Alabama Business Hall of Fame to Induct Five New Members

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Five of the state’s leading business and civic leaders will be inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame Friday, Oct. 10 at a black-tie dinner at the Bryant Conference Center on The University of Alabama campus.

This year marks the 35rd anniversary of the Hall of Fame, sponsored by the board of visitors of UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration. The five inductees exemplify hard work and determination as well as a commitment to excellence and the betterment of their community.

More than 125 prominent business leaders have been inducted into the business hall of fame, and their likenesses are embossed on plaques that line the walls of the Hall of Fame Room in Bidgood Hall on the University campus.

The 2008 inductees are Dr. Derrill Crowe of Birmingham; Nimrod T. Frazer of Montgomery; James R. Hudson of Huntsville; Benjamin Russell of Alexander City; and James Thomas Stephens of Birmingham. (see accompanying biographies)

Will Brooke, executive vice president and corporate secretary for Harbert Management Corp. and chairman of the Culverhouse College of Commerce board of visitors, said the inductees have shown a strong commitment to public service, to the betterment of their communities, and to principles of free enterprise.

“Each of these individuals has acted with conviction and determination to make their communities better places to live,” Brooke said.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was established in 1919, and in 1929, it became the 38th school to earn admission into the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business. The excellence of the UA business school has been acknowledged on a national level. The undergraduate program is ranked 29th among public universities by U.S. News, and the Culverhouse School of Accountancy is ranked 15th among public universities by U.S. News. The graduate accounting program is ranked 15th and the undergraduate program 14th by Public Accounting Report.

Inductee biographical information

AUBREY DERRILL CROWE, M.D.
Founder, Mutual Assurance Society of Alabama
(1939 – )

For most of Dr. Aubrey Derrill Crowe’s medical career, he balanced a successful medical practice with building one of the largest medical malpractice insurance companies in the United States.

As a practicing urologist, in 1976, Dr. Crowe was chosen by the State Medical Association to lead a group of physicians in developing a plan to form a malpractice insurance company at a time when most Alabama physicians faced the prospect of practicing medicine without liability insurance.

The situation led Dr. Crowe and his colleagues to form the Mutual Assurance Society of Alabama (MASA). Their strategy was to defend every case in which there was no negligence. At that time, the national trend was to settle most cases, which spawned a large number of frivolous malpractice suits, resulting in the depletion of insurance company reserves.

Mutual Assurance was one of many policyholder-founded companies derisively called “bedpan mutuals” by insurance industry experts who predicted most of them would not survive, a prediction that proved true.

This was not the case for MASA, and by 1985, it had paid off both its $5.5 million bank loan and the direct $2.5 million capital loans from physicians. At that time, the company had expanded through the provision of dental liability insurance and hospital liability insurance. Under Dr. Crowe’s leadership, the company continued to prosper.

Mutual Assurance demutualized and began trading on the NASDAQ system in September 1991. Policyholders received stock valued at $10 per share and the company’s market capitalization was $69 million. In 1993, Dr. Crowe retired from the active practice of medicine to lead the company. In 1994, Mutual Assurance moved outside Alabama and acquired insurance companies in West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio and Missouri while changing the company name to MAIC Holdings. By 1996, MAIC Holdings moved to the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $129 million. Expansion continued throughout the Southeast and Midwest.

In 2001, its merger with Professional Group, a Michigan-based insurer of similar size, was completed. The merger created ProAssurance, a New York Stock Exchange company with a market capitalization of $450 million.

Today, ProAssurance is the fourth largest medical malpractice company in the United States and its market capitalization is approaching $2 billion. Over the past 30 years since its founding, written premiums have grown from $8 million to approximately $550 million in 2007. The company insures more than 30,000 physicians with more than 35,000 policies in force.

