M.A. Motley Sr. went from success as a plumber to become one of the most influential African-American business leaders in Richmond.

In a span of more than 60 years, he moved from operating a profitable plumbing and heating company to running a savings and loan and a business lending firm to creating a wholesale hardware business that served the East Coast.

Along with his personal businesses, Mr. Motley, who shunned publicity and the spotlight, also was involved in launching the Metropolitan Business League, a black business advocacy group, and playing a role in founding the African-American men’s social group, Club 533.

He also was a leader in efforts to jump-start new business growth in Church Hill through the federal Model Cities program and played a key role in enabling African-American doctors to obtain federal loans to own their own office buildings.

He also quietly influenced city development through his long service on various boards, ranging from the Richmond Industrial Development Authority, now the Economic Development Authority, to the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park.

He kept his finger on the city’s business pulse in also serving on the boards of the Metro Richmond Chamber of Commerce, Consolidated Bank & Trust Co., the public-private Richmond Renaissance and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Real Estate Foundation.

Mr. Motley’s contributions are being remembered following his death on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. He was 96.

Family, friends and admirers celebrated his life Wednesday, Sept. 12, at Scott’s Funeral Home Chapel. He was entombed at Forest Lawn.

Standing 6-foot-2 with a football-style build, Mr. Motley often maintained a stoic countenance. He was “deeply involved in the community,” said his son, Victor A. Motley Sr. “He didn’t always say much, but when he talked, people listened.”

“He was one of the last real businessmen I associated with. He was a very close partner,” said Neverett A. Eggleston Jr., a longtime Richmond entrepreneur who joined with Mr. Motley and the late Garfield F. Childs Jr. to start the Metropolitan Business League. In early 2018, the organization marked its 50th year of advocating for Richmond’s black businesses.

Born Milwood Adolphus Motley, but always known by his initials, Mr. Motley prepared for a business career after high school by learning the plumbing trade at the former training center at Hampton Institute.

Interrupted by World War II, Mr. Motley served more than three years in the Navy before returning to Virginia to become a partner in a plumbing business in Martinsville and marrying the former Myrtle Hobson in 1948. Mrs. Motley died in July. The couple had three sons during their 70-year marriage.

In 1951, with too little business in rigidly segregated Martinsville, Mr. Motley moved the family to Richmond, where he began his own plumbing and heating business. When he arrived in Virginia’s larger, but equally segregated capital city, he quickly won attention as the first African-American to pass a city plumbing certification test.

To boost business, he joined four others in the trades to create the Black Associated Contractors and jointly market themselves to Richmond homeowners.

In the 1960s, he found time to serve on the city’s Bi-Racial Commission aimed at reducing racial tensions during the time marked by the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of laws outlawing government-enforced racial segregation.

He also served as president of the Church Hill Economic Development Corp. that used federal funding to underwrite revitalization efforts in the East End.

Mr. Motley served as campaign manager for Dr. William Ferguson Reid in his successful 1967 run to become the first African-American elected to the House of Delegates in the 20th century.

Around 1970, Mr. Motley said his father was lured away from his plumbing company to become president and chief executive officer of Radiantherm Inc., a Richmond-based electric baseboard manufacturing company.

After Radiantherm was sold to a larger company five years later, Mr. Motley regrouped and spent three years as a construction supervisor for the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

At the same time, he served as the largely unpaid president of the then-fledgling, Union Mutual Savings and Loan Association that he helped found in 1974, but which was closed about a decade later during a national upheaval over S&L lending.

His contributions to community betterment included service as president of the Midtown Investment Corp. that sought to spark new growth in the area between Downtown and the Boulevard.

Mr. Motley also served as president of the Metropolitan Business Development Corp. that helped secure Small Business Administration loans to build the separate Church Hill, Belvidere and Bainbridge medical office buildings. He also helped raise money to develop the new Richmond Community Hospital in the East End.

In 1982, Mr. Motley founded Union Financial Corp. to provide small business loans and also launched a hardware wholesale operation called Atlantic Industrial Supply Inc. on Chamberlayne Avenue.

He closed the finance company in 2007 and sold the supply company in 2009 as business dwindled.

He later served as president of the Eastern Seaboard Plumbing and Heating Association before retiring several years ago.

As hard as he worked in business, Mr. Motley found time to support the organizations through which he established lifelong friendships, his family said.

He was a past president of Club 533, past president of the Theban Beneficial Club and a former chapter and national president of The Guardsmen.

He also served on the board of the Urban League of Greater Richmond, the former Leigh Street YMCA and the Garfield Childs Memorial Fund.

Mr. Motley was a member of First United Presbyterian Church for six decades and served on the church’s Board of Elders and the Building and Grounds Committee.

Survivors include his sons, Bertram A. Motley and Victor A. Motley Sr., both of Richmond, and Milwood A. Motley Jr. of Columbus, Ga.; and five grandchildren.

The family requests that memorial contributions be made to First United Presbyterian, 3401 North Ave., Richmond, Va. 23222.