BusinessTN

Who are Tennessee's greatest business people, historically speaking? It's a question we put before our readership every year. That input again serves as a starting point in selecting the newest inductees into the BusinessTN Leadership Hall of Fame.

Inductees past and present have made a lasting impact on their industries and on business in the Volunteer State. Native to the state or not, they have helped define Tennessee's business identity. This round of inductees, the fourth group to be enshrined, again remains heavy on history and light on modern-day business leaders. After all, today's top CEOs would be hard-pressed to match up with the over two centuries of business history in Tennessee. (Though present day is catching up.)

As the only statewide business magazine in Tennessee, BusinessTN embraces its roles as both a modern-day chronicler of important business news and as a historian of bygone business days across Tennessee. It is a privilege to present what remains a first-of-its-kind hall of fame for business people across Tennessee. By recognizing such business stalwarts, we celebrate the role of free enterprise in benefiting everyday lives. And hope to perpetuate it.

A.M. Burton
1879-1966
NASHVILLE

Raised on a tobacco farm in Trousdale County, Andrew Mizell Burton barely received any formal education. He eventually got a job in Nashville working as an employee at the Tennessee Centennial grounds. Over time, he secured a better job—selling insurance. When the company he worked for went out of business, Burton decided to start his own insurance company and got buy-in from a handful of investors, including Guilford Dudley Sr., the father of one of Burton’s eventual successors as company president. The Life and Casualty (L&C) Insurance Co. of Tennessee launched in 1903, eventually becoming one of the largest insurance firms in America and a key contributor in making Nashville a leading insurance center in the South. Burton was president for nearly half a Century and for many years had a vision for a skyscraper in downtown Nashville. After his retirement, the L&C Tower was built, providing the city with an impressive corporate landmark—the tallest structure in the southeastern United States at the time it opened. Burton is also credited for his significant role in building up Nashville-based Lipscomb University.

William "Billy" Dunavant Jr.
1932-Present
MEMPHIS

Educated at McCallie School in Chattanooga, Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Memphis State University in Memphis, Dunavant took over his family’s cotton merchandising company in 1961 at age 29. What was then a troubled company that handled roughly 100,000 bales of cotton annually—predominantly domestically—would by the turn of the Century create a global market for U.S. cotton and sell more than four billion bales in more than 80 countries internationally (including China, where Dunavant in 1973 negotiated the first U.S. cotton sale in the Communist country). Prosperity came from Dunavant’s early use of venture speculating on future cotton prices. Still chairman of his company (he retired as CEO in 2005), Dunavant, who, ironically, is allergic to cotton, remains a local business icon with a long history of involvement in Memphis community-building initiatives. (Dunavant had a controlling interest in the USFL’s Memphis Showboats and also is the reason Ducks Unlimited located its headquarters in Memphis.) Dunavant Mozambique, an agricultural program improving cotton yields in Africa, was awarded an $8 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2007.

Luke Lea
1879-1945
NASHVILLE

Nashville-area native Lea, a descendant of fellow Hall of Famer John Overton, went to school at the University of the South at Sewanee, where he served as manager/team trainer for the university’s 1899 football team that played and beat (skunked, actually) five big name university opponents on a six-day, 2,500 mile road trip. (Lea is credited with scheduling the trip.) After earning a law degree from Columbia University (Lea edited the Columbia Law Review), he returned to Nashville to practice law. His dramatic rise as a political force came after he took control of the 1906 Democratic state convention. A year later, he founded The Tennessean, influencing public policy measures ranging from women’s suffrage to the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In concert with fellow Hall of Famer Rogers Caldwell, Lea later acquired the Knoxville Journal and the Memphis Commercial Appeal. He donated Percy Warner Park in Belle Meade to the city of Nashville. After the Great Depression, though, Lea’s fortunes reversed. He lost the newspapers, much of his real estate, and faced investigations involving banks with which he was associated. Lea was eventually convicted of banking law violations in North Carolina and served three years in prison there, though he maintained his innocence. He spent the rest of his life doing public relations in the nation’s capitol.

Robert J. Maclellan
1874-1956
CHATTANOOGA

Maclellan’s father Thomas, a Scottish immigrant, bought Provident Life and Accident Insurance Companies (today called Unum Group) in the late 1800s. After working with the U.S. Engineers, as an accountant with Citizens Bank and Trust and as a cashier with Richmond Cotton Oil, Robert J., a Canadian by birth, joined his father at the company in 1905. He became Provident’s president in 1916 after the death of his father. Under his leadership, the company grew from $350,000 in assets, working in three states, to $120 million, working nationwide. He stepped down as president in 1952, handing the company to his son, Bob. Robert remained chairman of the board until his death four years later. One of the country’s leading insurance executives and one of Chattanooga’s most respected citizens, Maclellan also served as a director of American National Bank, a trustee of the University of Chattanooga and a director of Maryville College, where he received an honorary doctorate degree. He also donated Chattanooga Island in the Tennessee River to the Chattanooga Audubon Society for development as a wildlife sanctuary. In 1945, Robert, his sister Dora Maclellan Brown and Bob formed the Maclellan Foundations, which provide financial and leadership resources geared toward fostering the spiritual welfare of the Chattanooga community.

Preston Taylor
1849-1931
NASHVILLE

A Louisiana native born of slave parents, Taylor, a minister, had his first business success in Kentucky as a contractor who built sections of the Big Sandy Railway to Virginia. Three years after arriving in Nashville, Taylor established Greenwood, which was then the city’s second oldest cemetery for African Americans, and later founded a funeral company. After the turn of the Century, Taylor built a massive recreational park, which for many years hosted the state’s annual fair for African Americans. He later was a founder of One Cent (Citizens) Savings and Trust Company Bank. He also played a key role in the battle against inequality when he helped establish the Union Transportation Co., Nashville’s only African-American–owned public transport corporation, in the aftermath of a boycott against Nashville’s public transit. One of Nashville’s wealthiest and most powerful black leaders of his day, Preston Taylor’s name can be found throughout Music City, manifested in places such as the Preston Taylor Homes public housing development, the Preston Taylor Boys & Girls Club and Preston Taylor Ministries, an inner-city ministry in West Nashville.

Prior Inductees

Roy Acuff (2006)
Rogers Caldwell (2007)
George Lafayette Carter (2006)
Joel Cheek (2008)
Robert Reed Church (2006)
Edwin Craig (2007)
Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel (2007)
Thomas "Tommy" F. Frist Jr. (2006)
James A. (Jim) Haslam II (2008)
J.R. "Pitt" Hyde III (2008)
Erskine Bronson Ingram (2008)
Andrew Jackson (2006)
Col. James King (2008)
John T. Lupton (2007)
John Thomas "Jack" Lupton II (2007)
Samuel Evans "S.E." Massengill (2007)
Jack C. Massey (2006)
Lem Motlow (2007)
James C. Napier (2008)
Adolph Ochs (2007)
Ralph S. Peer (2007)
Sam Phillips (2006)
Abe Plough (2006)
Fred Rose (2006)
Clarence Saunders (2006)
Frederick W. Smith (2006)
Benjamin "B.F." Thomas (2006)
Kemmons Wilson (2006)