Location: Florence AL

William H. Mitchell

  • October 25th, 2021

Bill Mitchell’s roots run deep in Florence, Alabama, but his influence has branched out over the entire state.

William H. Mitchell was born on February 1, 1921, to William H. Mitchell and Celestine Martin Mitchell. His great-grandfather was a Scotch-Irish immigrant who pastored the Presbyterian church in Florence from 1843 to 1850; his grandfather served as probate judge, a 19th-century legislator, and still later as the state tax commissioner; and his father practiced law in the city. But while his heritage is proud, Bill Mitchell’s own efforts are what have written a place for him in Alabama history.

As a youth Mr. Mitchell attended Florence City Schools, going on to matriculate at Davidson College. After completing his undergraduate liberal arts education, he joined the United States Army, serving his country in the North African and European theaters of operation during World War II and earning a non-combat Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster and a Legion of Merit award. Returning to his home state, he completed his degree in the law at The University of Alabama, receiving it along with membership in the Farrah Order of Jurisprudence. His formal education complete, he returned to Florence to practice law from 1946 to 1958, with bride Ellie Richardson by his side.

It was then he began his active career in banking, as president and chief executive officer of the First National Bank of Florence. (He had served as an inactive vice president of the concern, now SunTrust Bank, Alabama, N.A., from 1954-1958.) Over the years the bank’s assets grew from $23 million to more than $276 million at the time of Mr. Mitchell’s retirement in 1985, making it at that time the largest independent bank in North Alabama. He is modest about the role he played in the bank’s good fortunes.

“Any success we’ve had can be attributed to the general growth of the area, the good management that began well before I joined the bank, and to the confidence the public has in the bank,” he commented in a May 1978 interview with Alabama News Magazine upon his election as president of the Alabama Bankers Association. “We advertise that we’ve got deep roots in the community, and we try to be involved in all parts of community life.”

For Bill Mitchell, that involvement meant serving on the Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital Board of Governors, as chairman of the Muscle Shoals Regional Library Board, president of both the Florence Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Florence Chamber of Commerce, president of the Florence Rotary Club, chairman of the Lauderdale County chapter of the American Red Cross, vice president of the Lauderdale County United Fund, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama State Chamber of Commerce and the Alabama Department of Archives and History Board of Trustees. At First Presbyterian Church in Florence, he has served as a ruling elder, trustee, Sunday School teacher, and superintendent.

He also backed up his belief in education with his volunteer efforts as a member of The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees, a charter member of The University of Alabama College of Commerce and Business Administration Board of Visitors, vice president of The University of Alabama National Alumni Association and as a member of the University of North Alabama President’s Cabinet. Combining his strong religious beliefs with his support for education, he also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), and as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Presbyterian Home for Children.

Bill Mitchell’s community recognized his business, volunteer, and philanthropic efforts, showing its pride by awarding him the first-ever Chamber of Commerce of the Shoals Lifetime Achievement Award. In comments at the awards ceremony in 1988, then WOWL-TV Board Chairman Dick Biddle said, “From his former position as president of the First National Bank of Florence, Bill has been constantly in the forefront of matters pertaining to the economic well-being of the Shoals. He is privately credited with being the one that brought together the board of directors of TV A and Reynolds Metals Company, resulting in a compromise that allowed Reynolds to continue to operate in the Shoals.

“Bill has been a very private man. Many of his deeds have gone unnoticed. He is dedicated to his family, his profession, and his community. And Bill carries on the tradition of an illustrious family of Shoals Mitchells.”

Others also recognized Bill Mitchell over the years. He was named the Florence Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow, enrolled in the Florence Exchange Club Book of Golden Deeds, named Citizen of the Year by the Florence Civitan Club, and received a Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1983. That award was presented by Dr. John C. Wright of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who noted about Mr. Mitchell, “his acts to facilitate the building of the economy through his banking career and related service, concern for the welfare of mankind through community and broader service, concern for religious convictions … concern for the intellect.”

