasing out of other aspects of the business.

Johnson-Rast & Hays has since expanded into the largest real estate firm in the state with 12 branch offices, 350 sales associates, and about 70 other employees.

The firm has been involved in just about every phase of real estate. Today, the company focuses on four main facets: residential, commercial sales, commercial leasing and management, and development and joint venture activities.

Tom Rast attributes the success of Johnson­ Rast & Hays to hard work and the quality of its people. As he has said, “Get the right people in. Do the right thing. Be fair and knowledgeable.”

He has also said that all at the firm have tried to be good citizens and ethical performers.

Through service, Tom Rast has certainly stood by his belief in good citizenship. For example, he has served in various capacities in community activities such as the Girls Club of Birmingham, the United Way, the Birmingham Association of Homebuilders, the Birmingham Board of Realtors, the Diabetes Trust Foundation, the Columbia Theological Seminary, and the Monday Morning Quarterback Club. His current community activities include, among others, serving on the boards of the Crippled Children’s Foundation, the Alabama Motorists Association, the Southern Research Institute, and the Executive Service Corps of Birmingham.

Tom Rast has also been a champion of higher education. The University of Alabama and subsequently The University of Alabama System have been a major focus of Tom Rast and his wife Minnie Hayes Rast since they met at the Capstone. (They were married in 1944 and have three daughters: Martha R. Debuys, Nan R. Arendall, and Jane R. Arendall, and seven grandchildren – 6 boys, 1 girl.)

At the Capstone, he was a charter member of the Commerce Executives Society (an organization of alumni and friends of the College of Commerce and Business Administration pledged to support better education for business). He has served and is still serving, as a member of the President’s Cabinet.

He is now also serving as National Chairman of the Campaign for Alabama – a multi-million-dollar campaign that reached the halfway mark in less than a year. About this most recent service, Tom Rast has said that he has never been a part of anything like the Campaign for Alabama because it is the most professional and most complete campaign he has ever encountered. From his point of view, he says that it has to be because “I think each of us recognizes that Alabama’s first University deserves only our best efforts.”

Through the years, he has also been actively involved in the growth of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is a founding member of the UAB President’s Council (established in 1979) of which he is still a member. He also serves on the Board of Directors of UAB’s Medical and Educational Foundation, and both he and Johnson­ Rast & Hays, Co. have given generously to special projects and programs. In recognition of the Rast’s continuing support of UAB, the most recent residence hall was named Rast Hall in ceremonies on June 25, 1993.

In 1979, Tom Rast was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama System. During his 11-year tenure, he held several important committee posts. Among these were the chairmanship of the finance committee and the hospital committee. He retired from the board in 1990 and now serves as Trustee Emeritus. The appointment, he has said, was “the nicest thing that happened to me…I could feel and see what I was doing to help.”

Tom Rast has always had a desire to leave the world a better place – by doing good for humanity. For his efforts, he has been honored with many awards. Here are a few. In 1981, he was elected to honorary membership in the Rotary Club of Birmingham. In 1983, he was the first recipient of ‘The President’s Cup” awarded by the Birmingham Association of Realtors. In 1984, he was named alumnus of the year by The University of Alabama National Alumni Association. In 1986, he was elected to the Woodlawn High School Hall of Fame and the Alabama Academy of Honor. In 1989, at the first College of Commerce and Business Administration reunion and awards banquet at the Capstone, he was the recipient of the Award for Service to the Commerce Executives Society. In 1991, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Tom Rast has certainly served humanity and will leave the world a better place. He has given extraordinary service.

James A. Head, Sr.

  • October 6th, 2021

James A Head, Sr. has two secrets to his longevity and his success in business: walking and working. As a young man, the founder, and owner of Head’s Office Products, a long-time and highly respected Birmingham business, he walked the streets of Birmingham delivering newspapers, cutting lawns, and later selling business machines and office supplies, which was the genesis of his business. And he never stopped working until he reached 92.

