Good People
5questions Story and photo by David Moore
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o one ever accused Davis Lee of doing things in a small way. His AlaTrade chicken processing plants in Boaz and Albertville are among the largest employers in Marshall County. When Davis decided to “retire,” he sought a way to thank his workers and decided to convert AlaTrade into an employee-owned business. That action in June made Guntersville-headquartered AlaTrade one of the largest ESOPs – employee stock ownership plans – in Alabama. During a particularly heavy time for littering in Marshall County, Davis, who lives north of Arab at Cherokee Ridge, pumped some $50,000 into cleanup and educational efforts. After buying discarded iron from a renovation of the Statute of Liberty, in 2008 he created Liberty’s Legacy and gave replica figurines containing shards of that iron to elementary students as part of a curriculum on liberty. A dozen years ago, when he heard about a drive to fly Tennessee Valley veterans to the nation’s capital to see the World War II memorial, he wrote not one but two $100,000 checks to the cause. Much of Davis’s character development traces to his parents, who raised him in Arapahoe, a wide spot in the coastal plain roads of North Carolina. “They had everything to do with what I am.” And, he adds, “I also picked up a few good points from people I worked with, associated with over the years.” After a management career in the poultry industry, Davis developed a lucrative streak of entrepreneurship from which he fueled his philanthropic spirit. And he keeps it all colorful with a knack for anecdotal storytelling. “People ask me all the time about how I made such a success out of AlaTrade,” Davis says, explaining why he rewarded 16
Davis Lee
Folksy sayings impart useful wisdom ... a simple truth he learned from his parents his AlaTrade employees in such a big fashion. “I tell them I’m like the turtle on top of a fence post … I had a lot of help getting there.”
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elp notwithstanding, Davis ascended that fence post from humble, North Carolina roots. His dad, Lytle Lee, was a civilian aircraft mechanic at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station who ran a ferry on the Neuse River as a side job. Davis lived his first years in a two-room house. He was born so sickly the doctor gave him only two weeks to live. But his mother, Eva, who finished the seventh grade, refused to accept that. “I think she willed me to live,” says Davis, who was called Davie growing up. “She would not let me die.” Later, the family upgraded to a fourroom house. “We were not much worse off than the general population,” Davis says. “We just took what we had and made the best of it. I can’t remember ever being cold. I remember being hot. I slept outside under an oak tree a lot of summer nights.” But poverty didn’t drive him to succeed. “The only thing I ever tried to do was be better at whatever I did,” says Davis. Eva helped cultivate that attitude. “If you’re a bread truck driver,” she told young Davie, “be a very, very good bread truck driver.”
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rom age 8, Davis worked in the fields to earn money to buy school clothes. “I’d buy two or three pairs of overalls and new pair of shoes for Sunday. I’d rotate last year’s Sunday shoes for that year’s work shoes. “You were committed to work,” he adds. “It’s what you did.” At age 13, Davis didn’t know what “foreshadowing” meant, but he knew he had to turn in an agricultural project
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at school. Deciding to raise and sell chickens, he ordered 100 chicks. Purina shipped him 150. He kept records on feed costs, but as the chicks grew, so did his appetite. By the time they were ready for sale, only 52 were left. He’d eaten the rest. His teacher was impressed with his bookkeeping, if not his profit margin. Once, some teen-aged buddies of his – Davis wasn’t with them – broke into a camp house on the river. They didn’t steal anything, but they got caught. “The sheriff scared the hell of them by taking them to jail before turning them loose. I told Daddy the scare seemed pretty harsh. He looked at me with his steely eyes and said, ‘You want to stay out of the trouble with the law?’” “I said, ‘Yes, sir.’” “Then behave yourself,” Lytle replied. The law within the Lee family was basically the same. “There was always an underlying tone not to embarrass the family,” Davis explains. “Even your brother or sister would call you down.”
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n high school, Davis played all sports, but baseball was his love. “I was not a gifted athlete, but I took what I had and worked to make it better,” he says. He had confidence, too, which showed when he went out for baseball at Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College), in Wilson, NC. The coach had asked him to try out after playing him in ping pong and noticing his hand-to-eye coordination. The first day, when the coach asked what position he played in high school, Davis said outfield. But after seeing a lot of big, tall, fast guys shagging flies, and seeing only two scrawny guys at third, Davis he’d like to play there. “Ever played third base?” the coach asked. “Nope,” Davis replied. “But I guarantee you I’m better than those two.”
