Jonathan Westervelt Warner

• September 21st, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Key McKinley

• September 20th, 2021

John Key McKinley, now Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Texaco Inc., has long exhibited qualities that seemed to forecast his rise to such a distinguished position.

He was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on March 24, 1920, the son of Virgil Parks and Mary Emma (Key) McKinley. His father was a professor in the School of Education at The University of Alabama and his mother was a pioneer in providing kindergarten education in the University city. From his parents, he learned early the fascination of exploring the world of ideas and of working with people.

As a youngster in the Tuscaloosa public schools, he was known for his scholastic achievement and his enthusiastic participation in extracurricular activities. After graduating from Tuscaloosa High School in 1937, he entered The University of Alabama where he continued to excel as a scholar and leader. The extent of his scholastic achievement is apparent in his being named a member of both the chemical and engineering professional honor societies, and his wide participation and leadership in campus activities are evident in his being one of twenty-three in his class to be elected to Who’s Who.

John McKinley graduated from The University of Alabama with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering in 1940 and an M.S. degree in organic chemistry in 1941.

Immediately after receiving his M.S., Mr. McKinley joined Texaco on May 29, 1941, as a chemical engineer engaged in grease research at the Port Arthur refinery in Texas. Shortly the Army Artillery. For four and one-half years he wore thereafter, on August 15, 1941, he was called to active service as a reserve officer, with the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Army uniform, serving for three years in Newfoundland, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, rising to the rank of Major. He received the Bronze Star and various campaign medals in the European theater and was discharged from active service on December 25, 1945.

Returning to civilian life and Texaco employment, Mr. McKinley worked in Texaco’s research, processing, and development activities at Port Arthur. He was married there on July 19, 1946, to the former Helen Grace Heare. They have two sons, John Key McKinley, Jr., and Mark Charles McKinley.

At Port Arthur, Mr. McKinley was assigned again to grease research and then to cracking research, becoming Supervisor of that function in 1954. In 1956 he was transferred to the Company’s Central Research Laboratory at Beacon, N.Y., as Assistant to Management, and in 1957 became Assistant Director of Research. In 1960 he was named Manager of Commercial Development Processes. Later that year, Mr. McKinley transferred to Texaco’s New York City offices as General Manager-Worldwide Petrochemicals.

Always taking advantage of every opportunity to improve, Mr. McKinley attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University, graduating in 1962. He was elected Vice President in charge of the Petrochemical Department in 1967 and was named Vice President in charge of Supply and Distribution in 1970. In January 1971, he was elected Senior Vice President for Worldwide Refining, Petrochemicals, and Supply and Distribution. Mr. McKinley was elected President of Texaco Inc. and a Director of the company in April 1971.

He received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from The University of Alabama in 1972 and from Troy State University in 1974.

In January 1980, Mr. McKinley was selected by the Board of Directors to be Chief Executive Officer on November 1, 1980, and was named Chief Operating Officer of the Company effective immediately. In June 1980, the Board of Directors elected Mr. McKinley to serve as Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer effective November 1, 1980. Mr. McKinley was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee effective July 1, 1980.

During his rise in the corporate structure of Texaco Inc., Mr. McKinley has always adhered to this business philosophy: “Business consists primarily of bringing together people, ideas, and capital to provide the necessary goods and services required by our society. An understanding of this basic fact is what makes it possible for those in charge of organizations to create a proper meld of these three elements, in appropriate proportion, to accomplish the stated goals and objectives.

“By and large, I believe that business and industry exist at the pleasure of the public. As long as the public perceives that the organization’s policies, programs, products, and services are in the public interest, that organization will be supported in the marketplace.”

Holding a number of patents in chemical and petroleum processing, Mr. McKinley, is a registered Professional Engineer and a member of a number of technical and professional organizations, including Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and The University of Alabama ( Capstone) Engineering Society. Mr. McKinley is a director of the American Petroleum Institute and a member of its Executive Committee and its Management Committee. He also is a member of the National Petroleum Council.

