A key adviser to Hugh McColl in making Bank of America a powerhouse dies at 83
Businessman Frank Gentry played a major role as a trusted lieutenant of Hugh McColl, helping guide Charlotte-based Bank of America and its predecessor banks towards major growth and national prominence.
“I feel like my career has read like a movie, or a novel,” Gentry said at his retirement 26 years ago. “There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. And the theme music is coming up, and the sun is setting in the west, and it’s sort of time to go do something else.”
His next act included becoming an educator and mentor at Queens University.
Gentry, 83, died March 26. He had battled Alzheimer’s, strokes and blindness, according to his obituary.
With a banking career spanning almost 30 years, Gentry retired as executive vice president of corporate planning and strategy. Under the leadership of former CEOs, including the late Thomas Storrs and Hugh McColl, Gentry was part of a team that expanded the bank far beyond North Carolina’s border.
“He was a very key strategic adviser on all my acquisitions, which were numerous,” McColl said in an interview Wednesday with The Charlotte Observer.
Gentry was involved in the evaluation and decisions around bank mergers for the company.
“He was part of a team that studied how we could get out of North Carolina,” McColl said. “All the banks were locked into the states where they were born.”
Gentry leaves behind a legacy of leadership, service and genuine care for the Charlotte community, Bank of America Charlotte President Kieth Cockrell told the Observer. Gentry also helped shape the bank into what it is today, he added.
“He was deeply committed to both this company and the city he called home, and his impact will be felt for years to come,” Cockrell said. “Our thoughts are with his family and all those who knew and admired him.”
A key victory in Florida for the Charlotte bank
Gentry grew up in Clemson, South Carolina, and graduated with honors from Clemson University, where he majored in math. He continued his education at Carnegie Mellon University, graduating with a master’s degree in industrial administration.
Gentry later took a job in Houston with Exxon and moved to Charlotte in 1973.
He began working in corporate planning and marketing jobs for North Carolina National Bank, which eventually would grow to become NationsBank then Bank of America.
In 1981, Gentry was instrumental in buying the institution’s first Florida operation — First National Bank of Lake City. The purchase gave NCNB a foundation in the Sunshine State.
“He actually negotiated that purchase, on his own, by himself,” McColl said. “I sent him out with one goal — go find a bank where we don’t have any business in that county, so nobody could claim that there was a conflict of interest.”
To celebrate, Gentry and his colleagues posed with Florida’s state flag. They were all smiles.
Helping NationsBank and Bank of America expand
Gentry’s work led to involvement in other big deals, such as acquiring the First RepublicBank of Texas in 1988, which doubled the bank’s size and gave it the power to buy Atlanta/Norfolk-based bank C&S/Sovran.
“Florida was important because it showed the way to break out of a single state,” Gentry told the Observer 2000. “But Texas is the transaction that I think actually put NCNB on the map and made it more than just an important Southeastern bank.”
Last but not least, this included NationsBank acquiring BankAmerica in the late 1990s, which was based in San Francisco at the time.
Looking back on his 27 years with the bank, Gentry said the timing, loopholes, tax strategies and negotiations that gave the business its acquisitive edge were not because of dumb luck.
“Nothing was an accident,” Gentry said. “Sure, we were lucky. But we were lucky because we were looking in the right places and trying to make a break.”
But his luck ran out one time in the 1990s.
That’s when Gentry backed his car into the wing of a NationsBank jet one day, causing considerable damage to the plane.
The incident came up in 1998, the Observer reported, when McColl was handing out his signature “crystal hand grenade” awards for excellence during an annual senior management meeting. He’d also present a humorous “Goat of the Year” award at those meetings.
The award was reserved for the employee who performed a service everyone wished they could forget, and Gentry became a natural recipient.
McColl even had the plane’s broken wing tip framed and presented it to Gentry during the event.
A family man, educator and civic leader in Charlotte
Gentry married Sarah Kildea after a whirlwind romance that began when they were members of a wedding party, according to his obituary. They were married for 59 years.
After retiring from Bank of America, Gentry served as the executive-in-residence at the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte, where he taught negotiation and risk management seminars. Gentry also volunteered with several nonprofits and was a member of the Charlotte Symphony’s board, where he was honored for his service.
Gentry is survived by his wife, his son, John, of Dallas, Texas; and other family members, including grandchildren. Following an April visitation service in Pineville, he was buried in a private service in his hometown.
Memorial gifts may be sent to the Clemson University Foundation, the Frank and Sarah Gentry Endowment, at 220 Mandarin Center Drive, Clemson, SC 29634.
