Before North Carolina National Bank became today's Bank of America, Tom Storrs guided the Charlotte-based bank through treacherous economic times in the 1970s, laid the groundwork for national expansion and nurtured future company leaders.

Storrs died Friday at age 93.

While successors Hugh McColl Jr. and Ken Lewis would win more national acclaim and notoriety, Storrs won praise from his former pupils for his stewardship of a regional bank that would one day become the nation's largest.

"He's one of the great CEOs this city has ever known, this country has ever known," Lewis said in 2009. "I appreciate it more now after the last 2 1/2 years what he did for us."

Said McColl: "Other than my father, I think Tom Storrs was the most important man in my life. He taught me a whole lot of things; most important was how to gather information and make decisions on it and figure out what it meant and how to act on it."

In his role as NCNB chief executive, Storrs helped build a Southern institution into a national force and transform a once little-known city into the nation's second-biggest banking center. After he retired, the bank would grow even bigger under McColl and Lewis, bringing wealth and power to the city but also financial pain and uncertainty in the wake of the nation's financial crisis.

Depression's impact

Thomas Irwin Storrs was raised in Richmond, Va., where his father's cement-equipment company had fared well until the 1930s, when business virtually dried up in the Depression, according to "The Story of NationsBank" by Howard Covington and Marion Ellis.

While still in high school, Storrs took a job as a runner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He later worked his way through the University of Virginia and served in the Navy during World War II.

He returned to the Richmond Fed's research department, with time off to serve in the Korean War and to study economics at Harvard.

Storrs came to Charlotte to run the city's Fed branch, but he left in 1960 for a job with NCNB in Greensboro. He had caught the eye of Addison Reese, the NCNB CEO who was looking to aggressively expand the bank.

Storrs became executive vice president for administration in 1966 and eventually moved back to Charlotte. As Reese's second-in-command, Storrs built a reputation as a razor-sharp, logical thinker. Although he was an economist by training, he quickly learned his way around the commercial banking world.

As CEO, he continued to promote the aggressive, youth-oriented culture pioneered under Reese, but with an emphasis on examining the data beforehand.

"It wasn't a disaster to be wrong," Storrs said in a later interview. "It was a disaster to make a decision that wasn't properly based."

McColl later credited Storrs with bringing intellectual discipline to the company.

"We were perceived by the world as being gunfighters, risk-takers," he said. "The truth was we were a very fact-driven company."

After grooming by Reese, Storrs became CEO on Jan. 1, 1974. He was immediately greeted by brutal economic times that scarred bankers for decades. NCNB was in particular danger because it funded itself largely with borrowed money rather than more stable retail deposits.

Over the summer, NCNB came dangerously close to being insolvent, but Storrs and his team scrambled to land necessary funding.

Led push for interstate banks

By the late '70s, Storrs began pushing for interstate banking in the N.C. General Assembly. Inside NCNB, Storrs created an in-house Interstate Banking Group, a cadre of young executives assigned to examine ways for the bank to expand its business outside the state.

And by 1981, NCNB had discovered a loophole in Florida state law that allowed the bank to make a small acquisition in the Sunshine State, the first major victory in the campaign for interstate banking.

"We realized that if we didn't leave North Carolina, we would never amount to anything, that we would not be important," McColl said, giving credit to Storrs for the push to expand across state lines. "The reason was North Carolina was the 11th-largest state in the union so, ergo, you could never be better off than the state's growth would be."

Charlotte businessman C.D. "Dick" Spangler Jr. said Storrs had strong faith in the federal reserve system and understood the problems of the banking system as viewed by regulators and bankers.

Storrs retired as CEO in 1983, turning the bank over to McColl. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld regional banking compacts that allowed banks in certain parts of the country to cross borders.

In the Southeast, NCNB and Charlotte rival First Union launched major acquisition sprees. NCNB would become NationsBank and then Bank of America as McColl turned the Charlotte bank into a coast-to-coast institution.

In retirement, Storrs continued to attend Bank of America annual meetings and Charlotte Chamber events. In 2010, he made an appearance at a Bank of America client event in Charlotte and posed for a photo with McColl, Lewis and current chief Brian Moynihan.

On Sunday, Moynihan said the bank "can serve customers from Charlotte to China and everywhere in between because of Tom's vision and banking acumen."

Like other Charlotte bank CEOs, Storrs was involved in building the city's skyline and in civic affairs. He was CEO when the bank built the Bank of America Plaza building at Trade and Tryon streets in uptown. He served on the UNC Charlotte board of trustees for nearly 12 years, raised money for Presbyterian Hospital and served on task forces that aimed to reform government at the state and federal level.

Storrs also led the founding of the Southminster Continuing Care Community and most recently lived at the retirement community.

Survivors include his wife, Kitty; adult children Thomas and Margaret and their spouses; seven grandchildren; and two great-granddaughters.

A memorial service for Storrs is set for 2 p.m. today at Christ Church, 1412 Providence Road in Charlotte. Former Observer banking reporter Rick Rothacker and staff writer April Bethea contributed