National Football Foundation

John H. McConnell, founder and chairman emeritus of Worthington Industries and recipient of this year's National Football Foundation Gold Medal Award, the Foundation's highest honor, is said to be to business what Vince Lombardi was to coaching. He is one of a kind; outstanding in business, tireless in his service to community.

Jon F. Hanson, Foundation chairman, calls McConnell "a visionary in the world of business and industry and a humanitarian in every sense of the word".

The business saga of John McConnell is truly the stuff of which legends are made. With a bank account of $1,200 and a bank loan of S600 (using his three-year old Oldsmobile as collateral) McConnell founded Worthington Industries; now an international manufacturing company that has annual revenues of approximately two billion dollars.

McConnell grew up in the days of the Great Depression. His father worked in a pump house that supplied water to the local steel mill and the city of Weirton, West Virginia. John McConnell didn't know the luxury of electricity until he was 12 and it was a few years later that indoor plumbing was installed. He has said those early days instilled in him the philosophy which he carried into business and the way he has treated the people who have worked with him over the years. "It just came natural" he said. "You don't cheat. You don't lie. You help your neighbor. The Golden Rule. All of that was part of it."

The Worthington Golden Rule has always been, "We treat our customers, employees, investors and suppliers as we would like to be treated." Employees carry a card with that motto on it.

After he graduated from high school, McConnell started work as a laborer at the local steel mill, Weirton Steel Corporation. Then came World War II. McConnell went into the Navy and served on the famed aircraft carrier USS Saratoga. When his military hitch ended he enrolled at Michigan State University under the G.I. Bill. He also earned a football scholarship and played offensive guard for the Spartans.

After graduation from Michigan State he worked in sales for several steel companies, including Weirton. It did not take the hard-working McConnell long to decide he wanted to be in business for himself. He decided to open his own steel brokering business. That's when he took his net worth of $1,200 and a loan on his car to buy $1,800 worth of steel. He and his wife then set up shop in the basement of their apartment. The company was named Worthington Industries.

In those early years McConnell called himself "an under-capitalized capitalist". In that first year, 1955, Worthington Industries had five employees and one piece of equipment. However, it also had John McConnell. Worthington sales volume that first year totaled S350,000 and his profit was $14,000. He was on his way.

It wasn't easy, of course. McConnell remembers the first three years as "hard". He recalled the experience, saying, "We didn't have any money. When you have to meet a payroll every Friday and you don't have any money in the bank, that's tough."

At first, McConnell was a steel broker serving as an independent connection between the mill and customers. After five months he found himself several thousand dollars in the red, but the loss was wiped out after he installed a small facility in Whitehall, Ohio, a slitter line for cutting steel to specification. He never had a losing month since.

McConnell stepped down as chairman of the company in 1996, passing the baton to his son, John P. McConnell. By that time net income had surpassed $91 million; quite an increase over Worthington's first year gross sales of $350,000.

In Columbus, McConnell is known as "Mr. Mac" and he has devoted much of his energy to civic affairs. He founded the McConnell Heart Health Center, he owns the Columbus Blue Jackets National Hockey team, is chairman of the Law Enforcement Foundation of Ohio, chairman of the board of the Ohio Health Corporation and director of the GMI Engineering and Management Institute.

The honors have been many. McConnell was named Outstanding Chief Executive of the Year by Financial World Magazine. Industry Week presented him its Award for Excellence in Management. He has also received the Horatio Alger Award, the Ohio Governor's Award, the American Heart Association Heart Health Award and was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Southern Illinois University.

He was inducted into the Columbus Hall of Fame this past October.