![\"Billy](\"https:\/\/news.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/vickers-1500-1-1024x576.jpg\")
Drive to Succeed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A professional football career did not work out for Vickers, who suffered a torn knee ligament in his next-to-last college game, was drafted and cut by the Washington Redskins and signed and cut by the Baltimore Colts after reinjuring his knee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So he went back to doing what he learned on the farm and as a football player: hard work. The 63-year-old Vickers says his success is simply the byproduct of a good education, assembly-line sweat and having someone take a chance that a minority business owner could succeed if given the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His path to the CEO\u2019s office began by entering 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\u2019s largest minority-owned foundry, which made parts for Chrysler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His entry into automotive manufacturing came in 2004 with a friendship he developed with decorated Vietnam War hero and former General Motors executive Joseph B. Anderson Jr., who has been his business mentor ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe was a person who had a business operations background, who had been responsible for employees and who I knew was competitive,\u201d Anderson said in a Columbus (Ohio) CEO journal profile. \u201cAnd there was a level of maturity I saw that said he had the motivation and drive to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anderson was so taken by Vickers that he eventually sold his most successful enterprise to the former football standout in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Long Journey<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It has been a long journey. Vickers, however, 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 given him the opportunity to become one of the nation\u2019s top Black business owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs Black Americans, there haven\u2019t always been equal opportunities,\u201d says Vickers, who went to segregated schools until the fifth grade but graduated from fully integrated Chase High School in 1976. \u201cThere is equal opportunity to take advantage of education. You don\u2019t just have to have an athletics scholarship to be successful, but that was something that helped me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something I took for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And while he had obstacles to overcome, as did many Black college students in the 1970s, he found his path at NC State, which first integrated its academics and athletics 20 years before Vickers enrolled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI remember taking an African American studies class when I was a freshman,\u201d Vickers says. \u201cMostly what we talked about were racial relationships. We didn\u2019t actually use the term \u2018implicit bias\u2019 then, but it is what we talked about, how we view people, how we relate to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been one to challenge myself to learn about people and where they come from. It could be difficult at times, especially when it came to interracial dating. My wife is white. I am Black. We have shared so much joy together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joining a football program that was first integrated in 1968 and in an athletics department that developed Black superstars like 1973 ACC Football Player of the Year Willie Burden and two-time ACC Men\u2019s Basketball Player of the Year David Thompson made Vickers feel more at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNC State prepared me for teamwork, from both football and my education, and that prepared me for the business world,\u201d Vickers says. \u201cI had life lessons at NC State, especially the whole racial side of things. In football, we understood how to work together. We understood that we were all the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut it also teaches you that you have to understand the importance of diversity. Our companies always try to recruit people who are different from us. It gives us a different mindset. I would definitely say that\u2019s something I learned at an early age at NC State.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vickers also strongly believes in the value of lifting up others and giving qualified companies the resources they need to be successful, the way Anderson did with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are parts of the Black community where not everyone feels like they have the same opportunities,\u201d Vickers says. \u201cSo we have a responsibility to get out in those communities and help teach and help people understand that responsibility. Education is the key if we are ever going to eradicate racial tension, and we have to start that at a young level to make sure there are no educational disparities.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Honda was looking to diversify its partnerships, it not only sought out MAI, it gave organizational support to help Vickers and his company to compete with and work with other partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHonda made an effort to work with more minority-owned companies, as did the other big auto manufacturers,\u201d Vickers says. \u201cBut they also said if they wanted to grow a strong partnership, they wanted to find a strong company with a background in manufacturing. They didn\u2019t just throw us crumbs, which is what happens sometimes in the business world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey helped us scale our company. They gave us the same amount of business as a non-minority company. They gave us training and technical resources. If we had weaknesses, they helped us get better. We were fortunate that they liked \u2026 that our philosophy was to put people first, with diversity and inclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a lesson he\u2019s lived his entire football and business life.<\/p>\n![\"Headshot](\"https:\/\/news.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/vickers-portrait-1500-1024x819.jpg\")
Life Lessons<\/h3>\n\n\n\n