Robert O. Baron

• September 24th, 2021

Robert “Bob” Baron is the president and CEO of Baron Weather, Inc., an international leader in weather data intelligence systems. The company has created and implemented live radar and storm tracking technologies that enable emergency officials to quickly detect dangerous storms and disseminate alerts to those in harm’s way. They provide weather intelligence products and solutions to a wide array of industries, meteorological organizations and public servants around the world.

Baron Weather patented the ability to send alerts exclusively to people directly affected. It presents its data in various formats, allowing its products to be used in a variety of use cases including road weather, aviation, nautical navigation, and recreation. Furthermore, via SiriusXM, the weather to the cockpit, WxWorx, continues to be an industry leader.

The company provided this warning system technology to the state of Alabama free of charge following the 2011 super outbreak of tornadoes, when the Governor’s task force established a need for a statewide alert system of this nature.

In 2007, the National Weather Service chose Baron Services to upgrade each of its 171 radars to possess dual polarity capabilities made possible by Baron’s technology.
Baron founded the company in 1990 after a tornado outbreak – including a devastating F4 that hit Huntsville – made clear a need for site-specific weather alerts. The system visualized strike-by-strike lightning data from NASA‘s nearby Marshall Space Flight Center and its first two users were Huntsville Utilities and aerospace contractor, Thiokol, Inc., both of whom were highly interested in gaining better understandings of lightning strikes. For the former, to better position trucks after lightning storms; for the latter, knowing where lightning was striking around propellent-filled rockets.

Prior to this, he served as chief meteorologist at Channel 48, Huntsville’s NBC News affiliate. He brought 22 years of industry experience to his company.
“I have known Bob for many years and cannot think of any individual who deserves the honor of induction more,” said William Stender, Jr., a 2016 Alabama Business Hall of Fame inductee.

“He is a self-made man, working from an early age, from the bottom up, as a media personality in radio and television to a respected member of the meteorological broadcast community to an enterprising entrepreneur in the weather data dissemination arena to, finally today, the highly respected Chief Executive Officer of Baron Weather, Inc.”

Baron is a long-standing member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and was the recipient of the AMS Seal of Approval for Television in 1982. AMS honored him again in 2010 with elevation to AMS Fellow for outstanding contributions to atmospheric sciences.

He was recognized as the 1996 Small Business Executive of the Year by the Huntsville and Madison County Chamber of Commerce, and in 1998 Baron Services received the Mass Mutual Blue-Chip award for small businesses. In 2005, Baron was recognized as a candidate for Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and in 2006 the Alabama House of Representatives awarded him a commendation based on his company’s contributions to the safety and well-being of the public.

He attended the University of Tennessee, where he graduated with his undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism. In 2011, UT’s Haslam College of Business named Baron Entrepreneur of the Year.

Baron and his wife Phylis recently celebrated their 54h wedding anniversary. They have two children, son Robert Jr., who is a recently retired Executive Vice President at Baron Weather, Inc., and daughter Elizebeth.

Marcus Bendickson

• September 24th, 2021

Dr. Marcus J. Bendickson is the former CEO and chairman of the board of Dynetics, which, under his leadership, became the second-largest employee-owned company in Alabama.

Dynetics provides high-technology, engineering, IT, and scientific services and solutions to government and commercial customers alike in the national security, cybersecurity, space, and critical infrastructure industries. Its 17th employee, Bendickson facilitated the buyout of Dynetics from its founders through an employee stock ownership purchase (ESOP) and became CEO of the company in 1989, after originally joining Dynetics as an engineer specializing in radar systems.

He knew the company’s business well: the early part of his career was spent on the development of digital simulation techniques used to provide timely and cost-effective methods of predicting radar and missile system performance. These digital models gave detailed insight into failure modes and performance anomalies that sometimes were difficult to achieve with hardware testing.  Some of these models have been in continuous use in evaluating a variety of weapon systems for over 40 years.

The commercial operations sector of Dynetics, comprised of automotive electrical rapid prototyping, computer network design, and information security, rose to about 20% of the company’s annual sales under the direction of Bendickson. In 2011, Dynetics became a 100% ESOP Corporation with over 1,500 employees. By the time he retired from the CEO position in 2015, Dynetics generated about $275 million in sales.

Bendickson remained on the Dynetics board of directors following his retirement, supporting the company greatly during its acquisition by Leidos in 2020. This deal was followed by a period of exceptional growth for Dynetics.

