North Carolina People; Hugh McColl, CEO, NationsBank

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. McCall is the chairman and chief executive and president of nations but he's one of the really important figures in North Carolina. We're going to meet and talk with him in just a moment. Production of North Carolina people is made possible by a grant from what could be a bank a symbol of strength stability and service for over a century. Tonight's North Carolina people with Williams. Friday was taped on the campus of human sees Charlotte in the Rose Art Gallery. You know I want everybody to know that you are a product of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as well as your Father of all your children and you leading the bicentennial campaign you do so much for the place and it's great to have you come and sit with us on North Carolina people. Thank you Bill. I'm real proud of being a doctor. You had some real excitement your family recently had a big wedding on her take took place not too

long right. Daughter Jane got married two weeks ago and it was a great wedding we had a wonderful time and we're going to get over Ameren a boy from New York to Georgia. Yes I know what you mean. Well I've been reading a lot about you in this wonderful book that Howard Killington and Marion Ellis did on nations bank and first your father and your mother. They were two of the most interesting people I've read about a long time. Your dad had a lot to teach you about banking didn't he. Well he taught us a lot. All three boys and most mostly what he taught us was that you had to work hard if you want to make any money. And he started this doing that on his farms. At 25 cents a mile on an actual dose of one of the big pharmas that made it easy to become bankers. Your mother as more I read about her she was obviously a delightful very energetic and I would guess a prodding lady to keep you in the mood inside.

Well I think that and really we grew up we lived in our grandmothers home we really were raised all of us live there. And I had two women that really affected me a whole lot my grandmother and my mother was energetic and competitive and pushed as hard and grandmother. I believe that we should do well whatever we did so we got the pressure from both women. Growing up in the Old South. You knew it and been at school South Carolina in those days it had a lot of impact upon you and upon all of us who grew up around you in those days didn't you. Yeah I think that you know I really never thought about while I was well off or not why I was drawn of invented sail South Carolina because we all seem to sort of be in the same place that is. I don't think we many of us had much but it nobody noticed at all. We were more interested in the change of the seasons and baseball and football and hunting and pickin cotton and harvest time. Those kind of things and those are the ways ways we spend our days and those that is

destroyed. I read in this book that you said that the experience you had in the Marine Corps was really your Graduate School of Business in the sense of preparation of yourself. What happened there that made such a difference to you. Well I think two things I had grown up in a segregated society in South Carolina. And I was the worst kind in the sense that I didn't pay any attention to the let's say the disparity between the lifestyles of the people or didn't pay enough attention. I think more equal the first thing it told me was a everybody pulled the pants on the same way and you judged a man on what he could do and not not by the color of his skin or by whether he had gone to Harvard Business School or had just come out of high school somewhere. So the first thing it taught me was Latin. Secondly I think it taught me was that you don't ask a man to do anything you won't do yourself. Not all won't do do do. And finally I guess they most important management lesson was that you feed the troops first look after your people

first then you take care of yourself and all that adds up to leadership skills. I think that it was a great great experience for me when we don't have to do so much time to want to cover a lot with you but Addison Reese Tom stores and you know in all three of you. Work with Tom now you build a great organization here and you've made Charlotte a real financial capital of the of our country. You've grown at such a rapid rate. Is expansion still possible you see this in your play and oh what happened to make all this possible. Well I think that the way we've always had a great vision of ourselves and I think I said somewhere in an article that our rhetoric the reality had finally caught up with our rhetoric. But yes I think we will continue to grow and expand because there's a lot of the United States out there that we're not in. There are a lot of businesses that we're in that we're not big enough strong enough. And I think it's the nature of this company to continue

to want to go forward. I also believe that some of the human thing that is if you don't grow you start down whether you are a tree or whether you are human or whether you're a company. When I when you went into Florida and did what you did there and then that huge move you made into Texas nation's bank became a major national player and is of course today in the fullest sense of the word. This this really changed the nature of the whole process here in Charlotte in addition to those those hectic years. Yes Has it changed things a lot. And of course we should take note of the fact that our principal competitor here and our first union has grown just as well and been very aggressive in their growth and I I guess Ed Crutchfield and I both have always felt that we didn't like plant second fiddle to what could be and that drove us a great deal so competition in North Carolina has been the real spur for growth.

