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H. Spencer Faircloth
“From Watermelon Inspector to the White House is a ticket on a time machine with stops at many of the most important moments of the twentieth century. Your tour guide, Lt. Col. H. Spencer F...view more“From Watermelon Inspector to the White House is a ticket on a time machine with stops at many of the most important moments of the twentieth century. Your tour guide, Lt. Col. H. Spencer Faircloth, USAF (ret.), is a born storyteller with a lifetime of tales to tell, secrets to share, and a fresh, first-hand perspective on the people and events that shaped the American Century.”
—Beacon Reviews
Born in rural Georgia in 1929, Henry Spencer Faircloth’s distinguished twenty-four-year career in the United States Air Force would take him a long way from his roots working as a soda jerk in his dad’s drugstore, but he would never forget the vital life lessons he learned growing up during lean Depression and tense war years.
Working several jobs, including watermelon inspector, to put himself through college, Spencer enlisted in the USAF as a basic airman in 1950. After completing OCS, he was commissioned as an officer and began a career that would include postwar rebuilding efforts in Europe, training airmen on two continents to help win the Space Race, serving on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh, and writing letters for Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Faircloth’s distinguished military career would culminate in a presidential appointment as executive director of the jobs for veterans’ committee, another globe-spanning vocation that introduced Spencer to a plethora of powerbrokers and history makers in politics, the military, business, and entertainment.
Along the way, Spencer married the woman of his dreams, Mary, who would be his best buddy and boon companion for fifty-two years.
After retiring from the USAF in 1974, Lt. Col. Faircloth served as assistant vice president at the Equitable Life Assurance Society, spent more than a decade as a licensed real estate broker in New York City, and worked in real estate development in California, Kentucky, Virginia, and Florida. His work in the Sunshine State included serving as VP and GM of the development of Freedom Plaza, a continuing care facility in Sun City Center, Florida.
After eighteen years as first vice president and trust officer for SunTrust Bank, Spencer retired for the third time. He continues to serve his community on various nonprofit boards, teaches seminars, and gives talks related to his military and business careers.
“For an old country boy from South Georgia, I never dreamed of all the adventures my journey through life would produce—from Leesburg High School to postwar Europe to the Oval Office of the White House. Along the way, I discovered the secret to success is to learn whatever you can and look for ways to help. That approach to life has carried me across the world and back more times than I can count and allowed me to work with people who have, literally, changed the world. I feel blessed to have lived this life, and I hope my stories are an equal blessing to you.”view less