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.

Don James

• September 24th, 2021

Donald James retired as CEO of Vulcan Materials in 2014 and as Chairman in 2015, after eighteen years in those leadership roles. During his time, Vulcan grew to be one of the largest public companies in Alabama. Vulcan’s enterprise value has grown from $2 billion when James joined Vulcan to $18 billion at the end of 2017. Prior to joining Vulcan in 1992, James was a partner in the law firm of Bradley, Arant, Rose, and White, where he served on the firm’s Executive Committee.

Over the years, James has been involved in many civic and community activities, including serving as Chairman of the Birmingham Museum of Art and The Mountain Brook Board of Education. He has served on the Boards of Birmingham Southern College, United Way of Central Alabama, McWane Center, Central Alabama Council of Boy Scouts, Children’s of Alabama, UAB Health Services Foundation, UAB Health System, Rotary Club of Birmingham, Independent Presbyterian Church Foundation, Hugh Karl Foundation, The University of Alabama President’s Cabinet, and The Culverhouse College of Business Board of Visitors.

On the national level, he has served on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Manufacturers Association. In 2009, James received the Corporate Citizenship Award from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. Currently, James serves on the Board of Directors of Wells Fargo and The Southern Company.

In 2009, James was selected to the Alabama Academy of Honor, a roster that is comprised of distinguished citizens of Alabama chosen for accomplishment or service greatly benefiting or reflecting great credit on the state. James grew up in Russellville and holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Business Administration from The University of Alabama and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. He and his wife Anna live in Birmingham and have three children, Dr. Virginia Grace Cohen, Clarence W. James II, and Julia Lundin, and five grandchildren.

Thomas E. Kilby

• September 22nd, 2021

Thomas Erby Kilby served as Governor of Alabama from 1919-1923, the years after World War I when society was being catapulted into the modern age. He brought to the governorship a record of business expertise and successful administrative experience, as well as a reputation as a man more interested in commercial, ed­ucational, and agricultural progress than in politics.

Thomas Erby Kilby was born in Lebanon (Wilson County), Tennessee on July 9, 1865. The son of Peyton B. and Sara Ann (Marchant) Kilby, he was educated in the public schools of Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1887, he moved to Anniston, Alabama, as station agent for the Georgia and Pacific Railroad. He continued in that position until 1889 when he saw an opportunity to establish a railway supply business with Horry Clark. Kilby rapidly demonstrated his entrepreneurial ability and soon this partnership styled Clark and Kilby, grew, and was incorporated in 1892 as Smith and Kilby, a man­ufacturer of railway supplies.

Under Kilby’s leadership over the next three decades, this business expanded and became a rebuilder of steam locomotives, manufacturer of railway cars, and producer of basic steel. During this expansion, the company established a steel foundry, a rolling mill, and a large forge shop. The company went through a series of name changes becoming Kilby Locomotive and Machine Works in 1903, later Kilby Car and Foundry Company, and finally Kilby Steel Company in 1938.

Kilby established a sub­sidiary company in 1903, Alabama Frog and Switch Company, a manufacturer of railroad switches. He served as president until this business was moved to Birmingham in the 1920s becoming Kilby Frog and Switch and later Wier Kilby Company.

Foreseeing a bright future for the cast iron pipe indus­try, Kilby organized the Alabama Pipe and Foundry Company. Within a decade, Anniston became the center of the soil pipe industry. In 1921, he formulated plans for the consolidation of some dozen independent plants into the Alabama Pipe Company, which became the world’s largest cast iron soil pipe manufacturer. He served as Board Chairman until his death.

Due to his business acumen, Kilby was named a Director of the City National Bank of Anniston. In 1902, he became president. When this bank merged with the Anniston National Bank to become Anniston City National Bank, he served as president until 1919, when he resigned to become Governor. He was subsequently elected chairman of the board of directors of the bank from 1923-1930.

According to reports, Thomas Kilby had given no thought to entering the political arena until 1889 when his friends persuaded him to run for the City Council. The city needed a good businessman on the council to rescue the city from potential bankruptcy. He ran, was elected, and as Finance Chairman managed to get the city finances in order during his two-year tenure.

In 1900, he was appointed to a two-year term on the Anniston City School Board. In 1905, he was persuaded to run for and was elected to the mayor­ship of the city. As mayor of Anniston for two successive terms, he put into operation policies of economy, law enforcement, internal improve­ments, and social reform which later became state policies during his term as governor.

After the successful completion of his mayor­ship, he traveled to Europe to study state and municipal governments of the old world. This instructive study further increased his growing interest in state government.

Thus, in 1911, Kilby ran and was elected as a state senator from Calhoun County. In 1914, he ran a successful campaign for the lieutenant governor­ship, and in 1918 he launched a campaign for the governorship.

During his gubernatorial campaign, Kilby allowed no one to contribute to his campaign fund and he made no commitments for any appoint­ments, pardons, paroles, or other favors.

Kilby’s platform was simple but purposeful. As usual, he placed first importance on the intro­duction of business methods into the affairs of the state. He also pledged support for policies and laws to improve the educational, agricultural, commercial, and social environment in the state.

Thomas Kilby was inaugurated governor of Alabama on January 20, 1919. Then began an administration marked by achievement. With the support of the Legislature, he established the Budget Commission and revenue measures which equalized the tax burden. He improved the public highways and fostered the development of the port of Mobile. He enforced the laws of the state, especially those pertaining to prohibition, and he curtailed the pardoning power.

He initiated social legislation which has had far-ranging effects. For example, he was instrumental in improving the care of and facilities for prisoners.

