Former Bowater mill manager, Clarence Hornsby ‘worked hard,’ had ‘good heart’

When Barry Baker arrived each morning at the Bowater mill in Catawba, he checked the parking lot outside his window. If Clarence Hornsby’s car was in its familiar slot outside Baker’s window, “I just felt better, knowing he was in the building,” said Baker, the company’s retired human resources director.

For more than 30 years, Baker and others shared that feeling as Hornsby quietly and steadily advanced through the Bowater corporate ladder. He started as the groundwood superintendent in 1961, coming from a mill in Pine Bluff, Ark. He rose to manager of the Catawba mill in 1978, a position he held until he retired in 1991.

Hornsby earned so much respect that colleagues put his name on the list of who earned the title, “Mr. Bowater.” It’s a short list: plant managers Bob Herdman, Clarence Hornsby and D.A. Humphrey.

But Hornsby was so much more to his community, serving on the boards at York Technical College, Clinton Junior College and the Palmetto Volunteers in Medicine, on the State Commission for Technical Education, as a professor in the executive MBA program at Winthrop University, and as a member of St. John’s United Methodist Church for more than 50 years.

Hornsby, 88, died Saturday. A funeral service was held Tuesday at St. John’s.

Friends and colleagues on Tuesday said Hornsby had a quiet, but decisive-style of leadership. He didn’t dominate when he walked in the room, but he gave those there the confidence that the task at hand would be done.

“Clarence worked hard at it, but some of it was born of a good heart,” said Mike Forrest, who retired as mill manager four years ago.

Some of Hornsby’s people skills were inherited from his predecessor at Bowater, Bob Herdman, Forrest said. But, more than likely, Herdman and Hornsby learned from each other over the years as each spent most of his working life at the Catawba mill.

Bob Gardner worked at Bowater for 33 years with Hornsby, rising to plant engineer.

“He was the fairest man I’ve ever met,” Gardner said. “He was not after personal glory.”

Gardner said Hornsby’s military service – on the U.S.S. Torrance attack cargo ship in World War II and with the U.S. Air Force in the Korean War – influenced him. Hornsby also was a fervent student, always wanting to learn something new. He earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Auburn University and a master’s degree from the Harvard University School of Business Management.

Hornsby oversaw the the expansion of the Catawba mill to one of the leading industry producers for coated paper, newsprint and market pulp. During Hornsby’s tenure, mill employment rose to as high as 1,400 workers, making it one of the leading employers in York County.

He was so respected in the industry that he served a term as president of the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry. “He was one of the better leaders in our industry,” said Elvin Walker, who succeeded Hornsby as plant manager. “I would rank him as the top boss I worked for. He went out of his way to make me successful.”

Hornsby once described his style of leadership in an Evening Herald story as, teacher, coach and cheerleader.

“I try not to ever fuss at people. They come to the right decision on their own,” Hornsby said.

But Irwin Plowden, a friend and fellow member of St. John’s, said, “Hornsby led by example, he was a low-key sort of person, but he would light a fire under you. He was straight forward.”

While working for Bowater, Hornsby joined with community leaders to advance the efforts of York Technical College. He served on the college’s board and helped form the York Tech Foundation, the private fundraising arm of the college.

“He was always a good listener and he picked great people to work with him,” said Ed Duffy, now retired as the vice president for development at York Tech. “He never made you feel like he was above you. He was so respectful, and all the things he touched were successful.”

Hornsby saw the need for education at all levels, be it at York Tech or Winthrop University.

“In our Executive MBA program, Clarence Hornsby was the perfect teacher at the perfect place in our curriculum,” said Roger Weikle, dean of Winthrop’s College of Business Administration. “His strategy course was the capstone course in the final semester of the program. He put all the points the students had covered together into a very applied appraisal. He understood things at a very high level. Personally, he was patient. All the budding young executives admired him and wanted to grow up in their careers to be just like him.”

Among those students was Mike Forrest, who Hornsby had mentored at Bowater. “The biggest lesson we learned from him was to always learn new things. That’s the way he carried himself,” Forrest said.

This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Former Bowater mill manager, Clarence Hornsby ‘worked hard,’ had ‘good heart’."