If you remember the days before political correctness, you might recall the sentiment, Someone ought to knock some sense into that kid.


It was meant figuratively in most instances, but in Anthony Bonanzinos case, thats literally what his freshman English teacher did.


Bonanzino, the CEO of Spokane-based pharmaceutical manufacturer Hollister-Stier Laboratories LLC, lost his father at age 7 and got kicked out of a New Haven, Conn., Catholic school two years later for throwing eggs at a nun.


Sent to a free school for fatherless boys in Philadelphia by a mother who waitressed to support her four children, Bonanzino continued to cause problems until one day his freshman year when he told a male English teacher to go to hell. As the teacher approached the 5-foot-7-inch, then 122-pound Bonanzinos desk, the boy jumped to his feet and cocked his fist, only to wake up a few minutes later propped against the classroom wall. The teacher had gotten off the first punch and knocked him cold.


The teacher and student had a long talk after that, and the young Bonanzino learned a life-changing lesson.


He said I need to think about things, that I had more to offer than I had been offering, Bonanzino, now 51, says while sitting in his office at the 300-employee Hollister-Stier plant he oversees and partially owns. I thought about that and realized what I had been doing wasnt working.


From that point forward, he didnt get in trouble. By the end of his sophomore year, he was a member of the National Honor Society.


Thirty-some years later, Bonanzino attributes success hes experienced in life to qualities instilled at the school for fatherless boys: accountability, self-discipline, and respect for all people, the latter being the most important, he says.


You dont need to be president of a company to deserve someones respect, he says. Everybody has a role, everybody contributes, and everybody deserves respect.


Bonanzino has carried that philosophy while leading Hollister-Stier the past four years. During that time, the company has stepped up its contract-manufacturing efforts and moved from being mostly a maker of allergy products to a major contract manufacturer of pharmaceuticals and biological agents.


Earlier this year, the company made news when it landed a contract to fill vials with an anthrax vaccine for VaxGen Inc., a San Francisco-based drug company that makes the vaccine for the U.S. government.


Hollister-Stier is privately held and doesnt disclose its annual revenues, but Bonanzino says it has grown and has been able to reinvest heavily in its plant, which is located at 3525 N. Regal in northeast Spokane.


Bonanzinos office is large with a clothes closet and built-in vanity and sink, suggesting he spends a lot of time there. Asked how many hours a week he works, he shrugs and says not a lot.


The thing is, you never turn this off, he says, referring to his responsibilities as CEO.


Bonanzino also gives time to business and civic organizations. He currently serves as chairman of the Spokane Alliance for Medical Research and is chairman-elect of the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce.


On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he leaves work earlier than usual and heads off to Centennial Middle School, where he holds practice for an under-18 girls soccer team he coaches. He coached his son Anthonys teams through high school.


He says he loves soccer and working with young athletes. Also, he goes through all of the workouts with the team, which he says helps him stay fit.


Patrick Jones, executive director of Eastern Washington Universitys Institute for Public Policy who also works in external affairs for the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute, met Bonanzino four years ago while forming the Biotech Association of the Spokane Region.


He says that hes been impressed with how Bonanzino can accomplish so much at work and in the community.


Tony is the ultimate multitasker, Jones says. My sense is that he can make good and quick decisions on where to spend his time.


Bonanzino also teaches business courses at Gonzaga University. This fall, he is teaching an upper-level course on organizational leadership.


That gig got him and his wife, Marylou, laughing about how hes always had a second job. He says that ever since he got his first job after college at a Connecticut dairy operation, hes always either had an additional weekend job or has taken classes at night.


Prior to teaching at Gonzaga, Bonanzino taught courses at Whitworth College, then took classes at Gonzaga while working toward a doctorate in leadership studies, which he earned last year.


His other degrees include a masters degree in operational management from the former Hartford Graduate Center, and a bachelors degree in biology from Southern Connecticut State University.


He also received training as a Chinese linguist while serving in the U.S. Air Force and took classes to become fluent in German while working for Germany-based Bayer Corp.


After high school


After graduating from the school for fatherless boys at age 17, Bonanzino attended a junior college in Boston and played left wing for its hockey team. He left the school after one year and began working in a motorcycle shop. It was during that time that he met Marylou, and he married her at age 21.


One of the motorcycle enthusiasts Bonanzino met while working at the shop was an Air Force recruiter, and he convinced Bonanzino to join the service. Bonanzino did one year of training in Monterey, Calif., but left the military before ever working on an Air Force base. He says the Vietnam War ended while he was in training, and the Air Force had a surplus of linguists. Bonanzino took the option of honorable discharge with full benefits, rather than being reassigned.


At 22, he and Marylou returned to Connecticut where he began working toward his undergraduate degree. It was there a few years later that the couple had their first child, a girl named Stephanie.


Bonanzinos first job after graduating from Southern Connecticut State was as a microbiology laboratory technician for a dairy operation. After working there for a short period, he was moved to the production side of the operation and put in charge of about 80 workers. He didnt know a lot about production, but found it fascinating and learned about it from the people he supervised. He says they liked to share what they knew and in many ways taught him how to do his job.


Sometimes people get into a supervisor position, and they assume they know everything, Bonanzino says. You can really benefit from learning to respect people and listening to what they know.


From there, he went to work for pharmaceutical company McKesson Corp. for a few years, then to Miles Laboratories Inc. operation, both within a hours drive of his home in West Haven, Conn. Bayer acquired Miles, and Bonanzino began moving up within that international powerhouse.


In the late 1980s, he oversaw the launch of a successful new antibiotic called ciprofloxicin, which became a flagship product for Bayer.


His reward, he says, was to come to Spokane in 1990 to launch production of an intravenous form of that drug at the plant here. Bayer had bought the plant, which was founded in 1921 as Hollister-Stier Laboratories, in 1974.


For Bonanzino, being sent here was supposed to be a short-term assignment. Hed come to Spokane for three weeks at a time, the return to Connecticut. That became 12 months of up and back, which caused a strain in his family.


I vowed that if I ever was in a position of responsibility, I wouldnt do that to anybody, Bonanzino says. To date, hes kept that promise to himself.


After about a year, he was asked to work permanently in Spokane, and he decided to move his family west. He says he made the decision pretty much unilaterally, and it was hard on his loved ones, especially Marylou, who had lived most of her life within a 25-mile radius of her five sisters, and also on Stephanie, who was just starting high school.


After three weeks here, Bonanzino decided hed made a mistake and that hed move his family back to Connecticut. In the fourth week, however, Stephanie met a boy at school, and Marylou had started to make some friends.


Now, he says, Itd take dynamite to get Marylou out of Spokane.


Bonanzino had worked at the Spokane plant for eight years when Bayer decided to divest itself of that operation. He says he sought to buy the plant because he saw the people who work there as a valuable asset.


The one thing you have here that surpasses everything else is the people, he says. Unless youve been here, you cant appreciate just how good they are. Under the Bayer management system, it couldnt be appreciated.


Bonanzino and some co-workers enlisted the help of a New York-based venture-capital firm to buy the Spokane operation.


Schools influence


Bonanzino says so much of what helps him in his business dealings today goes back to those basic lessons at the school for fatherless boys.


He also acknowledges that the type of blunt discipline he received would never happen in todays society, which he says is unfortunate in some respects.


Bonanzino says hes not suggesting that parents beat their children or that teachers hit their students. He says, however, Were deceiving kids today. We dont want to offend anyone. At times there needs to be some form of discipline. There need to be a better understanding that there are repercussions.


Fortunately, he says, he learned those lessons well.