Kilby Prison was one result of his efforts and at the time of its construction was considered one of the most modern in the U.S. He increased appro­priations for Bryce Hospital and other institutions for the mentally ill. He sponsored legislation to provide for mentally deficient children, resulting in what is called Partlow School today. He can also be credited with the establishment of the Child Welfare Department and the Public Health De­partment; passage of a fair Workman’s Compensation Act; assistance to agriculture; and support of veterans.

At the end of his term, said one newspaper editor, this ‘business governor” had lifted the economy of Alabama from a “hand-to-mouth” economy to an economy that looked at least twenty-five years ahead. Another newspaper stated that Kilby’s administration had attained the status of the unique with its vast gains for education, the eleemosynary institutions, public health, and road and water transportation.

Thomas Erby Kilby, 37th Governor of the State of Alabama, died October 22, 1943, at his home in Anniston. He was survived by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Clark) Kilby, his wife of 49 years.

At the time of his death, Alabama leaders and newspapers again proclaimed his administration one of the finest Alabama had ever experienced. In recognition of this fact, in 1946, the state of Ala­bama invited the Kilby family to place a memorial plaque in the department of Archives and History in Montgomery-a building which was the cul­mination of the late Governor’s dedication of his money, time, and energies to a useful and enduring memorial to Alabama’s war dead. At a ceremony on October 25, 1946, Mrs. Kilby presented the plaque on behalf of the family.

Thus, the State of Alabama honors Governor Thomas Erby Kilby and assures him a permanent and illustrious place in its history.

Herbert Clark Stockham

• September 22nd, 2021

The story of the life of Herbert Clark Stockham is closely interwoven with the phenomenal growth and development of Stockham Valves & Fittings, Inc. in Birmingham into one of the world’s largest producers of pipe fittings and valves.

Born in Chicago on March 24, 1888, he was the oldest son of Kate Frances (Clark) and William H. Stockham. In 1903, the family moved to Birmingham where William Stockham founded Stockham Pipe & Fittings Company. Though only fifteen at the time, young Herbert joined his father and a crew of five in setting up shop in a rented car barn. He continued to work every minute he wasn’t in school at Chicago English High and the University of Illinois Preparatory School.

After his studies were completed, he returned to the plant to work wherever he was needed – learning everything he could about the foundry business. He advanced to assistant secretary, secretary and was vice president at the time of his father’s death. He then became president. As president from 1923 to 1953 and Chairman of the Board from 1946 until his death, Herbert Clark Stockham was “the chief architect in Stockham’s rise through growth and expansion.”

During the early years of Herbert Stock- ham’s presidency, the company experienced growth. He initiated plant mechanization and the establishment of a warehouse in Houston, Texas, the company’s third.

Though the Great Depression brought two years of serious losses, the company survived – not only because of careful management but also because of the progress that had been made in employee relations.

Following the “Stockham credo” – the Golden Rule in action the company had begun to raise working standards long before the depression. The company was among the first in Birmingham to install facilities for inspirational and recreational activities. It also began to provide free medical and dental care, safety programs with group insurance, group hospitalization, pensions; higher pay, and shorter hours swiftly following.

In 1935, the company launched the product of one of its most outstanding research programs – the Bronze Valve. By 1941, the company had developed Iron Body Valves, but the entrance of the nation into World War II delayed the full development and production of the valves. The company geared itself to the needs of the Army and the Navy for munitions and cast steel fittings for warships. In 1942, the company received the first of three Army-Navy “E” production awards.

After the war, the company began an all-out program of reconditioning, modernization, and expansion. Production of valves began in earnest. The success of the valve production and sales is reflected in the change of name in 1948 from Stockham Pipe & Fittings Company to Stockham Valves & Fittings, Inc. By this time, the company had also established warehouses and sales offices in many of the major metropolitan areas in the nation.

The essence of Herbert Stockham’s qualities as a leader is reflected in the Preface he wrote for Links to Better Living, 1903-1953: The Story of Stockham, 50 Golden Years:

“Stockham is land, buildings, and equipment. But those are only a min­or factor. Primarily Stockham is peo­ple. Not the faceless, anonymous mass sometimes described as capital and labor, but proud and accom­plished artisans, eager, enterprising, fresh, warm, and friendly people with personalities to express and ambitions to fulfill. People with skills to merge in making the products and supplying the service on which Stockham reputation is built.

“Stockham is a successful enter­prise. My father furnished the vision and high principles that bred that success. The progress through the years we owe to many people. Especially do we feel a deep sense of gratitude to the loyal friends and customers who are the backbone of any business.”

A champion of the Free Enterprise System, Herbert Stockham was active in various pro­fessional organizations which fostered its growth. He was an original organizer, the first vice president, and the second president of Associated Industries of Alabama, as well as a member of AIA’s Board for many years. He­ was a president and member of the Board of Trustees of the National Association of Fit­tings Manufacturers. He also served as re­gional vice president of the National Associa­tion of Manufacturers and a member of the board for Alabama.

Carrying on the tradition of community ser­vice set by his parents, Herbert Stockham gave of his means, his time, and his energy to civic, religious, educational, and charitable activi­ties. He was a member and a president of the Birmingham Sunday School Council, which bestowed upon him life membership in recog­nition of his service. A devout church worker, he was a steward and Trustee of the Highlands Methodist Church in Birmingham and a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama Christian Advocate. He was elected and served as a director of the Board of the Community Chest.

He was a member of the Executive Commit­tee of Birmingham Southern College (which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws de­gree in 1949). He was tapped for ODK in recognition of his leadership and service. He also served as a representative of the State of Alabama on the Board of Trustees of Tuskegee Institute. In 1949, he was selected as “Alabam­ian of the Week” in recognition of his promo­tion of good race relations.

