TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Five outstanding business and civic leaders will be inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame on Thursday, Oct. 10.
The 29th annual event, organized by The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, will honor businessmen Charles C. Anderson of Florence, chairman of the Executive Committee of Books-A-Million Inc., G. Mack Dove of Dothan, chairman and chief executive officer of AAA Cooper Transportation; M. Miller Gorrie of Birmingham, chairman and chief executive officer of Brasfield and Gorrie Construction; Ben C. Stimpson of Mobile, former president and treasurer of Gulf Lumber Co. Inc.; and Lee J. Styslinger of Birmingham, president and chief executive officer of ALTEC Industries Inc.
Founded in 1973 by the Board of Visitors of The University of Alabama’s business school, the Alabama Business Hall of Fame honors the accomplishments of the state’s most distinguished business leaders. This year’s inductees join more than 100 past honorees that include George Washington Carver, William Albert Bellingrath, Mildred Westervelt Warner and William H. Blount.
The keynote speaker for the event will be Samuel A. DiPiazza Jr., global chief executive officer of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s largest professional services firm and a graduate of the UA business school. DiPiazza will address members of the business community and friends and families of the inductees at a 7:30 p.m. black tie dinner at the Bryant Conference Center in Tuscaloosa.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has more than 150,000 employees in 150 countries. DePiazza received accounting and economic degrees from The University of Alabama Summa Cum Laude in 1972, and a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Houston. He is a member of the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration’s Board of Visitors, and has maintained a close connection with his alma mater.
DiPiazza previously served as U.S. chairman and senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Prior to that he served as leader for the firm’s tax practice in the Americas.
DiPiazza has also served on PwC’s U.S. Leadership Committee and on the Board of Partners. His career has been marked by a steady climb through the ranks, beginning in 1973 when he joined the firm, then known as Coopers & Lybrand, in Birmingham. He was admitted to the partnership in 1979. He was elected to the Firm Council in 1986 and headed the Birmingham and Chicago offices before being named mid-west regional managing partner in 1992. Two years later he became the regional managing partner of the New York Metro Region with a dual role as client service vice chairman, with overall management responsibility for the firm’s New York-area offices, including offices in New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Short Biographical Sketch — Charles Caine Anderson (1934 – )
Charles Caine Anderson is chairman of the Executive Committee of Books-A-Million Inc., Anderson News Corp., American Promotional Events Inc., and Treat Entertainment.
Anderson was born Nov. 20, 1934 in Florence. He attended Coffee High School and graduated from the University of North Alabama.
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.
Anderson News Co. has grown to a fleet of 3,027 vehicles, and became 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 weekly.
American Promotional Events, which operates under the trade name TNT Fireworks, is the largest fireworks importer and distributor in the U.S.
Anderson was the first business leader in the U.S. to receive a personal invitation to trade with China in 1972 after President Nixon’s visit and was one of the first American businessmen to visit China since 1948. China is considered the birthplace of gunpowder, an ingredient in fireworks.
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. Today, Anco Far East is one of the largest exporters of fireworks from China.
In 1962, the family began importing and publishing numismatic and philatelic items. 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, includes the subsidiary, H. E. Harris, the largest numismatic and philatelic distributor in the U.S.
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 Nov. 2, 1992. The company operates 204 stores in 18 states and the District of Columbia. The company’s wholesale operations include American Wholesale Book Co. and Book$mart, both based in Florence; and NetCentral Inc., an Internet development and service company located in Nashville, Tenn.
In 1980, the family purchased the 14-store Hibbett Sporting Goods chain, which began a rapid growth that culminated in the company going public on Oct. 16, 1996, and the family selling 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 charter member of the board for the Shoals Economic Development Authority.
Short Biographical Sketch — G. Mack Dove (1936 – )
Dove is chairman and chief executive officer of AAA Cooper Transportation, of Dothan, one of the largest transportation companies in the nation, with 74 terminals that serve more than 15,000 cities and communities in 15 states. AAA Cooper owns and operates more than 1,900 tractors and 4,300 trailers and employs nearly 5,000 people. Over the past 40 years, the firm’s revenues have increased at an 18 percent compounded growth rate.
Dove, who was born in Dothan, earned a degree in transportation from the University of Tennessee and became active in the family trucking business.
During the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the Dove family expanded the company by buying operating routes or companies that were not operating their routes to the greatest potential.
