By John H. Houvouras
HQ 5 | AUTUMN 1990
The Saturday morning fog had barely lifted from the road when Marshall Reynolds arrived at work.
Waiting alone inside the building, a young man grew nervous. He had come to see Reynolds early that morning about a business proposal – a business dream. He had come to se Reynolds at the advice of his father and a number of Huntington business leaders. “If you want some real advice,” he remembers them all saying, “then go see ‘The Man’.”
Reynolds slowly entered the building, walking with a determined, deliberate pace. His posture conveyed utter confidence. He wore an old T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans and cowboy boots. “I’ll be with you in a moment, young man,” he says as he head back to his office.
At 8:05, another man enters the building and walks back to Reynold’s office. The young man recognizes his face from the newspaper – he is A. Michael Perry, chairman of Key Centurion Bancshares.
At 8:10, the phone rings and he overhears Reynolds say, “Good Morning Governor. What can I do for you?”
By 8:30, the waiting area outside Reynolds’ office is filled with the likes of the director of the United Way, the president of Marshall University and the Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates. The young man grows increasingly anxious.
At 8:31, Reynolds emerges from his office to a crowded waiting area.
“Son,” he says quietly pointing to the young man, “you were here first, come on back.”
Seated behind a humble desk cluttered with paper work, Reynolds stares at the youth with his piercing, steel-blue eyes. He massages his eyebrows and sips a cup of coffee. Nothing is said.
In the silence of the moment, the young man is forced to stare back into Reynolds’ eyes.
The words “The eyes are the windows of the soul” immediately consume his mind. Suddenly, the young man realizes what the words mean. Suddenly, he realizes he is starring into the eyes of an extraordinary man.
West End Boy
He was born in Logan. W. Va., and moved to Huntington with his family when he was six. Growing up in the west end of town and attending Vinson High School are times he remembers as frustrating.
“There was no damn money,” he recalled in 1987. “I hustled grass all day on a pretty Saturday and if I was lucky, by 5 p.m., I had enough money to ride a bus uptown, go to a movie, and ride home. There seemed to be a lot of dead ends leading out of there.”
At Vinson High School, Reynolds excelled as an athlete playing both football and basketball.
“For his size, he was the toughest player I ever saw.” Noted a former competitor.
When Reynolds wasn’t competing on the playing field, he could often be found fighting in the ring. On weekends, Reynolds and a handful of friends would drive to Bluefield and fight for spending money – $25 to be exact. According to hearsay, Reynolds also was pretty tough in the ring rarely, if ever, losing a fight.
Upon graduation from Vinson, Reynolds held a number of odd jobs while attending classes at Marshall University. However, he never earned his degree. He worked as a chrome plater at Huntington Plating, Inc., an assembly line worker at KYOWVA Corrugated Box (a company he and his former boss would later resurrect from obscurity) and as a clean-up boy for a small company by the name of Chapman Printing. It was there that the makings of a local empire were born.
The Entrepreneur
Reynolds was always characterized by his former employers as “one hell of a hard worker.” And it was that hard work that enabled him to climb the company ladder at Chapman Printing. After a short period as clean-up boy, Reynolds was promoted to delivery boy, then pressman and later salesman.
In December of 1959, Reynolds’ boss, John Chapman, became ill and was forced to turn his company over to his top salesman – Marshall Reynolds. During the two years that Reynolds ran the company, Chapman Printing made more money than ever before.
However, in February 1962, Reynolds’ success as acting general manager of the company was interrupted when he was drafted into the army where he served two years in Germany.
Reynolds returned from Germany and started his own printing company in Huntington with his good friend, John Harrah.
Precision Printing was the name of the company that Reynolds and Harrah ran from a garage in Guyandotte. It wasn’t long after starting up the company that John Chapman learned of Reynolds’ venture. Still ill and his business in trouble, Chapman offered to sell his company to his former clean-up boy.
I’ll own this damn bank one day
In an attempt to raise the money needed to buy out John Chapman, Reynolds went looking for a $2,800 loan.
“I was turned down by every bank in Huntington,” he later recalled. “I started on the east side of Huntington and headed west. I guess if the Ceredo Bank hadn’t given me the loan, by now I’d be in California trying to get that damn thing.”