After Herbert Clark Stockham died sudden­ly on January 24, 1958, one well acquainted with him wrote:

“… In almost fifty-six years of ser­vice – through his ability, energy, and integrity of character – he con­tributed greatly to Stockham’s growth and progress … Herbert Clark Stockham was a leader – in industry, in church, and in the state … The memory of him shall stand as an inspiration to all of us.”

At the helm of the family firm, today is Herbert Cannon Stockham – son of Herbert Clark and Virginia (Cannon) Stockham. The Stockham’s daughter – Virginia Lee (Mrs. George Ladd) – also resides in Birmingham.

The “Stockham credo” and Stockham products continue to exert an influence in Birmingham, the State, the nation, and the world.

Henry Fairchild DeBardeleben

• September 22nd, 2021

Henry Fairchild DeBardeleben once said, according to historians, “Break a young mustang into a foxtrotting gait. That’s what we did to the Birmingham district.

“There’s nothing like taking a wild piece of land, all rock and woods, ground not fit to feed a goat on, and tum it into a settlement of men and women, making payrolls, bringing the railroads in, and starting things going …

‘That’s what money does, and that’s what money’s for. I like to use money as I use a horse – to ride!”

And “ride” he did. He put the power of his fortune, his credit, and his tremendous vitality into the development of Birmingham as the “Pittsburgh of the South.”

Henry Fairchild DeBardeleben was born in Autauga County, Alabama, on July 22, 1840. His father Henry died when the boy was twelve years old. His mother, Mary Ann (Fairchild) DeBarde­leben, subsequently moved to Montgomery where the youngster secured work in a grocery store. Being a native of New York, Mrs. DeBardeleben sought the company of others from that area. The Daniel Pratts, whom she had known in New York, became benefactors of the widow and her three young children.

When young DeBardeleben was sixteen, he became the ward of Daniel Pratt, Alabama’s first great industrial magnate, whose plants were in Pratt­ville, a few miles from Mont­gomery. The young man lived in the Pratt mansion and attended school. He was made ”boss” of the teamsters and foreman of the lumberyard, and later superinten­dent of the cotton gin. Upon the outbreak of the War Be­tween the States, he joined the Prattville Dragoons in the Confederate Army. He served until after the Battle of Shiloh when he was detailed to take care of a Prattville grist mill and bobbin factory which supplied food and clothing to the Confederate Army.

In 1863 he had married Ellen Pratt. After the war, he continued to run the Prattville mills for his father-in-law. In 1872, Daniel Pratt bought a controlling interest in the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company in Birmingham and made Henry DeBardeleben manager of the reconstruction of the Oxmoor furnace and the development of the Helena mines. The panic of 1873 temporarily closed the works. This same year, Daniel Pratt died, leaving his estate to the Henry DeBardelebens.

In 1877, Henry DeBardeleben joined James W. Sloss and Truman H. Aldrich in ownership of the Eureka Mining and Transportation Company, which was reorganized in 1878 as the Pratt Coal and Coke Company with DeBardeleben as president. Two years later, he and T. T. Hillman founded the Alice Furnace Company, and between 1879-81 built the Alice furnaces, named in honor of DeBardeleben’s eldest daughter.

In 1881, because of ill health, he sold his holdings and took his family to Mexico. But by 1882, apparently fully recovered, he returned to Birmingham and with W. T. Underwood built the Mary Pratt furnace (named for his second daughter). He acquired the mineral rights to a tract of land on Red Mountain. Illness again took him from Birming­ham, this time to Texas, but by 1885 he was back in Birmingham. In 1886, he and David Roberts, whom he met in Texas, formed the DeBardeleben Coal & Iron Company (apparently, whenever he traveled away from home, he could, through his personality, persuade men of means and enterprise to follow him to Birmingham). He also organized the Pinckard-DeBardeleben Land Company.

These interests led to the founding of the town of Bessemer, ten miles west of Birmingham, and near the great Red Mountain iron seam. In Bessemer, named for the British inventor of the Bessemer process of steelmaking, four furnaces and an iron mill were erected. In 1887 these two firms merged into the DeBardeleben Coal & Iron Co.

In 1891, the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company took over controlling interest in the company. DeBardeleben was made vice-president. After three years of virtual retirement in this position and the death of his wife, DeBardeleben was so restless that he went to New York and made an attempt to gain control of the company through stock purchases. He lost his entire fortune.

Indomitable in the face of ill fortune, he, with his sons, Henry and Charles, explored new fields and started mining in St. Clair County, Alabama, and in the Acton Basin southeast of Birmingham.

In 1910. What had he accomplished in his lifetime? His Red Mountain seam, with his Pratt coal seam, was the basis for the development of industrial Birmingham. He was the first to succeed in making pig iron in Birmingham cheaper than it could be made elsewhere. He built the first coal road in Ala­bama and aided T. H. Aldrich in exploring and developing the Montevallo coal fields. He con­tributed to the development of his region not only through the enterprises with which he was directly connected but also by attracting to Birmingham moneyed men of ambition who established other enterprises. He talked of making steel long before it was made in the Birmingham district, and was instrumental in the construction of the first rolling mill and furnaces.

In 1905, Col. L. W. Johns said he would pay off the Vulcan statue account provided the statue be erected in honor of Henry F. DeBardeleben. DeBardeleben declined the honor-one of the greatest honors proposed to a living person­because he felt such a monument to the industrial pioneer movement should perpetuate the character and achievement, not of one individual, but of all of the men in the past and present who led or were leaders in the industrial development of the Birmingham district. He would prefer, he said, a living, breathing monument that would be a foun­tain of wise charity. He proposed the establishment of a trust fund to be used for the hospital treatment of the poor and needy.