A turning point in company history came when AAA Motor Lines bought Cooper Transfer of Brewton, Alabama, in 1969, to be operated as a wholly owned and independent subsidiary of AAA. Dove became president of Cooper and moved the firm to Dothan, while his brother Earl took over as president of AAA.
In 1973, the two merged the companies and the resulting company became AAA Cooper.
In 1989, Earl Dove retired, and the company continued its expansion plan, purchasing nine terminals from Bowman Transportation Co., and moving outside the Southeast to Chicago, Minneapolis and Philadelphia, then to Texas, and eventually began “truck-to-ship-to-truck” service to and from Puerto Rico.
Under Dove’s leadership, AAA Cooper has established itself as a leader in safety in the trucking industry.
In addition to his degree in transportation from the University of Tennessee, Dove received the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1982. He completed the advanced studies program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business and has been named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. Dove has served his community and state as faithfully as he has the trucking industry. He is a past chairman of the Alabama Trucking Association, was a member of the policy and finance committee of the American Trucking Association, is currently on the executive committee and the board of directors of the American Trucking Association and is chairman of the Litigation Center, American Trucking Association.
Short Biographical Sketch — M. Miller Gorrie (1935 – )
M. Miller Gorrie, chairman and chief executive officer of Brasfield & Gorrie Construction Co. Inc., was born in Birmingham, and lived there until 1943 when IBM transferred his father to New York. He returned to Birmingham three years later, and graduated from Shades Valley High School in 1953. Starting with a paper route and summer construction jobs, Gorrie began working and saving money, investing in IBM stock. The stock multiplied in value and became the nest egg that financed his business a decade later.
After graduating from high school, Gorrie enrolled in Auburn University as a civil engineering student. After discharge from the navy in 1960, he returned home and held positions with two Birmingham construction companies. In 1964, Gorrie purchased the construction assets of Thomas C. Brasfield, who had begun a small construction company in Birmingham in 1921. For three years, Gorrie operated the company under the name of Thomas C. Brasfield, but in 1967 changed the name to Brasfield & Gorrie.
The company grew steadily through the 1960s, constructing small office buildings, schools, churches, industrial plants, and hospitals. In the early 1980s, following Hurricane Frederick, Brasfield & Gorrie became involved in the construction boom on the Gulf Coast, completing over 40 projects.
As work on the Gulf Coast dried up, Gorrie expanded the company into new markets, with offices in Orlando and Atlanta.e The Orlando office gained local recognition when it built the Orlando City Hall. The Atlanta presence was strengthened by the completion of the concrete frame for the Georgia Dome.
Brasfield & Gorrie’s retail presence grew substantially after landing an account with Parisian. The Parisian Galleria store was the first of 26 Brasfield & Gorrie built across the South and Midwest. In 1997, the company opened offices in Raleigh and Nashville and organized an industrial division. In 2002, Brasfield & Gorrie was recognized for its role in reconstructing a bridge in downtown Birmingham at the I-65, I-20/59 interchange, completing it in 37 days after the bridge was damaged by fire.
From annual revenues of $800,000 in 1964, Brasfield & Gorrie in 2001 had annual revenues approaching one billion dollars and 2,000 employees servicing clients in 15 states. B&G has been consistently recognized by Engineering News Record as one of the nation’s top domestic general building contractors, currently ranking 24th in the U.S. Between 1998 and 2002 Modern Healthcare magazine named Brasfield & Gorrie as the largest general contractor in healthcare in the country for three years and the second largest for the other two years.
Gorrie is on the board of directors of Colonial Properties Trust and ACIPCO and formerly served on the boards of AmSouth Bank and Winsloew Furniture. Professionally, Gorrie was on the board and was president of the Associated General Contractors. He has also served on the boards of the Business Council of Alabama, the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, the Metropolitan Development Board, and the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama.
Gorrie was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 1997 and was honored with the Cornerstone Award by the Association of Builders and Contractors for Lifetime Achievement in the Construction Industry in 1998.
Short Biographical Sketch — Ben C. Stimpson (1924 – )
Ben C. Stimpson was born in Mobile, graduated from Murphy High School and attended The University of Alabama.
He began his lumbering career in 1940, working as a teenager in his father’s lumber company in South Alabama.
His father also operated a business that furnished pilings for the foundations for bulkheads and docks along the Gulf coast. That same year, his father formed another company called Southern Logging Co., with Ben and his two brothers as owners.
