A MINE BOSS INSPIRES FEAR, BUT PRIDE, TOO (ADDs new last graf with quotation; SUBS graf beginning 'Blankenship earned a degree ' to add his age and other detail; SUBS graf beginning 'Childhood friends described ' to add detail.) Bernie Becker contributed reporting. MONTCOAL, W.Va. -- Since Monday's mine explosion, Don L. Blankenship, the chief executive of the Massey Energy Co., which owns the Upper Big Branch mine, has appeared several times before the cameras. But he has said very little, his face seeming almost expressionless as he quietly answers questions about his concern for miner safety. When asked whether he expected families of the victims to be angry with him personally, he told a local radio station that they 'are going to vent that anger toward someone and I would suspect in some cases it will be me.' If his goal is to shrink his profile in the continuing news coverage of the accident, he has largely succeeded -- a remarkable turnabout for a man who has cultivated a larger-than-life reputation over the years as a fearless and combative businessman. The Blankenship iconography includes an old Zenith television that he keeps not far from his desk, its screen shattered by a bullet that came through his office window during an 11-month strike in 1985. He has called himself a 'street fighter,' and once tussled with an ABC reporter and warned: 'If you're going to start taking pictures of me, you're liable to get shot.' Just as Blankenship is able to project two images of himself, the people in the town of Montcoal, the site of the explosion, see him in vastly different lights, too. While many miners complain, almost always anonymously, about what they see as Blankenship's fixation with profit, the company tries to cultivate camaraderie. Massey miners are not called employees; they are called members. Some Massey families fly the Massey flag -- white with a large M with flames coming off the top -- in front of their homes. Though miners often grumble about the black helicopter that Blankenship uses to get around the state, he is quick to portray himself as just like the people who work for his company. Last year, he hosted a huge July 4 celebration for workers, with Ted Nugent as the headline act. More recently, he pledged about $1 million dollars to renovate a school that sits in the shadow of a massive coal impoundment owned by Massey. The impoundment, which is like a lagoon, holds more than 2 billion gallons of semisolid coal waste, which federal regulators recently said was seeping out. 'There is a lot of pride that Massey people feel about their work and working in the mines over all,' said Robin Shamblin, whose sister, Bobbie, is a miner at Upper Big Branch. 'They are happy to be working and many, not all, but many feel lucky to be working for Massey and Blankenship.' Betty Harrah, whose brother Steve Harrah, 40, was among those killed Monday, said Blankenship was to be credited with providing what few jobs are left in the hollows in this hardscrabble part of the state. She said that her brother had started working in mines after spending time in the military, and that he loved his coworkers and was proud to be working for Massey. 'He had offers to go other places and he turned them down,' Harrah said Tuesday. Her brother chose Massey because it pays well, she said. 'Without mines like that, we wouldn't be a state anymore,' she added. In general, workers at Massey mines, all of which are nonunion, make more than those employed at other mines. But they typically also have smaller benefits packages than union miners. Any sense of pride in the company, however, was not apparent at an early morning gathering at the mine Tuesday, when the company announced that 25 miners were dead, and Blankenship was escorted by more than a dozen police officers. Blankenship did not respond to interview requests for this article. 'No one was real proud of the company then and no one was happy with Blankenship,' said a woman who attended the meeting but asked for anonymity because she feared her husband would lose his job if she were quoted by name. 'People were screaming at him that all he cared about was making money.' Even in Delorme, a hamlet of manufactured homes splayed between mountains near the Kentucky border where Blankenship grew up, opinions remain bitterly divided about him. At the Outback convenience store, the town's lone market, Louie Hatfield, 43, said, 'I don't see nothing he does here, other than running around in a black Mercedes.' Childhood friends described a more complicated figure: smart, competitive and singularly focused and driven. He had more money than many students, 'and always let you know he had more than you did,' said Sherman Collins, 54, who used to play sports with him. Collins played sports with Blankenship but said he no longer saw his former friend as a team player. 'He changed his personality when he got to Massey,' Collins said. 'Donnie's out for Donnie.' Eddie Croaff and Burt Robinette, both retired miners, said Blankenship had been heavily influenced by his mother, a strict woman who ran a store and gas station, and who did not let him play with certain boys. 'He was very, very competitive,' Croaff said. 'He used to pitch, and he hated losing. Athletically he was not overly gifted, but he made himself what he was by working hard.' Croaff said Blankenship was always calculating odds -- the chances of turning a corner safely at a certain speed, for example. 'He was always a risky type person,' he said. 'He lived his life by the odds. He felt if the odds were in his favor, he wasn't taking a risk.' Blankenship, who is 60, earned a degree in accounting from Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., and began working for Massey as a manager in 1982. Eight years later, became the first person who was not a member of the Massey family to lead the company. Blankenship came to public prominence during a bitter strike in the mid-1980s, when he was a company manager, that ended in concessions from the unions and paved the way for Massey to be nearly union-free. Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, likened Blankenship to the coal barons of the 1920s. 'I've known him as an adversary longer than anyone you'll meet, and he was always like this,' Roberts said. As Blankenship rose at Massey, working largely out of a trailer just over the Kentucky state line, he used his wealth to become a force in West Virginia politics, first behind the scenes and then more publicly. His political activities have typically been aimed at reducing government regulation, including environmental and safety protections, which he says have driven businesses out of West Virginia. Critics say Blankenship's antagonism toward regulation reflects a disregard for worker safety and the environment. Yet even some of his longstanding adversaries respect his commitment to his principles. Brian Glasser, a lawyer in Charleston, W.Va., has brought suits against Massey since 1999, including two very large actions involving multiple victims. 'I think what drives him is that he honestly believes what he is doing is materially benefiting the lives of the people who work for him,' he said. 'He may be tone deaf to other issues, so he comes off as cold.' Glasser said critics were too quick to judge Blankeship as callous. 'I've been his opponent many times, but I'm sure they are hurt by this,' he said. 'Everybody's hurting. To make him an enemy of the people is not fair to him.' 