Clair Sims advanced from secretary to manager at Coca-Cola in the 1960s at a time when few women were climbing the corporate ladder. In her case, she stood on her rung until she retired in 1993.
As head of local advertising, Ms. Sims' responsibilities actually ranged across the nation. She supervised and coordinated marketing for local bottlers from California to Virginia. Another of her annual assignments was preparation of Coca-Cola's advertising center spreads in the programs for the NFL Super Bowl and the NCAA Final Four basketball games.
"It was Clair's job to manage the creative and production phases of those ad layouts and make sure they were on time, on budget and on point," said Margaret Parrish of Temple, a former employee in Ms. Sim's department.
Ms. Sims inspired her employees to be better workers and better people, said Mrs. Parrish, adding that "Clair was my best cheerleader until my husband came along. She once enabled me and a co-worker to go on an expense-paid marketing trip to Montreal by threatening to stay in Atlanta herself unless the two of us were permitted to go.
"She was a nurturing boss, but she also expected you to do your work, to represent Coca-Cola well when you were traveling on company business and to drink the company's products, not the competitors'," Mrs. Parrish added.
A Coca-Cola employee for 47 years, Ms. Sims was the go-to person to answer just about any question about the company, said another former employee, Linda Webb Alexander of Vinings.
Ms. Sims' top attributes as an advertising manager were her understanding of consumer tastes and her ability to communicate the Coca-Cola headquarters' marketing message to its local bottlers, Mrs. Alexander said.
Mary Clair Sims, 84, of Decatur, died of congestive heart failure Tuesday at VistaCare hospice at Emory Midtown. Her family will receive friends between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Saturday at A.S. Turner and Son funeral home, followed by a procession to Westview Cemetery for a graveside service at 12 noon. The family asks those wishing to make contributions in memory of Ms. Sims to donate to the American Heart Association, in care of americanheart.org.
One of Ms. Sims' favorite virtues was thrift.
"Clair resisted spending money when she didn't need to," said Mrs. Parrish. "She was delighted when a handyman attached a lamp cord to her old leaf blower and saved her the cost of a new one. Another time she ‘fixed' a loose strip molding on the side of her car with a wad of freshly chewed bubblegum."
Ms. Sims' parents lost the home in which she grew up when the Georgia Department of Transportation exercised the right of eminent domain to make way for a proposed but never-built expressway connecting Atlanta's downtown to the Stone Mountain Freeway.
"It upset Clair that that house stood empty and unused for years after her family had to abandon it," said Mrs. Parrish. Eventually, the house was razed and the site was cleared to make way for the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
"Clair was pleased that the property was finally put to a good use," said a nephew, William Sims III of Vinings.
Outside the office, Ms. Sims was definitely not an inside person. She spent hours in her backyard garden, "her window to a wooded world," as Mrs. Alexander called it. She cultivated a wide variety of plants and gave cuttings to dozens of friends. She also enjoyed long walks in her heavily forested Decatur neighborhood.
She is survived by seven nieces and two nephews.
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