Head was born in Tiffin, Ohio, where his father, George Washington Head, a native of Kentucky, was in the insurance business. His mother, Mary Elizabeth Horton Head, was a native of Pleasant Ridge, Alabama. The family moved to Indianapolis where his father started his own insurance company. His father died in 1913, following an appendectomy, and his mother decided to take the family back to the South, to Birmingham. Following a 20-hour train ride from Indianapolis to Birmingham, the family settled into a new home in the Norwood section of town, where Head attended Barker Elementary School, and later Paul Hayne School, dropping out of high school after one year.

World War I brought difficult times and Head realized he needed to help put food on the family table. As a teenager, he mowed lawns and delivered newspapers around a large section of Birmingham. As the recession worsened, Head got a job with a wholesale drug company filling and delivering orders, working from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. for seven dollars a week. A year later he was offered another job as a foundry timekeeper, but the business soon closed. He then took another job as a timekeeper at Birmingham Stove and Range Company. A year and a half later, the opportunity came along that defined his lifetime career – he became a salesman of office systems, specifically reinforced tab folders, for Library Bureau.

For nearly 120 years the Library Bureau has been primarily engaged in designing, manufacturing, marketing, and installing wood shelving, library furniture, office furniture, and systems. The company was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey in Boston Massachusetts… “for the definite purpose of furnishing libraries with equipment and supplies of unvarying correctness and reliability.”

Head’s first big sale was to Alabama Power, an order for 40,000 file folders and 40 steel, four-drawer file cabinets. After little more than a year with the company, he became the Birmingham manager for the company and proceeded to win the company’s national sales contest for three straight years.

In 1925, at the age of 21, Head was called to New Orleans by the Library Bureau to replace his former boss who had resigned. But it was a short stint in the Crescent City. His former boss offered to back him financially if he would return to Birmingham with his family and open his own business. So in November of 1926, Head opened an office in downtown Birmingham. He walked the streets and met the owners of the city’s businesses, introduced them to new ideas in office furnishings, suggested ways to save space, found ways to be more efficient, save time, and access accounts more quickly. And he showed them how all of this could save money.

In 1927 he married Eugenia Evans. The couple had four children: James A. Head Jr., Alan E. Head, Eugene E. Head, and Virginia Head Gross. Mrs. Head passed away in 1981.

Things developed quickly. The office became too small, more employees were needed, and product lines were added, including a new, more comfortable, adjustable office chair that provided back support to the many female employees who sat most of the day at a desk or table. From there, the company progressed to selling methods of record protection, and then to dictation machines, copiers, and other equipment, with Head always bringing new ideas in offices supplies to his customers.

Banks, insurance companies, libraries, government offices – all were equipped by Head’s Office Products.

When World War II came along, Head was 41 years old and had three children, and was not accepted for duty. But he used his sales and marketing savvy to support the war effort in dozens of ways: Chairing the Victory Bond drives (he offered nylon hose to those who bought the bonds), arranging other war memorials, and thank-you tributes to returning servicemen after the war.

Head Office Products continued to grow and flourish, adding new products and offering new ideas. Head’s company equipped the University of Alabama Law School Library, the state Supreme Court Library, the Amelia Gorgas Library, and the Auburn University Library, among many others. In fact, Head estimates that his company has equipped 80 percent of the libraries in Alabama. The Alabama Library Association has recognized him for his work in helping communities around the state garner local support for constructing community libraries, especially in the 1970s as libraries began to be considered essential to the community.

Always on the lookout for new products and new ways to help his customers, Head discovered in Wisconsin a device called a “stack mover” that could be used to move large numbers of books at one time, keeping them in order so that carpets and floors could be cleaned or replaced, and libraries could be rearranged, or construction work could be done. The device has saved Alabama libraries thousands of dollars in manpower and time. In 1996, “at the tender middle age of 92,” as Head puts it, he decided to retire. Head sold his company to Scholar Craft Products, Inc., a Birmingham business.

