McConnell set high standards

John H. McConnell was a living testament to what was good and possible and honorable about what was the 20th century American Dream.

McConnell, a native of what is now New Manchester, was founder of Worthington Industries and owner of the Columbus Blue Jackets NHL team. He was 84.

His business resume is the stuff of American folklore, but it’s no tall tale. Employed as a salesman at Weirton Steel Corp. in the mid-1950s, he saw a need to fill small orders for steel customers that the big mills wouldn’t touch. Taking a loan against his 1952 Oldsmobile and using money he saved, Worthington Industries was born in the basement of his Columbus home.

He single-handedly invented the entire segment of the domestic steel industry known as service centers, filling niche orders with coatings, trimming and processing beyond what the big mills were able or willing to do. Worthington had more than $3 billion in revenues last year.

That would be a fantastic story in and of itself, and it grows when one considers his ownership of the NHL expansion franchise, former ownership of a share in the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Columbus Crew Major League Soccer franchise and the Columbus Destroyers.

But that fails to capture the man and his character.

Because Worthington Industries has its roots in humble Pughtown, W.Va., where John H. McConnell’s father instilled in him The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

It was how McConnell lived his life, and it thus is ingrained in how Worthington Industries conducts its affairs worldwide.

McConnell was not the creation of a public relations department or media managers or executive vice presidents. Those privileged to have met the man saw a genuine human being, whose tales weren’t tall — proven in that they never wavered or grew into mythical fish tales no matter how many times he told them.

He treated everyone as an equal, despite having a high net worth and the ability to own a Colorado ranch and to build his own golf course, Double Eagle in Galena, Ohio.

He gave back, establishing a charitable organization as part of his hockey franchise, and serving on a variety of foundations for health and law enforcement and engineering and management. He founded the McConnell Heart Health Center at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus.

His 2004 autobiography, “Our Golden Rule” is about more than just a major part of the steel industry. It should be required business school reading if the nation is to avoid Enron-like scandals forevermore.

He was the embodiment of why people born in the 1920s are termed “The Greatest Generation.” Here was a man who had no indoor plumbing until he was nearly a teen, who remembered when electricity came to his home, who worked as a laborer and served in the Navy aboard the USS Saratoga during World War II. He married his high school sweetheart and they were together for nearly 60 years until her death in 2005.

He worked as he went to college. He learned and grew at Weirton Steel and then struck off on his own, ascending to the heights of an industry he invented.

But he was always, simply, and iconically, John H. McConnell.

And that’s quite a name.