Mr. McKinley is a director of Burlington Industries, Inc., Merck and Company, Inc., and both Manufacturers Hanover Corporation and its principal subsidiary, Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and Andrew Wellington Cordier Fellow of the School of International Affairs of Columbia University, a Sesquicentennial Honorary Professor at The University of Alabama, a trustee of the Council of the Americas, a director of the Americas Society and The Business Council of New York State, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, The Conference Board, and the Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. He has been awarded the George Washington Honor Medal by the Freedoms Foundation.

Always a believer in both individual and corporate support of an art form, Mr. McKinley and Texaco Inc. have long been patrons of the Metropolitan Opera. On May 15, 1980, Mr. McKinley was elected a Managing Director of the Metropolitan Opera Association. At the same time, he was named national chairman of the Metropolitan Opera Centennial Fund. His other civic activities over the years have ranged from service on the advisory council of Reading Is Fundamental, Inc., to membership on the committee to determine the future of the new Westchester County (N.Y.) Medical Center Hospital. He is a former member of the Board of Governors of the Hugh O’Brian Youth Foundation.

In March 1981, Mr. McKinley was elected to the Board of Overseers of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, to the Board of Managers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the Board of Managers of Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases and the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.

Mr. McKinley’s hobbies include personally testing new developments m automotive engines, petroleum fuels, and electronic devices. His favorite sports are yachting, hunting, and golf. With his wide accomplishments and interests, John K. McKinley continues to be a man for all seasons.

Robert Jemison, Jr.

• September 20th, 2021

Energetic, independent, and adventurous, he was the inheritor of a pioneering spirit that had characterized the Jemison family for generations.

His great-grandparents had immigrated to the colonies in 1742, settling on a farm in Pennsylvania; his grandparents had moved to Augusta, Georgia, sometime before the start of the Revolutionary War; and his parents, prosperous Georgia landowners, sought out the rich farmlands of West Alabama and built there a plantation so productive and well-cultivated that it came to be known as The Garden.

It was near Augusta, Georgia, in 1802 that Robert Jemison, Jr.* was born. He attended the University of Georgia, read law, and in 1821 moved with his parents, William and Sarah Jemison, to Alabama. The family settled briefly in Greene County and then moved to the village of Tuscaloosa. In 1826 the elder Jemison transported his family to Pickens County where he founded and developed his prosperous plantation, The Garden, and helped finance blacksmith shops, lumber mills, and other services for the community.

Robert Jemison, Jr., who lived and worked at The Garden for ten years, returned to Tuscaloosa in 1836 and married Priscilla Taylor of Mobile. They had one child; a daughter named Cherokee. Jemison and his wife were said to be particularly fond of that Indian name because the story goes, several generations back the Cherokees had done a favor for the Taylor family and requested, in return, that the family perpetuate their name. Jemison more than complied with his wife’s ancestor al obligation by giving the name, not only to his daughter but to the large plantation he built beyond Northport.

Like his father before him, Robert Jemison was an enterprising businessman. In the 1820s he began to buy up small tracts of property in several counties. As the size of his holdings grew, he added buildings, im­proved the efficiency of his farming operations, and added grist and flour mills. By 1857, he owned six plantations, the largest of which was the 4000-acre Cherokee Place.

Industrial and commercial enterprises also interested him. He invested heavily in stagecoach lines, operated a large livery stable in Tuscaloosa, and built a thriving lumber and sawmill business. He erected a foundry in Talladega County, operated several surface coal mines near Brookwood, and constructed a plank road from the mines to Tuscaloosa. The lumber for all his enterprises, as well as for his several homes, came from his own mills; the labor, from his slaves – estimated to total nearly 500 at one point. Not surprisingly, Jemison was considered “the most enterprising all-around citizen in Tuscaloosa.”

It was as a statesman, however, that the people of Alabama knew him best. He first entered politics in the mid-1830s by filling a vacancy in the state legislature, then located in Tuscaloosa. In 1837 he ran on the Whig ticket for that same legislative post and won. For the next twenty-five years, he continued to win elections, serving in the statehouse of representatives until 1850 and in the state senate from 1851 to 1863. During his long political career, Jemison gained a reputation as a skilled debater who would speak his mind regardless of the unpopularity of his view. “The duty of a statesman,” Jemison reportedly said, “is to lead and not to follow popular sentiment. If he finds public opinion taking the wrong direction, it is his duty to throw himself in the breach and turn it the right way.”

