Sloan Bashinsky Sr

Sloan Young Bashinsky, Sr (born November 2, 1919 in Troy, Pike County; died August 2, 2005 in Birmingham) was chairman and CEO of Golden Flake Foods.

Bashinsky attended Princeton University before leaving to join the Army Air Corps in 1940. He trained as a pilot and B-29 navigator/bombardier in Boca Raton, Florida and in Iowa. He was stationed in Guam for the remainder of the war. Afterwards he was offered a job in Cleveland, Ohio, but instead returned to Birmingham with the promise of being set up in business by his father Leo E. Bashinsky.

Leo and his brother-in-law Cyrus Case had purchased Magic City Foods for $1 million from Helen Friedman. Sloan started out as a route driver and worked his way up the ladder until he took charge of the company in 1956. He changed the name to "Golden Flake" to focus on its popular potato chip brand and initiated construction of a new corporate headquarters in Titusville.

Bashinsky oversaw the change to a publicly traded corporation in 1968 and diversified his investments, buying Steel City Bolt and Screw, Frank Taylor Advertising, Nall Associates, and numerous oil wells. He stepped down as president in 1972, but returned in 1984 for a one-year term. He served as CEO from 1976 to 1991 and as chairman of the board from 1972 until his death.

Bashinsky was active in civic projects, serving on the boards of directors for the Eye Foundation Hospital and St. Vincent's Foundation, and on the board of trustees for Samford University. His $3 million gift to the University of Alabama's Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration in 1992 funded a computer center named in his honor. Bashinsky was inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame (administered by Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration) in 1993.

At his death, Bashinksy's corporate holdings were placed in a common stock trust, SYB, Inc., with his widow Joann as beneficiary.

References

• Nicholson, Gilbert (May 24, 2002) "Golden Enterprises makes 'South's original potato chip'." Birmingham Business Journal

External links

• Sloan Y. Bashinsky, Sr. at the Alabama Business Hall of Fame
• "In Memoriam: Sloan Y. Bashinsky Sr." (Fall 2005) The Executive. Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration