He was named after his maternal grandparents, Susan Victoria Dalton and Lieutenant Larkin DeShazo, a confederate officer who served in May's Company of the 45th Infantry Regiment.

McMichael's first textile job was for the Cost Accounting Department at Burlington Industries in Greensboro, North Carolina.

He then moved to New York for three years where he met William Johnston Armfield III, the general manager of the hosiery division at Burlington Industries.

[5] In 1998, McMichael received Textile World's Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the textured yarn business.

McMichael died on July 27, 2001, at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem at the age of eighty-seven.