ATMI PresidentsAllen F. Johnson, 1920-1921, began his career driving the mule at the mule-powered
cotton gin. From the cotton business, he moved in 1894 to West Point Manufacturing Co. as assistant
superintendent, then to Unity Cotton Mills, LaGrange, Ga. He was vice president and manager of
Milstead Manufacturing Co., Conyers, Ga., 1904-1912, then president of Exposition Cotton Mills,
Atlanta, until 1920 when he became vice president of Consolidated Textile Corp., New York. Later,
he was president of American Spinning Co., Greenville, and Florence Mills, Forest City, N.C.L. D.
Tyson, 1921-1922, served as brigadier general in World War I, winning the Distinguished Service
Medal for bravery in action. He was elected U.S. Senator from Tenn. in 1925. He organized Knoxville
Cotton Mills, Knoxville, and was its president for many years.C. E. Hutchinson, 1922-1923,
organized a small yarn mill at Mount Holly, N.C. in 1892, purchased or constructed others in later
years and consolidated them in 1921 as American Yarn and Processing Co. of which he was president
and treasurer. He served for three years as president of the North Carolina Cotton Manufacturers
Association, represented Gaston County in the North Carolina legislature and was a director of the
Piedmont and Northern Railway.W. E. Beattie, 1923-1924, received his early business training in the
First National Bank of Greenville, of which his father was president. On the death in 1899 of J. D.
Charles, he was elected president and treasurer or Reedy River Manufacturing Co., later Conestee
Mills. Six years later, he resigned to become president of Piedmont Manufacturing., a post he
continued to hold while taking on additional responsibility as vice president and treasurer of
Victor-Monaghan Co. in 1916, the firm resulting from the reorganization of Parker Cotton Mills Co.
He was elected president in 1920, and retired in 1923.A. W. McLellan, 1924-1925, established a
library and statistical department and stressed the dangers of foreign competition during his
administration. He was born in New Orleans soon after the War Between the States and entered the
textile industry in 1891 with a borrowed $3,000 used to organize Alden Hosiery Mill. He served as
president of Alden Mills until his death in 1943.W. J. Vereen, 1925-1926, first worked in the
Moultrie Cotton Mills, Moultrie, Ga., which had been founded by his father in 1900. He became
secretary-treasurer in 1907. He also was active in real estate and in the garment manufacturing
business. He served as mayor of Moultrie, as president of the Georgia Cotton Manufacturers
Association and was a founder of the Cotton-Textile Institutte.S. F. Patterson, 1926-1927, died May
28, 1926, nine days after his election. At the time of his death, he was also president of the
North Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association. Born in Salem, N.C. on October, 1867, he was only
19 when he took charge of three mills for Odell Manufacturing Co. in Concord, N.C. He was later
associated with Thistle Mill, a silk mill at Ilchester, Md.; Patterson Mills co.; Roanoke Mills
Co.; and Rosemary Manufacturing., all located in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.