Thus, it can be said that Henry F. DeBardeleben was not just an industrial giant who fostered industrial growth in Alabama. He was also a man who exhibited the traits of those who believe that “every man should leave this world a better place for having lived in it.”

Edward Asbury O’Neal, IV

• September 22nd, 2021

Edward Asbury O’Neal IV was born in Florence, Alabama, on September 9, 1905. In the years that followed, his rise from chemical industrialist to international businessman to Chairman of Monsanto, one of the largest corporations in the U.S., took him far from his native soil. But his roots remained in Alabama where his values had been shaped by a family whose history and tradition in the state dates from the days of Andrew Jackson.

Son of  Edward  Asbury  III and Julia Hartwell (Camper)  O’Neal, the young man, with his brother and sister, grew up in Florence and on the nearby family farm. He attended Florence Normal School and Coffee High School, from which he graduated in 1922. Because young Ed’s family wanted him to become a minister, he entered Davidson College in North Carolina.  He soon transferred to science, and after four successful years during which he displayed qualities of wisdom,  initiative, and friendliness, he graduated in 1926 with a B.A. degree in physics.

The young graduate had decided he wanted to return to the family farm and raise cotton, but the problem was that cotton was selling for seven cents a pound. His father (who had returned to the family farm after being educated as a lawyer, and had become the organizer and a long-term president of the American Farm Bureau Federation), told him that “someone has to pay the taxes.” An admirer of the growing chemical industry, his father sent his son to Theodore Swann, who gave young Ed a job as a  laboratory assistant for  $75  a  week with the Swann  Company in Anniston,  manufacturer of phosphate.

Years later, Ed O’Neal said, “About six months later, someone down there noticed the lab  job didn’t seem to be my turn of hand, so I was given a few odd jobs in the plant … ”

That was the beginning. 1928, he was superintendent; by 1936, assistant parts manager; and by 1938, plant manager.

While settling in Anniston, Ed had met Mildred Pruet, a native of Ashland, Alabama. They were married in 1928. They subsequently had three daughters-Mildred (Mrs. David V. Palmer, of London, England); Julia Ann (Mrs. Prescott  W.  Gould of  Santa Barbara, California); Nancy O’Neal of New York  City; and a son, Edward Asbury O’Neal V of New York City.

Monsanto had acquired the Swann  Company a few years after Ed O’Neal began work. In 1941, he was sent to Trenton, Michigan, to manage a new Monsanto phosphate plant being built there.  In a life increasingly dominated by the war effort, Ed O’Neal took over the construction and start-up of the new phosphate plant in Trenton. In spite of a cold winter and war-time shortages, by the end of 1942, he had the plant running at total capacity (about three times the output of the  Anniston plant) and all products sold out.

In May 1944, Ed O’Neal was promoted to Production Manager of the entire Phosphate  Division of Monsanto, a position that led him to move his family to St. Louis, Missouri. When World War II ended, Edgar M. Queeny, then head of Monsanto, sent Ed O’Neal on a “scouting trip” to England,  to determine whether it would be practical to continue the company’s British subsidiary in view of the possibility that the new Labor government might nationalize the industry.

When he returned after two months of consultation with leading officials in business and government circles to recommend that the company keep and expand its British branch, Chairman Queeny said, “Fine. You go over there and do it.”

Thus, in January 1946, the O’Neal family, which was becoming increasingly mobile and adaptable, sailed on the Queen Mary for their new home in England, where Ed O’Neal served as Managing Director of Monsanto Chemicals Limited from 1946-53.

After thoroughly learning about British banking and finance, government policy, and trade, Ed O’Neal established and implemented an ambitious plan of expansion and research financed mostly by British capital which he engendered. Under his leadership,-. Monsanto Chemicals Limited in England increased sales from $9 million in sales to

$75 million in less than 10 years and became the headquarters of a vast overseas operation ranging from Continental Europe to Australia and New Zealand. His success with the British company soon led to his involvement with Monsanto’s other overseas operations. He became chairman of Mon­santo Canada, Ltd. and a director of Monsanto of Australia.

By 1953, Ed O’Neal had been promoted to head of Monsanto’s Overseas Division, a position which required that he return to Monsanto’s headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. As an established international business figure, he became a strong member of the company’s top management team. He was elected a vice president in 1954 and a member of the Board of Directors in 1955.

In the early 1950s, Chemstrand Corporation, a joint venture of Monsanto and the American Viscose Corporation in the production and sales of synthetic textiles, was showing poor profit performance and market growth. The equal ownership and equal board participation had held back the company’s ability to respond to change and to new ideas-management needed reorganizing and the company needed a specific strategic plan and the backing to implement it. Because Ed O’Neal had the first-rate experience in all these areas and the style and drive to get the job done, in 1956 he was asked to become president of Chemstrand. He resigned from his Monsanto positions and moved his family to Decatur,  Alabama,  where  Chemstrand’s main plant was located.

Ed O’Neal took over the helm at  Chemstrand and turned a “loser” into a winner. With a new organization and management team, new spirit, and sound planning, Chemstrand expanded into new and growing markets. New plants were built in North Ireland, in Israel, in Luxembourg, and in South Carolina; a major research center was estab­lished in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park.

By 1959, Chemstrand’s earnings had become greater than the Net Income of Viscose Corporation and only $8 million less than Monsanto’s earnings. The growth had been a result of good products and good marketing. He was re-elected vice president in 1962.