When Mr. Mitchell looks back over that banking career, he is able to say the biggest change he experienced during his tenure as First National’s president and as an active member and leader of the Alabama Bankers Association was when the nation’s banking industry was deregulated in the late 1970s. “Banking was a protected industry when I started out,” he remembers. “Everybody in our market paid the same for deposits and charged the same for loans … if one word characterizes the whole industry, that word would be ‘change.’ ”

And Bill Mitchell has seen change in his beloved Florence, as well. During his life, the counties of Lauderdale and Colbert merged their chambers of commerce to foster economic expansion, meaning closer ties between the cities of Sheffield, Muscle Shoals, Tuscumbia, and Florence. But that did not change Mr. Mitchell’s approach to doing business, which centered over the years around the ability to develop lifelong relationships. “I have never met a person who I did not learn something from and who did not mean something special to me,” he says. And it is those relationships that drove his desire to help his city and his state. “I basically just like people and feel that if an individual is going to spend time in a community he should help that community,” he says.

“A lot of people have helped this area out, and I am just one of them.”

E. Stanley Robbins

  • October 6th, 2021

Stanley Robbins was born August 19, 1908, in the rough-and-tumble town of Flomaton on the Alabama Florida border, the son of Edward Stanley Robbins and Julia Carolyn Castleberry Robbins.

In the 93 years since, he has become one of the state’s most successful inventors, manufacturers, and businessmen, and built National Floor Products into one of the largest employers in the Shoals area of North Alabama.

The story of E. Stanley Robbins is a true American success story. At age three he was stricken with polio that left his left leg paralyzed. But thanks to the efforts of his mother and six months of crude but effective electric shock treatment, he managed to overcome the illness and begin to walk. He attended school in Castleberry and Evergreen, AL before moving to Mobile, where he graduated from high school. While living in Evergreen, he lost his father in a sawmill accident, which left his mother to raise Robbins and his three siblings, a tough job for a widow in those days.

When Robbins was 10, his family moved back to Castleberry, where his mother began operating a boarding house, and he and a brother went to work summers in a nearby woodworking veneer plant. The boys made seven cents an hour and worked six days a week, 12 hours a day. The family eventually relocated to Mobile, where Robbins painted houses and worked in a grocery store, eventually earning enough money to buy a Model-T Ford, which he planned to drive to Dayton, Ohio, where he had a job waiting.

He and a friend left Mobile in June 1925, camping along the way, and arrived in Dayton a week later. His first job in Ohio was painting a house, but he soon went to work in a plant that manufactured materials used for repairing tires. Robbins put his ingenuity to work and found a number of ways to modernize the plant. He was rewarded in short order by being put in charge of the plant.

Meanwhile, he had started a small tire and inner tube business in St. Louis, which he visited on a regular basis. During his visits to St. Louis, he made friends with a fellow Alabamian, who told him about a bankrupt rubber manufacturing plant in the middle of a cotton field in Tuscumbia, Alabama. That piqued his interest and he went to bid on the plant. He persuaded the bankruptcy judge to let him buy the plant for a penny on the dollar. So in 1930, he returned to Alabama, settling this time in the northern part of the state. He bought the facility and using the knowledge obtained in Dayton, built an inner tube and tire repair facility that eventually employed more than 1,200 people. The plant was destroyed by fire in 1939, but Robbins had it rebuilt in time to supply tubes and retread rubber to the military during World War II.

The new plant, finished in 1940, was at the time the most modern facility of its kind in the world. During the war, the plant was converted from producing natural crude rubber to producing synthetic rubber and became the leading producer of synthetic rubber during the war. Robbins is responsible for the research and development of synthetic rubber that is still used today to make inner tubes.

After the war, Robbins turned his attention to another product, vinyl. He built one of the world’s most modern vinyl plants, Robbins Flooring, a new company. He also designed the equipment that produced the first solid vinyl flooring. He is acknowledged as a pioneer in the industry. He was instrumental in developing high-quality vinyl, solid vinyl flooring, and was the first manufacturer to produce a pure vinyl flooring.

During World War II, Robbins sold Robbins Tire and Rubber plant but remained with the company to run the operation. He left in 1956, and, in 1957, turned all of his efforts toward bringing National Floor Products online. He converted some cattle barns located on Shoal Creek into a 35-employee plant. He later moved the company to the Florence/Lauderdale Industrial Park, where his company was the first to buy property and break ground. There he developed and designed the equipment for one of the most modern resilient flooring plants in the world, which at one time employed more than 500 people. In 1994, NAFCO was sold to the Canadian firm, Domco Industries, and today is a subsidiary of Domco Tarkett, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of resilient flooring.

In 1989, at age 81, Robbins founded a new company, Robbins Industries, located in the Florence/Lauderdale Industrial Park. The company has numerous patents for kitchenware designs and includes the subsidiary, KitchenArt, which designs and markets innovative kitchenware.