Over the last part of his career, Bendickson devoted considerable time and effort in teaching, training, and assisting other companies in realizing the value of employee ownership via Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP).  He has served on a half-dozen ESOP company boards and given numerous talks on the subject. His passion for employee ownership and the value it offers to both the company and the employee are well recognized in the community.

Outside of his professional endeavors, Bendickson has served organizations that propel the business interests of Huntsville forward. He has been a member of the boards of directors for BB&T Greater Huntsville Advisory Board, the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce, and the HudsonAlpha Foundation. Additionally, he is vice-chair of the Board of Trustees for the University of Alabama at Huntsville Foundation and chaired its Campus Planning Committee.

He also lends his expertise to other organizations. He chairs the American Management Association’s board for small growing companies, serves on the Cook’s Museum of Natural Science board, and is on the advisory board of the Alabama Policy Institute.

Bendickson’s service and contributions to industry have been recognized by several organizations. In 1993, he was recognized as a Distinguished Alumni of The University of Alabama at Huntsville and received UAH’s Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award in 2000. In 2002, he was awarded the Professional of the Year award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE.

He earned his doctorate degree in electrical engineering from The University of Alabama at Huntsville. He also holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University. He was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

He and his wife Sheryl live near their two married children and 7 grandchildren. In their spare time, they are working to create a museum of information technology products located in the downtown Huntsville area. The couple were honored as Huntsville’s Heart of the Community by the American Heart Association in 2015. They are also active members of Whitesburg Baptist Church.

Lonnie Johnson

• September 24th, 2021

Lonnie Johnson, acclaimed inventor, is the founder and President of Johnson Research and Development and founder and chairman of Johnson Energy Storage and JTEC Energy. His most popular invention is the Super Soaker water gun, which sold over 250 million units since its launch in 1990 and grossed more than $1 billion.

He conceived the extremely sought-after kids toy in 1982 while working on another invention, an environmentally friendly heat pump. Dr. Johnson partnered with Larami Corporation, which was later bought by Hasbro when the Super Soaker became the number one selling toy in the world. The wild success of the Super Soaker allowed him to fulfill a life-long dream of becoming a full-time inventor and establishing his own company, Johnson Research.

Dr. Johnson is a prolific inventor and holds over 150 patents and continues to invent to this day.  His innovations to science and engineering are significant and include numerous energy technologies,  consumer products, and high-tech toys.  He is among an elite group of African-American inventors who hold 6 percent of all patent applications in the United States.

He served in the United States Air Force and worked as an engineer for NASA.  While in the Air Force, he served as the Chief of the Space Nuclear Power Safety Section and worked on the Stealth Bomber program. He was awarded the Air Force Achievement Medal twice and the Commendation Medal for his contributions to the Air Force.

At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), he was a Senior Systems Engineer for the Galileo mission to Jupiter and spacecraft engineer for the Mars Observer and the Cassini mission to Saturn.  He received multiple achievement awards for his work at NASA.

In 2011, Dr. Johnson was the first African American to be inducted into the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame.  His Super Soaker was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2015 and Dr Johnson received the Trailblazer Award from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition the same year.  He is also the recipient of the Legacy Award from the United Negro College Fund, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Golden Mousetrap Awards, and the Innovation Award from the Bounce Trumpet Awards, to name a few.

Aside from his notable inventions and revolutionary scientific work and research, Dr. Johnson has found numerous ways to mentor and support a new generation of engineers, particularly young people of color. He is the founder and chairman of the board of his non-profit, the Johnson STEM Activity Center, located in Atlanta.  He is also a board member of the Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation, a Trustee of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and a member of 100 Black Men of Atlanta.  He is the former chairman of the board for the Georgia Alliance for Children and a former member of the board of directors for  Commonwealth National Bank.

Ms. Thelma Thrash, former president of the Boys and Girls Club of Mobile said of Johnson, “He is a Renaissance Man with social conscience, a leader, and a visionary.” “His many achievements and global-wide contributions speak volumes […] of his character, integrity, and commitment to making a difference in the lives of others.”

He was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, where he attended Williamson High School.  As a high school student, he traveled to The University of Alabama to compete in a science fair sponsored by the Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS). The only African-American student in the competition, he won first place for his invention, “Linex,” a remote-controlled, compressed-air-powered robot created from junkyard scraps.

He attended Tuskegee University on a math scholarship and earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1973 and his master’s degree in nuclear engineering in 1975. Tuskegee University also awarded him an honorary Ph.D. for his accomplishments in science and engineering.

Johnson lives with his wife in Atlanta and has four children.

Sidney Zollicoffer Mitchell

• September 22nd, 2021

Sidney Zollicoffer Mitchell was born in Dadeville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, on March 17, 1862.

