The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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JULY/AUGUST 2021 ■ 57 "That season was running-back-by- committee, which worked out great for us," Vickers said. "We had all different kinds of running styles. I was a slasher. Dwight had speed, and Scott was a great option quarter- back. We just kept the defense on the field. "But our defense really carried us on the '79 championship team." Vickers suffered a torn knee ligament in his next-to-last college game, the heart- breaking 9-7 loss to Penn State at Carter- Finley Stadium. He didn't know it at the time, but that ended his hopes of playing professionally. After finishing his college career, Vick- ers was drafted and cut by the Washington Redskins, and signed and cut by the Balti- more Colts after reinjuring his knee in the offseason. So he went to work. That he has been suc- cessful, he said, is simply a product of the same kind of hard work he did on the family farm and on the football field, with a good education, assembly line sweat and a fortu- itous meeting with a kind mentor thrown in. Now, Vickers can look back with pride on the fact that he is the founder, owner and chief executive officer of seven compa- nies, including Modular Assembly Innova- tions, a $1.2 billion automotive component manufacturing enterprise based in Dublin, Ohio, with more than 350 employees in four states. In 2019, it was ranked in the top five of the Black Enterprise list of the 100 top black-owned companies in the nation. His path to the CEO's office began by en- tering a management training program with Corning Electronics in Raleigh, going back to his hometown to work at a brass foundry and making a move to Ohio to work in a steel mill, where he eventually became the plant superintendent. After eight years at the mill, he was hired to run the nation's largest minority-owned foundry, which made parts for Chrysler. In 2004, Vickers developed a friendship with decorated Vietnam War hero and for- mer General Motors executive Joseph B. An- derson Jr., who has been his business mentor ever since. Anderson hired Vickers in 2005 to be CEO and president of a new venture that produced automobile parts for Honda. "He was a person who had a business op- erations background, who had been respon- sible for employees and who I knew was competitive," Anderson said in a Columbus CEO journal profile. "And there was a level of maturity I saw that said he had the moti- vation and drive to succeed." Anderson was so taken by Vickers that he eventually sold his most successful en- terprise to the former football standout in 2011. It has been a long journey. Vickers, how- ever, is grateful that Wolfpack football gave him the opportunity to be the first person in his family to go to college and that his NC State education has paved the way for busi- ness success. "As Black Americans, there haven't al- ways been equal opportunities," said Vick- ers, who went to segregated schools until the fifth grade but graduated from fully in- tegrated Chase High School in 1976. "There is equal opportunity to take advantage of education. You don't just have to have an athletics scholarship to be successful, but that was something that helped me. "It's not something I took for granted." ■ " We pride ourselves on working with some of the best in the nation, and he's one of the best. What we saw in Billy was the ability to grow a business. … We saw that we could work with him and develop a long-term strategic partner with Honda. " Pam Heminger, vice president of Honda of America Manufacturing from an article in Columbus CEO In 1979, Vickers was the second-leading rusher for the last NC State football team to win an ACC championship. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.