Along the way, Reynold stopped in at The First Huntington National Bank. Like many of the banks before, he was abruptly turned down. Frustrated and tired, Reynolds stormed out of the bank. “I’ll own this damn bank one day,” he was heard to say as he left the building in anger.
In the end, Reynolds did get the loan, and on Nov. 12, 1964, he and John Harrah bought the Chapman Printing Co. Mrs. Lora Dell Fetty, an office worker with Chapman Printing at the time, later recalled that when Reynolds arrived to start work, John Chapman squared his shoulders, shook Reynolds’ hand, and left the building. Marshall Reynolds had just closed his biggest deal to date.
I understand we have a date Saturday night
At 29, Reynolds was an eligible bachelor. His former secretary remembers that Reynolds often dated, but knew his bachelor days were numbered when she noticed him acting peculiar one day.
“One afternoon,” she described, “ he walked over to the door and looked over to the door and looked over at the Guaranty National Bank. I never saw that expression on his face before or since. He looked like a lovesick school boy.”
“I said to him, ‘No use looking over there, Marshall. I saw her leave five minutes ago.’ And, that’s all that was ever said.”
The woman Reynolds was looking for was a beautiful young bank teller by the name of Shirley.
In an attempt to get a date with her, Reynolds asked one of the other girls at the bank to ask Shirley if she would go to a dance with him. When asked by her girlfriend, Shirley responded, “Why don’t you tell Mr. Reynolds to come in and ask for himself.”
In his own way, Reynolds did just that. He walked into the bank one morning, approached Shirley, and said with confidence, “I understand we have a date Saturday night.”
“Are you trying to ask me for a date?” Shirley responded.
“Well something like that, “ Reynolds said.
Their first date was nothing short of disastrous. Shirley did not find Reynolds’ confidence engaging at first. At the dance, she wasn’t feeling well and turned down Reynolds’ first invitation to dance. When he asked a second time, she still wasn’t feeling well and said “Not right now.” With that, Reynolds politely said, “Excuse me,” and walked off.
“I thought he was going to the restroom,” Shirley recalled.
Instead, Reynolds walked over to another table and asked a young lady to dance.
Said Shirley, “I thought to myself: ‘Oh, I can’t stand this guy. He’s so cocky.’”
Shirley also remembers thinking that she’d never go out with him again. But, she did. Two months later, while sitting alone at a coffee shop,, she looked up and saw Reynolds walking by. “He simply said hello to me and I got butterflies,” she recalled. “I thought ‘Why am I feeling this way? I don’t even like this guy.’”
At the time, Shirley was engaged. However, one Friday afternoon, Reynolds spotted her in front of The First Huntington National Bank. He was preparing to leave town on business when, having heard the news of her engagement, he walked over to her and said, “Don’t do anything foolish while I’m gone.” It was then her feelings for Reynolds changed. “I could see this soft spot in his heart.”
In August of 1967, after a long romance, Reynolds showed up at her home with a ring.
“I think you’ve been kicked around a lot and I really want to take care of you,” he said.
The two were married in March of 1968 in Roanoke, Va. – an elopement of sorts. Reynolds, who was extremely busy with his growing company, gave his fiancee two days notice before the wedding.
The Sleeping Giant
When Marshall Reynolds boldly informed the loan officers at The First Huntington National Bank that he would own their “damn bank” one day, he wasn’t kidding. Unbeknownst to the Huntington business community, Reynolds began accumulating large blocks of stock in the bank in the late 1970s. As his printing business grew, so did his shares in the bank.
It was during this period that Reynolds linked up with one of Huntington’s top attorneys, a man by the name of A. Michael Perry. At the time, Reynolds wanted to purchase some equipment from The First Huntington National Bank for his printing company, and, as legal counsel for the bank, it was Perry’s job to draw up the contract. After the deal was finalized, Perry remembers receiving a phone call from what he thought was a very angry Marshall Reynolds.
Reynolds accused Perry of getting the better of him in the contract.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Perry responded, “and I don’t appreciate your accusation.”
“Oh Bull!” Reynolds countered. “All I’m trying to do is pay you a compliment. What I’m trying to say is would you do as good a job for me as you did for the bank?”