Throughout his busy life, Head has made time to serve the city of Birmingham and the state of Alabama in a variety of positions and roles. He was one of the original 100 people who each gave $1,000 to buy the property that has become The University of Alabama at Birmingham.

He has served as president of the Birmingham Rotary Club, president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, general chairman of the United Appeal and Red Cross, as a member of the Alabama Advisory Committee to the Civil Rights Committee, and as a member of the Samford University Board of Trustees. He served on the Jefferson County Personnel Board and headed the 1968 fundraising campaign for the Alabama Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation.

He has been recognized for his work with a variety of awards, including his selection as Birmingham’s “Man of the Year” in 1949. In 1988, he was honored with a dinner given by Friends of the Birmingham Public Library.

But he lists his service on the state chapter of the National Association of Christians and Jews and the battle against intolerance as “the most important thing I have ever done.” He served the association for 60 years, 20 of those as chairman emeritus.

Head remains active with his friends from the Birmingham Rotary Club and enjoys the company of his four children, 11 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren, three of who have just graduated from college.

So, the next time you seek sanctuary in one of the state’s many libraries, say a word of thanks to Jim Head. Augustine Birrell, the English politician, and man of letters wrote that “Libraries are not made; they grow.” Because of Jim Head, the libraries in Alabama are flourishing.

J. Barry Mason

  • September 28th, 2021

Dr. J. Barry Mason, born in Memphis and raised in Louisiana, was the seventh dean of The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration. His campus experience spanned more than 40 years, 22 of those as dean. In addition, he served as interim president of the University for a brief period. And he has played a major role in moving the state’s economy forward through his work in preventing the closure of the Rochester Carburetor plant and setting the foundation for the state’s thriving automobile manufacturing industry.

Dr. Mason earned his bachelor’s degree from Louisiana Tech University in 1963, He moved to The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he earned his master’s degree in 1964 and his Ph.D. 1967. His national recognition for scholarly achievement began in 197 6 when he was recognized as a Beta Gamma Scholar in the national competition. In 1980 he was recognized as one of l O outstanding scholars on campus. He received the Academy of Marketing Science Outstanding Educator of the Year and was designated a Distinguished Fellow for his contributions to marketing. He has been recognized as one of the top 100 marketing scholars in the past 20 years and is a fellow of the Southwestern Marketing Association and the Southern Marketing Association. He was president of both associations as well as the National Marketing Association.

Dr. Mason is the senior author of eight college textbooks, numerous monographs, and is the co-author of over l00 scholarly articles.

He was awarded the John E. Burnum Distinguished Faculty Award for research, scholarship, and a profound dedication to the art of teaching. He also is a past winner of the Alabama National Alumni Association Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award and recipient of the Western Electric (AT&T) Foundation Award, given annually by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business for the nation’s best undergraduate innovation in business education and is also a recipient of the Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education, Freedom’s Foundation of Valley Forge, for “outstanding efforts to help young people better understand the function and benefits of private enterprise and free-market economics.”

His recognition by the University includes the Minnie C. Miles Endowed Excellence Award, the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award to recognize “the practical application of noble ideals based on excellence on character and service to humanity,” the E. Roger Sayers Award “in recognition of outstanding performance and dedication above and beyond normal duties,” and the Amelia Gayle Watson Distinctive Image Award “epitomizing a person of profound stature.”

He was recognized by the American Marketing Association for his efforts in turning around the 40,000 member national Association at a time it teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. He was also the recipient of the Wayne Lemberg Award in 1999 for “significant, sustained contributions to the American Marketing Association.”

Dr. Mason has been active in the Black Warrior Council of the Boy Scouts of America and is a past President of the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce. He was on the Board of Directors of the DCH Regional Healthcare Authority from 1986 to 2007 and served as Chairman of the Board of the Healthcare Authority for eight years. He serves on the DCH Healthcare Foundation Board of Directors and is a past Fellow. He also is Past President of Challenge 21, a local community initiative established to enhance a program of deliberative dialogue on issues crucial to the future of the Tuscaloosa County area, is past President of Junior Achievement, and a past member of the Board of the Jack Warner Foundation.