In 1965, Edward Asbury O’Neal IV was named Chairman of the Board of Monsanto and a member of the finance committee. During his three years of tenure, this proven leader, international planner, and implementor helped both consolidate and direct the activities of the now gigantic and prosperous organization. He retired as Chairman in 1968 and ended all executive duties in 1969, though he remained on the Board until 1975.

Edward Asbury O’Neal IV died in St. Louis on December 6, 1977. He was buried in his hometown, Florence, Alabama. As the Florence Times stated, “… the name O’Neal means much, not only to Florence, where the roots are planted but to the whole United States as well. The community is saddened by the passing of another in the line of extraordinary O’Neals.”

George Huguley Lanier

• September 22nd, 2021

The life and leadership of George Huguley Lanier would occupy many pages of a history of the growth of West Point Pepperell, Inc. – from the original cotton mill incorporated by West Point Manufacturing Company at Langdale, Alabama, in 1880 into the modern textile giant ranked 251 in the 1985 Fortune 500, with sales of $1.3 billion.

From 1906 until 1948, George H. Lanier led West Point Manufacturing Company through two world wars, three major depressions, some trying recessions, and near resolutions in both sociology and technology. Under his leadership, West Point Manufacturing Company grew from four cotton mills with net sales of $2.5 million in 1910 to nine manufacturing and four support facilities with net sales of over $100 million in 1947.

“Mr. George,” as he was known to thousands of his fellow employees pioneered many changes for the betterment of employees because he believed that “the plants could truly profit only as the people truly prospered.”

George Huguley Lanier was born in West Point, Georgia, on August 22, 1880, the elder son of LaFayette and Ada Alice Huguley Lanier. After having served as an apprentice in the (Chattahoochee) Valley mills in Alabama and following his graduation from the Philadelphia Textile Institute in 1900, George Lanier served for five years as superintendent of the Pepperton Cotton Mills in Jackson, Georgia. While there, he married Marie Lamar of Americus, Georgia. They became the parents of five children: Joseph Lamar Lanier, George Huguley Lanier, Jr., Bruce N. Lanier, Marie Lanier (Jennings), and Lucy Lanier (Nixon).

In 1906, George Lanier’s father, who had been the prime factor in the organization of West Point Manufacturing Company and was then its president was ill. The Boston interests of the company prevailed upon the young man who had proven his worth in Jackson to return to Alabama as vice president and general manager of the Company. From 1906 until 1925 when George Lanier was made president, he was entrusted with all but the title of the full management of the company.

Under his leadership, additional units of West Point Manufacturing Company were built at Shawmut and Fairfax. The West Point Utilization Company, the Service Division, and the Research Division were organized and put into operation. Dixie Cotton. Mills, LaGrange, Georgia; Equinox Mill, Anderson, South Carolina; and Cabin Crafts Inc., Dalton, Georgia, became subsidiaries. In 1945, the company acquired Wellington Sears Company, a selling agency in Boston, and in 1947, Columbus (Georgia) Manufacturing Company. By 1948, West Point Manufacturing Company had become one of the top ten textile manufacturing corporations in America, its products being sold in every state and in 19 foreign countries.

As West Point Manufacturing Company prospered, so did the employees and people of the Valley. George Lanier became a leader in the improvement of their health, education, and welfare.

“Mr. George” launched a health program in the mills and villages. Visiting nurses were employed to supervise the first aid rooms in the mills, see the injured and visit the homes of the employees to attend to the sick members of their families.

He had labor crews to keep the villages clean. He enlarged educational and religious facilities, constructed modern school buildings; and supplemented the pay of teachers. Night schools were established for those who wanted to further their education. Public libraries, gymnasiums, auditoriums, and play­grounds were built. The day nursery, started by his father, was expanded into a kindergarten system in each of the communities where the Company had operations.

In 1942, he was instrumental in establishing the Chattahoochee Valley Hospital Society, and because of his work, a hospital at Langdale, Alabama (named the George H. Lanier Memorial Hospital in his honor) was the first project in the nation to receive a grant under the Hill-Burton Act. The Society broke ground for the building on April 18, 1948 (only five months before George Lanier’s death), and the first patient was admitted on January 18, 1950.

George Lanier’s leadership in business and civic affairs extended beyond his beloved Valley. For example, he was a director of major professional organizations, such as Cotton Textile Institute, Cotton Duck Association, American Cotton Manufacturers Association, the Cotton Manufacturers Associations of Georgia and Alabama, and Textile Hall, Greenville, South Carolina.

He was elected to serve as a member of the Alabama State Department of Education; as a director of the Alabama Department of Public Welfare; as a trustee for the Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind, and the Darlington School for Boys at Rome, Georgia. He was also a member of the Alabama Board of Industrial Relations Committee, the State Advisory Council of the Alabama Unemployment Compensation Commission, and the Advisory Board of the Alabama State Docks Commission.

George Lanier was not only vice president and director of the First National Bank of West Point but also a director of the First National Bank of Atlanta and the Trust Company of Georgia, and of the Atlanta and West Point Railroad Company and the Western Railway of Alabama.

George Huguley Lanier died on September 17, 1948. Continuing the policies of his father, George Lanier had, as President of West Point Manufacturing Company, devoted himself untiringly to the further development of “The Valley” – concentrating on improving the living and working conditions of the mill employees; on beautifying the villages; and on improving the educational opportunities of the people.

Magnanimous of heart, “Mr. George” had personally donated land on which a scout camp was built at Pine Mountain and a lot in West Point for the home of the Girl Scout Little House. He had helped many young men and women in the Valley to be able to attend college. Deeply religious by nature, he was for many years a deacon of the First Christian Church of West Point.

In every way, “Mr. George” had exerted a tremendous influence over the economic, social, and cultural development of “The Valley.”

