It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of E. Douglas Grindstaff Senior of Brentwood, Tennessee, at the age of 85 years. Doug was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1940, to J. Edward Grindstaff and Joey Ruth Pinyon Grindstaff, who were descendants of early pioneers before Tennessee was a state.
He began school in a rural two-room brick school that housed six grades. Sixteen years later, he graduated from UT Knoxville with a BS in electrical engineering and is the only engineer ever to be elected senior class president of that school
Doug joined Procter & Gamble Inc. in manufacturing management. Moving through increasing levels of responsibility, he was promoted to division manager in the food division, where Pringles Potato Chips was failing and was planned for closure. Through creative ideas and innovative management. Doug reduced the product cost by 70% in three years and saved the brand, which P&G later sold with $2billion in revenues.
Moving back to laundry and cleaning divisions, Doug ran 16 manufacturing plants producing, in today’s dollars, $12 billion per year. There, he led a historic employee relations realignment. In three years, he renegotiated the union contracts to eliminate all union work rules, seniority rights, and job descriptions, and cut product cost by 43%. This resulted in a major move in the company’s stock price.
Doug was then promoted to President of Procter & Gamble Canada in Toronto. Their business had been sliding for three years, but with his manufacturing skills, Doug doubled the profits in the first year. With this increased funding and innovative marketing, Doug doubled the revenues of the entire company in the next four years and doubled profits again. During that time, he promoted five people to general manager, including the first woman in the history of the company and another manager who later became CEO/ Chairman of the company. To combat bad environmentalist relations, Doug conceived of a flat pouch that could be filled with liquids and save millions of plastic bottles from going to landfills. Branding this as ENVIROPAC, he cornered the refill market in Canada and was named Marketer of the Year in Canada by the American Marketing Association.
Doug then moved to the company’s troubled paper manufacturing company in Memphis, which had never been run by an outsider. There, he quickly pumped up profits, did a strategic analysis, and convinced the company to divest. Within 18 months, he sold the $1 billion company for $1.2 billion.
Leaving P & G, Doug moved to Nashville to become the President/CEO of Genesco, a NYSE company. He introduced new brands and installed a modern discounting technology in the retail stores to increase turnover. He was selected as Distinguished Marketer of the Year by the Academy of Marketing Science.
Retiring from large corporations, Doug became an independent venture capital investor, corporate board member, and mentor. He assisted numerous companies and startups, including one company that grew from $16 million to $500 million in sales.
During his career, Doug had always supported and led charities and community projects. While in Canada, he observed that they had not yet been affected by illegal drugs as the US had been. He conceived of a nonprofit to fight that trend. Recruiting 25 major corporations, he created the largest anti-illegal drug organization in Canada’s history. It ran multimillion-dollar ad campaigns translated into both English and French. It was adopted by the Canadian Armed Forces. It was also translated into Spanish and adopted by the Pan-American Health Organization and used throughout Latin America.
Doug was also active in local politics and served two terms as Chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party.
Doug is survived by his wife, Rose M. Grindstaff, his sister, Wanda J. Rietdorf, and her two daughters, Kim Fuller and Tara Patton, four children, 12 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. His children and their spouses are: E. Douglas Grindstaff II (Tammy), Melinda M. McAlindon (Lance), Justin E. Miller (Katy), and Kimberly M. Pitt. Grandchildren and spouses are Alexandra Ritter (Thomas), E. Douglas Grindstaff III (Aimee), Caroline Grindstaff, Margaret McAlindon, Elizabeth McAlindon, James McAlindon, Jonathan McAlindon, Charlotte Miller, Archer Miller, Robert Pitt, lan Pitt, Annalee Pitt. Great-grandchildren are Harrison Ritter, Adelynne Ritter, Genevieve Grindstaff, and Cordelia Grindstaff.
In addition to Doug being a world-class leader and manager, he enjoyed mentoring and developing people, whether they were family, friends, or employees.
He and his wife of 30 years, Rose Grindstaff, enjoyed spending time at their Brentwood home that, together, they designed, built, and furnished. They hosted many family holidays and frequently hosted fundraisers. Always together, Doug and Rose worked, played, and grand-parented. They traveled the world extensively. Their Christmas cards would show riding an elephant in Egypt, touching a baby whale in Magdalena Bay, diving the Great Barrier Reef, spending weekends on their boat in the Dry Tortugas, attending the Cordon Bleu cooking school, or enjoying a quiet sunset at their beach house. Doug left a forever mark on his family and friends and on the companies and communities he served.
Many people will long remember and love him and miss him.
In lieu of flowers, the family kindly asks that donations be made to support cancer research at Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation (www.scottcares.org).
A gathering of family and friends will be held Saturday, October 11, 2025, from 11 am-1 pm, with a celebration of life to follow, located at Woodlawn-Roesch Patton Funeral Home, located at 660 Thompson Lane, Nashville, TN 37204. https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/nashville-tn
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