Wachovia's community giving
Here, Medlin discusses corporate responsibility, sharing his belief that giving has become more altruistic over time. He responds to the Community Reinvestment Act—which requires some degree of local giving—and describes some of Wachovia's scholarship programs.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with John Medlin, May 24, 1999. Interview I-0076. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JOSEPH MOSNIER:
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The last general area I wanted to explore a little bit with you is the
whole issue of corporate civic responsibility and married to that the
role of the modern chief Executive as someone to whom a society turns to
seek leadership on these issues that aren't business matters directly at
all. And how, what you're experience was like in those regards and your
views on those issues. How you charted a course for Wachovia and
yourself on those fronts.
- JOHN MEDLIN:
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As I've said earlier, I've always seen public interest as one of my, and
the Wachovia Chief Executives have had that tradition, of seeing the
public interest as one of their responsibilities and providing
leadership to issues that cut across the community lines, the political
lines, whatever, is very important. It's something I think that it takes
sort of self-interest forms that you don't want to do business in a
place that is socially undesirable or disrupted or whatever. There is a
certain amount of self-interest, but there is also altruistic interest
in that too. Things that I have done since I retired have tended to tilt
more toward that public interest, chairing a commission to evaluate and
try to reform and improve the court system in North Carolina, which is
no direct self-interest. But it is something that I have spent a couple
of years on and still can't get it through, much of
it through the legislature. But we keep working on it, those kinds of
things. Back on the Research Triangle Foundation board, the
Winston-Salem Foundation Board. Very important and it is an American
tradition and practice, as you go across other parts of the world it is
still somewhat unique, our civic institutions. I became most starkly
clear when I was in Eastern Europe last year, Czechoslovakia now Czech
Republic. They were talking about how they were trying to reestablish
their, or establish the kinds of volunteer. They don't have a United Way
or social organizations that we do. There are political forces that say
you don't want to start them either.
- JOSEPH MOSNIER:
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Right. Interesting question.
- JOHN MEDLIN:
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And we had a forum several places talking about that. But it's something
I think that's uniquely American, and it's very important to continue. I
would be unfair to say that the generation that preceded me was not as
civic minded, but I think it was more patriarchal. It was more
patriarchal. It was sort of what your forebearers did and you did. But
now I think it's probably a more humanistic flavor to it, more
altruistic flavor.
- JOSEPH MOSNIER:
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Do you think that the demands that are made on an institution like
Wachovia are fair to the bank. I'm thinking of things like the Community
Reinvestment Act, just the number of calls that must come in when you're
Chief Executive asking for your time, your efforts, your money? Is that
all happening in a way, in a shape that seems reasonable and fair? Are
there other better ways that this could be worked out?
- JOHN MEDLIN:
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I think where things like CRA end up, if we had had what the activists
along those lines wanted, we'd have something that would be bad. If we'd
have had what the banks maybe wanted at the outset which was nothing,
that maybe was not good either. There were a lot of banks around the
country, including ours, that were already doing CRA type things without
being required too. There were a bunch that weren't. So I think you had
to accept some requirements along those lines to be part of an industry
that was doing what it should. But I don't consider that, I think we
learned to live with all that. I think we consider it, I don't think, I
certainly didn't during my time, consider it unreasonable. Although the
paperwork part of it was. Now that you have the form, there is more
concentration on form than substance. Your paperwork could look good,
and you still weren't doing much because you've got some numbers up. I
don't consider it unreasonable. There's always a problem of priorities
and time. We can't do everything that we want to
do. It's sometimes have to say no. I can't do that. I don't have time to
do that. No we don't have any money left. We're up to our ears in
competitive banking. But there has been a time or two like back in the
'80s, John McNair that was running the North Carolina bank for me at
that time, was in charge of the branches. We were getting all these
requests coming and said, 'We don't have enough money to do all of
these. Let's do something we want to do.' So we sent out the word and
gathered, had a little study done. So we decided we wanted to start
giving scholarships to community colleges. They've never asked us for
anything. There were people going to these colleges a lot of them single
mothers that didn't have enough money. They were having to work. They
didn't have enough money to eat or have a car or a sitter or whatever,
day care. So we started giving scholarships, and this has been one of
the greatest things we've ever done. Some upwards of two thousand of
these scholarships since then across our one hundred counties. The other
things with the education system, we said, 'How do you, what's one of
the most important ingredients in having a good K through Twelve
education system, a good principal, great school.' We started the
Wachovia Principal of the Year program, which was a way to have a
competition and putting the spotlight on principals. Gave them
$2500 for their school and a $2500 bonus for them
for the ones that were selected principal. To do things like that, to
reach out and try to deal with some issue that presents itself that
isn't coming at you is part of the responsibility I think.