As might be expected for an inventor and manufacturer of Robbins’ stature, he holds a number of patents in design and manufacturing. He has designed and developed equipment used to manufacture both rubber and vinyl. He has a patent on precision sizing the tile, processing patents on wall base and he invented the first vacuum-back tile that needs no adhesive for installation.

For the last 72 years, Edward Stanley Robbins has given generously of his time and money for the betterment of the Shoals area. In1974, he was recognized for his efforts by being named Muscle Shoals Citizen of the Year, the area’s highest recognition.

He is a former director and member of the Florence Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Alabama Chamber of Commerce, and the United States Chamber of Commerce. He is one of the original members of the Florence /Lauderdale Industrial Development Committee and has served on the board of directors of the Alabama Mountain Lakes Association. He also was an active supporter of the Associated Industries of Alabama.

Robbins has devoted countless hours to many community projects. He has served on the Salvation Army Board and is a strong and active supporter of the Boy Scouts of America. He is a past member of the Rotary Club of Florence and the Kiwanis Club of Tuscumbia.

He helped organize and served on the board of directors of Sheffield Federal Savings and Loan Association. He also served on the board of State National Bank (now Compass Bank) and on the board of First Federal Savings and Loan Association in Florence. He also served as a member and chairman of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Board, Birmingham Branch.

Robbins has also been a strong supporter of young people and education. He supported the Junior Achievement Program and served on the board of the Quad-Cities Junior Achievement and has been a board member of the Riverhill School. He is the primary benefactor of the YMCA of the Shoals, on whose board he served. The Florence branch of the YMCA is named the E. Stanley Robbins Branch.

He has been a lifelong boating enthusiast and is a founder and former board member of the Turtle Point Yacht and Country Club, and a member of the Guntersville Yacht Club.

He also was one of the moving forces behind the renovation of Tuscumbia’s Spring Park, which included the installation of a waterfall and a fountain.

As might be expected of an inventor, manufacturer, and sailor, Robbins has constructed a unique home on an island at the mouth of Shoal Creek, where he lives with his second wife, the former Martha Rose Wilson of Tuscumbia. The house is equipped with many of his innovations and engineering designs.

Robbins has six children: Edward Stanley, Harvey Frank, John Conrad, Rodney Wilson, Martha Ruth Pillow, and Katrina Robbins Nix.

Charles C. Anderson

  • October 5th, 2021

In its first year of operation in 1917, Anderson News Company had sales of about $2,000. Today the four companies that grew from that small beginning have combined sales of over $3 billion and employ more than 11,000 associates, 1,728 in Alabama.

Directing much of that growth has been Charles Caine Anderson, the son of the founder. Charles C. Anderson now is chairman of the Executive Committee of Books-A-Million, Inc., Anderson News Corporation, American Promotional Events, Inc., and Treat Entertainment.

Charles C. Anderson was born November 20, 1934, in Florence, Alabama, to Ruth Keenum and Clyde W. Anderson. He attended Coffee High School and graduated from the University of North Alabama with a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing. After graduating in 1956 from UNA, he entered the family business, Anderson News Company, full time. He had worked part-time in the business since high school.

In 1956 the company operated three trucks and wholesaled magazines and paperback books in the North Alabama area.

From this company four separate companies have emerged: Anderson News Corporation, Treat Entertainment, Inc., American Promotional Events, Inc., and Books-A-Million, Inc. Anderson remains active in the companies and is chairman of the Executive Committee and on the Board of Directors of each company.

In the early years, the company’s two newsstands in Florence handled tobacco, soft drinks, etc., and sold fireworks during the Christmas season. The fireworks portion of the business was later expanded to include wholesale to other dealers in the area and continued until the state banned fireworks in 1946.

In 1957, Alabama again legalized the sale of fireworks and the family re-entered the business. Company growth since that time has been phenomenal.

Charles was joined in business in 1963 by his brother, Joel, ten years his junior. The brothers continue to work together today. In 1976, Charles’ oldest son, Charles Jr., entered the business and is currently president and CEO of Anderson News Corporation, with Joel serving as chairman.

Anderson News Company’s three trucks in 1956 have grown to a fleet of 3027 vehicles today. Anderson News is the largest magazine distributor in the U.S., the second-largest music distributor, and one of the largest book distributors. The company currently services over 40,000 retailers each week (including all major chains) with full in-store service.