As stated in The West Point News (September 23, 1948):

Few men have endeared themselves so profoundly and so universally to the people of a community as Mr. Lanier. His gentle spirit, his magnanimous heart, his deep personal concern for the welfare of the employees of his companies, his unbounded generosity, and his quiet but effective leadership, made him public friend and first citizen of the Valley.

“The Valley,” in particular, and Alabama in general, benefited from the progressive and caring attitude of George Huguley Lanier.

Stephen Dewey Moxley

• September 22nd, 2021

It is not possible to think of Stephen D. Steve-Moxley being out of the thick of things. We take his retirement as only a piece of paperwork,” were the opening words of an editorial in the Birmingham News on June 3, 1963, the day Steve Moxley stepped down as President of American Cast Iron Pipe Company (ACIPCO).  Indeed, Steve Moxley had always been in “the thick of things.”

For forty years, he had been a major factor in ACIPCO’s “true American enterprise, research and manufacture of an improved product at a better price.” He had also “entered fully into every aspect of the constructive life of Birmingham, the State, and the Nation.” In no small part had his efforts helped bring a new industrial water supply to Birmingham, a full engineering school to UAB, and later the Warrior­ Tombigbee Waterway to Alabama.

Stephen Dewey Moxley was born in Arnot, Pennsylvania, on June 3, 1898, son of Richard and Elizabeth Ann (Thomas) Moxley who had recently immigrated from South Wales, Great Britain. When he was four, the family moved to Wylam, a suburb of Birmingham, where his father resumed his work as a coal miner and coal mine supervisor.

The fourth of eleven children, young Steve attended Wylam Elementary School and two years at Ensley High School in Birmingham before dropping out at 16 to become an apprentice draftsman at the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (now a part of U.S. Steel). Later, he passed an entrance exam which enabled him to become an engineering student at The University of Alabama. He completed his high school credits by correspondence at Tuscaloosa well after he had enrolled in college.

To finance his college education, he fired the central furnace at The University and worked between terms at TCI. By 1921, he had earned a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, and by 1922, a Master’s degree in the field. While at the university, he led the organization of both Theta Tau and Tau Beta Pi. After graduation, he became a Mechanical Engineer at ACIPCO, the company to which he would give forty years of service.

In 1924, Steve Moxley married Marion Frances Bishop, a native of Marseilles, Illinois, whom he had met at The University of Alabama. The Moxley’s subsequently had three children-Gladys (Mrs. William M. Ikard) of Winchester, Tennessee; Stephen, Jr. of Huntsville, and Thomas C. of Birmingham-and 11 grandchildren.

At ACIPCO, he conceived and designed a number of machines for the production of cast iron pressure pipes by the sand spun process. In 1926, he was named Chief Engineer. Because a totally new process for the manufacture of pipe was being placed in operation, the engineers-with no precedent to follow-had to design all machinery connected with the process “from the ground up.”

Between 1927 and 1935, eight of Steve Moxley’s nine patents were issued. He had been a co-inventor of the centrifugal casting method of producing iron pipe using sand­ lined molds-a process which was very significant in the success and growth of ACIPCO in its production of superior strength cast iron pressure pipe.

In 1932, The University’s College of Engineering recognized his part in the development and practical application of this process by conferring upon him the degree of Mechanical Engineer. He was an early pioneer in pollution control at a time when few cared about pollution. By 1928 he had already incorporated dust collection equipment at ACIPCO. His 1935 technical paper on dust collection in the foundry-one of at least a dozen technical papers he wrote during his career-became the definitive paper on the subject and was reprinted and distributed for many years thereafter.

In 1937, Steve Moxley was named Assistant to the Vice President in Charge of Engineering, and by 1946 had been promoted to Vice President in Charge of Engineering and Purchases. By 1953, he was named Execu­tive Vice President; and two years later, President and Chief Executive Officer. During his presidency, the corporation in­ creased in international prominence as a producer of cast iron pipe and other metal products, with sales exceeding $40 million, a goodly percentage of which came from sales of new products first manufactured by ACIPCO under his astute leadership.

In recognition of his professional achievements, Steve Moxley received innumerable awards, such as being named in 1953 a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 1966, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by his alma mater.

But his contributions to the state and nation extended beyond the professional sphere. The list of his civic, educational, and cultural activities would be as long as the uplifted arm of Vulcan, the statue standing on the mountain above Birmingham. For Steve Moxley was driven by a strong sense of obligation to repay his college, his company, and his community for the success he had achieved.

He was the head of a committee which in 1951 completely equipped Alabama’s Engineering School with one of the most complete foundries at any college. His eight years as Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Industrial Water Committee brought him “outstanding credit for the attainment of Birmingham’s new industrial water system” and in 1958 he was elected first Chairman of the City’s Indus­ trial Water Board.

He headed the Business and Industry Division of the capital fund drive that enabled UAB to establish its first degree­ granting engineering school in Birmingham.

For these and other accomplishments, and for his reputation as a “man who went the extra mile,”   Steve Moxley was named Birmingham’s Man of the Year for 1960. Later, as President of the Warrior Tombigbee Development Association, he helped promote the _successful completion of that waterway. He served as a trustee of Southern Research Institute and the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

He was a director of Carraway Methodist Hospital, Jefferson County Community Chest, and Junior Achievement of Birmingham. He contributed significantly to the support of the Medical School at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. He was a member of the Board of Stewards at the First Methodist Church.

Steve Moxley told his employees “It is our job to prove that the Golden Rule in the industry is practical” and the “only way to meet a problem is full-on-face-to-face.” To his friends, he often said that whatever success he’d achieved in life, he owed to The University of Alabama and his wife “Bunny.” What others said of him is equally telling-“His incomparable quality is his ability to find the time and energy to do what needs to be done. He does not seem to be able to say No to any worthwhile endeavor or individual.”