After working for their father in numerous capacities, Stimpson and his older brother, Billy, and younger brother, Gordon, assumed management of Gull Lumber Co.
Under their management, Gulf Lumber Co. evolved into one of the most innovative lumber companies in the nation. In 1973, the three brothers acquired the ownership of Gulf Lumber Co.
Stimpson steered Gulf into niche markets of treated lumber and machine stress rated lumber while serving first in the capacity of vice president and later as president. Gulf Lumber Co., one of the largest sawmills in Alabama, annually produces 105 million board feet of Yellow Pine products shipped primarily into Midwestern and Northeastern markets. The company also produces 40 million board feet of treated lumber in its own treating facility and began an import lumber division to bring in pine lumber from South America.
Stimpson has served as a director of the Alabama Forest Products Association and as a director of the Southern Forest Products Association. He also served on the board of the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau for nine years, three of which were as chairman.
Stimpson has been active in wildlife management and conservation. He served as president and a member of the board of directors of the Alabama Wildlife Federation and in 1964 received the Governor’s Conservation Award as well as the M.O. Beale Scroll of Merit for his contributions to wildlife conservation.
For 29 years Stimpson served on the board of trustees of the Mobile Infirmary and helped direct the hospital in its growth from a 300-bed facility to 700 today. He was also instrumental in forming the infirmary’s holding company, Infirmary Health Systems.
In 1970 Stimpson was elected to the board of trustees at St. Paul’s Episcopal School. During his 22-year tenure on the board, which he served as chairman for one term, St. Paul’s has developed into the largest Episcopal college preparatory school in the continental U.S.
Short Biographical Sketch — Lee J. Styslinger, Jr. (1933 – )
Lee Joseph Styslinger Jr. left The University of Alabama at age 19, when his father died, to manage his father’s truck equipment company, and turned the firm into a worldwide leader in its industry.
Styslinger was born in Birmingham in 1933. He attended St. Paul’s elementary school and graduated from St. Bernard Preparatory School in Cullman.
He then attended the University with plans to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering. Instead, his father’s death in 1952 left him responsible for the management of Alabama Truck Equipment Co., which had 20 employees and manufactured flatbed trailers for Fruehauf and customized trucks for industrial use.
After four years as manager, Styslinger was named president of the company and convinced his family to form a corporation and allow him to buy 51 percent of the stock. The company was incorporated for $6,000, and the name changed to Altec Inc.
Styslinger, who studied accounting in night school, switched the company from the manufacturing business to distributing equipment made by other manufacturers, and narrowed its focus to products for the utility industry.
By 1963, Altec’s sales volume had increased 35 times over 1952 figures, and the company had more than 100 associates. Styslinger returned to manufacturing and formed Altec Manufacturing Co. to manufacture the bodies that were part of the total utility equipment package. Altec Inc. continued as a distributor of digger derricks and aerial platforms. By 1967, Altec had increased its sales 50 times over those of 1952 and had 175 employees.
Today, Altec Inc. is the holding company for Altec Industries, Altec Worldwide, Global Rental, Altec Capital Services, NUECO, Altec Hiline and Altec Ventures. Altec has more than 2,300 associates working in sales, service and manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and in several foreign countries. The company’s total revenue is just under a billion dollars.
Styslinger has held positions on the board of trustees for Highlands Day School and the Birmingham Symphony Association and has served on the board of directors of such organizations as the American National Red Cross, Children’s Harbor, Junior Achievement of Greater Birmingham and St. Vincent’s Hospital. Since 1998 he has served as finance chairman for the Birmingham Museum of Art. Styslinger and his wife attend St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church.
Styslinger is also active in the business community. He currently serves on the board of directors for Advanced Labelworx Inc., Electronic Healthcare Systems, Jemison Investment Co. Inc., and MeadWestvaco Corp. He has served on the Board of Governors and Executive Board of both the United States and Birmingham Area chambers of commerce. He is a past member of the National Alliance of Businessmen, the Equipment Manufacturers Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers. Styslinger has been named to the Alabama Academy of Honor and was an honoree for Re-Entry Ministries’ Builders of Birmingham.
Note to editors: For full program bios, contact Bill Gerdes at 205/348-8318.
Contact
Bill Gerdes, UA Business Writer, 205/348-8318, bgerdes@cba.ua.edu