Apple's CEO and Alabama native Tim Cook is

.

The piece begins in a compelling way by remembering an Alabama day 40 years ago that changed Cook's life.

Apple CEO and Alabama native Tim Cook

"Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, was an adolescent boy in a small Alabama town in the early 1970s when he saw something he couldn't forget.

Bicycling home on a new 10-speed, he passed a large cross in flames in front of a house -- one that he knew belonged to a black family. Around the cross were Klansmen, dressed in white cloaks and hoods, chanting racial slurs. Mr. Cook heard glass break, maybe someone throwing something through a window. He yelled, "Stop!"

One of the men lifted his conical hood, and Mr. Cook recognized a deacon from a local church (not Mr. Cook's). Startled, he pedaled away.

"This image was permanently imprinted in my brain, and it would change my life forever," Mr. Cook said of the burning cross, in a speech he gave last December.

The Alabama town is Robertsdale in Baldwin County, where Cook grew up. Of course he went on to attend Auburn University where he graduated in 1982 with a degree in industrial engineering.

The Times profile is an interesting piece about a man and Alabamian atop one of the world's most important businesses and the challenges he faces in guiding Apple forward while always being compared to Apple icon Steve Jobs.

Here is the link to the story. Tim Cook, Making Apple His Own

Earlier from AL.com: Tim Cook -- Apple CEO and Robertsdale's favorite son -- still finds time to return to his Baldwin County roots

Below is an Auburn University video of Cook's speech upon receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award and discussing his childhood in Alabama (he references the cross burning at the 2:30 mark)