Today American Promotional Events is headed by Charles’ son, Terrence, its president and CEO, and is the largest fireworks importer and distributor in the U.S., servicing 42 states. It operates under the trade name TNT Fireworks.

Anderson was the first business leader in the U.S. to receive a personal invitation to trade with China in 1972 immediately after President Nixon’s visit and was one of the first American businessmen to visit China since 1948. He traveled to Mainland China on April 15, 1972. China is considered to be the birthplace of gunpowder, a major ingredient in fireworks.

In 1962, the family began a new business, importing and publishing numismatic and philatelic items, which usually require a magnifier to view in detail. In that same year, Whitman Publishing placed with Anderson the largest order for magnifiers ever placed in the United States. As the coin and stamp business grew the company began to publish price guides to complete its line of folders, albums, and magnifiers. The company, Treat Entertainment, is lead by Charles’ son Harold, the chairman and CEO. Treat Entertainment’s subsidiary, H. E. Harris, is the largest numismatic and philatelic distributor in the U.S. Last year H. E. Harris entered a license agreement partnership with the U.S. Mint to produce an official U.S. Mint line of products to be sold at retail to the mass market. Treat Entertainment also publishes children’s books under the name Dalmatian Press, located in Nashville, Tennessee. The company recently acquired C. R. Gibson Company, which publishes inspirational albums and journals. The company recently completed a 186,000-square foot C.R. Gibson distribution center in Florence.

In 1963, the company purchased the House of Coins, which published the Black Book Coin and other guidebooks. The name was changed to House of Collectibles and Anderson continued to publish the Black Book Coin and other guidebooks until they sold House of Coins to Random House Publishing several years ago.

In 1962, Anderson together with Chan Fu Yu formed A. Yu Far East Co. in Hong Kong. The company exports consumer products from the Far East, particularly China. It has offices in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Canton, and Changsha with packaging facilities and warehouses in Shenzhen and Changsha. Today, Anco Far East is one of the largest exporters of fireworks from China.

In 1964, the family purchased a retail bookstore in Huntsville and later opened a second in the Huntsville Mall known as Bookland. Bookland continued its growth and entered the superstore business under its Books-A-Million banner. Books-A-Million became a public company on November 2, 1992. Books-A-Million stock is traded in the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol BAMM. Books-A-Million is one of the nation’s leading book retailers and sells on the Internet at www.booksamillion.com. The company presently operates 204 stores in 18 states and the District of Columbia. The company’s wholesale operations include American Wholesale Book Company and BookSmart, both based in Florence; and NetCentral, Inc., an Internet development and service company located in Nashville, Tennessee. The company today is under the leadership of Charles’ son, Clyde, its chairman and CEO.

In 1980, the family purchased Hibbett Sporting Goods, an Alabama sporting goods chain of fourteen stores. Hibbett began a rapid growth that culminated in the company going public on October 16, 1996, and the family sold most of its interest.

Anderson is a former director of First National Bank of Florence and First United Bancorp, the University of Alabama International Business Advisory Board, and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Board. He is a member of The University of Alabama President’s Cabinet and the University of North Alabama President’s Cabinet. He is a former member of the Board of Visitors, International Advisory Board, The University of Alabama; former member of the State Democratic Executive Committee; a charter member of the Board for the Shoals Economic Development Authority; former president, National Pyrotechnics Distributors Association; former president, Alabama Numismatic Association; and a former member of the Board of Directors, Heritage Trust Fund.

Anderson has given freely of his time and financial resources to many charitable causes and civic projects. For more than twenty years he has taken an active interest in the Salvation Army and is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Salvation Army of the Shoals and Selma, Alabama. Mr. Anderson and his family have had a long-standing interest in literacy and recently made a substantial contribution to the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library. He has made many contributions to universities, schools, and many other charitable causes through the Charles and Hilda Anderson Foundation and the Anderson Foundation. He also recently founded The Hobo Foundation for the benefit of animal shelters in North Alabama.

Mr. Anderson has been married for 50 years to the former Hilda Claire Barbour, his high school sweetheart.  Their home in Florence is a testament to their love of nature and wildlife, which includes walking trails, fishponds, and native plants. They attend Westminster Presbyterian Church. They have four sons: Charles C., Jr., Terrence C., Clyde B., and Harold M., and 11 grandchildren.

Joel Anderson

  • September 28th, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

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