Bryan is a second-generation member of the West Point family that founded Bryan Foods, a meat products company that is now a subsidiary of Sara Lee, a global packaged food and consumer products company. He was a student at Mississippi State in 1959-60 and is an economics and business administration graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis. General Motors Corp. An active supporter of the arts, he is a member of the Trustees Council of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and a member of the board of the White House Endowment Fund. Among numerous awards and honors Bryan has received are France's Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, Holland's Order of Orange Nassau, and the National Humanitarian Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He was named executive of the year in 1997 by the French-American Chamber of Commerce and is a past chairman and board member of Catalyst, a national organization that works with business to effect change for women.
Seal is to receive the doctor of public service honorary degree.
He began his career at Hancock Bank in 1947 while a student at Mississippi State, where he was an outstanding lineman for the football team. Seal has been active for 50 years in public service on a local, state and national level, working especially for the advancement of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Mississippi Power Co. He currently serves on the Mississippi Export Railroad Board, the Bank of Wiggins board of directors, the Gulf Coast Economic Development Council, and the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, and is past president of the Mississippi Bankers Association. Seal has supported Mississippi State through generous financial contributions and as a member of the Alumni Association, the M-Club Alumni Association, and as an officer or member of the board of directors of the Mississippi State University Foundation, the Bulldog Foundation Inc., and the Bulldog Club. He attended the School of Banking of the South at Louisiana State University and the Senior Bank Officers' School at Harvard University.