In 2006 he was selected as an inductee into the West Alabama Civic Hall of Fame and recognized as a Pillar of West Alabama by the West Alabama Community Foundation for sustained contributions to the betterment of the West Alabama area. In 2008 Dr. Mason was selected as the Tuscaloosa County Citizen of the Year by the Civitan Club.

He has been a member of the board of directors at Peoples Bank of Tuscaloosa, First National Bank of Amsouth Bank, Tuscaloosa, and Books-a-Million. Mason and his wife Linda have a daughter, Michele, and a son Michael (deceased).

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.

Jonathan Westervelt Warner

  • September 21st, 2021

To many observers, Jonathan Westervelt Warner – better known as Jack – is seen as an entrepreneur par excellence, a hard-nosed businessman who used a mixture of intuition, information, and guts to transform a single product, family business into a dynamic, diversified organization. Others view him as a traditionalist, a lover of art and history whose interests are as much with the past as with the present or future.

Undeniably, Jack Warner believes in tradition. Directing the activities of a corporation founded in 1884 by his grandfather, Warner follows in a family tradition of leadership. But the past three decades of growth under his leadership have presented a myriad of challenges in a constantly changing business world. Through the years, however, Warner was carefully groomed for his future role and the imprint he would one day make on the lives of so many.

“My mother gave me the ball early in life, and then let me run with it. Even when I tripped and fell,” Warner said in recalling her guidance. “It’s so easy for a parent to make an incompetent out of the son by dominating his position and decisions. My mother always let me make my own mistakes as well as forge my own successes.” That philosophy worked well, for under Warner’s direction Gulf States Paper Corporation began an era of unprecedented growth and development that continues to this day.

Born in Decatur, Illinois, Warner moved to Tuscaloosa at the age of 11 when his family opened Alabama’s first modern paper mill in 1929. Through the years, the Tuscaloosa mill was to grow and make the Gulf States one of the world’s leading producers of the familiar grocery bag and other products made from kraft paper.

Growing up around the Tuscaloosa facility, Warner learned about the paper industry through firsthand observation. He spent summers and holidays as a laborer in the mill while gaining a formal education at Culver Military Academy and Washington and Lee University. After military service in World War II, Warner returned to Tuscaloosa in 1946 to join the family business. In 1950 he became executive vice president, directing the day-to-day operations while, at the same time, making improvements and laying plans for the quantum jumps in growth the future would hold.

April 20, 1957, was to be a fateful Saturday for Warner: the company’s board of directors accepted the retirement of his mother, Mildred Westervelt Warner, as president and named Jack Warner in her place. Thus, he became the third president of Gulf States Paper Corporation.

Sensing the need to move into new markets to meet the challenges of the future, Warner embarked upon a bold program of expansion through the development of new products. The first such move was the Demopolis mill, which opened as a producer of pulp the year after Warner became president. This facility was soon expanded to allow the production of high-quality bleached paperboard for food packaging and achieved many innovative “firsts” in the industry.

Realizing the land resources of the corporation held great potential, Warner expanded its land holdings and extended the Gulf States presence deeper into the forest products industry with the development of timber, mineral, and recreational uses for the nearly 400,000 acres of company land.

In the early 1960s, Warner led the Gulf States in a major expansion into the packaging markets with the opening of a folding carton plant in Maplesville. The Gulf States has expanded this product line with additional plants in North Carolina, Texas, and Kentucky and annually manufacturers enough cartons, food trays, and plates to provide more than 10 for every man, woman, and child in America.

Diversification into additional areas such as school and office supplies, erosion control systems, fiberglass reinforcements, molded-wood products, real estate, resort operations, and fine arts print sales have been the result of Warner’s leadership for the past three decades. Progress has been a product of diversity at Gulf States Paper Corporation as Warner has guided the corporation from its days as a one product-one plant company to today’s varied operations in eight states.