Jemison frequently threw himself into the breach. He was a determined supporter of a system of railroads for Alabama, an active anti-abolitionist, and he fought tenaciously – and successfully – for the construction of a state hospital for the insane (Bryce). It was in 1847, though, that he took on what may have been the most challenging problem of his career – the failing financial affairs of the state of Alabama.

Jemison had long opposed the system of state banks. ‘This hydra of modern banking,” as he called it, had led to wild speculation schemes, to the panic of 1837, the failure of the banks, and to public debt that by 1847 had reached crisis proportions. Chosen by his constituents and the legislature to lead the state out of its financial mire, Jemison advocated the liquidation of state banks and the establishment of a well-regulated system of private stock banks. He was convinced that Alabama, by reason of her abundant resources, was amply able to pay her debts, and he dismissed arguments that a tax bill commensurate with the wants of the state would be disastrously unpopular. As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he introduced a revenue bill that, once passed, revolutionized the state’s system of taxation by establishing a broader and more equitable distribution of the tax burden. Even Jemison’s staunchest political adversaries applauded his skill in introducing sound business practices to the management of the state’s financial affairs.

In January of 1861, Jemison once again attempted to influence the direction of his state, but this time he was not successful. Representing Tuscaloosa County in the Secession Convention in Montgomery, Jemison argued against seceding from the Union. Such drastic action was premature and impractical, he reasoned; the Convention possessed no reliable evidence to suggest that the North planned to invade the South; the matter deserved careful consideration; perhaps there was still room for compromise. Amid the Convention’s emotional atmosphere, Jemison’s efforts to discuss the issue on practical grounds proved ultimately futile. Once the Ordinance of Secession passed, however, he stood behind the majority opinion and supported the Confederacy with all the resources at his disposal.

In 1863 he was chosen president of the state senate, and that same year he was elected by an overwhelming margin to suc­ceed the late W. L. Yancey in the Senate of the Confederate States of America. There he served actively until the fall of the Confederacy.

Senator Jemison was in Tuscaloosa in April of 1865 when Federal troops invaded the city and burned factories and mills and The University of Alabama. He escaped imprisonment by hiding in a swamp outside of town while soldiers searched his home, a large Italianate villa that still stands on Greensboro Avenue.

After the war, with most of his property destroyed, Jemison remained in Tuscaloosa and began to piece together the remnants of what had once been a vast system of enterprises. Although his health was failing, he built a ferry service across the Black Warrior River and devoted much of his time to the work of rebuilding The University of Alabama.

When he died following a long illness on October 17, 1871, the citizens of Tuscaloosa and Northport closed their shops and businesses and turned out en masse for his funeral. It was but one of many tributes paid throughout the state to Robert Jemison, Jr. – a man whose statesmanship, business acumen, and pioneering spirit had contributed to the development of the nineteenth century – Alabama to a degree that few of his generation could match.

Herbert Eugene Westervelt

• September 20th, 2021

Herbert Eugene Westervelt pioneered the modern paper industry in his chosen home state, Alabama, when his company’s far-flung pulp, paper, converting, and administrative operation were consolidated in Tuscaloosa in 1929 under the new name of Gulf States Paper Corporation.

His farsightedness and perseverance put him in the vanguard of that industrial revolution which brought new prosperity to the Southern economy.

Westervelt was born in the frontier town, Oskaloosa, Iowa, on November 20, 1858. His father, a graduate of Oberlin College and a Congregational minister, later moved the family back to Oberlin, Ohio, where proper educational advantages were available for young eight-year-old Herb and the older boys approaching college age. To supplement the meager income of a minister, Father Westervelt opened a small grocery business. All four boys helped in the little store, which opened its doors at 6 p.m. and took orders through the evenings. Herbert and his brothers made deliveries at night, pulling a two-wheeled cart on their rounds. Their hurried evening meals consisted of cheese and crackers, consumed in such amounts that his daughter later recalled, “I cannot remember that my father ever willingly ate a bite of cheese in later life!”

