In Memoriam – Ed Crutchfield

We all know that everyone leaves this life, and our time on earth is finite.

Nonetheless, when we get the word that someone important in our lives has passed, it still jolts us.

That was the way it was this week when I got the word that Ed Crutchfield had died.

When famous people die, we get reacquainted with them through pictures of when they were at the peak of their powers.

In Ed Crutchfield’s case, we get to see photos from when he was CEO of First Union in the ‘80s and ‘90s, standing in front of One First Union Center, the new headquarters built in order to accommodate the growth of the interstate bank that Crutchfield had assembled through 60-some mergers.

We also saw pictures of when Crutchfield was in his late 70s or early 80s, now shorn of his thick, wavy hair, it a victim of cancer and chemotherapy.

The picture I have of Ed Crutchfield is one that only I can see. It is more a movie than a still photo. It is the 38-year-old Ed Crutchfield, sitting on a table in a lecture room in the Chambers Building of Davidson College, his feet dangling, his suit coat off. He is talking to our “Senior Seminar in Economics,” the capstone course for Davidson economics majors, in January of 1980.

I am watching and listening to Ed Crutchfield as he talks about the future of banking. At the time, Ed Crutchfield was the President of First Union Corporation. First Union was the 47^th largest bank in the United States and the third largest bank in North Carolina, behind Wachovia and North Carolina National Bank, aka NCNB.

First Union wasn’t a powerhouse at that point in time.

Crutchfield is describing a financial services frontier freed from the barriers to interstate banking. Crutchfield is speaking about the new geographies and businesses First Union would enter. He is telling us how technology would transform the banking industry, and how the ATMs that you could stick a plastic card in and get cash out of are only the beginning.

Ed Crutchfield is describing banking like it is the most exciting career since Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon.

Ed Crutchfield went on to make First Union into an incredibly exciting organization, one that was like family to me, one where I met my wife, one where I got exposure to the executive search business, and one where I got to learn from some amazing leaders.

In the first couple of years of my banking career, I fancied myself as “The Prince Edward of First Union,” i.e., the person 15^th in line to be the CEO of the organization. You see, I was raised Presbyterian and had been an athlete at Davidson College, just like Ed Crutchfield, who was a member of the Davidson College class of 1963 and had played football at Davidson.

Given all those things Ed and I had in common, I thought maybe I was predestined to be the CEO of First Union.

The fact that Crutchfield had done a stint in human resources early in his career was not lost on me. Thus, when I was given the opportunity to take on a role in human resources, I did it. And I learned a ton about leadership and I learned a ton about recruiting, and I learned that there was no way in hell I was ever going to be CEO of the company.

So much for predestination.

Like many iconic business leaders, Crutchfield had feet of clay.

But to me, Ed Crutchfield is still sitting on a table in that auditorium, smiling, painting a picture of an amazing future.

Thank you, Ed Crutchfield, for speaking to our economics class.

It was meant to be!