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The third of eight children, Bobbie Bailey remembers moving to Atlanta when she was ten years old. At age 12, Bailey tuned race cars, a skill she learned from shadowing her older brother, Leon, who was a master mechanic and maker of his own tools. He taught her about rods, pistons and rings. This is when she discovered she was mechanically gifted. This mechanical gift would shape the rest of her life.

At 15, Bailey was between junior high school and high school looking for summer work. The world was at war and Bailey was looking for something “essential” to the war effort. Too young for defense work, she answered an ad in the paper, “Refrigeration work, essential.” She went to work for the Orr Brothers working on burned-out refrigeration compressors. Bailey stayed on after the war, working full-time and attending night school.

Bailey decided she wanted something more for her family. She loved mechanics and working with her hands. In those days, Southern women had two choices – home or the textile mill. Determined to break that mold, she set out to build a better life for herself and her family.

In 1948, Bailey began a joint venture with one of the Orr Brothers to start the Our-Way Machine Shop on Elizabeth Street in the Virginia-Highlands area. Bailey became CEO in 1952 when Orr retired. Later, she organized a new company, Our-Way, Inc., specializing in remanufacturing of commercial refrigeration and air conditioning compressors.

As the air conditioning industry grew, Bailey took on larger and larger contracts to remanufacture commercial air conditioning and refrigeration compressors from the leaders in the industry, Copeland Corporation, Carrier Corporation, and Dunham-Bush Corporation. These partnerships lasted over 40 years. By 1978, Our-Way had outgrown the Elizabeth Street location and moved to a 226,000 square foot building in Tucker, Georgia. Our-Way became the world’s largest independent remanufacturer of commercial air conditioning and refrigeration compressors, employing over 350 people with annual sales topping $45 million. In the spring of 2001, Bailey bid farewell to Our-Way when she sold her business to Carrier Corporation, and with this sale, secured jobs for her loyal 350 + employees. Bailey served as CEO and sole owner of Our-Way for over 50 years.

Bailey became a member of the Recording Academy in 1972. Since that time she has served several terms as Chapter Governor of the Atlanta Chapter, served two terms as President of the Atlanta Chapter, Hall of Fame Election Committee, Membership Committee; Education Committee (Past President – 2001), Planning Committee, Vocal Tech Committee, Lowery Tribute Committee, Special Projects Committee, the Mayor’s Commission on the Atlanta Entertainment Industry Committee and three terms as National Trustee. She has been serving on the National Finance Committee since 1996.

While Our-Way received recognition as one of the “Top 100 Companies” in Business Atlanta in 1983, Bailey began to explore music and television. She produced records on her own RX-Melody and Southernaire labels. Her first RX-Melody release was an album commemorating the 25th anniversary of the popular singing group, the Platters, and she produced the accompanying television special that was released by a Chicago syndicator. That same year, Bailey entered into a joint venture with entertainment attorney, Joel Katz in film and television productions. Today, long-time friends, Bailey and Katz are involved in a joint venture, Oryx Music Publishers.

As her interest in the entertainment industry grew, in 1989, Bailey began serving as President of Friends of Georgia Music Festival, Inc., an organization which sponsors the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In that same year, Bailey began to serve as Executive Producer of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards Show which is televised live on Georgia Public Broadcasting. She also started Entertainment Resource Services – a mail order distribution company which sells music CD’s, DVD’s, videos and tapes.