From that conversation a very special relationship was born. Perry and Reynolds were an ideal match. As a lawyer, Perry was conservative, defensive. Reynolds, on the other hand, was a hungry entrepreneur with the natural inclination to take the offensive.
As the years progressed, Reynolds closed in on gaining controlling interest in the bank. And, in 1980, be bought a large block of stock that put him in control as chief stockholder. After gaining power at the bank, Reynolds convinced his good friend A. Michael Perry to take over as president. And, with Reynolds and Perry at the helm, a local banker at the time was heard to say, “They have just awakened a sleeping giant.” A sleeping giant indeed. Today, nearly nine years to the date that Reynolds and Perry took over, First Huntington is part of the largest bank holding company in West Virginia. Key Centurion Bancshares, with more than 15 affiliates and $3 billion in assets, is the culmination of Reynolds’ vision. The power base that he would use so effectively in the years to come was now firmly in place. There would be no stopping his ascent.
The Master Chess Player
What makes Marshall Reynolds so successful cannot easily be defined. He is a number of different people with remarkable talent. But, first and foremost, he is a salesman.
In his early days as a salesman for Chapman Printing, Reynolds often found unique ways to close deals. A documented example of his determination and creativity involved an aloof customer who had refused to see Reynolds on several different occasions. Finally, in an attempt to capture the man’s attention, Reynolds thew a baseball through his second floor office window. The man, obviously shocked, stuck his head out of the broken window. Standing underneath the window, Reynolds said, “I guess you want to see me now.” The most ironic twist? Reynolds closed the deal.
Another example took place at a local bank where Chapman Printing had been a good customer. Reynolds was meeting with the bank president about obtaining a loan. When the president informed Reynolds that he could not make the loan, Reynolds literally fell back in his chair and hit the floor. The bank president’s secretary, and several; employees into the office to see if Reynolds was hurt.
With the bank employees looking on, Reynolds stood up, acting stunned and confused, and exclaimed, “I can’t believe you turned me down for my loan in front of everybody!” The president, obviously put on the spot, said, “All right, we’ll do it.”
Ruth Cline, director of River Cities United Way, is undoubtedly one of Reynolds’ best friends. “Marshall Reynolds thinks further moves ahead than anybody I’ve ever played the game with,” she asserts. “He’s the mater chess player.”
The acquisitions Reynolds has made over the last 10 years substantiate Cline’s assertion. The man does indeed think ahead. One of the many companies Reynolds has acquired over the years is KYOWVA Corrugated Box. Shut down in 1982, this Guyandotte boxing plant was once a place of employment for Reynolds. In 1985, Reynolds telephoned Argil Preece, his former boss at the plant, who was working in New Jersey, and convinced him to return to Huntington to reopen the abandoned plant. Later that year, the two men raised enough capital to reopen KYOWVA’s doors. There were 12 employees then. Today, there are 86.
Other acquisitions on Reynold’s list include the McCorkle Machine Shop, Stationers Office Supply and the Radisson Hotel Huntington. Additionally, Chapman Printing has grown from a small plant on 921 Federal Avenue to four large plants employing some 500 people in Huntington, Charleston, Parkersburg and Lexington, Ky.
The Obligation
After Reynolds was married, Shirley recalled that he used to sleep only 3 to 4 hours a night. At 2 a.m., he often could be found looking over someone’s business proposal or searching for ways to bail a friend out of bankruptcy. Even today at 53, Reynolds averages only 5 to 6 hours of sleep per night, working long ours to ensure the well-being of his companies and the interests of his community.
As Reynolds’ successes mounted, so too did his involvement in the community. In 1980, Reynolds became involved with the Huntington Boy’s Club nearly single-handedly rescuing the troubled program from obscurity.
“As president of the Boy’s Club, he didn’t just raise money,” noted A. Michael Perry. “It was not unusual for him to go every evening to the club and spend with the kids. If you know Marshall Reynolds, then you know he is a genuine, abiding, deep love for children – particularly the underprivileged.”
Another important charity that Reynolds became involved with was the United Way. In 1982, Ruth Cline decided to recruit Rebolds for community work. In the eight years the two have worked together, the River Cities United Way has tripled its annual campaign contributions.
