What does it take to be an experienced entrepreneur? Grit, determination, patience, and a talent for transforming ideas into successes. Those are the prerequisites, but there are other characteristics that take such achievers to the next level. They need to love what they do and they have to love the community that supports them.
The Society of Entrepreneurs has sought to put the spotlight on those who have that spirit and have changed Memphis and the Mid-South. Whether they started from scratch or got involved in a family business, they’ve gone above and beyond the usual metrics of success.
The 2025 inductees are William B. Dunavant III, CEO and President of Dunavant Enterprises, Inc., and Chairman of the Executive Board; J. Allen Scoggin, Founder, CEO, and President of Med Communications; Bill Stegbauer, President (Retired) of Southern Towing Company; and Mark H. George, Chairman of IMC Logistics.
They will be officially inducted into the SOE at the 33rd Annual Dinner and Awards Banquet on April 26, 2025, at the FedEx Event Center at Shelby Farms.
The organization’s membership represents the entrepreneurial spirit in their approach to risk and resolution. Members include luminaries who have long been in the headlines, such as Frederick W. Smith of FedEx and J.R. “Pitt” Hyde of Malone & Hyde, known not just for their business prowess but their devotion to their employees and community. Other well-known members have been making their mark for decades, such as Pat Kerr Tigrett and Dr. Mary McDonald. Every go-getter who has been admitted into the SOE has done remarkable work in their fields, and sometimes in other pursuits.
While all have their own style and approach, there are some things they have in common. They understand risk and are willing to take a chance. If they make a mistake, they learn from it. They surround themselves with top-notch, trusted people. And they give back to the community in countless ways.
And the future of entrepreneurialism in Memphis is brighter than ever.
William B. Dunavant III
CEO and President of Dunavant Enterprises, Inc. and Chairman of the Executive Board
“I want to deal with customers that have problems and I want to be the aspirin for their headache.”
Dunavant is a sixth-generation Memphian who learned from his late father, Billy Dunavant, a larger-than-life character, shrewd businessman, and member of the Society of Entrepreneurs. To that end, the new inductee in the SOE says, “The greatest gift a parent can give is education. I wanted to go to business school and my father rejected that and said he’d teach me more right here at Dunavant Enterprises.”
As it is with many family businesses, young Dunavant “ended up in the back of the warehouse starting at the bottom, where everybody else started in our company. I earned my stripes and kept growing in the business in the raw cotton trading business.”
When he got up to speed in various areas, he found he wanted to go overseas, building skills and mining opportunities. He found a small asset in Australia and his father gave him the go-ahead to make it soar. With that success, he became the company’s head of global operations. “We were doing business in every producing country in the world and that had its own set of challenges, but its own set of opportunities,” he says. “Even today in our company, we like to look at the hard way to do business because if it’s easy, everybody does it.”
The cotton enterprise was started by his grandfather some 95 years ago, but a few years ago, Dunavant III saw the need for a change — to get away from the commodity trading business even though they were global leaders. The risk had become too great. “But why can’t we take that business model from raw cotton and go out into the global logistics market and do it for others?” he wondered. “That’s what we’re doing today.” Dunavant Enterprises now is about logistics, funds management, and real estate.
Dunavant has some key principles developed during his well-learned experiences. One is who he chooses to have around him: “Great entrepreneurs don’t happen without good people and good executors with them in partnership with them.”
And: “You can’t trade backwards. You can only look forward. If you make a mistake, take your lump and move on. Because you get a fresh, clear brain to start the day with every day.”
J. Allen Scoggin
Founder, CEO, and President of Med Communications, Inc.
“I can’t live without being able to have new information coming into my life every single day. And I can’t live without the ability to do and help other people who are in need.”
Scoggin founded Med Communications in 1998 only after 30 years at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center College of Pharmacy, retiring as an associate professor. But while there, he focused on pharmacy practices that would benefit the enterprise he would later undertake. One of his endeavors was working at a drug information center where local physicians and other health providers could get answers to questions about pharmaceuticals.
He applied what he learned about providing information into what has become a highly sophisticated operation that serves pharmaceutical and medical device companies worldwide. Aimed largely at healthcare providers, it requires precision in not only scientific writing, but in being able to present regulatory considerations, whether from the Food and Drug Administration, the European Union, or other global agencies.