Bailey’s entrepreneual skills and love of a challenge were tapped by the Greenland Expedition Society who launched seven expeditions to Greenland to recover the Lost Squadron. Bailey was one of the 12 original shareholders and investors in the Lost Squadron project. In 1989, Bailey and her crew at Our-Way designed, fabricated and packaged the probes, casing, drilling shaft and key hole saws that successfully retrieved pieces of the B-17 at 250 feet below the surface. These pieces provided the first tangible evidence of the aircrafts. In 1990, Bailey and her Our-Way crew designed and fabricated the 1990 “Gopher”. It was used in the very first successful boring of the hole to the B-17—250 feet below the surface. In 1992, Bailey built a second “Gopher” that was used to successfully retrieve the P-38 from 265 feet of ice. This “Super Gopher” is currently on display at the Lost Squadron Museum in Middlesboro, Kentucky. The successful rescue of the P-38, affectionately called “Glacier Girl,” led to the book, The Lost Squadron, A True Story, by David Hayes. In 2002, the History Channel aired “Time Machine: The Hunt for the Lost Squadron,” a story of the 2002 flight of the P-38 fighter “Glacier Girl” which caps one of the most remarkable tales of aviation treasure hunting ever. In June 2007, “Glacier Girl” flew to Europe via Greenland to complete the mission started in 1942.

Among her varied interests, Bailey has always had a love for sports. From 1960 to 1980, Bailey managed the Lorelei Ladies fast pitch softball team. This all-women’s team played in New York, New Jersey, Texas and California, winning national championships several years in a row. In 1991, her loyalty to women’s sports led her to establish women’s athletic scholarships at Kennesaw State University and to endow a new athletic facility named The Bobbie Bailey Athletic Complex which was dedicated in 2005. Fittingly, Dr. Bailey was inducted into the KSU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.

Bailey’s interest in and giving at KSU is not restricted to athletics. She is an avid supporter of the arts, and has established music scholarships to benefit aspiring artists at KSU. The University’s new performance hall, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2007, will be known as the Dr. Bobbie Bailey and Family Performance Center.

Dr. Bailey has served on the KSU Foundation Board of Trustees since 1993. The University acknowledged her many contributions by awarding her its Doctor of Humane Letters in 1998, the second honorary doctorate awarded in its history. In 2003 Dr. Bailey received the President’s Award for exemplary service. She has been a loyal supporter of Kennesaw State University and a long-time friend of President Emeritus Betty Siegel.

Continuing her desire to promote music for young people, her involvement with Georgia State University began when a joint scholarship endowment was created in 1989 through a $10,000 gift made by Bailey and the Atlanta Chapter of the Recording Academy in her honor. Additional gifts were made to the endowment by Dr. Bailey, and the scholarship’s name was changed to The Bobbie Bailey Music Industry Scholarship in 1993. This award is made annually to a School of Music undergraduate student majoring in music industry who demonstrates outstanding academic achievement in a music industry concentration.

A generous gift from Dr. Bailey enabled the School to create the Bobbie Bailey Music Technology and Recording Classrooms in the Media Center. Students study the latest music software at eighteen computer/keyboard stations in the Bailey technology classroom and recording technology instruction is provided in seminars in the Bailey recording classroom. The dedication of the Media Center took place in 2002.

In 2003 through a generous gift from Dr. Bailey, the Georgia State University established the Bobbie Bailey Professor in Music Industry to recognize her many achievements and contributions in this field. This professorship has enabled instructors and music industry students to travel to music industry conferences and provide support for seminars and programs on campus as well as conducting research about the music industry in Georgia.

The generosity of Dr. Bailey is also quite evident at DeKalb Medical in Decatur, Georgia, where the Mary and Elbert Bailey Family Emergency Waiting Room was dedicated in memory of her parents, and the M. Bobbie Bailey and Audrey B. Morgan Diagnostic Imaging Center was dedicated in 2005 to further diagnostic cancer services through a state-of-the-art PET/CT scanner, and Dr. Bailey has supported the clinical trials at DeKalb Medical Cancer Center.

Giving back to her community continues through the Bobbie Bailey Foundation which was established in 1993. Through this private foundation, sponsorships were made possible to the Atlanta Chapters of American Heart Association; the Atlanta Chapter of the American Cancer Society; and in 2006 and 2007, the ABLE Trust of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Bailey has served on numerous boards and committees including the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Committee, DeKalb Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Bank of America Advisory Board, and the Atlanta Union Mission and is currently Chairman of the Board of Decatur First Bank.

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