“Marshall is not too important to be involved,” noted Cline. “He still walks in the trenches. I’ve seen him speak to the midnight shift workers in Huntington at 2, 4 and 6 a.m. on behalf of the United Way.
And, Reynolds delivers. When a local business leader in town wrote him a check to the United Way for an amount Reynolds thought was less than appropriate, he tore it up and threw it back across the table. “I’m not going to let you salve your conscience with that type of contribution,” he informed the gentleman. Five minutes later, he had an acceptable donation.
Marshall Reynolds’ community involvement doesn’t end with the United Way. When he returns to his office after a fund raising luncheon or benefit reception, there is always a long line of people, both young and old, black and white, male and female, waiting to see him. They come for many reasons: advice, direction, input, a job. As one of his employees said, “Leaders and everyday people come to him for help. He’s kind of like the Godfather.”
A particular philosophy that Reynolds endorses is the “Crab Theory.” According to the theory, if you place a handful of crabs in a bucket, there will always be one crab that climbs to the top. However, when that crab is just short of making it over, another crab in the bucket will pull it down. For Reynolds, such is the case with human nature.
“One of the most outstanding things about Marshall’s character is that he’s one of the few who has made it out of the bucket and is reaching down trying to help people achieve the success that he has enjoyed,” says A. Michael Perry. “He helps people by co-signing a note, investing in a new business, making a loan …
“I’ve never known anyone who wants to see others achieve and be all they can be like Marshall Reynolds.”
Mrs. Lora Dell Fetty, who has been with Reynolds for some 26 years, said that he does it all out of an obligation he feels to the community.
“He feels he is helping; he feels an obligation to the city of Huntington and and to the companies he has pulled out of bankruptcy,” she explained. “But, in feeling that obligation, he strains himself. He tries to be all things to all people. I worry about him.”
Eric Eckhart, a young employee of Reynolds’, agreed. “I think he neglects improvements in himself for improvements in business, community and family. I think he gives too much.
“I asked him one time why he did it all and he said, ‘It’s something I got from my father – always strive to be the best you can be.”
Eric Watts, Reynolds young administrative assistant, says he has seen countless examples of Reynolds’ generosity, but feels they are better left unsaid.
“I don’t think Marshall wants everyone to know that,” explained Watts. “I think he feels that generosity is something that comes from within your own heart.”
Of Reynolds, a man once said, “He has done more for Huntington in the last 5 years than all the blue-bloods in the last 50 years.”
The Rubic’s Cube
Marshall Reynolds is obviously a complex man. He is also a man who is largely misunderstood. The Huntington community has the perception of Marshall Reynolds, the tobacco chewing capitalist, the man who communicates with “colorful” language. But, an example of what people do not know if that years ago, Reynolds used to smoke nearly five packs of cigarettes a day. At the advice of his doctor, he was instructed to either start chewing tobacco or die.
Even for his closest friends, Reynolds is a man impossible to peg. However, beneath the gruff exterior that he conveys to the community lies the heart of a compassionate and caring man.
“When you first meet him, he comes across as being very arrogant,” says Shirley Reynolds. “But, he’s really soft as putty.
“With our two boys,” she recalls, “he never believed in spanking. Whenever I would spank the boys, Marshall would really get on me.”
Perhaps no one better understands Marshall Reynolds than his good friend A. Michael Perry. But even for Perry, the task of defining the man is difficult.
“Everyone wants to be able to pigeon hole Marshall Reynolds and you can’t do it,” Perry insists. “He will do one thing and then turn around and do something else to belie that perception. He is the most complex human being I’ve ever encountered. He makes the Rubic’s Cube look like a simple device.”
While many people in town assume that Reynolds is only concerned with making money, Perry maintains that this perception is far from the truth.
“Marshall believes its important to make money and to have insulation,” says Perry, “but making money is not the thing that drives him. He spends far too much time in activities that don’t involve making money.”
For anyone who has spent a day with Marshall Reynolds, the evidence for such a statement is overwhelming. So then, what drives the man? Perhaps it is simply the challenge of being the best.
“I think he has probably grappled with the question ‘Who is Marshall Reynolds?’ More than anyone else,” said Perry.