Starting as exclusive agent for the Edison Electric Light Co. and the Edison Company for Isolated Lighting in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, and British Columbia, he raised the money for and, as stated in Forbes in 1925, built “the power plants that produced the power that created the market for his products” – the incandescent light bulbs and generators produced by Edison.

By 1925, continued the Forbes article, as head of Electric Bond and Share Company, he had guided “the destinies of more public utility plants than any other man in the world,” and had handled the “raising of capital for more utility plants than any other man in the world.”

Sidney Zollicoffer Mitchell was the youngest of three sons of Dr. William Mandon Alexander Mitchell and Elmira Sophia Jordan Mitchell.

Like many Southerners, Dr. Mitchell depleted many of his resources in support of the Confederacy. Thus, after his wife died in 1865, he sent the three boys to be raised by their widowed grandmother, Ann Spivey Jordan, on her plantation in neighboring Coosa County, and he moved to Pensacola.

Despite the economic restrictions of the war years and the Reconstruction Period, Sidney Mitchell had a good boyhood. He attended the primitive local schools and received supplemental instruction from his grandmother. When he was old enough, he helped in the fields with the planting and harvesting of the crops that would feed the family or be sold or bartered. In his spare time, he learned to ride horses (and continued to ride until the year before his death). He learned all about hounds and hunting, which became an abiding passion.

From his grandmother, he learned two important tenets that he followed all his life: to put himself in the other fellow’s place when he was in doubt about what to do; and to get his job done before he started anything else.

Perhaps the first test of this young man’s mettle came when a friend of the family placed his name in competition for an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. After six months of concentrated study in a Columbus, Georgia, school, he took the competitive examination in Dadeville and won the appointment to Annapolis.

After graduating in the Class of 1883, he served as a cadet on the “U.S.S. Trenton,” and then on the “U.S.S. Quinnebaugh” to earn his commission through two years’ service in the Navy. He helped install and operate the new incandescent lights on the “Trenton,” the first battleship in the world to be so equipped.

Seeking more opportunity for individual initiative and advancement than the Navy then provided, he decided in 1885, to resign his commission.

In New York, Sidney Mitchell heard from two school friends about the opportunity for organizing electric light companies under Edison licenses. He went to see Thomas A. Edison, who, impressed by the young man’s enthusiasm, hired him to work in the Goerck Street factory to learn about construction, testing, and shipping of generators and to attend a night school Edison conducted for training electrical engineers. Sidney Mitchell also learned the basics of distributing electricity by working as a laborer for one of New York’s leading contractors.

The young man and the young electric industry were to grow up together.

When, in September 1885, the agency for Edison products in the Northwest became available, he applied for and obtained the rights as exclusive agent. He persuaded his friend Frederick H. Sparling (Annapolis ’84) to go with him.

Sidney Mitchell and his friend were undaunted by the fact that people in the Northwest knew little about electricity. They set about to create the market for their incandescent lamps.

They chose Seattle, then competing with Tacoma to become the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. They evidently persuaded the citizens that an electric plant would be a bonus in the competition. To finance their venture (since the fledgling Edison Co. had to demand cash for its products) they obtained contracts for the sale of 250 lamps at the flat rate of $3 per month and used the contracts to build a small, waterfront generating plant. This was the first central station electric light plant west of the Rocky Mountains.

With Seattle boasting about its new electric lights, it was not difficult to organize a company in rival Tacoma. Mitchell and Sparling became so busy that they took in William J. Grambs (Annapolis ’84) and incorporated themselves as the Northwest Supply & Construction Co. By 1888, they had organized lighting companies in thirteen other cities in the territory.

In 1890, The Edison General Electric Co. initiated the unification of all its agencies and purchased the Northwest Supply & Construc­tion Co. Mitchell’s headquarters became the District Office of the Northwest in Portland, although he spent much of his time in the field.

In 1892, the various Edison companies and the Thomson-Houston Co. merged to form the General Electric Company, and the new company was able to provide financial assistance. The new policy aided Mitchell in assisting the companies he had helped organize to maintain and expand their facilities to meet the increasing demand for electricity, not only for lighting but for street railways and industrial processes.

In 1893, Sidney Mitchell met and married Alice P. Bell of Portland. They had one child, Sidney A. Mitchell.

By the time he had reached his forties, his reputation as a hydroelectric power developer and financier had preceded him to New York where he was invited by the president of General Electric Co. to assist in organizing Electric Bond and Share Company. Under Mitchell’s leadership as president and later as Chairman of the Board, the company became one of the largest holding companies in the world.