Throughout the development of new businesses, new plants, and new products, one theme has remained constant: Quality Counts. That tradition has been the watchword for the corporation and a constant challenge to excellence for Warner. “My grandfather, Herbert Westervelt, founded this company with the idea that the way to succeed was to provide the best darn product possible,” Warner has said. “My mother and father believed that, too, and this company has been successful because of it. That formula worked because it’s true. You give somebody quality in your product and they’ll come back for it again and again.”

Although Warner could easily be called one of the nation’s leading industrialists, there are many other faces to be revealed. Active in virtually every major community organization, he has labored to bring meaning to the words “quality of life” in the communities with which he has been involved.

Eager to share his knowledge and love of art with others, Warner has frequently lectured on the subject and displays much of The Warner Collection known as one of the most outstanding assemblages of American art to be found anywhere in the Gulf States Paper Corporation National Headquarters, a uniquely Oriental complex visited by thousands annually and inspired by Warner’s war years in Burma with the U.S. Army’s last cavalry troop.

A preservationist and believer in our American heritage, Warner has participated in numerous restoration projects and was instrumental in the founding of Tuscaloosa’s Heritage Week, an annual event that attracts visitors from throughout Alabama and beyond. Among Warner’s more recent preservation projects is the restoration of the Mildred Warner House, an antebellum mansion which he named in honor of his mother.

Art and heritage, Warner believes, are not simply windows to the past but are pathways to the future. “Throughout history, artists have been visionaries,” he has said. “They were the ones who cut through everyday life to see deeper meaning; they were the ones who dreamed about the future. If we study them and learn to think like them, maybe we can find more meaning in the moment and the right road for the future.”

A belief in the sanctity of nature has led Warner to meet the challenge of improving the quality of forests, streams, air, and wildlife in both woodland and industrial settings. These efforts have been recognized through major awards from the National Wildlife Federation, the American Paper Institute, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the State of Alabama.

Warner’s faith in the future of business and the free enterprise system is summed up in his advice to young people to: “Go out to where the action is. Business and industry, that is! ‘Cause, that’s where the excitement is. That is where the solutions will be found. That’s where jobs are created. That’s where the money flows and the prosperity of the nation rises or falls. And that’s where the cream of the youth crop is needed and hopefully will be! And that’s where the real answers to, and the funding for human desires, social needs, and yes, even happiness, lie!”

In the educational arena, Warner has chaired the Board of Visitors of The University of Alabama College of Commerce and Business Administration, initiated the University’s Jack Warner Endowed Scholarship Fund, and served his alma mater, Washington & Lee University, as a trustee. Through the David Warner Foundation, named in memory of his brother who died in a swimming accident, Warner has brought new meaning to the lives of many youngsters through the funding of numerous projects designed to bring a brighter future to the youth of today.

Warner has served as a director or officer of countless civic, business and service organizations. Awards and honors from every segment of society have been heaped upon him including the “Man of the Year” award of the Alabama Council of the National Management Association, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alabama, and induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor.

Although his folksy style and homespun, yet incisive, philosophy may deceive more casual acquaintances, Warner is known to maintain a zesty enthusiasm for active sports and a keen appreciation of art, business, and the world around him. Besides daily overseeing the operations of one of the nation’s largest privately held corporations, Warner remains devoted to progress and is a constant promoter of the free enterprise system in America.

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.”

Dr. George Washington Carver

  • September 20th, 2021

George Washington Carver, who entered this world on an unknown date as a son of slaves, left this world a free man, renowned for his dedication to teaching all people how to make the world a better place to live.

George Washington Carver was born a slave on a farm near Diamond Grove, Missouri, in about 1861. As a young child, he experienced the accidental death of his father and, soon thereafter, he and his remaining family were stolen by slave raiders. Only young George was later returned to the owner, Mose Carver, who exchanged a $300 racehorse for the boy.

Because of his small size, young George was assigned to household work. In his spare time, he was able to devote himself to studying trees, plants, flowers, and insects and to learn how to draw and paint them. He also learned how to play the piano in his owner’s parlor. But he could not read or write.

