Bob Hamilton, 67

Home Textiles Today Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 8/8/2011 10:13:42 AM

Bob HamiltonCornelius, N.C. - Bob Hamilton, the longtime Fieldcrest Cannon marketing executive who's colorful and splendiferous story-telling and showmanship was matched only by his equally Technicolor wardrobe, passed away on Saturday following a long battle with cancer. He was 67.

Hamilton more recently was a senior marketing vp with Welspun and, as he did at Fieldcrest, he helped to establish a unified product image for the rapidly expanding company.

But it was at Fieldcrest where Hamilton - almost always attired in a country club gentleman look that tended toward navy blazers, pastel ties and matching socks - made his mark, mostly as the keeper of the Royal Velvet legacy. His product and marketing presentations were legendary for their eloquence as well as their panache, and Hamilton excelled at each.

His ties to Royal Velvet outlived Fieldcrest Cannon itself: When the company went out of business and its Kannapolis, N.C. offices were being cleaned out, Hamilton rescued generations of RV sales and marketing materials and became the living repository for the history of one of the industry's greatest brands.

His struggle with his illness, which first appeared on an overseas business trip in 2009, were chronicled in an online blog where Hamilton continued to wax poetic - a phrase that while sometimes sounding archaic fit him perfectly.

Indeed, in the last entry in the blog, posted on Sunday announcing his passing, his family continued both the tone and spirit of Hamilton's language: "Our most gracious, tailored, gentle-hearted, profound, articulate, storyteller of a husband and father, the truest of gentlemen, is finally at peace."

Hamilton is survived by his wife, Diane, children and grandchildren, although all family members could not be immediately named.

Funeral arrangements, at Samuel S. James, in Huntersville, N.C., were still being set.