In 1927, he attended the dedication of the Jordan Dam, named in honor of the mother of Sidney and Reuben Mitchell, the two who had contributed so much to the electric industry. On this occasion, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Dr. George H. Denney, President of The University of Alabama. After the ceremonies, he and his brother spent several days in the area where they grew up. Sidney Mitchell determined to return and build something of a hunting resort there in his native Alabama.

In 1930, he built a commodious lodge and fine dog houses on some 5000 acres of land. To Ann Jordan Farm (named for his grand­mother), he would invite “Yankee” business associates and friends to enjoy the Southern cooking and hounds and hunting he learned to love in his youth.

After his wife died in 1941; he married a widow, Mrs. Palmer. Sidney Mitchell suffered a fatal heart attack on February 17, 1944.

Sidney Zollicoffer Mitchell had been “a typical Western pioneer, a physical as well as a mental giant, a trailblazer, an up-builder, a torchbearer for advancing civilization,” as Forbes had stated in 1925.

Carl Tannahill Jones

• September 20th, 2021

Carl Tannahill Jones was a man of vision. Everywhere he looked, he saw the potential for progress. He saw it in his state. He saw it in his region. And most of all he saw it in his own hometown. As mentor, guide, organizer, benefactor, and chief cheerleader, Carl T. Jones spent his life helping transform a sleepy cotton mill town in North Alabama into an internationally-known space center and thriving industrial community. “Mister Huntsville,” many called him, and no one deserved the title more.

Dedication to one’s community and confidence in its future was not uncommon characteristics in the family from which he came. Great-grandson of one of Madison County’s earliest white settlers (Isaac Criner), Carl was the last of six children, and the youngest of five sons, born to Elvalena (Moore) and George Walter Jones. The elder Jones, a farmer, a civil engineer, a state senator, and a leader in Huntsville’s city government, also found time, in 1886, to establish an engineering firm that still prospers today. From its inception, G. W. Jones and Sons, as the enterprise was called, concerned itself with the welfare of the community. When the city coffers were bare (as they frequently were), when Huntsville could not afford to buy so much as a bale of hay on credit for its mules, when work performed for the city was not compensated at all, G. W. Jones and Sons stepped in and lent a hand. And the policy set by the father of serving the city on almost an “at cost” basis was continued by the sons, all of whom at one time or another joined the firm.

Carl T. Jones joined the firm in 1929, the same year he graduated in engineering from The University of Alabama, and from 1929 until 1960 he served as Huntsville’s city engineer. During those years, Huntsville experienced dramatic changes: it survived a great depression, played its part in winning a world war, became a key component in the U.S. space program, and transformed itself into one of the most energetic industrial communities in Alabama. Carl Jones had a hand in it all.

A colonel in the Alabama National Guard Combat Engineers when World War II broke out, Jones served in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and as deputy chief of staff of the XIX Corps in Europe, he participated with distinction in the Normandy landings and in combat operations on the European front.

Returning to Huntsville after the war, Jones found that the city and the times had changed. There was a sense of optimism in the air and a thirst for progress. Before his feet were firmly replanted in Huntsville soil, a group of businessmen from South Huntsville sought his help in expanding the city limits. Despite the fact that the city then consisted of less than four miles and was actually smaller than it had been before the Civil War, there was opposition to expansion and change. Carl Jones did what he was to do repeatedly throughout his lifetime; he talked to people, explained what the future could hold, and then quietly set an example for others to follow by donating his own engineering services to the project. As a result, the first major expansion in Huntsville’s city limits occurred in 1947, and a pattern of orderly growth was established.

During the next twenty years, as Huntsville’s land area grew to more than 100 square miles, Carl Jones’ personal and professional contributions to the community grew as well. When pumping stations, utility systems, reservoirs, and other municipal projects were needed, G. W. Jones and Sons provided the engineering services. When the U.S. space program arrived, bringing with it thousands of people who needed homes and city services, the firm was at the forefront of the expansion. And when local authorities needed data to plan some of their more ambitious public projects, G. W. Jones and Sons, with Carl Jones as senior partner, used the firm’s resources to provide it.

Jones’ confidence in the free enterprise system, his unwavering belief in Huntsville’s potential, and his infectious enthusiasm for an expansive idea made him an ideal leader. In 1957, when a textile manufacturing plant in Huntsville closed, Jones saw possibilities for the future. He organized (and later served as president for five years) Huntsville Industrial Associates, Inc., a group of business and professional leaders, who purchased the property in hopes of attracting other industries to the area. Although regarded by many as a bad investment at the time, the old mill complex was soon transformed into the Huntsville Industrial Center. At its peak, the facility housed some 6000 aerospace employees and had a payroll in excess of $30 million.