In the 1980’s, Dr. Crowe also led two revolutionary advances in Alabama healthcare. He helped develop the first free-standing, physician-owned outpatient surgery center in Alabama and he initiated outpatient treatment of kidney stones by Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy. Dr. Crowe was born in Troy, Alabama, the son of Minnie Lee and Aubrey Glen Crowe. He did undergraduate work at Howard College (now known as Samford University) in Birmingham. He completed his graduate medical education at the University of Alabama Medical College in 1962, and completed his internship in 1963 and a surgical residency in 1964, both at Lloyd Noland Hospital in Birmingham. He completed residency training in urology at the University of Alabama in Birmingham in 1967. Dr. Crowe is also a 1990 graduate of the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard University’s School of Business.

Throughout his career, Dr. Crowe has been active in organized medicine, serving his colleagues and The Medical Association of the State of Alabama in a variety of positions including the Board of Censors and the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners. He was also a member of the Jefferson County Medical Society. In early 1985, he was asked to serve as the chairman of the Alabama Certificate of Need Board.

Dr. Crowe sits on the board of advisors at his collegiate alma mater, Samford University, and was the commencement speaker for Samford’s 1996 graduation.

Dr. Crowe was honored by the Birmingham News as “CEO of the Year” for 2004 for his role in establishing ProAssurance as a leader in Alabama and the nation. In March 2008, Dr. Crowe was elected to the Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame, which honored him for his work in medicine and at ProAssurance.

Dr. Crowe has four children from a previous marriage and his wife Cameron has two from a previous marriage. The couple has two children together.

NIMROD T. FRAZER
Retired Chief Executive Officer, Enstar
(1929- )

Nimrod T. Frazer has been working since the age of 14, when he got a summer job on a farm in Wilcox County and learned to drive a truck. That job morphed into becoming a wartime school bus driver along with other duties at the mature age of 15.

The son of William and Margaret Frazer, he was born in Montgomery and continues to live there now, but he has come a long way from his farm work days.

Most of Frazer’s business career has been spent in the financial services industry. He was a broker for Sterne, Agee & Leach, served as executive vice president at Thornton, Farish & Gauntt, and from 1976 to 1996, he was chairman of the board and co-founder of The Frazer Lanier Company, a regional investment banking firm in Montgomery that deals in corporate and municipal securities.

His business creed was established early in life at Huntingdon College. As a sophomore at Huntingdon, Frazer learned a life’s lesson from a family friend: Act ethically not only because it is the right way to do business, but also because doing so will lead to financial success.

Frazer had already established a reputation as a highly successful businessman and financier, but it was his successful resuscitation of Enstar that has earned him praise and respect around the globe. Enstar formerly did business as a holding company for KinderCare, Inc., a day-care center company founded in Montgomery. In 1989, Enstar was disassociated from KinderCare, but found itself deeply in debt and facing bankruptcy.

In 1990, Frazer was elected to the board of The Enstar Group, Inc. He later accepted the role of Chairman, President, and CEO and resigned from Frazer Lanier, taking over Enstar when it had a $100 million negative net worth. His job was to put the company into bankruptcy, do what he could for the creditors and shareholders and shut it down. Almost no one dared to hope for survival.

Frazer took on the challenge. He divested assets, collected judgments from executives and repaid creditors. He transformed the company into a holding company of financial assets and entered the insurance and reinsurance world. Eventually the company, whose shares were worthless when Frazer arrived on the scene, repaid all its creditors 100 cents on the dollar, resurrected its shares, and returned them to the original owners.

Under Frazer’s leadership Enstar increased its net worth by more than $400 million and increased its market capitalization to nearly $1.5 billion.

Enstar invested in troubled Property and Casualty insurance companies, helping to set them straight and get them out of trouble, and Frazer’s reputation for ethics and doing things the right way was spread throughout the financial services industry. In an interview with “Ethics Newsline,” in 2006, Frazer said, “Our ethical profile is a corporate asset.”

In 2007 Enstar merged with Castlewood Insurance, the company moved to Bermuda and Frazer retired as CEO.

Frazer also has been active in the industrial real estate business in the Montgomery area. Through the partnership of Industrial Partners, the company constructed numerous high quality industrial facilities, most built on a completely speculative basis. These buildings played a huge role in Montgomery’s industrial development success, providing product to lure great industrial and manufacturing companies and providing much needed jobs. The company today continues its mission under a new generation of leadership while Frazer has constructed and purchased buildings under his current ownership of The Jobs Company, L.L.C.

