Clifton Eugene “Gene” Hurst, founder of Hurst Boiler & Welding Co., died July 22 at the age of 79, the company announced today.
Hurst and his wife, Edna, started the business in a shop behind their home in Thomasville, Ga., in 1967. Three years later, they moved the company to its present location in Coolidge, Ga., where it manufactures a full line of solid-waste, wood, gas, coal, and oil-fired steam and hot-water boilers and related equipment in a 314,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility on 17 acres.
Forty-eight years after its founding, the company, the largest employer in the area, with more than 350 employees at full production capacity, remains in the family. Currently, it is under the direction of the Hurst children: Tommy, Hayward, Teri, and Jeff.
“Anyone who knew him, in whatever capacity, would certainly agree he was a kind, humble, and inspiring individual who cared deeply for his family and the people who worked for him,” Jeff Hurst, Hurst Boiler’s director of marketing, said of his father.
In honor of the memory of Gene Hurst, the family requests a donation to Lives Without Limits be made in lieu of flowers.