Gaylon H. White

Gaylon Hooper White is an American columnist, communications consultant and author of The Bilko Athletic Club, a book about beer-loving, home run-hitting Steve Bilko and the 1956 Los Angeles Angels of the old Pacific Coast League.

White graduated in 1967 from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in journalism-broadcasting. He was a sportswriter for the Denver Post, Arizona Republic and Oklahoma Journal before entering the corporate world and writing speeches for top executives at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Control Data Corporation and Eastman Chemical Company.

At Eastman, a manufacturer of plastics, chemicals and fibers, he established an award-winning website, the Eastman Innovation Lab, which uses storytelling to bridge the communications gap between the materials and design worlds. He was responsible for a highly acclaimed series of videos called Design Insights that featured thought-provoking interviews with some of the world’s top product designers.

White received a personal recognition award from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) in 2010 for his support of design education and being a “great builder of bridges” between the manufacturing and design communities. In 2011, White was awarded an honorary lifetime membership in the IDSA. “At heart, Gaylon White is a storyteller,” Bob Grace of Plastics News wrote on White’s retirement from Eastman in 2012. “Others would do well to learn from his story.”

The Los Angeles-born White was nine years old in 1955 when Bilko arrived in L.A. carrying the baggage of six failed big league trials. At the time, L.A. was a minor-league city with major-league dreams. Over the next three years, Bilko belted 148 home runs for the Angels to become known as “Stout Steve, the Slugging Seraph” and inspire “The Bilko Athletic Club” nickname for the mighty ‘56 Angels, widely considered baseball’s last great minor league team.

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