He serves on the boards of several financial and insurance companies, both in the United States and abroad and has been active in economic development associations throughout the Southeast.

Frazer has been involved with numerous civic and charitable organizations. He served as chairman of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, was a member of Leadership Alabama, president of Lurleen B.Wallace Cancer Foundation, Chairman of the Montgomery Water Works and Sewer Board, and was a founding director of both the Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery and The Montgomery County Historical Society. His trustee service includes the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Atlanta International School, Albright Institute for Archeological Research in Jerusalem, Huntingdon College and Hughston Sports Medicine Foundation.

He received his undergraduate degree from Huntingdon College in Montgomery in 1954 and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1956.

After entering the Army as an enlisted man, he was commissioned at OCS. He served in the Korean Conflict as an Army lieutenant, Tank Commander, and Tank Platoon Leader, receiving the Silver Star for Gallantry in Action, US Presidential Unit Citation, ROK Presidential Unit Citation, a Letter of Appreciation from the 37th Republic of Korea Infantry Regiment, and the U.S. Parachute Badge. He also has written about his experiences in Korea for military magazines. He is a member of both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Frazer and his wife, Lee Martin Frazer, have been married for 51 years and have five children and nine grandchildren.

JAMES R. HUDSON
Founder
Hudson-Alpha Institute
(1942 – )

James R. Hudson is the founder and president of the Hudson-Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, a non-profit research institute that uses biotechnology to improve human health, stimulate economic development, and inspire the next generation of scientists.

Hudson grew up in Huntsville, the son of James R. and Mattie May Ellis Hudson. He graduated from Huntsville High in 1960. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in physics from The University of Alabama as well as a master’s degree in biology from University of Alabama at Huntsville.

Prior to beginning his professional career, Hudson served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1967 to 1970. During his tour of duty in Vietnam, Hudson flew many missions over North Vietnam, where he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the highest honor awarded to a military aviator.

Hudson’s business acumen was nurtured by his father. The senior Hudson, together with sons, Jim and Gary, operated Hudson Metals, a Huntsville foundry. He helped elevate Hudson Metals to the most productive small foundry in the Southeast before it was sold in 1982.

After selling Hudson Metals and earning his biology degree, Hudson founded Research Genetics with an initial investment of $25,000. While conducting research that required a piece of synthetic DNA, Hudson was appalled when he learned it would take up to four weeks to receive his order. It took only four hours to produce DNA but his order was behind many others, being produced by a single machine. “In that instant, I knew exactly what my business model would be,” he has said. “I was going to have enough machines that I was going to ship tomorrow everything ordered today.”

Launching from that initial business model, Research Genetics became a biotech business icon. Research Genetics was a chief partner in the Human Genome Project, the international effort coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, to identify the sequence of the DNA found inside human cells.

Hudson served as chief executive of Research Genetics until 2000 when he sold the company to Invitrogen for more than $130 million.

“Having the capital (from Research Genetics) opened a lot of doors to help biotech gain a foothold in Huntsville,” he noted. Hudson has advised and incubated six successful biotech companies. He is co-founder and served as the first president of the Biotechnology Association of Alabama.

Hudson and his wife Susie have initiated a number of projects to revitalize Huntsville and entice young professionals. His vision and passion have brought new art venues, restaurants and a greatly enhanced after-hours scene.

Today, the Hudson-Alpha Institute for Biotechnology in a very real sense continues the work Hudson started at Research Genetics. The mission at Research Genetics was to find the latest tools to accelerate research and make the findings of that research available to the rest of the world in an expedient and cost-effective manner.

Hudson raised $80 million in private donations to establish HudsonAlpha. The state of Alabama subsequently matched the private donations with a $50 million commitment. Together these monies will create over 900 new jobs. Hudson’s initiative is positioning Alabama to become a worldwide leader in biotech research and one of the premier places in the nation for high paying jobs that can’t be exported overseas.