A penny and a nickel at a time, young Herb saved his money. At last, he accumulated a $75 hoard, which he invested in a sight-unseen gold mine! Years later, he observed the only gold he got out of the venture was the seal on the stock certificate and a lot of golden experience.

Those early days, with the brothers working together, not only laid seeds of business acumen but established a perseverance and family tradition of cooperation which was the springboard for the paper company that is still today family-owned.

After two years at Oberlin College, young Westervelt felt his parents had sacrificed enough to educate their sons (the oldest three had graduated) and he determined to make his own contributions to his family. By the time he was28 years of age, he had proved a claim of 400 acres in Dakota Territory, where his parents had begun a new frontier mission; worked as a salesman for a wholesale paper business established by his oldest brother, Ed; had become a partner in the new Marseilles (Indiana) Paper Company which made a coarse, brittle wrapping paper from wheat straw; and had established his own affiliated business selling paper, bags, and twine under the name of South Bend Paper Company.

“Brother Herb got his brains from Mother and his sense from Father, and he had plenty of both,” recalled Brother Ed in later years, who had asked Herb to run another paper mill at Springfield, Illinois, in 1887. His salary was to come from what profits he could produce, and within three years Herb owned the mill, as he and his brother had planned. He had also set up another paper jobbing business, which ranged into surrounding states selling plain and printed sacks, sheet and roll papers, twine, butter plates, oyster pails, and a host of other paper products of the day.

By 1891, as the owner of a prospering paper manufacturing and merchandising concern, he was one of Springfield’s most promising young men. Now he started another venture he had been postponing for a long time; the patient Miss Emma Neilson of Marseilles, Illinois, became Mrs. Herbert Eugene Westervelt. Two years later, farsighted Herb sold out to a large corporation that was trying to monopolize the straw paper business, then turned right around to prove that there still was a definite role for the small independent paper manufacturer.

The Prairie State Paper Company of Taylorville, Illinois was incorporated at the end of 1893, with Herb owning 60% of the stock. Proving his resourcefulness, he purchased the large boiler house to be dismantled from the Chicago World’s Fair and arranged for it to be sent to Taylorville, along with additional lumber from other buildings. Almost-new papermaking machinery came from a defunct operation in Nebraska. “It was all cheap,” he reported, adding, “It had to be for us.”

The Taylorville firm made a good start, and in 1897 a converting operation was added for the manufacture of satchel-bottomed sugar bags. But Westervelt’s puzzle-solving genius was challenged to patent a machine that would make multi-purpose bags that would fold out “to stand on their own bottoms.” For the next few years, he led a hectic life, traveling for his paper firm and working diligently in his machine shop at his home in South Bend. Before long he had the promise of a machine that in many respects was simpler and made a better product than any existing machines, which were protected by more than 200 patents.

And so the E-Z Opener was invented, the paper bags that opened “with a flick of the wrist,” which became the standard grocery bag in America. The company’s byword soon became “Quality Counts,” and throughout the years that motto was reflected from every phase of operations.

The first full set of the new grocery bag machines expanded the operations of the South Bend Paper Company. To meet orders, work often had to be on an overtime basis. All available males turned out to run the machines, including the rangy gentleman from the front office. With shined shoes and blue serge peeking out from under striped coveralls, he was called “Uncle Sam” by his employees. The coveralls even had stars on the edges.

Prairie State Paper also became primarily a paper bag manufacturer. Then an operation was added at Fulton, New York, and another near Mexico City. In 1911, the Illinois operations were moved to Decatur. With 60 bag machines and a number of presses, the new plant had much more capacity. E-Z Opener was on the march.

Herb Westervelt had helped pioneer the paper bag industry. Now he was to take a leading part in another phase of the industry: paper’s move to the South.

Scandinavian wood pulps had recently introduced kraft paper to the country. In 1912 E-Z Opener established a bag factory in Orange, Texas, to make the very first bags from the first kraft paper made successfully from southern pine. It soon became apparent to Westervelt that the future of the entire paper industry lay in the forests of the southern states, and he committed E-Z Opener Bag firmly and permanently to the growth of the paper industry in the South.

