TUSCALOOSA, Ala. Six outstanding business and civic leaders will be inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame on Thursday, Oct. 12 at the Bryant Conference Center on The University of Alabama campus.
The 27th annual event, organized by UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, will honor businessmen Henry C. Goodrich, retired CEO of SONAT; Bill L. Harbert, president of Bill L. Harbert International Construction; Olin B. King, founder of SCI Systems Inc.; Harry H. Pritchett, founder of Pritchett-Moore Inc., a real estate and insurance company; Frederic W. Sington, founder of Fred Sington Sporting Goods; and Ernest G. Williams, retired chairman and CEO of Affiliated Papers Cos.
Founded in 1973 by the Board of Visitors of UA’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, among whom include George Washington Carver, William Albert Bellingrath, the late Mildred Westervelt Warner and William H. Blount.
The keynote speaker for the event will be Jack Stahl, president and CEO of Coca-Cola Inc. Stahl will address members of the business community and friends and families of the inductees at a 7:30 p.m. black tie dinner.
Stahl was the company’s youngest chief financial officer at age 36 and has served as president of the company’s U.S. and Canada operations. In his role as the company’s 20th president and chief operating officer, Stahl has responsibility for the North America, Latin America, Greater Europe, Africa and Middle East, and Asia Pacific operating groups, as well as the Minute Maid and the Schweppes Beverages Division.
Stahl is a 20-year veteran of the company, having served as president of Coca-Cola USA for five years during which he was responsible for fountain, bottle and can operations in the United States and Canada.
Stahl began his career in the finance division, where he worked in various positions including executive assistant to the chief financial officer; manager of investor relations; and manager of planning and business development. He was elected vice president and controller in 1988, and senior vice president and chief financial officer in 1989.
Stahl received his undergraduate degree from Emory University and holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania.
The University of Alabama Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, founded in 1919, is ranked 50th in the nation by U.S. News. Its Techno MBA program is ranked 4th nationally by Computerworld.
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Henry C. Goodrich
(1920 – )
Henry C. Goodrich was born in Fayetteville, Tenn., in 1920, the son of Dr. Charles L. Goodrich and Maude Baxter Goodrich. He attended grade school and high school in Fayetteville.
A year after Pearl Harbor, he received his bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and enlisted in the Navy. His overseas duty was in Panama, where he served as assistant public works officer at the naval air station.
In 1945, Goodrich went to work for Rust Engineering as a draftsman/designer. In 1950 Goodrich moved from the drafting table to the sales office. In 1956 he was named a vice president of the firm, and in 1961 he was made a senior vice president and a member of the Rust Board of Directors, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company.
In 1967 Rust was sold to Litton Industries, and Goodrich moved to Indianapolis, Ind. with Inland Container Corp. where he became executive vice president and director. In 1969 he was elected president and chief executive officer of Inland.
In 1972, Goodrich and three friends from Rust formed BE&K, a Birmingham engineering firm. Meanwhile, Inland continued to prosper and Goodrich was elected chairman of the board.
In 1979, Goodrich left Inland and became CEO of SONAT, the Birmingham-based energy company. Under Goodrich, the company set records for earnings and dividends increased.
In 1981 Goodrich was named the top CEO in the gas pipelines industry. He retired from SONAT four years later.
Goodrich has held directorships in a host of companies, and he has been active in a number of civic and philanthropic organizations. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and is registered as a professional engineer in 12 states. He is a member of the Newcomen Society and has received numerous professional and educational honors in Tennessee, Indiana and Alabama.
Bill L. Harbert
(1923- )
Bill LeBold Harbert, founder, CEO and chairman of Bill L. Harbert International Construction Co., of Birmingham, was born in Indianola, Miss., on July 21, 1923, the son of John Murdoch Harbert and Mae Hamilton Schooling.
Harbert attended Birmingham public schools and Auburn University. World War II cut his education short, and, in 1942 at age 20, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served in Europe from 1943 until 1946 and earned a Bronze Star for heroic or meritorious service. When Harbert returned to Alabama, he re-enrolled at Auburn University, where he received a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering in 1948. A few years later, in 1966, he attended the advanced management program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business.
In 1949, he and his brother, John, formed Harbert Construction Corp., and Bill Harbert managed the company’s construction operations, both foreign and domestic. He served as executive vice president until 1979 and as president and chief executive officer of Harbert International Inc., from 1979 until 1990. He served as vice chairman of the Board from 1990 until December 1991, at which time he bought a majority of the international operations of Harbert International Inc.
While the focus of Bill Harbert International Construction Inc. is overseas work, the company has expanded in the past decade and is involved in a number of construction projects within the United States.
