Charles Watkins Adair

Charles Watkins Adair, age 93, passed away on April 13, 2017 at his home in Birmingham. Visitation will be held on Tuesday April 18th at 1:00 at Faith Presbyterian Church on Valleydale Road in Birmingham with a memorial service at 2:00.

Mr. Adair is survived by his loving wife of 70 years, Martha Edd Adair, three children Charles E. Adair, Marcia Adair Strickland and William Gregg Adair, 7 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

Born in 1923 in Dora, Alabama to William Fred and Frances Esther Adair, he began his working life as a laborer in a blast furnace and along the way held a variety of professional and managerial positions with companies whose names are synonymous with Birmingham’s development as a 20th century city.

Adair graduated from Bessemer High School in 1941, and went to work in the iron ore mines. Two years later, he found himself in the middle of World War II, serving for eight months in the Army Infantry before moving over to the Army Air Corps. While in the Air Corps, he served in the 20th Air Force in the South Pacific as a flight engineer on a C-46 cargo plane.

When the war ended he returned home and attended The University of Alabama, where he received an accounting education, and went to work at U.S. Steel Corporation.

His next move was over to Woodward Iron Company in 1948, where he held various positions in accounting and finance, and in 1966, was named Vice President of Finance and Controller, positions he held when Woodward merged with Mead Corporation.

He was promoted to Executive Vice President of the Mead’s Woodward Division in October 1971 and a few months later was named President of Mead’s Iron and Metals Group and Group Vice President of Mead Corporation.

In 1982 he retired from Mead to become Vice President and Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer at the Drummond Company. In 1983 Drummond promoted him to President and Chief Executive Officer of Alabama By-Products Corporation, a coke

facility in Tarrant, Alabama. Three years later he became Executive Vice President of Administration at Drummond, before retiring from that position in 1989.

Drummond called again in 1994, this time asking him to handle the start-up duties at Rancho La Quinta Country Club in La Quinta, California. This was a ready-made position for Adair.

He loved the game of golf and cherished the competition and friendships cultivated on the course. Friends were made and bets were won at Woodward Country Club, Gulf Shores Golf Club, Old Overton and Shoal Creek where he served as President for two terms.

He served on the boards at Drummond Company, Ford Tool and Carbide Company, Inc., Central Bank (now BBVA Compass), AmSouth Bank-Birmingham, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama and Alabama By-Products Corporation. He was inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame in 2007.

He had a long history of civic involvement, including serving on the boards of Fellowship House, the Boy Scouts of Central Alabama, St. Anne’s Home, as President of the Regional Council on Alcoholism, as Chairman of the Baptist Hospital Foundation, the United Way of Central Alabama, the Bessemer Committee of One Hundred and the Bessemer Chamber of Commerce. He is a former member of the Birmingham Rotary Club and a member and elder at Briarwood Presbyterian Church.

Special thanks to his caregivers Nadine McFarland, Monique Jordan, Veronica Nash, Sharita Mines and Chrissy Warren, RN with Oasis Hospice.

In lieu of flowers the family asks that donations be made to, Biblical Marriage Institute, Box 59561, Birmingham, Al 35259, The Charles W. and Martha Edd Adair Endowed Scholarship, The University of Alabama, Box 870122, Tuscaloosa, Al 35487, or the charitable organization of your choice.