An idle pulp and paper mill, built to utilize the refuse from sugar cane, was obtained in 1916 at Braithwaite, Louisiana, a few miles below New Orleans. It was a rusty, wreck of a place, but had potential. E-Z Opener converted the machinery for wood pulp use, and the mill assured a supply of paper through the war years. In 1918 the Fulton, New York bag factory was moved to New Orleans to be near the Braithwaite operation.

Disaster upon disaster was to be encountered at Braithwaite. Major fires and floods took their toll, but each time, persevering Herb Westervelt saw to it that the mill emerged a more modern and efficient operation as it was rebuilt. But still, the Louisiana facilities were too small and too uneconomical to meet product demand.

A search began throughout the South for a suitable new plant site. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was selected. There were plentiful supplies of pulpwood, coal, lime, water, labor, and good transportation facilities. Here E-Z Opener built Alabama’s first modern pulp and paper mill, with its connected bag factory. In April 1929, southern kraft paper began rolling off the new machine in Tuscaloosa. In keeping with his commitment to his new corporate home in Alabama, all facilities, including administrative functions, were consolidated in Tuscaloosa, and the firm was renamed Gulf States Paper Corporation.

Herbert Eugene Westervelt was now in his seventies, and much of the daily operations were turned over to his colleagues-many of whom had stayed with him from the company’s beginning days in the mid-west-and to his daughter, Mildred Westervelt Warner, who became executive vice president.

Over the years, Westervelt had developed strong associates and had encouraged them to shoulder the responsibilities of the business, and now inspiration still came from the quiet, avid world traveler. His outstanding characteristic, his daughter noted, was his balanced sense of values.

‘That is why he would meet the big troubles and tragedies of life with unflinching courage and unfailing patience,” she said. Not only did he meet business and industry problems head-on, as well as fires and floods of facilities, but he experienced the untimely deaths of his youngest daughter and a grandson.

His death on September 3, 1938, came as a blow not only to his devoted family and to the company, which he had led for 54 years, but to the paper industry as a whole.

The minister of the First Presbyterian Church, in which denomination Westervelt rendered noted Christian service, spoke tellingly of Herbert Eugene Westervelt’s career:

He set his heart on big things. There are men who spend their lives, if not on trivialities, at least on the secondary things of life … Mr. Westervelt made a selection of three great objectives: his church, his home, his business.

His quality counted.

Lee Bidgood

• September 17th, 2021

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

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

Frank Maxwell Moody

• September 9th, 2021

Frank Maxwell Moody, dedicated banker, and civic leader, learned early in life the value of the Puritan work ethic.

Moody attended The University of Alabama, excelling in athletics, military training, and academics. His achievements culminated with his selection into Phi Beta Kappa after his graduation in 1897. Moody developed a deep sense of loyalty to the University, serving as president of the alumni association in 1911 and 1912. Moody embarked on his banking career as a runner and junior clerk, working for First National Bank of Tuscaloosa, the bank his grandfather had established. In 1900, he married Beverly Hill, who died in 1906. In 1911, he married Sarah McCorkle. At the beginning of his career, Moody would sell Mutual Benefit Life Insurance to supplement his meager salary. Through this venture, he would eventually open an insurance firm, Meredith-Moody Insurance Firm, which Moody was a part of until he sold his interest in 1940. In 1921, Moody became the president of First National Bank, upon the death of his father, and served faithfully for almost two decades. Professionally, he was associated with the Alabama Bankers’ Association, as president, the American Bankers’ Association, and the Birmingham Branch of the Federal Reserve. He also served his community. During World War I, he was loan chairman for all liberty loan campaigns in the area and served as the director of the Alabama War Finance Corporation. In the community, he held positions with the Tuscaloosa Rotary Club, the Tuscaloosa Chamber of Commerce, and the Tuscaloosa Community Chest.

Mildred Westervelt Warner

• September 9th, 2021

Mildred Westervelt Warner, the only woman president of a major integrated paper company, led Gulf States Paper Corporation for over 20 years.

She began her career with EZ Opener Bag Company of Illinois and moved to Alabama in 1928 when Gulf States Paper Corporation (EZ’s successor company) was incorporated. She became executive vice-president at that time. In 1938, she became president and served in that position until 1957.