The overseas work has included such high profile projects as a retail podium and parking structure for the Kuala Lumpur City Centre in Malaysia, the world’s tallest building. The firm has renovated embassies or consular offices in Hong Kong, New Delhi, Tanzania and a number of former Soviet republics.
The company has also been a leader in building and expanding water supply systems and water treatment systems in a number of countries and has been involved in renovating and building multinational force and observer camps in the Sinai and in airbase construction in the Negev Desert.
Harbert will take over as president of the International PipeLine Contractors Association next year, having served as director for several years and as 2nd vice president. He also has served as president and director of the PipeLine Contractors Association, U.S.A. He has been a member of the Construction Industry Presidents Forum since 1992 and a trustee and co-chairman of the Laborers’ National Pension Fund since 1968.
He attends Canterbury United Methodist Church and is a member of Vestavia Country Club and Riverchase Country Club. He served as director for the Birmingham Ballet and was on the board of the YMCA. He has been a member of the Birmingham Kiwanis Club since 1980 and is a member of the Monday Morning Quarterback Club.
He is currently on the Supporters Board of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Olin B. King
(1934- )
Olin Berry King, founder of SCI Systems Inc., of Huntsville, was born March 17, 1934, in Sandersville, Ga., the son of George Olin King and Elizabeth Berry King.
He studied physics and math at North Georgia College. Following graduation, he spent two years in Korea as a Signal Corps officer. He also took additional courses in engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University.
King started his business in 1961 in his Huntsville home. He and two partners pooled $21,000 to form Space Craft Inc., to design and build satellites. The company became a major subcontractor, building components and instrumentation for NASA’s Saturn V rockets.
SCI Systems Inc., with 6,000 employees in Huntsville, is now the city’s largest private employer and the state’s largest company, with 37 plants in 17 countries, and 31,500 employees worldwide. The company had sales of more than $8 billion for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2000.
In 1981, when SCI began making personal computers for IBM, sales rocketed from $46 million to $500 million by 1985. The company, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, now builds electronic products for several hundred companies.
Forbes magazine called SCI the “Kmart of the electronic industry.”
Before forming SCI, King worked as an engineer at RCA, then joined the Army’s ballistic missile program, arriving in Huntsville in 1957. Between 1957 and 1961 he helped build satellites and missiles with Werner von Braun.
A key reason for SCI’s success has been flexibility. When public and government attention turned from satellites to manned space programs, SCI began building electronic systems for the Saturn V rocket and other NASA and military missile projects.
When the space projects began to fade, the company began building cockpit controls and other electronic systems for military aircraft. In the mid-1970s, a number of large companies began looking for answers to the challenge of manufacturing electronic products. One answer was to contract with firms such as SCI to build the external equipment the companies designed. The company turned heads across the world when IBM chose it as the primary manufacturer for its original personal computer.
King is on the board of directors at Regions Financial Corp. and Regions Bank of Huntsville. He is a member of the Board of Trustees, The University of Alabama System, and a member of the University of Alabama in Huntsville Foundation, as well as a founding trustee of the Alabama Heritage Trust Fund and a founding director of the Alabama Supercomputer Network Authority.
His civic activities include serving as a founding member and past chairman of the Research Park Board of the City of Huntsville, director of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, the Huntsville Museum of Art, and the Huntsville Symphony, and a founding director of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation.
He was selected Alabama’s Chief Executive Officer of the Year by The Birmingham News in 1998 and won the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, in 1994. In 1984 he was named the National Management Association’s Executive of the Year, and, in 1997, he was named by Electronic Buyers News as one of “25 industry executives who made a difference,” and was called “the father of the contract electronic manufacturing services industry.”
Harry H. Pritchett
(1909-1981)
Harry Houghton Pritchett was born June 28, 1909, in Montgomery, the son of Edward Hill and Kate Louise Pritchett. The family moved to Tuscaloosa shortly after his birth and Pritchett attended Tuscaloosa schools.
At The University of Alabama, where he graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1930, Pritchett was one of the top golfers in the South and in the old Southern Conference, playing four years with the Alabama varsity golf team.
He won the Southern Intercollegiate in 1928 and won the Alabama Amateur title twice. He also won the Alabama Senior Golf tournament championship and won the medal for low score in the Southern Amateur tournament. He played in the United States Amateur Championship twice.
In 1936, he founded Pritchett Insurance Co. In 1940 Marlin Moore joined him and the business became Pritchett-Moore Inc., a real estate and insurance company. Later he was a founding partner and secretary-treasurer of Creative Displays Inc. of Tuscaloosa.
Pritchett helped mold many of Tuscaloosa’s institutions. He served on the City Board of Education for 30 years, helping lead the city school system and The University of Alabama through the integration crisis of the 1960s.