When he was about fourteen, he struck out on his own. He worked at odd jobs and attended grade schools in the vicinity of Neosho, Missouri, and cities in the adjoining state of Kansas. In Olathe, Kansas, he became affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, an affiliation that was to influence his entire life. By going to school and alternately working as a cook or laundryman, he ultimately received his high school education in Minneapolis, Kansas.

Upon graduation, Carver applied for admission to a college in northeast Kansas but was refused because of his race. About three years later, he moved to Iowa. Encouraged by a friendly white family, he applied and was admitted to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, where he gave serious thought to a career as an artist. Many of his paintings were exhibited in Iowa and in Chicago during the time. But since he ultimately felt that agriculture promised a greater economic reward for him and his people, in 1891 Carver transferred to Iowa State College of Agriculture where he received a B.S. degree in 1894, and two years later, an M.S. degree.

Upon graduation, Carver became the first black faculty member at his alma mater. In charge of the college greenhouse, he conducted numerous experiments in cross-fertilization and the propagation of plants. He also specialized in the study of plant fungi; but as Carver was later to remark, although he won much recognition for his studies with fungi, the field seemed “to be of no importance or direct benefit to my people.”

During these years of experimentation with plants, he began to believe more firmly that he could teach people, particularly his people, how to live from the abundance of the earth. With these thoughts in mind, he began to look for a place where he could put his knowledge to work for his people’s benefit.

While waiting for a reply from Alcorn College in Mississippi, Carver received a letter from Dr. Booker T. Washington asking that Carver join him at Tuskegee Institute. Carver modestly answered that he was interested in any offer, since “it has always been the one ideal of my life to be of the greatest good to the greatest number of my people.”

Carver accepted Dr. Washington’s offer of $1,000 a year and on Thursday morning, October 8, 1896, arrived at Chehaw Station to become the Director of Agriculture for Tuskegee Institute. This day marked the beginning of the legend of Dr. George Washington Carver of Tuskegee. Small in stature, eccentric in habits and tastes, high-pitched in voice, Dr. Carver acquired an image of unorthodoxy. But these traits, combined with a deep reliance on religion, a commitment to the promotion of human welfare, and an utter lack of interest in monetary rewards gave flesh to the legend. During these years he developed the concept of extended education for black farmers to teach them better agricultural methods and the values of a balanced diet. He held numerous conferences and institutes at Tuskegee and also inaugurated farm demonstration work to help train black agricultural extension agents. With the help of New York philanthropist Morris Jessup, he developed a wagon equipped to carry educational programs to the disadvantaged rural blacks of the area, and innovation that he considered as one of his most important contributions to agricultural education.

Because of the dependence of the South on a one-crop system based on cotton (which inevitably produced soil exhaustion and was increasingly becoming prey to the boll weevil) Carver began to conduct experiments in crop diversification and eradication of diseases of other Southern crops. His experiments led to the development of peanuts and sweet potatoes as commercial crops.

By 1915, he had discovered that innumerable products could be produced from peanuts. Reportedly, a lunch he once whipped up for some Alabama businessmen consisted of nine courses created from peanuts. Eventually, Carver’s experiments revealed more than 300 items that could be made from peanuts, including synthetic rubber.

In addition, he produced more than 120 products from sweet potatoes and more than 70 products from pecans and other Southern crops, such as soybeans, cotton, wild plums, and cowpeas.

Although many of the products produced by Carver offered immediate commercial possibilities, he refused to allow any of these discoveries to be patented, since he wished for them to be available for the widest possible use. Although Carver performed most of his work outside of the mainstream of American scientific research, his discoveries nevertheless brought to him multifaceted honors. He was early elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London and was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Simpson College, in 1921, and the University of Rochester, in 1941, conferred upon him honorary degrees. He received awards from the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association and from the International Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians.

