Looking back: A powerhouse named Hootie

This was published on January 30, 2011 in The State

Across seven decades, the man with the peculiar first name and the mellifluous voice made friends, made deals, made money and made news in South Carolina.

Hootie Johnson turns 80 next month and looks forward to a pleasant celebration with family members at a "very good restaurant in Five Points."

The low-key event seems inconsistent with his highimpact career, but is in line with the personal lifestyle preferred by Johnson, a small-town boy who played football at USC, raised a family in Spring Valley and re-

mained in the state he made home to his career, his reputation and his heart.

Always operating from the Palmetto State, Johnson:

Grew a small Greenwood bank into Bankers Trust, a statewide financial power

Helped craft a merger of Carolinas banks that ultimately produced Charlotte-based Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank

Served in the state Legislature Led a state committee to desegregate South Carolina colleges and universities

Chaired the South Carolina State Ports Authority for 13 years Served eight years as chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club Raised millions of dollars for the University of South Carolina.

Through a lifetime of working, golfing and bird hunting with industry titans and political giants, Johnson has nonetheless remained "Hootie" to those he meets. Call him and ask to speak with Mr. Johnson. The response is a casual, "This is Hootie." Where else but Columbia could you bump into a former chairman of the executive committee of Bank of America outside a Kroger on Two Notch or a Fresh Market on Trenholm Road?

"My roots are deep here," Johnson said during an interview in the immaculate office he keeps on the 18th Floor of the Bank of America Plaza in downtown Columbia. "This is my home. I don’t mind traveling to go somewhere every 10 years or so, but my whole life has been here. I have observed this state’s history and been fortunate to be part of it."

Like others with lives inseparable from South Carolina’s past, Johnson has concerns about the state’s future. Among those: the ailing economy, American jobs moved overseas, America’s shrinking manufacturing middle class, America’s debt and heavy borrowing from China and other nations, and a polarized political climate.

"We need to come together," said Johnson, whose own career involved working with Republicans, Democrats, liberals and conservatives. He said he has voted for candidates from both parties and considers himself an independent these days. "I just want to do what is right for America and for South Carolina, and I am not bound by a political party for that reason. But I am committed."

THE MCCOLL-JOHNSON COMBINATION

Johnson’s career was built at the intersection of business, politics and government.

The son of a self-made banker, Johnson was a high school football star in Greenwood and a running back at USC for Coach Rex Enright. Even before leaving for college, Johnson worked in his father’s bank, filing checks at first, then as a teller. When Johnson enrolled for business classes at USC, his mission was certain.

"My father wanted to build a statewide bank coming out of Greenwood and I wanted to help him do it," Johnson said. "That had been the idea since I was 14."

Johnson, his older brother, Wellsman, and their father nurtured the Bank of Greenwood into the State Bank and Trust Co., and eventually, Bankers Trust of South Carolina. Johnson was barely 30 when his father passed away. Johnson doesn’t recall spending a great deal of time with his father discussing a banker’s obligation to a community. More importantly, he recalls observing a father who demonstrated that commitment daily.

"He had been a living example and he didn’t have to give you a pep talk," Johnson said. "You could see it in him. He was a thoughtful, compassionate man."

Johnson’s father also had taught him the importance of building relationships and working those relationships to accomplish big things. In expanding, the Johnsons started with smaller banks that had been customers of the Bank of Greenwood.

"We would call them up and tell them what we were dreaming - about becoming a statewide bank," Johnson said. "We just said, 'Come on, join our team’." Many did. Often, they signed up after a friendly visit by Johnson or after socializing with Johnson and his wife, Pierrine. "We did a lot of entertaining," Johnson recalled. "We were a team."

Johnson’s brother departed to run a textile mill and Johnson kept growing the bank. Along the way, he began doing business frequently with Hugh McColl, four years his junior and the son of another South Carolina banker. Born in Bennettsville, McColl worked for his father’s trust company, learned the banking business and began a banking career in North Carolina.

By age 33, Johnson was in charge of a South Carolina bank. McColl became president of North Carolina National Bank at age 39, and chief executive four years later. Over time, the two young men became fast friends who shared a vision to build a bank with branches from coast to coast.

"He’d travel down here and we’d talk about it, dream about it," Johnson said. The result in 1985 was the merger of Johnson’s Bankers Trust and McColl’s NCNB. It was the first interstate merger of a South Carolina bank. In the years that followed, NCNB ravenously gobbled up banks across the nation to become NationsBank and, eventually, Bank of America.

The McColl-Johnson combination was a force in American banking, blending the Type A personality of McColl with the persuasive powers of Johnson. McColl established himself as a power player in Charlotte and became chairman of the giant bank. Johnson remained in Columbia and chaired the bank’s executive committee. McColl was out front, exhibiting the qualities of the hard-charging Marine that he was. Johnson served as confidant to McColl and behind-the-scenes operative, employing the relationship-building skills he learned from his father.