The HudsonAlpha Institute’s new four-story, 270,000 square-foot facility, which opened November of 2007, will initially provide accommodation for 12 for-profit biotech companies. HudsonAlpha’s non-profit research will be led by Dr. Richard Myers, previously the Chair of Human Genetics at Stanford University where Dr. Myers directed one of the nation’s largest genome research centers.

Hudson serves as adjunct professor at the UAH and is a member of the College of Science Advisory Council as well as the Board of Directors of the UAH Foundation. He is a member of the Huntsville Rotary Club and the Committee of 100.

Hudson and his wife, Susie, are co-founders of CityScapes LLC, which focuses on downtown revitalization. Hudson serves as vice president. The couple has four children.

BENJAMIN RUSSELL
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Russell Lands, Inc.
(1938 – )

Born in Alexander City, Benjamin Russell began his career with summer jobs at Russell Corporation, a textile and apparel firm founded in 1902 by his grandfather. After attending Mercer University and The University of Alabama, and following active duty training in the Air National Guard, he was employed by Russell Corporation as a management trainee.

In 1970, Russell was asked to assume leadership of a small family-owned farm and timberland company. Russell Lands, Inc. has since become a diverse corporation with over 500 employees and eight operating divisions.

Russell immediately set in place a much earlier dream of his grandfather. Russell had accumulated thousands of acres, comprising hundreds of miles of shoreline during the construction of Lake Martin in the early part of the 20th century, specifically for the creation of world-class recreational life-style in south central Alabama.

Over the past 35 years, Russell has seen this dream come true with the development of fifteen residential communities, consisting of some 1,500 lots on Lake Martin. Russell Lands also manages over 300 leased properties on Lake Martin. More than a thousand first – and

second – homes are managed as well by Russell Lands Real Estate, Inc. and the division’s non-corporate transactions capture the area’s largest real estate market share.

Willow Point Golf and Country Club, one of the top golf courses in the state is another Russell Lands venture. Renovated in 2003, the Club has recently hosted the 2008 Alabama State Seniors Championship and the 2008 Alabama State Amateur Championship.

Other Russell Lands operating divisions include Russell Marine, which operates four sales and full-service marinas on Lake Martin. Russell Marine was recently recognized by Boating Industry Magazine as the ninth ranked boat dealer in the world. Another division operates nine building supply facilities affiliated with Do-it Best Corporation. A $4 billion cooperative with over 4,000 members, Do-it Best recognized Russell Lands as its fourth largest member in 2007.

In the 1970s, Russell formed The Energy Conservation Company to promote the use of wood energy in industry. This effort has led to the consumption of over 5 million tons of waste wood to replace some 5 million barrels of oil. ECON has also led the way in research and development for a practical wood gasification power system for vehicles. A related business also specializes in the processing of forest products residue for landscape products.

Almost 30 years ago, Russell crossed the country in a conventional automobile powered entirely by wood. ECON’s continuing research in vehicular and small scale gasification has proven to the world that today’s automobile can, in the event of a national emergency, be powered solely by gases produced by the partial combustion of wood.

In 1987, Russell founded, and still chairs, the first statewide fundraising campaign for CARE, the world’s largest private relief and development agency. The organization, CARE Alabama, has raised more than $9 million for the people of developing nations.

In 1989, Russell founded Children’s Harbor, a not-for-profit organization with the mission of “Strengthening children and families.” Framed in a classic New England style setting, the Children’s Harbor campus is located on the shores of Lake Martin. The campus has recently undergone an $8 million expansion to serve an even greater number of Alabama’s children and families.

In 1998, Russell also made a significant financial commitment to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, resulting in the construction of the Children’s Harbor wing, housing the Children’s Harbor Family Center. This collaborative effort with the hospital provides counseling to chronically ill children and their families. In 2008, Ben and Luanne Russell made the lead commitment toward an entirely new Children’s Hospital to be named in memory of his grandfather and mentor – The Benjamin Russell Hospital for Children.