Jones also founded the Huntsville Industrial Expansion Committee, in which he served as a board member for many years and for three terms as president. Recognizing that federal spending on space programs would one day decline and that the economic health of the region depended upon diversified economic development, Jones intensified his efforts to bring new industries to the area. Largely as a result of his leadership, Huntsville succeeded in diversifying its economic base, and as a consequence, the region did not suffer when the inevitable federal cutback in space funding finally occurred.

Because he served almost every civic organization in Huntsville as either a member or a director or as president, and because he had a hand in every major decision affecting the city for a period of twenty years, most people thought of Carl Jones as a full-time public servant. In many ways he was, but he still found time to head the family’s now diversified firm (engineering/insurance/ real estate), to manage a 10,000-acre cattle farm, and to serve on the boards of Huntsville’s First National Bank (predecessor of First Alabama Bank) and the North Alabama Mineral Development Company. And he never stopped looking to the future.

Recognizing early on the value of a university to the region, Jones worked tirelessly to further the development of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, believing that one day that institution would become the area’s foremost economic unit.

Although Carl Jones never sought the limelight and many of his civic contributions were never publicized, the citizens of Huntsville knew what his vision and his years of service had meant to their community, and they publically honored him on several occasions. In 1965 the region’s chamber of commerce presented him its “Distinguished Citizen Award,” and in 1967 the multi-million dollar Huntsville-Madison County Jetport – a symbol for many of the region’s progressive spirit and its confidence in the future – was named Carl T. Jones Field. It was an especially fitting tribute to a man who had himself become a symbol of that same public spirit and confidence.

Carl Jones did not live to see the jetport completed, nor to see it named in his honor. His untimely death at the age of 58 shocked and saddened an entire community that had come to regard his vision and his leadership as indispensable. Editorials were written about his contributions, and tributes poured in from around the state. He was, said the eulogists, a man who had led the way when the path was not clear, a man who had done more for his community in his fifty-eight years than most people could accomplish in several lifetimes. He was, they all agreed, the father of the region’s industrial expansion, and no one would ever deserve the title “Mister Huntsville” more.

Lonnie S. McMillian

• August 17th, 2021

Lonnie S. McMillian was a visionary serial entrepreneur who led a series of companies aligned with telecommunications and biotech – and helped make Alabama a home for innovation.

His interest in tech was sparked while studying radar technology as a member of the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. After the war, he attended Georgia Tech, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1955. He then embarked on a wide-ranging career in electronics that included co-founding a computer manufacturer, Systems Engineering Labs, joining SCI in Huntsville as chief engineer, and working at Universal Data Systems as vice president of engineering.

In 1985, he co-founded ADTRAN, a telecommunications firm, which today is one of Huntsville’s largest non-public employers.

While the beginning and middle of McMillian’s career was in the tech and telecommunications sectors, the latter portion was in biotechnology, an area in which he had developed a passion for. In 1993, he was introduced by a mutual friend to Jim Hudson, who ran Huntsville-based Research Genetics. Following his retirement from ADTRAN in 2001, he and Hudson founded the non-profit HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in 2005 to bring together experts in genetics, education, and entrepreneurship to accelerate innovation in the field. The Institute opened its doors in 2008 and quickly got to work.

By July 2017, its economic impact stood at $1.8 billion. The team of scientists in its genomic medicine division has discovered genes responsible for breast cancer and ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and have given answers to those with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed diseases. Researchers in its genome sequencing center are busy analyzing the genetics of our food crops to discover insights that may make them more productive or resilient to drought.

Furthermore, HudsonAlpha has an extraordinary outreach and education arm that, among many different initiatives, brings genomics into the classroom to inspire future innovators or offering free genetic testing for cancer risk to North Alabama residents. All told, over 5.5 million people have been positively impacted by the Institute’s efforts.

McMillian was a generous philanthropist and lived out his commitment to improving the human condition through the support of educational, scientific, and other charitable causes.

In 2014, he was recognized by the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama with its lifetime achievement award for his career-long commitment to innovation and work to advance the state of Alabama.

Along with his degree from Georgia Tech, he graduated from Presbyterian College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

McMillian passed away in December 2018. He is survived by Helen, his wife of 64 years, daughters Barbara, Emily, and Sue, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Joe W. Forehand, Jr.

• August 17th, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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