Her sensational career in the paper industry is well known to industrialists throughout the nation. She was, indeed, a pioneer. Long before the rise of women to executive positions became a public issue, she proved that the roles of homemaker and mother, community worker, and industrial executive are compatible.

Mrs. Warner achieved much as an executive leader. She created a professional forestry organization to handle the forestry affairs of Gulf States. In 1948, she guided the development of a program in which company foresters advised private Alabama landowners in developing sound forestry conservation practices. In 1953, she established the Westervelt Game Preserve, and in 1956, she was instrumental in employing the first corporate specialist in forest game management in the South. This specialist advised in the development of an overall game management program, which is now widely copied.

In 1948, Mrs. Warner directed the expansion of the Tuscaloosa plant, almost doubling plant capacity. She saw the need to expand the company’s limited product line. In the early 1950’s she developed the mill at Demopolis, which marked the first installation in the paper industry of a continuous digester for making highly bleached market pulp.

After her retirement as president in 1957, she served Gulf States for two years as Chairman of the Board. In her retirement, Mrs. Warner devoted her energies to philanthropy. Churches, educational institutions, libraries, orphanages, YMCAs, and scouting were among those who benefited from her generosity.

The University of Alabama awarded Mildred Westervelt Warner an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1956. She was awarded the First Citizenship Award of the Tuscaloosa Civitan Club and the Woman of Achievement Award of the Tuscaloosa Business and Professional Women’s Club. Mildred Westervelt Warner received many honors during her lifetime. Her memories are a statewide program of forest conservation and a thriving company providing thousands of jobs.

Biographical information provided by Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame.

Michael Reilly

• August 17th, 2021

F. Michael Reilly is chairman emeritus of Randall-Reilly, formerly known as Randall Publishing Co.

He retired in 2015 after 40 years with the company. Under his leadership, the company transitioned from a 40-employee magazine publisher to a strategic data, media, and marketing services company with over $130 million in revenue. Randall-Reilly employs more than 600 associates at its offices in Tuscaloosa and nationwide. Over 4,000 clients in the trucking, construction and agriculture industries use its services, which include hosting trade shows, publishing monthly trade magazines, creating comprehensive digital marketing campaigns, and developing industry-specific data portals and tools designed to find and retain customers.

Reilly began his career at Randall Publishing in 1975 while still a student at The University of Alabama where he answered a call on a student bulletin board for a sales job. After graduating, he joined the company full-time, and, along the way, built a deep friendship with then-boss Pettus Randall III. Excluding two-and-a-half years at Gulf Publishing Company in Houston, Texas, Mike spent his entire career at the company, moving up the ranks to become president and chief executive officer in February of 2002.

Reilly served as chairman of the board of the Birmingham branch of the Federal Reserve Bank’s Sixth District, Atlanta, Ga., is a member of the board of directors for both the Association of Business Publishers and Smart Bank. He also served on The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business Board of Visitors and was a member of UA’s President’s Cabinet. Furthermore, he is on the board of directors of SmartBank.

Community involvement is a core value of Reilly. He is heavily involved in the Tuscaloosa-area chapters of organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club and United Way. He serves on the board of Arts ‘n Autism, is a member of the Rotary Club of Tuscaloosa, and chairs the board of the YMCA of Tuscaloosa. Reilly has been a member of Nick’s Kids Foundation Core Group since 2014 and received the Nick’s Kids Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

Furthermore, he has served on the boards of the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce, NorthRiver Yacht Club, and the Boy Scouts Executive Board of West Alabama. In 2009, the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama named him an H. Pettus Randall Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, the Reilly family was named the United Way Alexis de Tocqueville Society Family of the Year. He is also an active member of St. Francis Catholic Church and has led a number of initiatives there.

His father’s military service also inspired Randall-Reilly’s participation in Wreaths Across America, an organization that commemorates fallen soldiers every year by placing 700,000 wreaths on graves at locations around the world.

He and his wife, of 43 years, Debbie, have three children, Brent Reilly (Jessica), Fran Powe (Thomas), and Katie Floyd (Matthew), and five grandchildren.