Darrell McNairMcNair is owner and CEO of MVP Plastics Inc. which serves the automobile industry. However, before entering the corporate world, McNair wrestled at Downers Grove North High School in suburban Chicago, then at Kent State University in northeast Ohio, wrestling for head coach Ron Gray, two-time NCAA champ for Iowa State in the late 1950s.
In a March 29 feature in Plastics News magazine, McNair, 53, explained what he took from his on-the-mat career that he uses today to run his business headquartered in Middlefield, Ohio, west of Cleveland.
"Clearly, wrestling was key to defining who I am today in terms of the discipline one must have, the commitment one must have, time, the dedication and the challenges," McNair, 53, told Jeremy Carroll of Plastics News. "A lot of times when you're in business, particularly as the CEO, you feel like you're out there by yourself sometimes. When you're out there wrestling, unlike team sports, it's you and the other fella out there on the mat going head to head. So clearly it was a learning or development experience."
According to his bio at the business website Crain's Cleveland, McNair wrestled 98 pounds in his first three years and 119 in his senior year at Downers Grove North. He added, "I was nationally ranked and placed fourth in the Junior Nationals and fourth in the Junior Olympics (1979)."
"(McNair) once wrestled a match at 134 pounds at Kent State University during his freshman year despite a growth spurt that would have him regularly competing at 150 pounds. (It was a bad idea.)," Plastics World reported.
The 1980 Kent State yearbook, the Chestnut Burr, states that McNair was the team's Outstanding Freshman Wrestler, competing at 142. However, a shoulder injury pretty much ended McNair's mat career after two seasons for the Golden Flashes.
The Plastics World feature goes on to show how McNair is trying to make his business more competitive in global markets. For example, he's learning Spanish so he can better serve auto plants in northern Mexico.
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