He also headed the Tuscaloosa Chamber of Commerce and other civic organizations during the post-war development explosion. He was president of the Alabama Association of Mutual Insurance Agencies and of the Alabama Real Estate Association. He served as first president of the Tuscaloosa Board of Realtors.
In 1949 he was named Citizen of the Year in Tuscaloosa. He was a past president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of Tuscaloosa County, and a member of the board of Alabama Gas Corp., the First National Bank of Tuskaloosa and the Alabama Chamber of Commerce.
In 1965 Pritchett received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for service to the University, where he was a member of the president’s cabinet. The University awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1979 and the Liberty Bell Law Award in 1981.
He headed the fund-raising campaign for the University Law Center. In 1979 the University of Alabama National Alumni Association named him distinguished alumnus of the year. He served as president of the Alabama Golf Association, the Southern Golf Association, and the Alabama Senior Golf Association.
Pritchett was an active and longtime supporter of historic preservation efforts and served on the Alabama Sesquicentennial Commission, as co-chairman of the Tuscaloosa County Bicentennial Commission and as a member of the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County.
Frederic William Sington
(1910-1998)
Fred Sington was born in Birmingham, February 14, 1910, the son of Max and Hallye Spiro Sington. He attended Phillips High School and later The University of Alabama, where he was a member of Alabama’s 1931 Rose Bowl team and an All-America tackle for three straight years, as well as a three-year letterman and an All-America in baseball.
Following his graduation in 1931, he became an assistant football coach at Duke University before embarking on a career in professional sports. For the next 10 years he played professional baseball with the Atlanta Crackers, the Washington Senators and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
When World War II began, he entered the Navy and served as a lieutenant junior grade from 1942 until 1946. After the war, in 1947, Sington began his business career, Fred Sington Sporting Goods, opening a store in downtown Birmingham on Fifth Avenue North.
His sporting goods business eventually spread into Homewood, Huntsville, Mountain Brook, Gadsden, Athens and Scottsboro. In 1986 he sold his sporting goods business to Hibbett Sporting Goods but remained with the firm as a sales consultant.
Sington was a former president of the Birmingham Football Foundation and was a guiding force in creating the first Hall of Fame Bowl, which was played in Birmingham in 1977. The game later become the All-American Bowl and continued for several years.
In 1972 he was president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and belonged to the “A” Club, Grand Order of the Krewe, Masons, and Shriners. He served as a board member for numerous business and civic organizations. He was president of The University of Alabama National Alumni Association and was a member of the UA President’s Council.
His professional memberships included serving as president and treasurer of the National Sporting Goods Association and as chairman of the organization’s Hall of Fame Committee.
He was elected to the National Football Hall of Fame in 1955 and received The University of Alabama Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1967. In 1970 he was awarded the Pat Trammell Award for distinguished service to the University, and in 1972 was the Junior Achievement Man of the Year and was awarded the Erskine Ramsey Award for distinguished service to the Birmingham area. That same year he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and, two years later, the Southern Athletic Hall of Fame.
Ernest G. Williams
(1915-)
Ernest Going Williams was born in Macon, Miss., on Sept. 24, 1915, the son of Augustus Gaines and Mary Sanford Williams. The family moved to Tuscaloosa when Ernest was 5.
He attended Tuscaloosa schools and graduated in 1938 from The University of Alabama with a degree in business. In 1942, at the outbreak of World War II, he entered the Navy’s officer training program and was commissioned as an ensign. He served aboard the U.S.S. Kaskaskia and the U.S.S. Severn in the South Pacific. After three years of active duty, he returned to Tuscaloosa to become treasurer at the University.
In 1956, Williams was involved in escorting Autherine Lucy, the first black student at UA, off campus when a mob had gathered nearby. Later that year, Williams left the University and joined First National Bank of Tuscaloosa as a vice president and member of the board and was elected to the UA Board of Trustees as the school’s third local trustee.
In 1958 Williams resigned his position at the bank and became vice president for finance and treasurer at Gulf States Paper and a member of its board of directors. In 1977, Williams left Gulf States and organized Affiliated Paper Cos., where he became chairman and chief executive officer.
Under his leadership for 17 years, the corporation grew to 264 affiliated companies with total sales of more than $2.2 billion in 1994, the year Williams retired at age 78.
Williams’ tenure as a trustee of The University of Alabama spanned 30 years, 26 of which were on the executive committee.
In February of 1999, the University presented Williams the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, which recognizes excellence of character and service to humanity.
Note: Short biographical sketches attached. For full program bios, contact Bill Gerdes at 205/348-8318.
Contact
Bill Gerdes, UA Business Writer, 205/348-8318