11 minute read
Making Life Lessons Count
Making Life Lessons Count
A Conversation with Alumni Fellow James Robinson
By Kathy Kenne
When talking with James Robinson, one notices a theme running throughout the anecdotes that weave his life story. He is always looking for the life lessons in every experience, good or adverse.
This man has built his highly successful steel company, P&R Metals, Inc., on the backbone of those lessons learned. Two pillars of his business philosophy are that meeting customer needs is paramount to everything his company does and that “can’t” is a word to be avoided at all times.
Robinson represents the best of the Southern businessman – a congenial, seemingly laid-back demeanor coupled with a sharp business acumen and drive to be successful.
Looking back on his formative years, the 1987 marketing graduate shares that his family moved from Jackson to Canton when James was in the middle of seventh grade. His father was a homebuilder at the time, and the housing market was struggling due to interest rates. The elder Robinson had some tough choices to make for his family due to houses not selling – one of which was this move. Around the same time, he had also started a tire business in Ridgeland to help him move from the housing industry into a new type of business. James began working for his father’s tire store business almost immediately, performing oil changes, fixing flats and more.
Robinson recalls those days as “tough,” transitioning to a new home, community and school as a thirteen-year-old, but he learned valuable lessons through watching his mother and father build a business from the ground up – namely that businesses should be built through honesty and taking care of customers.
Throughout his youth, Robinson spent many weekends attending Ole Miss football games with his family who had a rich legacy at the university. It was during his junior year in high school that a buddy invited him to visit the Mississippi State campus the weekend after the football team defeated Alabama 6-3. He had never driven through Starkville or even seen pictures of MSU. On the way back to Canton that Sunday, he decided that MSU was the college for him.
I knew it the day I stepped on campus. It just felt like home!” he commented about the main reason for his change of heart in where he wanted to attend school.
He continues, “It created an intense home life! My decision made for a lot of interesting Egg Bowl Thanksgivings around the house!”
His road to Mississippi State wasn’t a direct one. The self-described “low B, high C” student had some proving to do.
“My parents wanted to make sure I could get through college,” he says. “So, I went to Hinds [Community College] for two years.”
The following year, Robinson enrolled in the College of Business at State.
“I knew I wanted a business degree,” he shares. “I gravitated to marketing because I like people and am outgoing. I felt my personality fit that degree.”
I needed to show some respect for a senior engineer and that maybe I wasn’t the guy for this job. He told me that if I came back tomorrow, I needed to put on my work clothes, go to the back of the plant where our truck drivers delivered our steel, and follow where it went from there.
“I have never wanted to quit something so immediately in all my life! My ego was hurt. I went home, got a good night’s sleep and came back early the next day to follow his instructions. After three months of monitoring, I was able to disperse a large amount of their steel inventory off the floor, which in turn, reduced inventory costs by nearly $750,000 annually. I was also able to gain an understanding of how engineers think and revisited that same engineer. He, in turn, worked with us on the design change that had originally made him walk away from me. We both laughed at it then, and respect was on both sides at that point!”
That is what makes Robinson such a genuine mentor to students. With a laugh, he’s willing to share his mistakes while imparting the wisdom that grew from them.
But there have been far more successes than mistakes. After 10 years working for two different steel companies in Tampa, FL, and Birmingham, AL, he was ready to be his own boss. In 1999, he and a partner launched P&R Metals. Four years later, Robinson bought his partner out and has served as President ever since. The Birmingham company is a leading provider of metal gratings and flooring products among other things. It is on his products that, if you look very closely at the major sports venues on campus, you’ll see stamped “Hail State.”
“I like creating an optimistic work environment,” he says. “I believe my company should be invested in our employees’ lives. A 10 year employee came to me and told me because of his cancer diagnosis he wouldn’t be able to lift anything and was worried he’d lose his job. I told him we’d find something else for him to do that wouldn’t require that, but his job was not in jeopardy. Another employee who had immigrated to the U.S., really made me feel good when he invited me to attend his house closing. I want to make others around me happy as best I can.”
Robinson not only generously shares his wisdom with MSU students, he and wife Keri have provided monetary support as well. They finance an annual scholarship for business students involved in entrepreneurial pursuits. They have also funded the new James M. Robinson Seminar Suite for the Department of Marketing, Quantitative Analysis and Business Law.
