B.Tyrous (Terry) Addison

Recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal during the Korean War! Graduate, Morgan State University, B.S. in Mathematics, June 3, 1957! Computer Systems Analyst for the Federal Government and Private Sector, 1959–79! Founder and President, Atlas Insurance Agency, Inc.! Founder, The Presidents' Round Table, Inc. B. Tyrous ("Terry") Addison was born and raised in Lumberton, N.C., the heart of tobacco-growing country, on March 31, 1929. The 11th of 12 children, he worked there on his family's tenant farm until he was 18, when he won a small academic scholarship to attend Livingstone College, an historically black school in Salisbury, N.C. Never one to let opportunity pass, Terry quickly seized this one, taking to Livingstone an unquenchable thirst for learning and challenge and a determination to climb up from the poverty into which he had been born. College also gave him a number of lifelong friends and introduced him to a high-achieving English major named Mary Juanita Logan from Old Fort, N.C., the woman who became his wife of 50 years. Terry lacked the money to return to Livingstone for his third year, so he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1951. He served in the Korean War as a combat aerial gunner and gunner instructor and received a number of special decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Korean Service Medal. After completing his 50 combat missions, Terry was stationed in the U.S. for two years, working as an Air Force meteorologist. He was honorably discharged from the military as a staff sergeant in 1955. After moving to Baltimore, Md., he married Juanita in February 1955. He worked for a short time at Bethlehem Steel Corporation's Sparrow's Point steel mill, then found work as a mail clerk with the U.S. Postal Service: a full-time night job that allowed him to continue his college education during the day. He enrolled at Morgan State College (now University) as a full-time student majoring in mathematics. Terry was graduated from Morgan State in 1957 and began his professional career soon after that as a computer systems analyst at Aberdeen Proving Ground Ballistics Research Laboratory, helping pave the road to today's "Computer Revolution." From 1959 to 1966, he performed advanced scientific programming at Aberdeen on first-generation digital and analog computers, including the ORDVAC, EDVAC, IBM 650 and 1401, UNIVAC 1230, SIGMA 5, and GE 415. From 1966 to 1968, Terry worked as a senior engineer/systems analyst for AAI Corporation in Cockeysville, Md. There, he was responsible for the initial writing of proposals for contract bids. He also did the initial writing, testing, and documentation of online and real-time programs for simulators created to help train U.S. Naval officers in the use of radar and shipboard electronic components. As Terry developed his computer expertise, his love of business led him into other endeavors. He owned and operated several enterprises, including a neighborhood tavern, a cocktail lounge and restaurant, and an insurance agency, while he was working for AAI. Terry had a brief tenure at Control Data/Commercial Credit as a senior computer systems analyst, studying methods of writing a universal time-sharing and information retrieval language. This job led to 10 years' service with the Social Security Administration Bureau of Health Insurance (later renamed the Health Care Financing Administration). There, he served as a computer system design analyst involved in the initial design and development of the National Computer Claims Processing System, which handled customary and prevailing charges for Medicare and Medicaid. He retired from this position on July 1, 1979, after 26 years with the federal government. In 1973, Terry expanded his insurance business, establishing Atlas Insurance Agency, Inc., an ongoing concern based in Owings Mills, Md., that specializes in advising small and minority-owned businesses in insurance and fidelity and surety bonding. In 1983, he opened a travel agency in Baltimore, the Business Travel Centre, Inc., a full-service agency that merged with Mondawmin Travel Center in 1988. Later in 1983, he recruited two close business associates — Raymond V. Haysbert Sr., then president of Parks Sausage Company, and radio station owner Dorothy Brunson — to join him in purchasing a controlling interest in The Forum Caterers, Inc., an on-premises/off-premises catering facility in Baltimore. As The Forum's CEO, Terry worked mainly in a sales and marketing capacity with the company, helping increase annual revenue from $500,000 to $2,750,000 over a four-year period. He sold his share of the firm to the other partners in 1990. Terry was a longtime, tireless advocate for greater entrepreneurship and economic development among African Americans. In 1983, he approached Haysbert and Brunson with the idea of an organization composed of the heads of successful black-owned, Baltimore-based companies that could learn to collaborate easily in business ventures. Together, they founded The Presidents' Round Table Inc., an influential business group that now has 28 members who run companies across Maryland. In the early and mid-1980s, Terry donated a great deal of his energy and business acumen to The Hub Organization, a Baltimore-based group that focused on economic development in the black community. As chair of The Hub's Economic Development Committee, he designed the operating format and philosophy of the organization. Through his involvement in The Hub, he coined the word "psychonomics," which described the psychological processes involved in getting African Americans to support African-American enterprises. He also initiated the "Brain Trust Seminar," an economic development think tank designed to get more African Americans involved in economic policy-making and decision-making. A strong and visible force in the community, Terry participated in many civic projects, including a task force that considered potential enterprises for an inner-city development program. The program was designed to get African Americans involved in the economic reconstruction of Baltimore after the 1968 riots. He also served on the Minority Resource Committee of the Metropolitan Planning Center at The Johns Hopkins University, from 1980 to 1984. Terry was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, and he strove to achieve the group's goal of "Bigger and Better Business." Terry, who was president of his high school senior class in 1947, also founded the Hilly Branch High School Alumni Association, to preserve the history of his school, which is no longer in existence. A longtime member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Terry also worked with many other organizations, including the Greater Baltimore Committee, the Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce, the Advisory Board of The Harbor Bank of Maryland, and the Advisory Board of Provident Hospital, and has received numerous awards, among them the 1984 Man of the Year Award from the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Club, the honor of which he was most proud. A physical fitness buff, Terry was a familiar face at the Merritt Downtown Athletic Club, where he often began his day with a workout at 6:30 a.m. Terry died at Good Samaritan Hospital on June 4, 2005 after a short illness. He is survived by his wife, Juanita; two children, Eric Tyrous Addison and Cheryl Addison Wilson, both of Baltimore; two granddaughters, Erica Addison and Lyndsey Wilson; and siblings Lena Bethune and Edna Ruth Blue of Baltimore, Arthur David Addison of Detroit, Mich., Julia Thompson of Los Angeles, Calif., and Carrie Canady of Fayetteville, N.C.; son-in-law, Ernest Wilson Jr.; and daughter-in-law, Joan Addison.

Tributes

B.Tyrous (Terry) Addison

March 31, 1929 - June 4, 2005