Leo Seal keeps on giving
By MARIA WATSON
They’re all bunched up together on the seventh floor of the old Hancock Bank Building in downtown Gulfport, the top executives of the bank and its parent, Hancock Holding Co.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same," I remark as I approach Leo Seal’s secretary’s desk before sitting down to talk with him. I remember this old building very well.
The offices are small, crowded spaces, compared with the executive suite in One Hancock Plaza, which suffered substantial damage during Hurricane Katrina and is in the midst of a $35 million refurbishment. But these folks don’t complain. In fact, my comment draws chuckles from some of the long-timers. They’re all attuned to the Seal family’s – and Hancock Bank’s – commitment to community and customer service, and a little upheaval in their temporary workspace doesn’t faze them.
Leo Seal is a big man, but his office is no more spacious nor is it any fancier than any of the others. In fact, it reflects the humility for which he is widely known, both among his fellow executives and his subordinates, all of whom he considers peers. On his desk is a lighted ball that, using the old-style pager network, receives a signal throughout the day on the price of Hancock Bank stock. It changes color – green for up, red for down – as it tracks the daily progress of the stock on the NASDAQ. When I see the ball, the color is red, but when I check the closing that afternoon, the light has turned green. This executive toy is a gift from a friend – no doubt a Hancock Bank stockholder himself.
The president and CEO of Hancock Holding Co. and chairman of Hancock Bank also heads a personal family whose name has been synonymous with Hancock County for generations. His father, Leo W. Seal, and mother, Rebecca Baxter Seal, were both born in Hancock County. After their marriage, they lived in Logtown, moving to Bay St. Louis in 1919 before Leo W. Seal Jr. was born in 1924. The younger Seal has lived happily for most of his life in Bay St. Louis. He is married to the former Jane K. (Susie) Pringle and they have adult twin sons, Leo III and Lee.
"There’s a legend in Hancock County," says Seal in his slow, down-to-earth tone, "that if you live into your ‘80s, you’ll see three bad hurricanes." His father saw at least three, dying in 1963 before Hurricane Camille struck in 1969; his mother saw four. At 81, Seal clearly remembers the 1947 storm (before hurricanes were named), Camille and now Katrina.
"After each one," he recalls, "people rolled up their sleeves and put the pieces back together." This man with the three-and-a-half legal page résumé and an attitude that would out-positive Norman Vincent Peale is pretty sure that’s what will happen this time.
Leo W. Seal Jr. – like his father before him, he’s quick to tell you – has been a major player in just about every big economic decision that has been made, either in Hancock County or in South Mississippi, for the past half-century or more. Gulfport Downtown Association President John Harral says Seal’s contributions to the Mississippi Coast outweigh those of anyone else in his generation.
Seal and his father almost single-handedly drove the engine that brought the Stennis Space Center to Hancock County in the 1960s as the test site for the solid rocket boosters that sent men to the moon in the Apollo space program. With Mississippi’s late Democratic senator, John C. Stennis, they saw the need to keep the United States at the forefront of the space race and the potential that held for economic development in Mississippi.
It wasn’t easy for Seal to go to Logtown and other small Hancock County communities and ask the people he'd known all his life and called by their first names to give up their homes and their land so the federal government could create what is essentially a six-mile wide wilderness area, or buffer zone, on all sides of what is now Stennis Space Center. The trees were supposed to dissipate the sound of the rocket engine testing, Seal says; all that’s permitted in the buffer zone is growing timber and raising livestock. On-site buildings have been constructed to withstand any reverberations from engine test-firing.
NASA’s entrée into Hancock County necessitated improvements in infrastructure at all levels, from water and sewer in Bay St. Louis to opening a new highway directly into the site. Seal remembers gathering a group of 35 business associates in a room to meet with a representative from the then-Mississippi Highway Commission to press for the road: "When he walked in and saw who was in the room, he said. ‘You can have the highway!’ and turned around and walked out."
His influence was critical in attaining state port status for the Port of Gulfport and his ability to see into the future brought innovations to Coast banking that were far ahead of their time. He introduced branch banking at a time when it was unheard of. To facilitate the opening of the NASA Test Site in Hancock County, he and Hancock Bank plowed new regulatory ground to get a branch on site. Hancock Bank subsequently introduced drive-through banking and a wide-reaching computer system.
Today, Leo Seal Jr. is just as involved with space age technology and the Stennis Space Center as he was in the 1960s. He heads the group of diverse local business leaders who are committed to the establishment of INFINITY, a multi-million dollar space technology showcase that will be built just off I-10 behind the Mississippi Welcome Center in Hancock County.
Says Myron Webb, NASA community relations officer and INFINITY project manager: " We never considered asking anyone except Mr. Seal to head this board." Called MAST (Mississippi Attraction for Science and Technology), the non-profit organization remains committed to the project that began in 2001, despite Hurricane Katrina’s egregious interruption. Seal, meanwhile, gives full credit for INFINITY’s concept to Roy Estess, former Stennis Space Center director, who serves on the MAST board.