The honors and fame which George Washington Carver received brought attention to him from many of the captains of industry, such as Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford. He had many lucrative offers from such men, but to have accepted these offers would have forced him to leave Tuskegee and to give up the principal purpose of his life service to his fellow men. This philosophy of Carver helps to explain his indifference to monetary rewards. He was unaccustomed to wealth and often refused increases in salary at Tuskegee. Frequently, the treasurer of the Institute had to beg him to cash his paychecks so that the books could be balanced.

Early in 1943, George Washington Carver died. He was buried at his beloved Tuskegee alongside Booker T. Washington. He left his entire estate of about $60,000 to perpetuate the work that he had started. The George Washington Carver Foundation was established to provide an opportunity for black youths to do advanced study in botany, chemistry, and agronomy.

Over the years since his death, George Washington Carver has been honored by: The issuance of a U.S. commemorative stamp and a U.S. fifty-cent coin; the establishment of a National Monument on the site of his birth; having a Polaris submarine named for him, and induction into the Hall of Fame of Great Americans.

George Washington Carver, who entered this world on an unknown date as a son of slaves, left this world a free man, renowned for his dedication to teaching all people how to make the world a better place to live.

Lee Bidgood

  • September 17th, 2021

Lee Bidgood will be remembered for generations to come because he helped found the College Business at The University of Alabama.

Bidgood attended Churchland Academy and the University of Virginia, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1905 and an M.A. the following year. Bidgood married Emily Smith in 1914. Bidgood’s reputation as a teacher and scholar in economics led to his appointment at The University of Alabama. With the support of President George H. Denny, Bidgood convinced the board to take action, and in January 1920, the School of Commerce and Business Administration came into being. Bidgood was chosen as Dean. To accomplish the tremendous job of starting a college, he was given the administration’s good wishes, $7,000, one office, one classroom, one instructor, and two student assistants. Under Bidgood’s leadership, a building specifically designed for business programs was built in 1928. In 1929, the business school at The University of Alabama became the first, and for forty years thereafter remained the only, business school in Alabama to be accredited by the American Association of Collegiate School of Business. Bidgood held honorary degrees from The University of Alabama and New York University. He was elected president of the American Association of Collegiate School of Business. Two of Bidgood’s greatest honors came when he was invited to serve as interim president for The University of Alabama and the naming of Bidgood Hall in his honor.

Frank Park Samford Sr.

  • September 9th, 2021

Builder of Liberty National Life Insurance Company (now Torchmark Corporation), Alabama’s largest life insurance company, promoter of higher education, and outstanding business leader, Frank Park Samford, Sr. was an exemplary citizen.

He was born in Troy, Alabama November 1, 1893, to Kate Park Samford and William Hodges Samford. His father was a judge on the Alabama Court of Appeals and his grandfather was governor of Alabama. Frank Samford received his AB degree from Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn University) and was later to receive honorary doctoral degrees from Auburn University, The University of Alabama, and Samford University.

In 1919 he was married to Hattie Mae Noland, who shared in his higher education interests. They had two children, Frank Park Samford, Jr. and Ann (Mrs. Samuel E. Upchurch).

Frank Samford served 27 years on the Board of Trustees of Auburn University and 34 years as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Howard College later to be named Samford University. He is credited with his participation in efforts to move the campus from the East Lake neighborhood in Birmingham to its current campus in Homewood, Alabama. The University was named for him in 1965. He also served as a Trustee of Southern Research Institute. Practically every educational and charitable organization in Alabama has benefitted from his generosity. Mr. Samford was selected in 1958 as Man of the South by Dixie Business Magazine and appointed Citizen of the Year in 1965 by the Alabama Broadcasting Association. He was also named Citizen of the Century for Birmingham by the Chamber of Commerce. He served on the Boards of Southern Research Institute, Community Chest, Alabama Heart Association, and Associated Industries. In addition to numerous business, civic, educational, cultural, financial, and charitable organizations, he also served as a deacon and benefactor of Southside Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Frank Park Samford, Sr. was inducted into the Alabama Men’s Hall of Fame in 1989.

Biographical information provided by Samford University.

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