Gaylon H. White

Gaylon Hooper White is an American columnist, communications consultant and author of The Bilko Athletic Club,^[1] a book about beer-loving, home run-hitting Steve Bilko and the 1956 Los Angeles Angels of the old Pacific Coast League.

White graduated in 1967 from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in journalism-broadcasting. He was a sportswriter for the Denver Post, Arizona Republic and Oklahoma Journal before entering the corporate world and writing speeches for top executives at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Control Data Corporation and Eastman Chemical Company.

At Eastman, a manufacturer of plastics, chemicals and fibers, he established an award-winning website, the Eastman Innovation Lab,^[2] which uses storytelling to bridge the communications gap between the materials and design worlds. He was responsible for a highly acclaimed series of videos called Design Insights that featured thought-provoking interviews with some of the world’s top product designers.

White received a personal recognition award from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) in 2010 for his support of design education and being a “great builder of bridges” between the manufacturing and design communities. In 2011, White was awarded an honorary lifetime membership in the IDSA. “At heart, Gaylon White is a storyteller,” Bob Grace of Plastics News wrote on White’s retirement from Eastman in 2012. “Others would do well to learn from his story.”

The Los Angeles-born White was nine years old in 1955 when Bilko arrived in L.A. carrying the baggage of six failed big league trials. At the time, L.A. was a minor-league city with major-league dreams. Over the next three years, Bilko belted 148 home runs for the Angels to become known as “Stout Steve, the Slugging Seraph” and inspire “The Bilko Athletic Club” nickname for the mighty ‘56 Angels, widely considered baseball’s last great minor league team.

Bilko returned to the majors in 1958 but never achieved the star status he enjoyed in the minors. Curious to find out why, White spent a day with Bilko at his home in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania shortly before he died in 1978 at age 49. White went on to interview more than a hundred players, including most of Bilko’s teammates on the ’56 Angels.

In 2013, White started writing a monthly column on product design for Plastics News. He has authored some 100 articles on business and sports for international and U.S. publications. He also runs a communications consultancy, Orbiting Creative, LLC, that specializes in helping companies elevate and differentiate their innovation stories.

White is a member of the IDSA and Society for American Baseball Research. He and his wife, Mary, live in Cartersville, Georgia. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

Websites

• ^[3] The Bilko Athletic Club
• ^[4] Rowman & Littlefield
• ^[5] Eastman Innovation Lab

Articles

^[6] PN launches series by Gaylon White, August 19, 2013

^[7] Opportunity Green Social Innovation Case Study: HydroPack and Bringing Water Back to Life, Nov.11, 2011

^[8] IDSA honors Gaylon White, Plastics News, Sept. 27, 2011

^[9] Eastman soups up design-centric website, Sept.26, 2011

^[10] White leaving legacy of design innovation, Sept.26, 2011

^[11] Clean water technology travels the globe, packaged in plastic, May 9, 2011

^[12] When Worlds Collide, Innovation Magazine, Spring 2011

^[13] Decade-old flood wall gaining acceptance, Sept. 13, 2010

^[14] Eastman cultivates a niche for working with designers, May 24, 2010

^[15] Redefining the supply chain: an interview with Gaylon White, Opportunity Green Insights, Nov# 4, 2009

Awards

^[16] Technology from the heart, 2011 Industrial Design Excellence Awards, Curator’s Choice

^[16] Making the world safer through design, 2010 Industrial Design Excel Award

References