As it approached the end of its 2006 regular session, the Mississippi Legislature suspended rules to permit itself to resurrect dead bond bills and agreed to commit $6 million to the INFINITY project. That was less than the MAST board had hoped for, but NASA was pleased. Work on INFINITY must begin this calendar year if NASA’s commitment of funds is to remain intact. Phase One includes architecture, infrastructure and an exhibition hall – a 60,000-square foot facility with 20,000 square feet of interactive gallery space; a gift shop; a 200-seat restaurant; and small conference room facilities. Buses will transport visitors who want to take the tour around the SSC site to view test stands and other points of interest.
INFINITY captured Seal’s interest from its inception because he wants everyone who drives through Mississippi to know that the state is home to a huge investment in the science and engineering fields. As well as, or possibly better than anyone else, he knows the extent of Stennis Space Center’s involvement with a variety of federal agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Navy Oceanographic Office and many more that cooperate in a single location to provide specialized technology to the United States and to the world.
In addition to federal and state moneys, the private sector will be tapped for contributions to INFINITY, although Seal thinks that may be a bit more difficult now than it was this time last year. Regardless, work on INFINITY will begin before the end of 2006.
At 81, Seal is obviously as captivated by innovation, in banking or in tourism, as any person one quarter his age might be.
"The thing I love about Leo," says Harral, "is that he thinks long-range. And he is able to pass his leadership style on to the next generation."
Seal says modestly: "I learned everything I know at the feet of my daddy; (the late) Tom Milner; and (the late) Donald Sutter." Milner was executive vice president and vice chairman of the Hancock board, and Sutter was executive vice president and chairman.
George Schloegel, now vice chairman and CEO of Hancock Holding Co., says Seal learned much of what he practices from his father and continued with the mentorship of Sutter and Milner, both of whom were "senior to him but deferred to him as the person to take the bank to the next level" after the senior Seal’s death.
Milner "was a man of few words," Schloegel remembers. Sutter, on the other hand, "had a softer touch, a lot of diplomacy.
"The balance of those two was a tremendous learning experience for Leo because he blended their experience well. He was wise enough to absorb wisdom."
Schloegel says he jokingly tells people that Seal is slowing down now that he’s in his 80s: "He no longer works on Sundays." But, Schloegel says, he has learned a lot from Seal’s work ethic: "He works long, he works hard, he works smart."
Seal, says Schloegel, is "always willing to be forgiving of other people’s mistakes. His philosophy is that there’s a great measure of good in the worst of us, and that if we look for the good, we can help accomplish the best for all concerned."
Charles A. Webb Jr., now retired from active banking, but still vice chairman of the Hancock Holding Co. board, says that if Seal has one shortcoming, it’s that he’s too fair. "He wants to capitalize on one’s strong points and minimize the weaknesses," Webb says.
Schloegel notes Seal’s adherence to his father’s admonition that "he was no better than anyone who’s ever walked this earth, but also that no one was any better than he was."
Long before equal opportunity became a matter of law, Schloegel says, Seal had embraced the concept. "He is as close to the black community as he is to the white. It’s just a genuine respect for his fellow man. Because of his philosophy, Hancock Bank has enjoyed a 90 percent market share in the black community," he says. "That says a lot about his character."
Webb worked for 58 years at Hancock Bank and says, "I never felt like I had a boss. He was more like a brother." When Webb joined the bank, it had three branches and assets of $11 million-$12 million. Today, the bank’s assets top $6 billion.
Both Webb and Schloegel tell of Seal’s modesty. "He shuns the spotlight," says Webb. "That’s the mettle of the man."
Says Schloegel: "He does leadership from behind the scenes, rather than out front. He understands the long-range benefit to the community and the state." Schloegel says that to Seal, building INFINITY at Stennis Space Center is analogous to building Walt Disney World in Orlando.
Although he has prospered as a businessman and community leader, some of the Great Depression seems to remain in Seal’s blood. Says Schloegel: "He is one of the most generous men I know, as well as one of the most frugal."
He then relates tales of traveling with Seal with his automobile’s air conditioning turned off and the windows down to save a few cents on gas. "Then he will turn around and give a whopping amount of money to someone who needs it."
Webb remembers Seal buying "an old black Chevrolet with white wall tires, and then turning the whitewalls to the inside."
Those stories are common knowledge among most people who’re acquainted with Leo W. Seal Jr. After all, he is a legend in his community.
A strong leader is usually responsible for a business’s corporate culture as well as its place in the community. Seal’s business philosophy, he says, deferring, of course, to that of his mentors, has always been to:
1. Provide a safe place for people to keep their money. "We’ve been through some tough times and we’ve tried to operate in a conservative manner. That’s been our Number One obligation."
2. Provide a source for borrowing power for business and corporations to expand their agendas. "That affects the welfare of the area we serve."
3. Have an unending commitment to enhance the economic, social and educational aspects of communities in the bank’s service area.
4. Try to run the bank "in a manner that makes money with people, not out of them.
"Those have been our guidelines since 1919," Seal says, "since my daddy came into the bank."
Having now experienced the three bad hurricanes embodied in the Hancock County legend, does Seal have one piece of advice to offer businesses trying to recover from Katrina?
"Try to maintain a degree of optimism. Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative."
As one who went through the 1947 storm and Camille in 1969, he’d say: "Roll up your sleeves and get on with the job of getting it back together."