And but it's changed the game where everything is large in Iowa and more complex one as I've read about the nation's banking what you read about corporate finance and international finance and stock transactions and all these things yet the summer I was down on the Outer Banks and I pulled up to your branch at Kitty Hawk North Carolina which is just a quarter of a mile from the ocean. And I didn't go in there just to cash a check. But the service I got was first rate and the people were communicating here. That's my question so my question to you is could buy 16 year old grandson walk in and open a checking account a nations bank like it like you did 40 years ago. Well we think we could do it easier actually end with the same people really you know we are a group of companies that have come together but we're still mostly small town America. We operate and 660 citizen communities but most of them of communities they're not cities. And

the facts all we're the same people we do things a little differently but still it's a people to people business. Well you widely known as a hands on executive. Read the story about the lady who sat on the bench and you got the chair would one phone call but how do you organize your life to get say what you need feel you need to see in all of this system from Texas to Maryland. Well it's all a joke as I know I'm the most disorganized CEO in America. However I have a very organized a system that helps them. And we just work hard at trying to maximize each trip. For instance if we have to go to see the governor of Maryland in order to acquire a Maryland national corporation we'll use that day to call our people in Maryland go to see our own people to visit the new people that whose company we're acquiring. Meet with the mayor do everything we can so we try to maximize each day in getting out. I fly about fallout every five days.

You somewhere you find more variation and all of the people you see from Texas to Maryland in the whole southern region. Well I think the thing I've learned is that we're all very parochial. We're provincial all of us whether we're South Carolinian North Carolinians of Texas. But having said that there's a common ground between all Americans and we want the same things and we really want to be part of something we're proud of. So my job is to create an environment in which all of our people feel at home and proud to be part of that. I want to get to that point as written that you had driven there and sometimes in the nation's bank it acquired a reputation of really doing the creative things to help all of the associates relieve the stress of work family and whatever it is that a studied plan are you really trying to create that. It's a marvelous quality. But we like to think it's a studied plan but the facts are that we had a very activist young woman who came here from New Jersey and Karen Geiger and she pushed hard for many of these family issues she

had done a five the problems we had had a view about them that was sympathetic but nobody would do anything. Was she pushed toward and that got us in the right direction. Now we are we focus very sharply own the needs of our people. With the theory being if you take care of your people they'll take care of your customers and if you take care your customers and shareholders are happy. Very important principle this is a good principle where you personally and of course through you the bankers of the established yourselves as very integral parts of the community where you exist. One of the first days you had was a community development corporation What were you seeking to do. What's been the success behind it. Well one of the things of all of us Bill was of the teary ation of the inner city and Charlotte. In and we had these huge investments our offices were there. We worked the layout we liked it and those of us who would have the benefit of travel that is to London and Paris and New York and San Francisco and seen people living in the inner

cities. We decided what we can do this. So that's why we set out to try to rebuild and to inspire the inner cities to bring themselves back. And we've been partly successful. We've got a long way to go but it's been exciting work and it's good business to protect OUR it protects our own investments. Well now you've done something else for the city of New to Charlotte. I knew it as a boy back in 1930 and gracious. You have the. Most of the well attended sporting event in the whole south year every year you playing it and the National Basketball Arena just on the verge of getting into football. You make in this place the sport capital of the South. Well I don't know that we're doing that you you know we wouldn't we certainly wouldn't want to fail to mention auto racing where they're going to auto racing business and that's our company is very much involved in professional sports and our city is all that's very positive for the city. You know I would be remiss to sitting here on this campus not to mention agio bill

the great architect who actually developed a plan for Charlotte back in 1906 and the guy that worked with him was Jack Tate another university North Carolina graduate. Great and what is really helped Charlotte is that plan because we've simply been executing the Odell plan really since 1966 and those of us who come along later like I think we had all the brains but the truth is the brains were they are ahead of us. It was quite an imaginative person a wonderful man. How do you say Charlotte's differentiated say from Atlanta or the southern city. What what's going on here that gives us our identity. That's a really good question I mean I have to be careful does operate in Dallas and I love Miami and Richmond everywhere else there. But having said that Charlotte has a I think a really unique situation in which everybody is from somewhere else and we all came here to make a living. And we like our town and when we decide to do something it's very easy to get literally hundreds of people to come to the party to

put up their own money to do what needs to be done so it's it's a very good relationship among the people of the city. And secondly we have a very good relationship between the business and government in the city and they work together for the good of the city. And people set aside there are other issues they're political issues they're competitive issues on civic matters we come together quite good I think Atlanta does that as well I want to be fair don't is this have Discovery Place and new performing arts center which isn't like it was a place all these great things of that mean Charlotte. Well I think that's a perfect example and I think that some leadership from both big banks the power company the telephone company the newspaper all came together to drive to raise money for the Performing Arts. Bill the head of that Dr. Crutchfield was head of the drive for Johnson C. Smith University. Jim Thompson from my bank another Carolina graduate headed the drive raise 30 million dollars for this university so we all work together here.