Steve Moxley’s continuing involvement ended abruptly on February 22, 1967, as a result of a tragic automobile accident in which four days before, his wife and three others, including his wife’s brother and sister-in-law, had also been killed.

The people and the community he loved and served will long remember this great man and his accomplishments.

Robert Hugh Daniel

• September 21st, 2021

After less than a year in Jasper, the young man evidently decided that his future lay in Alabama, for he received authorization from his brother to open a branch office of Daniel Construction Company in 1935 as a new vice president of the company.

By the time that he retired in 1977, Hugh Daniel had become the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of one of the nation’s largest publicly owned, full-service construction companies-Daniel International Corporation. He had led the way for the organization of general contractors in Alabama. He had exhibited his faith in the future of Birmingham-concretely, through such structures as the 20-story Daniel Building in the downtown area, and less visibly, in the contribution of his time and talents to almost every worthy cause in the community.

Born in Anderson, South Carolina, on September 1, 1906, Robert Hugh Daniel was the youngest of five sons of James Fleming and Leila Mildred (Adams) Daniel. Even during his elementary and middle school days in Anderson public schools, young Hugh showed the same eagerness to learn and to achieve that he did in later years.

Always an excellent student, at an early age he also had the initiative to secure a paper route. While completing his secondary education at Piedmont High School and Junior College in Demorest, Georgia, he worked as a typesetter for the local newspaper; and after graduation from high school, he continued his newspaper work for a year until his next oldest brother could complete his senior year at Georgia Tech.

Hugh Daniel then entered the Citadel, the military college in South Carolina, where he achieved a distinguished record as a scholar and as a leader in extracurricular activities. An English major, he became the valedictorian of the Class of 1929. He participated in almost all phases of college life as editor-in-chief of the college paper, as vice president of the senior class, and as a leader in various athletic, cultural and social organizations. During the summer months, he continued to show energetic drive by working for Townsend Lumber Company in Anderson, South Carolina.

When Hugh Daniel graduated from The Citadel in 1929, the Great Depression had begun. Even with his outstanding college record, he felt fortunate to get work as a night clerk at the Atlanta YMCA where a small salary and room and board were provided. Then, in 1934, came the opportunity to join his brother’s newly founded construction company, called the Daniel Construction Company, in Anderson, S.C.

In November of that year, Hugh Daniel was sent to supervise the building of the Bank­ head Housing Project in Jasper, Alabama. And while the project was under construction, he persuaded his brother Charles to let him remain in Alabama. Thus, in 1935, Hugh Daniel opened a branch office of Daniel Construction Company in the Webb-Crawford Building in Birmingham and was made vice president of Daniel Construction Company.

A year later, he married Martha Stone Cobb of Vernon, Alabama; and the Daniel family began to become an important part of the business, civic, cultural, and educational life of Birmingham. The couple subsequently had two sons-Robert Hugh, Jr. (now of Atlanta) and Charles William (of Birmingham). Within three years after Hugh Daniel opened the office in Birmingham, his impact on the construction industry in Alabama was apparent. He foresaw the need and initiated the move to organize general contractors into an Alabama Branch of Associated General Con­ tractors. He served as president of the organization both in 1941 and 1949 and was later named a life member.

When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, Daniel Construction Company received two of its largest contracts to date-to build shipyards in Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia. As soon as the shipways for the Liberty ships were completed, Hugh Daniel volunteered for military service. He served as a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy Civil Engineering Corps from 1943 to 1945.

Returning to Birmingham after his discharge from the Navy, the young vice president of Daniel Construction Company rose to the challenge of the demand for construction during the next ten years. By 1955, he had been made President and Treasurer of the company. In 1957, the company built the Bank for Savings Building, the first high-rise building to be constructed in Birmingham since 1927. Hugh Daniel’s theory was that if space was avail­ able, new firms would be attracted to the city.

In 1964, after the death of his brother Charles, Hugh Daniel was named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Daniel Construction Company. In that same year, he helped found Central Bank and Trust (now Central Bank of the South) and remained as Chairman of the Board until 1979; and he became Chief Executive Officer and Treasurer of Daniel Realty Corporation, formed as a subsidiary of Daniel Construction Company.

To his adopted hometown, Hugh gave many hours of service to various cultural and educational organizations. He also served as a director of the Alabama Gas Corporation, Florida National Banks o Florida, Inc., Southern Bank, and Trust Company in Greenville, South Carolina, and the United States Pipe and Foundry Company.

In recognition of his achievements, he was awarded four honorary degrees: a Doctor o Science by the Citadel in 1957 and by Piedmont College in 1965; a Doctor of Humanities by Birmingham-Southern College in 1976; and a Doctor of Letters by the University of Alabama in Birmingham in 1977. In 1976, he was elected to the Alabama Academy of Honor, and in 1977-78 was listed in “Who’s Who in America.”

Robert Hugh Daniel died at a Birmingham hospital on October 28, 1983.

Fox Henderson, Sr.

• September 20th, 2021

Fox Henderson; noted the Troy Messenger in 1918, “was a born leader of men,” a man who possessed “attributes that would have made him a success in any field of endeavor he might have undertaken.” His principal characteristics, the paper noted, were energy, willpower and determination,” and “the intuitive judgment to use his talents to the best advantage.” Those characteristics were to benefit not only Henderson and his family, but the city of Troy, and indeed all of the people of Southeast Alabama, for during the decades before and after the turn of the century, Fox Henderson built a varied and extremely successful network of businesses and industries that strengthened the economy of his region and brought new hope to many of its inhabitants.

