James Robert "Jim" Drumwright

James Robert Drumwright, International Banker Former Executive with Bank of America's International Division, Former President and CEO of Provident National Bank. James Robert "Jim" Drumwright, 90, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, a prominent international and NY-NJ-PA tri-state area banking executive, died on Monday, July 22 from heart failure at Paoli Hospital. Though Jim Drumwright's rural Southern beginnings were humble, he quickly rose to new heights, first at Harvard University and then in commercial banking internationally with Bank of America in France, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Once resettled in the United States, he managed Bank of America's New York office, served as the President and CEO of Provident National Bank (now PNC Bank), and managed the French bank Credit du Nord's New York office. In his later years, James worked to liquidate assets of failed savings and loan associations for the Resolution Trust Corporation, and then as a bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Young Jim was born on June 16, 1929, on a tenant farm in Lauderdale County, Tennessee, just outside the city limits of Ripley near the Mississippi River bottom region. His father—a farmer who raised 50 head of black angus cattle and planted cotton and soybeans—was Robert Lee Drumwright, the descendent of a Revolutionary War veteran. Jim's mother was Alma Chipman, a Mayflower descendent, who died of tuberculosis when he was only seven years old. During the Great Depression, James attended school in a one-room schoolhouse in Nutbush, Tennessee, which now serves as a shrine to the African American singer Tina Turner, who memorialized the small town in her song "Nutbush City Limits". At age seven, Jim also suffered the loss of his right eye in an accident, and he would wear a glass eye for the rest of his life. At Ripley High School he was a straight "A" student and a leader in extracurricular activities — president of the student council, the Beta Club, the senior class, and editor of the school's first yearbook. James' Latin teacher urged him to apply to Harvard, which he did, and he received a Harvard College National Scholarship, which paid all expenses. At Harvard he took Honors in English Literature, was elected to the Senior 16 of Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated magna cum laude in 1951. After attending Harvard College, Jim Drumwright received a Fulbright Scholarship to the United Kingdom. Under Professor Geoffrey Tillotson of Birbeck College at the University of London, Jim did graduate work in English literature on poet T. S. Eliot. Jim also travelled extensively in the UK and on the continent, which was still recovering from World War II and rationing food. During his year abroad he decided to forego pursuit of a PhD in English Literature and to study the law instead. In the fall of 1952, Jim returned to the U.S. and entered Harvard Law School, where his Harvard scholarship was renewed for the duration of law school. At the end of his second year, he accepted a summer clerkship in the legal department of Bank of America in San Francisco. Upon graduation from Harvard Law School, Jim Drumwright returned to San Francisco, excited to work as a contract lawyer in Bank of America's legal department. He greatly enjoyed the cultural offerings of this City by the Bay. Jim volunteered as an extra for the San Francisco Opera, and in a production of Aida starring Leontyne Price, having to play the part of a captain without his glasses on, he nearly led the 1st Army of the Nile into the footlights. Appreciating Northern California's natural beauty, he explored the redwoods of nearby Muir Woods, and took in the wildflowers of Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Mountains. Eager to see more of the world and to work overseas, he entered the Bank of America's executive training program in the International Division, becoming a protégé of Constant M. van Vlierden, Vice President and Head of the European Section. A true internationalist, Jim served as a trustee of the World Affairs Council of Northern California, where he met his future wife, Elenita "Nina" Milbank, a Vassar graduate who had recently completed her Master's degree in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University. Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike married the couple at Grace Cathedral on August 17, 1962. Jim Drumwright's first overseas assignment was as Assistant Manager of Bank of America's Paris Branch from 1964-1967, at a time when the Eurodollar market was beginning. Then in 1967 he was named Manager of a de novo branch in Birmingham, England, where with the support of the Bank of England he introduced competitive banking to the Midlands. The local British bankers, entrenched in tradition, regarded this new style of banking activity as "poaching". Cultivating clients such as Cadbury Ltd, within a year the new Birmingham branch was profitable. Drumwright was soon recalled back to headquarters in San Francisco to be the Deputy Head of the Europe, Middle East and Africa Division. Back in San Francisco from 1969-1970, Jim Drumwright was deeply involved in creating multicurrency lines of credit for international corporations and with large overseas project finance. He also did the groundwork for the creation of two joint venture merchant banks, one with Kleinwort Benson in London and another with Paribas in Paris. In 1970 Jim Drumwright was assigned to Tokyo, Japan, to become a "global banker" as regional head of East Asia. Under Drumwright's leadership, cultivating clients such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and financing the building of oil tankers at the Nagasaki Shipyard, the Tokyo branch replaced London as the most profitable of the international branching system. The prestigious Tokyo Rotary Club invited Drumwright to represent foreign banking as a member of the Club. He was also an original member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Group. In 1974 the Bank of America took a major step in merging the International Division with the National Division. International executives were brought back to the United States, and national executives were assigned overseas. As a result, Jim Drumwright was assigned to New York as a Senior Vice President to establish a new corporate service office and to be the President and CEO of the Bank of America International, an EDGE ACT corporation, whose Board served as the international board for the entire bank. The corporate service office had global responsibility for all corporate relationships with corporations located on the East Coast and Canada. While stationed in New York from 1974-1978, Jim Drumwright became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Links Club. He was also a founding member of the US-Canada Business Committee and the US-Egyptian Business Council, the latter of which he was named Chairman of the Investment Sub-Committee and had the responsibility of telling the Egyptians, including President Anwar Sadat, that there must be peace for Egypt to expect additional investments. Shortly thereafter, in 1977 Sadat went to Jerusalem to begin the process of peace negotiations. During this time of the mid-1970s, other large US banks also merged their international divisions with their national divisions. Often the international executives prevailed, but not at Bank of America, whose President Tom Clausen came from the national division. After serving in the World Banking Division for fifteen years, Drumwright became disillusioned about his future with the Bank and eventually accepted a position with the Provident National Bank in Philadelphia as President and CEO. In 1978 Jim Drumwright moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania, where he supplemented his work as President of Provident National Bank (now PNC Bank) in Philadelphia with service on the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Ballet and as a member of the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr. The Provident was attractive to him because it had excess capital during a period when the banking system had little to none. During Drumwright's tenure the Provident experienced record growth and earnings, primarily because he implemented an asset-liability committee requiring fixed rate assets to be matched by fixed rate liabilities at a time of unusually high interest rates. He also introduced strategic planning. After a period of time, the Bank's Chairman of the Board, Roger S. Hillas, began to encroach on Drumwright's authority as CEO, and James eventually left the bank. From 1982 to 1985 Drumwright managed the New York branch of the French bank, Credit du Nord, which had recently been nationalized by the Socialist French President Francois Mitterrand. He then worked as a managing agent for the Resolution Trust Corporation, and finally as an international banking examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until retiring in 2005. In his many domiciles, as a former Tennessee farm boy, James was an avid gardener, growing everything from fraises du bois strawberries to Jerusalem artichokes, and raising an assortment of rabbits, white Pekin ducks and bantam chickens, in addition to his pet Welsh corgis and cats. He was a reader of great literature – naming his son Eliot after the poet T.S. Eliot and former Harvard President Charles William Eliot. An Anglophile, he named his daughters Elizabeth and Alexandra after British queens. He was fond of classical music, particularly the operas of Richard Wagner and Amadeus Mozart. Survivors include his three children, Elizabeth Drumwright, Alexandra Drumwright Giordano and Eliot Drumwright; his three grandchildren, Ariana Rose Giordano, Daniel Kurt Villaflor-Drumwright, and Isabel Drumwright; and his great-grandchild, Natalia Giordano. James was preceded in death by his wife, Elenita Milbank Drumwright. Burial services for Jim Drumwright will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 13, at St. Paul's Cemetery in Durhamville, Tennessee.