Whether it was making molds, turning around companies or playing golf, Alan B. Hall wanted to be perfect.
Hall of Clearwater, Fla., who was in the plastics industry for 42 years, died Dec. 15 from cancer. He was 74.
"He was good at all of it, mold making all the way up," said Vicki Hall, his wife of 37 years. "He was a genius at going into businesses and taking them over and doing what needed to be done. And then he would move on to somebody else that needed him. He did a lot of things for a lot of people."
That included Scot Spracklin, who worked with Hall at two different companies and is now a plant manager for Letica Corp. in Muscatine, Iowa.
"Al worked from coast to coast running both tooling and manufacturing facilities. The people I know called him one of the best designers they knew. If you earned it, he was your friend for life," Spracklin said in an e-mail.
Hall and his wife, she said, moved 52 times during their marriage.
He got his start as an apprentice mold maker in Pittsfield, Mass., and the skills learned as a mold maker helped him throughout his business career.
"He liked making it work. He liked the molds, he liked to make them make them come out perfect. Because he hated it when they weren't perfect. And he wanted to do it right, and do it right the first time," Vicki Hall said. "The same thing with companies, watching it come together and making it work."
"That's where he strived at, no matter what he did, including golf and sports," she said. "If he played it, he played it to win."