Born in Pike County, Alabama, in 1853, the oldest son of Jeremiah Augustus Henderson and Mildred Elizabeth (Hill) Henderson Fox Henderson moved with his family to the county seat of Troy in 1869 when his father opened a mercantile business there. Young Henderson and his brother Clem joined their father in the prospering business, and in 1881, the brothers expanded their financial, holdings by purchasing the Pike County Bank, a still struggling operation that had been in business only four years. With Fox Henderson as president, the brothers changed the institution’s name to Farmers Merchants Bank and moved the facility to new quarters. Alabama, and as its reputation for reliability spread throughout Pike County, the institution’s assets grew. “The personality of Fox Henderson,” one local reporter noted, “and the confidence and trust which the citizens of this section held for his ability and dependability were enough in itself to bring the institution increasing renown.” The Henderson brothers operated Farmers & For twenty years after its founding, Farmers & Merchants was the only financial institution in that section of Merchant’s as a private bank until 1898, when they received a state charter. Such was the growth and development of the firm’s business, however, that the board of directors decided in 1902 to expand their operations, and Farmers & Merchants became Farmers & Merchants National Bank that same year.

Banking, however, was far from Fox Henderson’s sole interest. In 1880, a year before he and his brother purchased the bank, Henderson became a partner in Michener, Henderson & Company, makers of spokes, handles, and picker sticks. Some twenty years later, the firm’s 125 employees were producing 15,000 spokes, 500,000 handles and 640,000 picker sticks a year. And they made other products too, such as a gigantic special-order cart constructed in 1902 for a mill in Goshen. “The wheels of the cart,” reported the Troy Messenger, “are ten feet high and thirty feet in circumference. The tires are nearly one-half-inch thick and almost six inches wide.”

Willing to think in expansive terms and always open to new business ventures that might bring needed capital to the area, Henderson spotted another opportunity in 1887, when Alabama Midland Railway Company was organized to build a railroad from Montgomery, to Troy, to Chattahoochee, Florida. On the same day that Alabama Midland was incorporated, Fox Henderson and others – many of whom were officers in the railway company – filed a declaration of incorporation for Alabama Terminal and Improvement Company. The purpose of the new business: to build and equip the proposed railroad. Fox Henderson served as treasurer of the company.

Three years later, in 1890, yet another venture captured his imagination. That year he opened Henderson Knitting Mills, an operation with an output of fifty dozen garments a day. Fox Henderson served as secretary-treasurer. By the turn of the century, he had become one of the largest landowners in a several-county area, and on part of his 6000-acre holdings, Henderson established the Arcadia Dairy, whose imported Jersey cows supplied the citizens of Troy with fresh milk and butter daily. Henderson then turned his attention to the shortage of fertilizer in the area. Although Troy already had a large fertilizer mill, the demand for its products was such that the county still had to import several thousand tons a year. Convinced that the market could support another mill and that its successful operation could establish Troy as an exporter of fertilizer, Henderson forged ahead as he had on many occasions before. The Standard Chemical and Oil Company that he founded became the largest plant of its kind in Alabama. By 1918, the 300 employees in the feed mill and chemical plant were handling 8000 tons of peanuts and producing 38,000 tons of crushed phosphate rock and 75,000 tons of fertilizer annually.

Henderson’s business and industrial interests had become so complex by 1911 that he formed a holding company and took his children in as partners, consolidating his own holdings and theirs for central operation. By providing financing for institutions throughout South Alabama and by backing many of the leading corporations in the area, Fox Henderson & Sons became widely known in Alabama for its progressive policies and its reliability as a financial institution. The scope of Henderson’s own business affairs was revealed in a 1911 pamphlet published by the firm. In that year, Henderson held the following offices: He was president of the First National Bank of Dozier’s, the First National Bank of Luverne, Farmers & Merchants National Bank of Troy, Henderson National Bank of Huntsville, the First National Bank of Brantley, and Standard Chemical and Oil Company of Troy. He was vice president of the First National Bank of Andalusia, the First National Bank of Brundidge, the Henderson Lumber Company of Sanford, and the Planters Trading Company (general merchants) of Elba. He was a partner in Henderson & Hill (department store and advancing merchants) of Brantley, the Cody-Henderson Company (general merchants, livestock, fertilizers) of Luverne, the Henderson-Black Company (importers, jobbers, and distributors) of Troy, and Henderson Live Stock Company (mules, horses, wagons, buggies, harness) of Troy.

The reputation for sound business dealings begun by Fox Henderson, Sr. was to be continued by the sons. “Fox Henderson & Sons,” noted the Troy Messenger in the early 1930s, “through its farsighted and constructive activities, has built the largest and strongest financial institution in Southeast Alabama and one that is reputed to be among the most stable in the entire South.” In civic affairs, also, Fox Henderson took a leading hand. When his congregation needed laborers to build a new church or when his Masonic Lodge needed a lot on which to construct a hospital, Henderson supplied them, and he donated his time and his resources to many other public endeavors as well.

Henderson’s death in 1918, following a long illness, was mourned throughout South Alabama by his family, friends, business associate, and many others who understood what his leadership had meant to the region. He was remembered b them as a quiet, determined man who never sought the limelight and who never spoke unkindly of his fellow man. He was remembered as an inventive and courageous pioneer in the world of business and industry, whose confidence in the region’s future had inspired confidence in others. As more than one obituary noted, much of the progress and prosperity South Alabama had witnessed in the preceding decades had been due in no small measure to the vision and leadership of Fox Henderson. “He was a born leader of men,” it was said, and “he was a life out of the ordinary.”