Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 17, 1995 TAG: 9501170120
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hancock's powerful presence filled the meeting room anyway.
``We felt he was there with us,'' said Joe Crawford, the company's assistant vice president and secretary. The company's record sales and third-highest earnings from operations last year helped heighten that feeling, he said.
The shareholders re-elected 10 members to the board of directors, choosing to leave vacant the seat once occupied by Hancock. He was chairman of the board's executive committee when he died March3.
As a tribute to the man who risked all to start up the Southeast's first electric mini-mill, chairman and chief executive officer Donald G. Smith conceived and commissioned a memorial book that traces Hancock's life and his philanthropic work on behalf of Roanoke. Five thousand copies were printed for distribution to company shareholders and Hancock's friends.
The book contains a series of reminiscences taken from interviews by John Lambert Associates, a Roanoke public relations firm, with people who knew Hancock best. They range from former Gov. Linwood Holton, a weekend fishing partner with Hancock, to Frank Basham, manager of Hancock's 2,000-acre farm on Smith Mountain Lake.
``He'd stand in the boat, staring into the water, anticipating,'' Holton recalled, ``and then he'd yell out to us, 'I want that one.' When he caught a fish, he'd take great delight in telling us it was just the one he had in mind.''
Basham remembered how, every Friday night for 40 years, Hancock would come down to the farm and the two men would sit together for hours and talk. The subjects would range from ethics to world affairs. ``I didn't have much education, but he'd talk to me in language I could understand,'' Basham said. One night, Basham gave up his chair to an influential visitor. ``After he left, Mr. Hancock put his hand on my shoulder, looked me straight in the eye, and said, `Frank, don't you give up your chair for anybody.'''
Among other contributors to these remembrances are Gordon Willis, chairman of Rockydale Quarries Corp.; Clifford A. Cutchins III, retired chairman of Sovran Financial Corp. (now part of NationsBank Corp.); George Cartledge Sr., founder of Grand Piano and Furniture Co.; and Frank Clement, former president of Shenandoah Life Insurance Co.
Clement remembered how Hancock was determined that Roanoke would achieve racial desegregation peacefully, even as riots and violence gripped other Southern cities.
Hancock and Bob Burrell, a leader in the black community, put together a team of black and white business leaders who talked privately with white business people about changing their segregation policies, Clement recalled. ``First, they took on the lunch counters, then the theaters, then hospitals. It was all done quietly. ... In little more than a year, the city's segregation barriers disappeared. And there was absolutely no turmoil.''
Hancock was born in Roanoke Aug. 7, 1904, making him 89 at the time of his death. He studied mining engineering at Virginia Tech and attended the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. The first part of the book traces his life history and how he started Roanoke Electric Steel after becoming frustrated when he was unable to secure a reliable supply of steel for the floor and roof support business he started after World War II. It talks about his quiet philanthropy and support of schools, colleges and civic projects such as Center in the Square and Explore Park and organizations such as the Salvation Army and Junior Achievement.
The book paints a portrait of what some might call a true local hero.
``I knew him and worked with him on many projects,'' Lambert said. ``He truly had the best interest of the Roanoke Valley at heart. He didn't want recognition or credit for things.''
The corporation that Hancock built finished one of its best years ever Oct. 31, earning $8.8 million on record sales of $215.8 million.
Smith told shareholders that the 1995 fiscal year is shaping up as another good one, with November and December earnings running well ahead of year-earlier months. Also, the four-month backlog of orders is the longest in the company's history.
In November, the company brought on line its new automobile shredder plant and landfill in Franklin County, replacing a problem-plagued plant in Bedford County. The facility is expected to save money as well as provide a steady flow of raw materials to the company's Roanoke furnaces. And in December, after a lengthy process, the company obtained environmental permits for a new ladle furnace that will improve quality, increase production and add to earnings after its anticipated 1996 start-up.
by CNB