Robinson speaks highly of his business education. He loved the hands-on opportunities, such as being challenged with a real-life feasibility study for a business start-up from a successful entrepreneur. Five student groups studied the proposal and gave reports. Those reports provided alumnus George Bryan valuable information as he contemplated building what is now the highly acclaimed Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point.
“I like speaking to students who are like I was, who sit in the back of the class and don’t speak up because they may not be the smartest ones in the group,” says Robinson. “I tell them that work history is really what I look for on resumés. I have meetings now with the dean on how to get kids like me engaged – how to push them to get off that ‘back row.’”
During his college years Robinson had the privilege of being selected for a co-op position at Disney World.
“That taught me a lot about who I was and where I was from,” he recalls. “I was meeting 500 other college students from all over the country. Only five or six were from Mississippi State. It matured me so much and taught me that I could have great friendships with people I might have many differences with and that there was a lot that I wanted to get out and do in the world.”
That experience that helped mold Robinson’s character apparently had a similar impact on all. They still hold a reunion every year to keep up with each other. It will be number 40 in 2026.
Robinson returns to campus often for ballgames and meetings. He is the Chairman of the Marketing and Supply Chain Logistics Advisory Board and a member of the College’s Executive Advisory Board.
When he is on campus, he seeks opportunities to talk to students. His advice contains a dose of reality.
“Students are working on their degrees and trying figure out what’s next,” he shares. “I try to help by telling them what’s next and letting them know not to get disenchanted when bad stuff happens.”
Robinson again alludes to one of his personal life lessons when, at the age of 25, he was given the task of being company liaison to the largest steel customer of the metals company for whom he worked. He went to meet with the company’s head engineer after being on site for about three days. He told the engineer how he needed to change his design and go to something more readily available. Robinson didn’t expect what would happen next.
“He just walked off from the conversation!” says Robinson. “I went to the purchasing agent, who had hired me for this position, and told him what had happened. He cussed me out! Told me
I needed to show some respect for a senior engineer and that maybe I wasn’t the guy for this job. He told me that if I came back tomorrow, I needed to put on my work clothes, go to the back of the plant where our truck drivers delivered our steel, and follow where it went from there.
“I have never wanted to quit something so immediately in all my life! My ego was hurt. I went home, got a good night’s sleep and came back early the next day to follow his instructions. After three months of monitoring, I was able to disperse a large amount of their steel inventory off the floor, which in turn, reduced inventory costs by nearly $750,000 annually. I was also able to gain an understanding of how engineers think and revisited that same engineer. He, in turn, worked with us on the design change that had originally made him walk away from me. We both laughed at it then, and respect was on both sides at that point!”
That is what makes Robinson such a genuine mentor to students. With a laugh, he’s willing to share his mistakes while imparting the wisdom that grew from them.
But there have been far more successes than mistakes. After 10 years working for two different steel companies in Tampa, FL, and Birmingham, AL, he was ready to be his own boss. In 1999, he and a partner launched P&R Metals. Four years later, Robinson bought his partner out and has served as President ever since. The Birmingham company is a leading provider of metal gratings and flooring products among other things. It is on his products that, if you look very closely at the major sports venues on campus, you’ll see stamped “Hail State.”
“I like creating an optimistic work environment,” he says. “I believe my company should be invested in our employees’ lives. A 10 year employee came to me and told me because of his cancer diagnosis he wouldn’t be able to lift anything and was worried he’d lose his job. I told him we’d find something else for him to do that wouldn’t require that, but his job was not in jeopardy. Another employee who had immigrated to the U.S., really made me feel good when he invited me to attend his house closing. I want to make others around me happy as best I can.”
Robinson not only generously shares his wisdom with MSU students, he and wife Keri have provided monetary support as well. They finance an annual scholarship for business students involved in entrepreneurial pursuits. They have also funded the new James M. Robinson Seminar Suite for the Department of Marketing, Quantitative Analysis and Business Law.
“Keri is one of my best supporters,” he shares. “She’s a good listener and lets me bounce things off her. But she’ll also call me out when I’m in the wrong!”
How does the College of Business thank someone who has done so much for its students and faculty? By bestowing on him the well-deserved moniker of Alumni Fellow of the Year.
“No one deserves this honor more than James,” states Dean Scott Grawe. “He and Keri have supported our College with enthusiasm, and their energy has drawn others to the College as well.”
“We have a great story to tell at MSU,” Robinson says with conviction. “We’re one of the top business schools in the nation, and we do a lot more with a lot less funding. I love giving back to the University in any way I can and look forward to continuing to help and serve.”