One of Perry’s fondest memories of Reynolds took place one evening at the bank. “We are at a board meeting,” recalls Perry, “and Marshall was making decisions that were viewed by many as autocratic and dictatorial, which, by the way, he is not.
“After the meeting, we drove over to the plant where Reynolds was raising some chickens. It must have been 1 a.m. There, in the middle of all the other birds, Reynolds picked up a small chick that had a broken leg. I watched him feed that chick and make sure it got something to drink because it couldn’t compete with the others. It really told me something about the man. I never will forget that night.”
The Next Generation
An early morning at The First Huntington National Bank found a group of pre-school children holding hands in the lobby. The children were visiting the bank on a field trip when their teacher turned around to discover they were missing. Unbeknownst to the teacher, Marshall Reynolds was in the building.
Worried about where the children had wandered off, the teacher and a teller began searching the bank. It wasn’t long before the children were found, sitting in a circle on the second floor. Talking and playing with the kids in the middle of that circle was Marshall Reynolds.
Perhaps no one in Huntington takes a greater interest in the future of our community than Reynolds. Says A. Michael Perry, “This is a guy who in the course of a day could be giving a pitch for the United Way at 5 a.m., attend a 4-H breakfast, have lunch with the governor, stop in and play basketball with the kids at the Boys Club and have dinner with a United States Senator and would, in al probability, have enjoyed the time spent with the kids more than all of the other experiences.
His involvement with the youth of our area transcends the most noteworthy charities. For example, in his attempt to foster a better environment for the children of the River Cities via the Boys Club and the United Way, Reynolds again looked ahead. He realized, “What chance will these kids have once they’ve made it through high school and college if there are no jobs for them?” To that end, Reynolds has worked diligently to create economic opportunities for Huntington’s next generation. Therein lies the power of Key Centurion and his commitment to economic development. Reynolds is a major player with development groups such as United Huntington Industries, the Huntington Industrial Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce, the City of Huntington and Marshall University. His much publicized buy out of the Radisson Hotel was not so much an investment of choice, but rather of necessity.
As Perry says, “How can you talk about economic development without a premier hotel in downtown Huntington?”
In the last 5 years, it would be easy to trace some 1,500-2,000 new jobs back to Marshall Reynolds.
The Teacher
Someone once said of Marshall Reynolds, “If he could be anything in the world, I believe he would truly love to be a teacher.”
Part of Reynolds’ dream came true in 1989 at St. Joseph’s High School. It was there that Reynolds lead an 8th Grade class in an Introduction to Economics. During the course of the semester, Reynolds taught the young men and women how to obtain a loan at a bank. The class then charted certain stocks on the market, studied quarterly reports and traced the organization’s weekly progress. Finally, they inspected a prospective company in person and made the decision, as a class, to invest. When the semester had ended, each member of the class had repaid their loan, sold the stock and pocketed nearly $250.00. And, in a vote of their own, the class decided to donate a substantial portion of their earnings to the St. Joseph PTO and the local United Way.
An example of the many young people that Marshall Reynolds has taken under his wing is Eric Eckhart, a 22 year old employee at Chapman Printing. Eckhart, a self-described progressive democrat. Would often argue politics with Reynolds.
“I used to go to him and preach social issues,” says Eckhart.
“Well,” said Reynolds, “that’s great, but what are you going to do about it?”
As Reynolds opened some doors for the young man, he was indeed able to ‘do something about it.’ An example of his work is the revitalization of Huntington’s black business community. Today, Eckhart is working with black leaders to resurrect the Fairfield West section of town.
“Marshall has stressed that he does not want the white business community to come in and renew the black community,” says Eckart. “Instead, he wants the black community to resurrect itself. Marshall just wants to help.
“I’ve worked with him on a number of social projects and he always wants his name left out of it,” says Eckhart. “He’s the most progressive, liberal business leader in town. Marshall believes that if God has blessed you with good fortune, then it is your responsibility to do more for the less fortunate.”
This is to have succeeded.
If you stare into Marshall Reynold’s eyes, the windows of the soul, you can se the life of a truly successful man. And perhaps these words by Ralph Waldo Emerson that Reynolds often read as a young man best defines not only the essence of success, but the essence of the man as well …
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