You the man is busy as you've been and is that all the things you've been in adversity as bad have come to you sometime in your life. What did it teach you. Well I think if I haven't learned to think before that would be important. Some time I've had a lot to say that I shouldn't have and I'm that age elsewhere that some but I still do it. Also I think that looking back on the amount of time I put into business that I probably should have invested more time at home. I haven't been as good a husband as I should have been. You can ask my wife the same one I started with I might add but there but there are things I would do differently. But not a whole lot. Now you've always set an example of public service is this a part of what you try to teach your young executives that they owe something back some way. We really do we actually have that in our training program. And in fairness I want to say

when I got here I don't know that I knew all that Addison Reese and Tom Stoll was really set the pace on that and it's been expected of all executives in our company that working for the community is what we expect and we expect in all 600 of our communities. Now we don't tell you what to do but we do want you to pick out something that you. It's good that you light and get involved in and we make time available. You've always characterized yourself at least recently as a social democrat and a fiscal Republican How does that make you fit in Washington these days. Well I I guess I'm a contributor in Washington at the moment. I don't I don't I don't give a lot of money to national politics but I think it's a tax. Oh well I will be giving a lot this year. Having said that I still think the administration's heart is in the right place and they're reaching out to people who are less advantaged and I think we have to give the president a chance to see some of his work come forward. So I'm still very much a liberal if that's what you want to call me in

terms of all the people less advantaged than I live it. It's I agree with you I think what you've been doing is certainly I would hope would be a belated by lots of other people what you do in the back. Let's let's talk about your international markets now. This is getting to be a big thing. North Carolina is one of the 10 top states in the involvement internationally. This is all based on money flow. What what what's the complexity of banking at the international level today. Well as you know very complex because we have a the relative value of currencies moving around on us all the time. It's very easy to get into trouble lending money off shore. What we have done really is to go back to the classical way of doing business that is to develop very strong relationships with the major banks in Germany and France and Switzerland and Japan and to do a lot of our business through them. But we are a very major factor in financing the exports of the United States

and imports by our people. So a big trade finance company. We believe that our own hemisphere is the most important hemisphere in the long run. That is Mexico and Canada first and then ultimately the Caribbean and South America. So we think of ourselves as a North American company. And our offshore activities are mainly investment banking a merchant banking where we are arranging finance rather than furnishing it. But we're prepared to finance any American company exporting goods offshore because that helps America. This is getting to be a very large segment of your concern in the bank. It's a huge part of our business. A dude wouldn't want to understate it but we certainly are financing upwards of 30 billion dollars in trade finance at the moment. What do you say when you go to speak to the MBA Zor-El in the country about this question of what you as the chief executive of this huge banking operation. What do you expect them to be qualified to do when they come in for the

job. Well you know I've always said that an ideal education would be two years at Davidson to learn to study. Two years at Carolina the meet the people who go around the world two years a Marine Corps to learn it ever bought a Polder pants on as I was and to use it all the to get you know the key to get in again. Having said that there's a joke I really mean and I actually think they're what are we looking for in today's graduate is an is someone that understands people history is geography. And language. We're looking for people that are that understand we have a small world and that communication is what it's all about. Because we're going to be doing business with each other all of us that is the whole world from now on. That is probably the most difficult lesson we've all that to learn to teach him. It's a difficult lesson and as you know we are affected by what is happening in Bosnia and Somalia all of what is happening in Nigeria or wherever and we have to care. We must care. I read that you used to play a lot of tennis you get out.