Russell was named Philanthropist of the Year in 2000 and Outstanding Philanthropist in Alabama in 1994. He is a member of the 1997 Alabama Academy of Honor and received the first CARE World Humanitarian Award in 1990. In 1975, Alexander City named him Man of the Year.

He and his wife, Luanne, have one daughter, Adelia (Dedie) Russell

Hendrix and a grandson, Benjamin.

JAMES THOMAS STEPHENS
Chairman of the Board, EBSCO Industries, Inc.
(1939- )

James Thomas Stephens has spent 46 years as an EBSCO employee, the company founded by his father Elton B. Stephens in 1944 to sell magazines and other items to the military.

Stephens is chairman of the board of EBSCO Industries, Inc., one of the most highly diversified companies in the world and one of the top privately-held companies, which manufactures items from duck decoys to fishing lures while maintaining its position as a leading subscription service.

He was born in Birmingham, the son of Elton Bryson Stephens and Alys Varian Robinson Stephens. He married Julia McDonald in1970. They have four children: Bryson David Dudley Stephens, Trent McDonald Stephens Lloyd, Bart William Robinson Stephens, Alys Fay Stephens, and six grandchildren.

He was educated in Birmingham public schools, and graduated from Yale University in 1961 with a degree in history. He earned an M.B.A. at Harvard in 1964.

His career with EBSCO began Sept. 1, 1962. He served as president from Oct. 30, 1970 through June 30, 2005, and has been chairman since 2002, through the company’s major growth to its status as a worldwide company of over 6,000 employees at 76 locations in 22 countries.

EBSCO is a widely diversified corporation with businesses in distribution, manufacturing, real estate development, and services. The company has annual sales of more than $2 billion and has subsidiaries located around the world. EBSCO Information Services is the largest subscription agency in the world serving libraries. EBSCO Publishing (EP), through its online platform, EBSCO host, is the world’s largest provider of online research databases to libraries. EP licenses content from over 75,000 publications and offers over 250 research databases to schools, public libraries, colleges, universities, hospitals, corporations, and government agencies.

PRADCO, a division of EBSCO, is the largest manufacturer of fishing lures in the United States with such brands as Rebel, Cotton Cordell, Heddon, Bomber, Yum, and Arbogast.

EBSCO is developing two “traditional neighborhood developments” at Mt Laurel in Shelby County, Ala., and Alys Beach on the North Florida Gulf Coast.

EBSCO donates 5 percent of its pre-tax profit to charity. Each $1 donated to the United Way by EBSCO’s employees is matched with $1.50 from EBSCO. EBSCO’s employees share in the profits as 15 percent of EBSCO’s pre-tax profit is returned to the employees through the EBSCO Savings and Profit Sharing Trust.

Stephens is a United States Army veteran and served as an infantry lieutenant, airborne qualified.

He has been an active supporter of education and is a past president of the board of trustees at Highlands School, Altamont School and at Birmingham-Southern College, where he also served as chairman of the academic affairs committee, and vice chairman of the board.

He is a past chairman of the board of the Boy Scouts of America Greater Alabama Council, a Distinguished Eagle Scout, recipient of the Silver Beaver Award, and sponsors the James T. Stephens Eagle Scout Scholarships.

His public service includes being a board member of the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System.

He is chairman of the Alabama Symphony Endowment Board.

The University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences inducted Stephens into its Hall of Fame in 2003, and Birmingham-Southern College awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Laws in 2000. He also received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from UA in 2007.

He is a major contributor to the Elton Bryson Stephens Science Laboratory Center and the Welcome Center at Birmingham-Southern College; the Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; the Alabama Symphonic Association, and Boy Scouts of America.

He is a member of the United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Society, and served as chair of the fundraising campaign for The University of Alabama’s School of Information Sciences in the 1990’s. He also chaired the “Campaign for Character” for the Greater Alabama Council for Boy Scouts of America, as well as the 2007 fundraising campaign for Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

He is a member of Canterbury United Methodist Church, enjoys traveling, reading history and international relations, and horseback riding.

Note to editors: Biographical information is included. Drawings or photos of the inductees are available electronically by phoning Bill Gerdes at 205/348-8318.