Inductee
Alice Houston
President & CEO HJI Supply Chain Solutions
Alice K. Houston was educated in the Louisville, Kentucky public schools and received her high school diploma in 1964. She graduated cum laude from Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, in 1968 and received a Danforth Foundation Fellowship in Latin American History to attend graduate school at Vanderbilt University. She attended Vanderbilt from 1968 to 1969.
Alice left Vanderbilt in 1969 to marry Wade Houston, who was pursuing a career in professional sports. The two traveled and lived in Strasbourg, France, where Wade played and coached basketball. Upon returning to the United States, Alice began a long and successful association with the University of Louisville.
While earning an M.Ed. in College Student Personnel Services, she served as Assistant and later Associate Director of Financial Aid at the University of Louisville. She left the university in March 1988 to join a series of family businesses, which collectively became one of the largest minority-owned companies in the United States—and the largest minority-owned transportation company in North America during the 1990s.
In July 2001, Alice divested her interests in the transportation company to focus on developing HJI Supply Chain Solutions. She became President and CEO in January 2005. Over the following years, HJI became a preferred supplier of material fulfillment, sequencing, assembly, and logistics services.
In 2011, HJI was nominated by Ford Motor Company and subsequently won the TSMSDC “Supplier of the Year Award.” The company was also honored in 2018 and 2019 with the Supplier Diversity Excellence Award from Yanfeng Global Automotive Interiors.
In August 2020, Alice resigned as CEO after successfully completing a six-year succession plan to transition ownership to the second generation.
Back to InducteesPresenting Sponsor
Platinum Sponsor
Gold Sponsor
Silver Sponsor