You Hikaru over in Switzerland climbing mountains and have a mishap but shows out aggressively you are with your own recreation you still keep it up. Well I don't do as much as I should i will say that over the weekend I floated the lumber river with of interface on and we fish dinner with his son we fish didn't flow to the river so long run it's very scenic it's very old rubble. Well keep it that way. So we try to keep doing things. I have adjusted my exercise to to to to my physical condition. Our age where I heard it I've learned it walking is a great exit. I do a lot of work to get out while I walk all the time. At least five days a week. Take a look at North Carolina. Here you are the dominant influence in lots of ways. What's our state got to really get a hold of you to get the future looking brighter. What we've got to do. Well the number one issue as you know is is educating our young people because

we've been very lucky over the last 25 years in terms of businesses moving here good jobs coming here. But we're going to fall on the quality of our workforce and we have left too many people out of the mainstream. They're underemployed undereducated and underemployed. So we need to work hard with our young people and I think the governor is on the right track with those smart start and I think there are many other good programs but that's our number one issue. A second issue which you and I have discussed before and I think that we really need to come to grips with is to get rid of this. Sniping at each other and politics in what I'll call just candidly just misstatements of the truth and we need to clean up our politics and go back to caring about North Carolina and quit quit these types of counterproductive battles in our state. They're not good for us. When you use the word workforce you're talking here about the impact of poverty and the absence of literacy capacity and the homelessness of

all these are very pervasive things that you don't choose when you. Yes and you have people there they are very pervasive here in the south but they're pervasive all over the United States and that's why we have to solve our own problems first before we can solve world problems. And we need to start in our inner cities we need to start in Durham and Charlotte and brains more in Raleigh. We also need to worry about it in Kinston. At least all over Lauren Burton and the minutes failed south Carol. Well we're going to start doing some of that in the MBA program at Chapel Hill and his operation the whole whole issue urbanization what is is what you see here commoner throughout the southern region as you move about the South. Yes and you know we both know the root causes of it I mean we we went on the economy and we had a large and we had we were manufacturers. And we a lot of our people really stayed in a house in the state of more or less involuntary servitude of Mycenae because they were trapped by their lack of education. And there was not enough emphasis a monk the

people who had the education the money to do something about that. Now there he is. And we should push hard on doing what needs to be done. You get to talk to young people much today in your own organization to see what their dreams are and you create ways so that you can listen to them. Well you know Bill I used to talk to everybody that came to work for the company personally. I don't do that is what I still talk with them in groups. But I don't get to talk as many I'm individually as I like to but because I had my own children and young people around my house and the young people in the bag I do think I am in touch with young people about as well as anybody at the age of 58. Well what do you sense now to be the mood of our country you care so much negativism you hear don't any media you choose. But I have the feeling you that you know your daddy back in Bennett's ville and my kinfolks over gas and can it. These are pretty solid people and they have great ambitions for the country and they don't go with all this nonsense. We hear sometimes what

do you read. Well I actually think I'm very optimistic of course I'm an optimist but I'm very optimistic and I think young people really do want not only to be successful in sales but they want to contribute. And in fact I have I would have thought that we had passed out of the generation of being just interested in yourself and we see the young people now much more interested in being of service to their fellow man. An American business is coming back. They're doing the things that have to be done and I think we're going to. I think we are the dominant force in the world still. And I think we're going to be more so. So I see rising opportunity for our young people. Electronics technology computers are young people understand him. They know they know how to operate on. And I think we're going to work smarter and be more successful so I'm very positive on America as a great great thing to hear you say particularly It's wonderful. What do you what do you think about the nation itself in the sense of it's a leadership problem and this politics thing you alluded to it impacts their two dozen.

Well I think we've gotten caught up in the whole issue now in Washington politics and rather what plays well on the 6 o'clock news for 15 seconds and not what really matters not. And we need to go back to core values which are not complicated they're just doing what's right and educating our people and taking care of our own people and prosperity will follow. I don't think it's very complicated. It's very disappointing to see people engage in conversations or statements about each other that are a not true and be counterproductive and are misleading to the general public public. So I'm very much opposed to that. Having said that I've met a lot of fine people in Washington there are a lot of very. Bright hardworking well-intentioned people including the president United States and his team. And while this will cost me a whole lot of money to say

that and I have him as my president I think I get a wonderful country and what you make can make so much money that you can give up part of it and not miss it. That same sense of optimism a judge obtains for the nation's bank. We think that our company has really just begun and it we're on the threshold of greatness. I thought your tribute to Addison and the closing comment in this book was it's really the end of the beginning. It was that there's a whole new horizon out there. They set a very high standard for the rest of us and we hope to meet it. Well I'm sorry we've used up all of our time here in this wonderful visit to gether but thank you for joining me on North Carolina people and thank you for all you do for the university and for the state of North Carolina and our country. Noble spirit Thank you. But auction of North Carolina people is made possible by a grant from what could be a bank a

symbol of strength stability and service for over a century.