Athens, Ga. — The chief financial officer of Viacom, the president of Macon-based Bibb Distributing Company, and a client executive for Savannah-based Seacrest Partners were honored by the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business at its 2012 Alumni Awards and Gala, which was held on Saturday, April 28, at the InterContinental Hotel in Buckhead.
Two of the graduates—Jimmy Barge, CFO of Viacom, and Winburn “Brother” Stewart, president of Bibb Distributing—received the college’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Matt Stinchcomb, a client executive who works out of Seacrest Partners’ Atlanta office, received the college’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award. All three were honored for their career achievements and community service.
The Terry College has been presenting its alumni awards since 1964. The college’s Alumni Board of Directors hosts the spring gala, which in the past six years has raised nearly $1.5 million for the college.
This year’s gala raised more than $285,000, thanks in part to spirited live auction bidding on items that included a red-and-black Mini Cooper convertible, which was donated by Sons Automotive Group executives Street and Clay Nalley, both of whom are Terry alumni; and a golf trip to the historic Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club, which was donated by club president and Terry alumnus Bill Griffin.
Distinguished Alumni Award
Jimmy Barge, a 1978 summa cum laude graduate of the Terry College, is responsible for Viacom’s financial reporting and planning, and its accounting, tax and treasury functions, as well as the company’s information technology activities. Viacom is the fifth-largest media conglomerate in the world with Internet and TV properties that represent 170 channels serving 600 million homes in more than 160 countries.
Prior to joining Viacom in January 2008, where he has also served as executive vice president and controller, Barge served as senior vice president and controller for Time Warner. He joined Time Warner in 1995 as assistant controller. Prior to that, Barge spent nearly 17 years with public accounting firm Ernst & Young.
Barge’s E&Y career began in Atlanta in 1978 and included an exchange program in London, a five-year stint back in Atlanta, a two-year fellowship at the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., and a tour of duty in Los Angeles, where he worked on E&Y’s Warner Brothers account and caught the eye of the studio’s parent company Time Warner. While working on E&Y’s Coca-Cola account, Barge was involved in the acquisition of The Coca-Cola Bottling Company. In 1996, as controller at Time Warner, he helped consummate the $6 billion acquisition of Turner Broadcasting.
Barge is treasurer and a board member of both the Ad Council and the United Neighborhood Houses of New York. He also serves on the board of the Scholastic Corporation. His Terry College involvement includes service as an Alumni Board member and as a lecturer in the Terry Leadership Speaker Series.
Winburn “Brother” Stewart, a 1974 graduate of the Terry College, is president of Macon-based Bibb Distributing Company, which is one of the most successful Anheuser-Busch distributorships in the U.S.
The Stewart family’s success story goes back several generations. Brother’s great-grandfather, Broadus Lawton Willingham, and later his grandfather, Broadus E. Willingham, operated the second-largest cotton mill in Macon. The chain of command was broken in 1956 when Brother’s father, Winburn Stewart Sr., elected to go into the beer business. In 1968, Brother’s father bought out his partners, and in 1974 Brother moved up from the warehouse to the managerial side of the business, working side by side with his father.
Bibb Distributing enjoys a dominant market share in its 15-country distribution area, and Stewart has been heavily involved in local civic organizations, including Goodwill Industries, the United Way, and the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base.
Stewart is an emeritus member of the Terry Alumni Board. He chaired the college’s campaign steering committee during the Archway to Excellence Campaign, he is currently a member of the Terry Dean’s Advisory Council—and both of his children are Terry graduates.
Outstanding Young Alumni
Matt Stinchcomb, a 1998 summa cum laude graduate of the Terry College, is a client executive for Savannah-based Seacrest Partners, working out of the company’s Atlanta office. He is also one of the most decorated student-athletes in UGA history, having been named an All-American for his exploits both on the football field and in the classroom.
As an offensive lineman at Georgia, Stinchcomb was a consensus All-America first-team selection in 1998 and a two-time All-American in 1997-98. He was also named to the SEC First Team All-Decade Team for the 1990s. He was honored with the prestigious NCAA Top Eight Award and he was a Lombardi Award finalist. A first-round NFL draft choice of the Oakland Raiders, Stinchcomb later played in the Super Bowl as a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Stinchcomb, who was a standout student-athlete at Parkview High School in suburban Atlanta, made a perfect 4.0 in all but two of his grading periods at UGA, graduating in three and a half years with an overall GPA of 3.96. He was the 1998 Academic All-American of the Year, a Burger King Scholar Athlete of the Year, and a two-time Academic All-America first team member. In recognition of his extensive mentoring and volunteer activities, he was twice named to the American Football Coaches National Good Works Team. In 2009, Stinchcomb was named an SEC “Living Legend” and inducted into UGA’s Circle of Honor, which is the highest distinctive a student-athlete can achieve.
Stinchcomb is the president and founder of the Stinchcomb Family Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization that supports public children’s charities. Together with his brother Jon, a former Georgia football star and NFL lineman for the New Orleans Saints, and former Georgia quarterback David Greene, Stinchcomb hosts “Countdown to Kickoff,” an annual children’s charity event held at UGA. Greene, who also earned a business degree from the Terry College, is a colleague of Stinchcomb’s at Seacrest Partners, which was ranked in the top 20 on the most recent “Bulldog 100” list of the fastest-growing UGA-owned and operated businesses.
The Terry College of Business Alumni Board of Directors selects alumni award winners from nominations submitted to the board.