Johnson had previously learned the value of playing a supporting role for the good of the team. As a running back at USC, Johnson lost his starting position in his junior year. Rather than ride the bench, Johnson worked his way back into the lineup as a blocking back who cleared the way for the runner who had replaced him. Moving to a supporting role was, it turned out, satisfying, Johnson said.

"We were succeeding," he explained. "I liked it."

Johnson was honored in 1952 with the Jacobs Blocking Trophy, given to the state’s best blocker.

Does he see a parallel with his role at Bank of America and his relationship with McColl?

"You could say that," Johnson said. "I never thought about it in that context, but yes, there is something to that."

McColl and Johnson retired from the bank in 2001. They remain close and talk often.

HIGH-POWERED 'COLD CALL’

As Johnson’s career expanded, so did his network of allies.

Over the years, politicians from both sides of the aisle appointed him to state boards and asked for his help to win election. Johnson supported or led state campaign finance committees for South Carolina Democrats Robert McNair, John West and Fritz Hollings, for Republicans Bob Dole, Carroll Campbell, David Beasley and George H.W. Bush, and for Strom Thurmond, who started as a Democrat and died as a Republican at age 100.

Over time, officials called on Johnson to serve on boards for economic development, research, commerce and trade, universities and civic groups. In 1981, Johnsonwas chairman of the state committee to develop a plan to desegregate the state’s colleges and universities. Before that, Johnson had been among business leaders who endorsed black candidates for state offices. Later, he was among the first business leaders to urge lawmakers to move the Confederate flag from the State House chambers and dome.

Race relations and how South Carolina is viewed by the rest of the nation has been a continuing concern. Johnson expresses frustration that more hasn’t been accomplished, but also that more credit isn’t afforded South Carolina.

"I do think we have made pretty darn good progress in race relations," Johnson said. "Both blacks and whites have done a good job since 1960."

He expresses concern about the recent observances of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Already, early events have drawn criticism from those who say the war is being insensitively "celebrated" by some South Carolinians. News accounts about protests outside a Civil War observance last month in Charleston once again showed the nation a state divided by race.

"It’s unfortunate and it’s a serious problem," Johnson said in December. "We are perpetuating it down in Charleston right now."

Producing sustainable income growth is Job One in securing a quality life for South Carolinians, Johnson said. He points to the work of the Palmetto Institute as essential. The research and policy institute was formed in 2002, largely at the direction of multimillionaire Darla Moore, a graduate of USC who was born in Lake City and whose success in rescuing bankrupt companies ranks her among the most powerful women in American business. She is married to Richard Rainwater, a financial dealmaker from Texas who managed the fortunes of the Bass family before creating his own high-octane firm on Wall Street.

Moore considers Johnson a friend and mentor. Behind the Johnson-Moore connection is a quintessential story of how Johnson has operated in South Carolina.

Johnson was asked a dozen years ago by a USC president to serve as chairman of the large gifts committee raising money to grow the USC business school. Specifically, the university hoped Johnson could deliver a donor willing to give $20 million or so to kick off the campaign. While waiting to meet with the university’s fundraiser, banker Johnson thumbed through a list of names recommended as big-gift donors. None struck him as likely to pony up that kind of money.

"In the waiting room was a copy of Fortune magazine and I flipped through it and saw an article about Darla Moore," Johnson recalled, noting that he did not know of her before then. "It mentioned she was a graduate of the University of South Carolina, that she had been successful and that she was married to Richard Rainwater, who had been equally successful. So I told the university’s development director that this lady here in Fortune magazine might be able to make a large gift."

Then, in one of the most highpowered, "cold calls" in the history of South Carolina, Johnson arranged for a meeting at Florence Country Club with Moore, Rainwater and longtime friend of Johnson’s - McColl. Neither McColl nor Johnson had previously met Moore or Rainwater.

"Hugh was with me and we told them the purpose of the visit and we would like to honor Darla by naming the business school for her. And we would like for her to give $25 million," Johnson said.

McColl and Johnson left Florence successful.

"Richard and Darla liked the idea, they were very receptive, and we were very grateful," Johnson said.

South Carolina needs business leadership that helps shape the thinking of politicians and government officials, Johnson said.

"You cannot count on government," he said. "The initiative must come from citizens. You’ve got to sell the government on the idea, not the other way around."

Johnson’s admonition is in line with the remarks made in 1910 by President Theodore Roosevelt, himself a Republican willing to act independent of party strictures. For decades, Johnson kept Roosevelt’s remarks encased in Lucite on his office desk.

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

This story was originally published July 14, 2017 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Looking back: A powerhouse named Hootie."