Today, Med Communications has expanded into South America, Canada, and the Philippines, with a staff of about 200 people in 12 different countries. Those people thoroughly study and research what pharmaceutical companies are making and what impact those products may have. The company is then in a position to educate whoever might have an interest in the products.
Scoggin also has to stay on top of the numerous changes going on in his industry, not just in scientific research and not just in global governmental regulations. He’s also had to be aware of the evolving needs of pharmaceutical companies.
Running Med Communications is something Scoggin enjoys for both its challenges and its rewards. He credits his father for sparking his interest in business. As a teen, he helped his father in homebuilding and was fascinated by the process of planning and construction. He wanted to immediately go into the business out of high school, but his father insisted he go to college and that time in academia prepared him even further for life as an entrepreneur.
And that journey has been rewarding. As he puts it: “We’re excited about growing the company, and we’re global. It’s just been an exciting venture.”
Bill Stegbauer
President (Retired) of Southern Towing Company
“My advice: Buy low, sell high. And see what people say and then see what they do.”
Stegbauer started out in the family business as a deckhand. But those duties expanded quickly to include tankerman and engineer, and dealing with a variety of petroleum products, chemicals, acids, grain, and even rocks. His stint at Vanderbilt, where he earned an MBA, furthered his interest in the business, and he worked with his father in the business until he eventually took over.
After some 40 years, he sold the company, but still had a need to feed his entrepreneurial spirit. One direction was real estate with a partner. Another was a bakery business he invested in, and the joke was that he’d gone from one end of the food chain (hauling fertilizer) to the other. “And I can tell you that it’s a lot better to be on the end I’m on now,” he says.
And to further keep his hand in business, he got involved in a machine shop doing fabrications and repairs — including helping make plates that helped fix the Hernando DeSoto Bridge in 2021.
The variety of enterprises is an attraction for Stegbauer. The bakery is fun — seeing people light up when they see cakes and cookies — and he helped with organizational aspects, but the family owners run it. The appeal of the machine shop is, “I like to see things where you start from nothing and make something.” (As for real estate, he says, “It’s just real estate.”)
Whatever the business, Stegbauer says there’s one thing to keep in mind. “A lot of companies start out beneficial, very customer-oriented, very employee-oriented. And as they grow and they get larger, they get more oriented towards cutting the expense and becoming more cost-conscious instead of selling things. I’m not saying that’s not something that you should pay attention to, but when that becomes the focus instead of the customers and the employees, that’s where a lot of companies become lost.”
And as for Memphis as a place for businesses to thrive, he says, “We like to see people do well. There’s a spirit here. We continually reinvent ourselves because new people come to Memphis all the time and tell me, we love it here. There’s so much to do. That’s what helps with the spirit of the entrepreneur.”
Mark H. George
Chairman of IMC Logistics
“Find what you do best, find your niche, stay in that niche, and build on that niche and keep it better.”
George started Intermodal Cartage Company 43 years ago and it’s almost the only job he’s ever had. It’s a drayage firm, all about moving containers, and he and his wife started it right after a short stint with a small local cartage company. “It was a pretty ugly industry,” he says. “Railroads and trucking companies were kind of enemies of each other. And it was an opportunity that wasn’t serviced very well. It was complicated and most trucking companies didn’t want to get into it, so it created an opportunity for me.”
He came from a family of entrepreneurs who were in transportation and logistics. He was similarly determined to excel in the world of containerization. “I was lucky to have that kind of vision, but even though the company was profitable, solvency was an issue.” Receivables, he says, weren’t always coming in fast enough. He made common cause with his bank, and it worked. “I always wanted to have funding in place before I needed it. And that’s the way this company’s operated ever since.”
Today, there are about 3,000 employees in the company in every state in the country. And George credits Memphis: “It’s been a big part of the secret sauce of our success.” His competitors were on the coasts, but by starting here he grew to the ports. “Memphis, Tennessee, had all the right ingredients for the international supply chain with the river, with the class-one railroads that began and ended in Memphis, and with an international airport. Also, FedEx was about a 10-year-old company and becoming a global force, so being in Memphis at that time and the evolution of containerization all worked in my favor.”
George credits his wife, Melinda, with being a guiding light. “We’ve shared everything with each other. She sometimes gave me good advice and sometimes advice I didn’t like, but being very honest and transparent with each other, she has been my greatest confidant.”
